I am always trying to get rid of things. I probably go through my closets once every month or two months and throw things away. When I moved into the new home and moved my old stuff out of storage last May, I tried to ge through each box as I unpacked it and to get rid of what I could then. I probably gave away a half a dozen bags full of stuff then. I definitely tried on all my clothes and threw away anything with holes, that was too small/big or that was completely not even close to my style anymore (huge Rage Against the Machine t-shirt....okay, actually I kept that to sleep in but I did give away the Nirvana shirt).

However, I somehow still have a ton of stuff and much of it is things that I have not worn for months or years, is expired or that was given to me by someone and just isn't something I would use (or that I need). So I decided to join Lisa in the February Purge Project. Her goal was to get rid of as many things each day as the number of the day that it was. For example, on the 1st, you give away one thing. On the 19th, you give away 19 things. And so on. That ends up adding up to 425 items. While you may think that there is no possible way you could get rid of 425 items, it is surprisingly easier than you would think!

So many old t-shirts!

I did not get it all done in February. I also did not really finish my sorting and purging (I still have the garage to go through! Ack!) However, I did get about halfway through, and in total so far, I have given away or thrown away 333 items. The majority of the things, unfortunately, are smaller things. For example, my biggest category was office supplies. Next biggest category was accessories. Here's the breakdown.

125 Office
73 Accessories
52 Home
43 Clothing
22 Books
18 Toiletries

I have to admit, I still have a lot of boxes from my move that I have not thoroughly gone through. When I began this purge, I started with a couple of them and either threw things away or put them in the Goodwill pile anything if I had not used in years or in many cases, if they no longer worked. For instance, I had so many old pens!

I will not read these again.

Doing this kind of thing takes time, especially when you are talking about some of the things that carry memories, as they are hard to give away. However, over the years I have become better about throwing or giving away things that I am not using or looking at or enjoying and probably never will. As much as I cherish that tchotchke that my grandmother gave me, I really don't need it and it will either sit in a box in my garage or it will just be another thing to dust on the shelves in my house.

I try to think about three things: Does it work/fit? Have I used it in the last 6 months (or year for certain items)? Is it worth passing on to someone at some point? The first two are easy, as they are quantitative. The last is not as easy and is where I often run into snags. The tchotchke is worthless to everyone but me, who associates it with a memory or a person. However, it sitting in a box is worthless as well. So why not enjoy it or give it to someone who may, whether they are a faceless Goodwill customer or a friend. So that is what I am trying to do.

Next up: the garage. I will have an update on that later!

Do you do a yearly or monthly purge? What strategies do you employ? How many dried out or non-functioning pens do you have? 

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Iain Duncan Smith was not one of those ministers we heard serial encomiums about when he was actually in office.  A former backbench rebel against John Major, he was thrust unprepared into the leadership of the Tory party, from which role he was ignominiously ousted by his fellow MPs a couple of years later.  He is now, of course, the best Work and Pensions Secretary we've ever had, a reformer of remarkable quality who has sacrificed his career in order to warn the Tory party of the dangers it faces under its current evil, election winning leader.

Mr. Duncan Smith's past and present are useful fables on the wider problem of the Conservative party as a whole.  He was elected as a leader in what became a two-way contest against Kenneth Clarke.  Clarke was by  far the most experienced of the two, as well as having a popularity in the world outside the Tory party.  He may have been a consummate politician,  but he also had character and an appeal as a "regular" guy who spoke sense in politics.  He was, however, a pro-European and this proved toxic in his various leadership bids, including the one against Mr. Duncan Smith.  The Tories showed that they preferred an unknown, untried serial rebel to allowing a Europhile anywhere near the leadership, and much good did it do them. Within two years IDS had become such a liability as an opposition leader that he was gracelessly ejected by his own parliamentary colleagues.

As leader IDS had proved a poor speaker and a poor tactician.  He failed to fulfill the function of an Opposition Leader when it came to the Iraq war, which he supported (and which Clarke opposed) and found it difficult to identify any strategic vision to help the Tories overcome their trenchant unpopularity.  He was succeeded by the more experienced Michael Howard, who went on to show that an initially poor public profile didn't need to be a handicap for an accomplished and intelligent political operator.  Howard stabilised the Tories and while he didn't win the 2005 election in the UK, he shored up his party's position and won the most votes in the populous but electorally under-represented England.

