Klimateology. Devining quiet panic among scientists. | Brussels Blog

Klimateology. Devining quiet panic among scientists.

posted by on 2nd Sep 2010
2nd,Sep

Remember Kremlinology? This tried to devine the state of politics inside the Kremlin by watching where members of the Politburo stood when the grand parades marched past. We now need Klimateology to fathom what climate scientists really think by reading between the lines of their peer-reviewed papers. Let’s start.

A recent paper by Borken-Kleefeld et al, “Specific Climate Impact of Passenger and Freight Transport“, gives estimates of the rise in global temperatures cause by different modes of transport. They calculate temperature rises over periods of 5, 20 and 50 years. The inclusion of the shorter five year period is unusual in peer-reviewed climate science papers. To Klimateologists this could be a sign of quiet panic – a bad sign in this year of famine, flood and fire.

Update 2nd September 2010: The Journal of Geophysical Research has recently published “Short-term effects of controlling fossil-fuel soot, biofuel soot and gases, and methane on climate, Arctic ice, and air pollution health” by Mark Z. Jacobson. His study examines the short-term (~15 year) effects of controlling forcing agents, particularly soot and methane on global and Arctic  temperatures. Note “short-term” and “Arctic”.  His conclusion that controlling soot may be a faster method of reducing Arctic ice loss and global warming than other options is important but for Klimateologists “short-term” and “Arctic” are both reasons to panic.

Geoff Beacon

comment

I don’t see where it is ever a good idea to advocate that people panic.

Thanks for your transcript of the BBC Science in Action show you posted at Tamino that contained some audio of Hansen and of Myles Allen. I heard that show and was looking for a transcript.

We’re going past the point of no return and Allen is arguing that we can’t say so, using language that is saying so.

David Lewis ( September 1, 2012 at 6:36 pm )

TrackBack URL :

pagetop