It was Howard who mentored David Cameron, his successor as leader who went on to bring the Tories back into government in coalition in 2010 and on their own in 2015.  Cameron is thus the most electorally successful Tory leader since Thatcher, and has proved a less divisive figure nationally.  He is also a pragmatist and has most recently, of course, come out as a pro-European, leading the Remain camp in a referendum that had only one political aim, which was to try and appease the Euro-sceptics in his ranks.

To hear the wild stories now circulating, and provoked by the resignation of Mr. Duncan Smith, is to see again the full lunacy of the Tory Euro-sceptic right.  There is talk of backbench rebellions whatever the outcome of the referendum, a desire to see the back of Mr. Cameron, serious allegations against his dictatorial leadership style and even condemnations of just how closely he and his Chancellor work together.  Nearly all of these criticisms lack merit.  Cameron's "dictatorial" leadership style is nowhere near as domineering as the late, sainted Margaret Thatcher, while his closeness to George Osborne has delivered remarkably harmonious government.  This has been in stark contrast to the thirteen year trauma of the Blair-Brown years.

None of this matters to the Euro-sceptics though. As their hysterical interventions in the current referendum campaign indicate, there is no fury equivalent to that of the Tory Euro hater against anyone who suggests there might be another side to the European debate.  Mr. Duncan Smith himself was the author of one of these polemics recently, railing against the fact that the Remainers were, er, putting their case.

The Tory sceptics will never accept a referendum vote to stay in the EU and they will continue to push the self-destruct button in their own party long after the referendum is past.  Much of their campaign at the moment is dedicated to the idea that Remainers are somehow cheating in the debate.  This includes the notion that the Prime Minister himself shouldn't really be campaigning at all and that Downing Street should stay above the fray.  The Outers are worried that they will lose and are setting up the next stage of the campaign.  For there will be a next stage.  As in Scotland, the referendum won't end the debate and it won't silence the sceptics.  If they lose they will seek the first opportunity to oust the most successful Tory leader in decades and neuter as many of his supporters as they can.  Like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in the Labour party, they will have the majority of the Tory grassroots with them and it will be this populist endorsement that powers their attempt to re-take control of the leadership of the Tory party.

Mr. Duncan Smith is an unlikely political martyr, but the sound and fury accompanying his self-imposed departure from government has far less to do with the issue at hand than he might protest.  He may indeed be passionately committed to the social welfare reform he feels has been undermined by Mr. Osborne and the rest of the government.  But his resignation storm is not about that.  It is about the undying hatred of the Euro-sceptics towards a successful leader who refuses to share their views on Europe, and might even take those views to a substantial public endorsement in June.  But that won't matter.  The right have already shown they prefer purity in opposition to electoral success that depends on compromise.  It was what propelled them to choose Mr. Duncan Smith as their leader back in 2001, and it's why they are so vociferously using his resignation now as a wedge against their current leader.  Mr. Duncan Smith proved a useful fool when they adopted him in the leadership contest before and is alas proving so again now.  Such is the madness of the modern Tory party.

The February 2016 land and ocean temperature anomaly was 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the average temperature in the period from 1951 to 1980, as above image shows (Robinson projection).

On land, it was 1.68°C (3.02°F) warmer in February 2016, compared to 1951-1980, as the image below shows (polar projection).

The image below combines the above two figures in two graphs, showing temperature anomalies over the past two decades.

Below are the full graphs for both the land-ocean data and the land-only data. Anomalies on land during the period 1890-1910 were 0.61°C lower compared to the period from 1951 to 1980, which is used as a reference to calculate anomalies. The blue line shows land-ocean data, while the red line shows data from stations on land only.

At the Paris Agreement, nations committed to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

To see how much temperatures have risen compared to pre-industrial levels, a comparison with the period 1951-1980 does not give the full picture. The image below compares the February 2016 temperatures with the period from 1890 to 1910, again for land only.

Since temperatures had already risen by ~0.3°C (0.54°F) before 1900, the total temperature rise on land in February 2016 thus is 2.6°C (4.68°F) compared to the start of the industrial revolution.

There are a number of elements that determine how much the total temperature rise on land will be, say, a decade from now:

Rise 1900-2016: In February 2016, it was 2.3°C (4.14°F) warmer on land than it was in 1890-1910.

Rise before 1900: Before 1900, temperature had already risen by ~0.3°C (0.54°F), as Dr. Michael Mann points out (see earlier post).

Rise 2016-2026: If levels of carbon dioxide and further greenhouse gases do keep rising, there will additional warming over the next ten years. Even with dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, temperatures can keep rising, as maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission, so the full wrath of the carbon dioxide emissions over the past ten years is still to come. Moreover, mean global carbon dioxide grew by 3.09 ppm in 2015, more than in any year since the record started in 1959, prompting an earlier post to add a polynomial trendline that points at a growth of 5 ppm by 2026 (a decade from now). This growth took place while global energy-related CO2 emissions have hardly grown over the past few years, indicating that land and oceans cannot be regarded as a sink, but should be regarded as source of carbon dioxide. On land, carbon dioxide may be released due to land changes, changes in agriculture, deforestation and extreme weather causing droughts, wildfires, desertification, erosion and other forms of soil degradation. Importantly, this points at the danger that such emissions will continue to grow as temperatures keep rising. New studies on permafrost melt (such as this one and this one) show that emissions and temperatures can rise much faster in the Arctic than previously thought. Furthermore, a 2007 study found a 25% soil moisture reduction to result in 2°C warming. Altogether, the rise over the next decade due to such emissions may be 0.2°C or 0.36°F (low) to 0.5°C or 0.9°F (high).

Removal of aerosols: With the necessary dramatic cuts in emissions, there will also be a dramatic fall in aerosols that currently mask the full warming of greenhouse gases. From 1850 to 2010, anthropogenic aerosols brought about a decrease of ∼2.53 K, says a recent paper. In addition, more aerosols are likely to be emitted now than in 2010, so the current masking effect of aerosols may be even higher. Stopping aerosol release may raise temperatures by 0.4°C or 0.72°F (low) to 2.5°C or 4.5°F (high) over the next decade, and when stopped abruptly this may happen in a matter of weeks.

Albedo change: Warming due to Arctic snow and ice loss may well exceed 2 W per square meter, i.e. it could more than double the net warming now caused by all emissions by people of the world, as Professor Peter Wadhams calculated in 2012. The temperature rise over the next decade due to albedo changes as a result of permafrost and sea ice decline may be 0.2°C or 0.36°F (low) to 1.6°C or 2.9°F (high).

Methane eruptions from the seafloor: ". . . we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time," Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. wrote in a paper presented at EGU General Assembly 2008. Authors found that such a release would cause 1.3°C warming by 2100. Such warming from an extra 50 Gt of methane seems conservative when considering that there now is only some 5 Gt of methane in the atmosphere, and over a period of ten years this 5 Gt is already responsible for more warming than all the carbon dioxide emitted by people since the start of the industrial revolution. The temperature rise could be higher, especially in case of large abrupt release, but in case of small and gradual releases much of the methane may be broken down over the years. The temperature rise due to seafloor methane over the next decade may be 0.2°C or 0.36°F (low) to 1.1°C or 2°F (high).

Water vapor feedback: "Water vapour feedback acting alone approximately doubles the warming from what it would be for fixed water vapour. Furthermore, water vapour feedback acts to amplify other feedbacks in models, such as cloud feedback and ice albedo feedback. If cloud feedback is strongly positive, the water vapour feedback can lead to 3.5 times as much warming as would be the case if water vapour concentration were held fixed", according to the IPCC. In line with the above elements, this may result in a temperature rise over the next decade of 0.2°C or 0.36°F (low) to 2.1°C or 3.8°F (high).

The image below puts all these elements together in two scenarios, one with a relatively low temperature rise of 3.9°C (7.02°F) and another one with a relatively high temperature rise of 10.4°C (18.72°F).

Note that the above scenarios assume that no geoengineering will take place.

The 2.3°C warming used in above image isn't the highest figure offered by the NASA site. An even higher figure of 2.51°C warming can be obtained by selecting a 250 km smoothing radius for the on land data.

When adding the 0.3°C that temperatures rose before 1900, the rise from the start of the industrial revolution is 2.81°C (5.06°F), as illustrated by the image on the right.

The image also shows that this is the average rise. At specific locations, it is as much as 16.6°C (30°F) warmer than at the start of the industrial revolution.

Furthermore, temperatures are higher on the Northern Hemisphere than on the Southern Hemisphere. This is illustrated by the image below showing NASA temperature anomalies for January 2016 (black) and February 2016 (red) on land on the Northern Hemisphere. The data show that it was 2.36°C (4.25°F) warmer in February 2016 compared to 1951-1980.

How much of the rise can be attributed to El Niño? The added trendlines constitute one way to handle variability such as caused by El Niño and La Niña events and they can also indicate how much warming could be expected to eventuate over the years to come.

The February trendline also indicates that the temperature was 0.5°C lower in 1900 than in 1951-1980, so the total rise from 1900 to February 2016 is 2.86°C (5.15°F). Together with a 0.3°C rise before 1900, this adds up to a rise on land on the Northern Hemisphere of 3.16°C (5.69°F) from pre-industrial levels to February 2016. Most people on Earth live on land on the Northern Hemisphere. In other words, most people are already exposed to a temperature rise that is well above any guardrails that nations at the Paris Agreement pledged would not be crossed.

Temperatures may actually rise even more rapidly than these trendlines indicate. As above image illustrates, the largest temperature rises are taking place in the Arctic, resulting in a rapid decline of snow and ice cover and increasing danger that large methane eruptions from the seafloor will take place, as illustrated by the image on the right, from an earlier post. This could then further lead to more water vapor, while the resulting temperature rises also threaten to cause more droughts, heatwaves and wildfires that will cause further emissions, as well as shortages of food and fresh water supply in many areas.

Adding the various elements as discussed above indicates that most people may well be hit by a temperature rise of 4.46°C or 8.03°F in a low rise scenario and of 10.96°C or 19.73°F in a high rise scenario, and that would be in one decade from February 2016. Since it is now already March 2016, that is less than ten years from now.

The image below shows highest mean methane readings on one day, i.e. March 10, over four years, i.e. 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, at selected altitudes in mb (millibar). The comparison confirms that the increase of methane in the atmosphere is more profound at higher altitudes, as discussed in earlier posts. This could indicate that methane from the Arctic Ocean is hardly detected at lower altitudes, as it rises in plumes (i.e. very concentrated), while it will then spread and accumulate at higher altitudes and at lower latitudes.

The conversion table below shows the altitude equivalents in mb, feet and m.

57016 feet	44690 feet	36850 feet	30570 feet	25544 feet	19820 feet	14385 feet	8368 feet	1916 feet
17378 m	13621 m	11232 m	9318 m	7786 m	6041 m	4384 m	2551 m	584 m
74 mb	147 mb	218 mb	293 mb	367 mb	469 mb	586 mb	742 mb	945 mb

Meanwhile Arctic sea ice area remains at a record low for the time of the year, as illustrated by the image below.

Next to rising surface temperatures in the Arctic, ocean temperature rises on the Northern Hemisphere also contribute strongly to both Arctic sea ice decline and methane releases from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, so it's important to get an idea how much the Northern Hemisphere ocean temperature can be expected to rise over the next decade. The NOAA image below shows a linear trend over the past three decades that is rising by 0.19°C per decade.

The image below, using the same data, shows a polynomial trend pointing at a 1.5°C rise in ocean temperature on the Northern Hemisphere over the next decade.

Below is another version of above graph.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

1) Hi Paul. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. First of all, could you tell us a bit about your background, how long you’ve been involved in climate science, and what areas of climatology you specialize in?

Hello Sam. Thank you. It is my pleasure to have this interview with you.

I am an Engineer with a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Engineering Physics (often called Engineering Science) from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I finished at the top of my class and received many scholarships and awards during my studies. My CV can be found on my website http://paulbeckwith.net under the About Me section.

I am a Physicist with a Master of Science Degree in Laser Physics. My research area was blowing molecules apart with high-powered CO2 lasers and measuring all the chunks flying off with low-power tunable diode lasers. This involved the science of molecular spectroscopy in the infrared region.

I worked in industry for many years, as a Product Line Manager for optical switching devices in high speed fiber optic communication systems, on high powered Excimer laser research and tunable laser research, and also on software quality assurance for various tech companies.

I have been interested in climate science my entire life. I decided to formally study it after becoming concerned with the lack of urgency by the public, scientists (literally everybody) about 6 years ago or so.

I am a part time professor in the Laboratory for Paleoclimatology in the Geography Department at the University of Ottawa. I have taught many courses including climatology, meteorology, oceanography and the geography of environmental issues. My research work in my PhD program is abrupt climate system change in the past and present, to determine what will happen in the near future. I am very active on educating the public about the grave dangers that we face from abrupt climate change, using primarily videos and blogs and public talks (see my website link above). My research is self-funded, apart from my teaching, and I greatly welcome financial contributions at the Please Donate button on the main task bar on my website.

2) It’s clear that the Arctic is melting rapidly and this trend is likely to continue. When do you predict the Arctic will start to have ice-free conditions? At what point during the year will it disappear, and how long for? How will these conditions develop in future decades, and could we reach a point where the Arctic is free of ice all year round?

I think that the Arctic will start to have ice-free conditions at the end of the melt season (Septembers) as early as 2020 or before (possibly even the summer of 2016). It is hard to predict a single year, since the loss of Arctic sea ice greatly depends on local Arctic wind and ocean conditions in the summer melt season. These local conditions determine how much ice is lost to export via the Fram Strait and Nares Strait, which makes a huge difference to ice loss amounts during the Northern summer period. When there is less than 1 million square kilometers of sea ice left, we have essentially a “blue-ocean” event in the Arctic.

For the sake of argument, lets pick September, 2020, for the first “blue-ocean” event in the Arctic (essentially no sea ice left). This would occur for about a month, call it the month of September. Within 2 or 3 years it is highly likely that the duration of this “blue-ocean” state would be 3 months or say, thus occur for August, September and October in 2023. Within an additional few years, say by 2025 it is highly likely that the “blue-ocean” event would be extended for another few additional months, and we would have ice free conditions from July through to and including November; namely for 5 months of the year. Then, within a decade or two from the initial 2020 event we can expect to have an ice free “blue-ocean” Arctic year round; that would be some year between 2030 and 2040.

Of course if the first “blue-ocean” event occurred in 2016 this timeline would be advanced accordingly.

3) In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about methane eruptions in the Arctic and Siberia. How serious is this, in terms of its potential for adding to global warming? Can you give us some idea of the timescales involved? What’s the level of certainty about these future effects?

Once the Arctic is essentially ice free for ever increasing durations in the summer months, and then over the entire year there are two enormous feedback risks that we face. Methane and Greenland.

Methane is the mother of all risks. The Russians have measured large increases in emissions from the continental shelf seabed in the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). Over the timespan of a few years they observed that methane bubbled up in vast numbers of plumes that increased in size from tens of meters in diameter to hundreds and even thousands of meter diameter plumes in the shallow regions of ESAS. Global atmospheric levels of methane are rapidly rising, and although they average about 1900 ppb or so there have been readings over 3100 ppb in the atmosphere over the Arctic. Since the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane versus carbon dioxide is 34x, 86x and close to 200x on timescales of 100 years, 20 years and a few years, respectively a large burst of methane can virtually warm the planet many degrees almost overnight.

Recently, we have passed about 405 ppm of CO2, with a record rise of 3.09 ppm in 2015 alone. When accounting for methane and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) and putting them into CO2-equivalent numbers, we are at about 490 ppm CO2 – equivalent. We are literally playing with fire, and the outcome will not be pretty.

Greenland ice melt is the next enormous feedback risk. When we lose snow and ice in the Arctic, and the cascading feedbacks like albedo-destruction kick in, and the methane comes out then the enormous warming over Greenland and in the water around and under the Greenland ice will viciously destroy the ice there and greatly accelerate sea level rise. I refer people to my video from several years ago on the great risk of realizing 7 meters of global sea level rise by 2070 from Greenland and Antarctica melt.

The level of certainty over these future effects is close to 100% if we continue to be stupid and do nothing. If we are smart we need to have a Manhattan – Marshall plan like emergency status to:
a) Zero emissions as-soon-as-possible, i.e. by 2030;
b) Cool the Arctic to keep the methane in place and restore jet stream stability; and
c) Remove CO2 from the atmosphere/ocean system and remove methane from the atmosphere.
There is no other choice. I use the metaphor of a three legged bar stool with legs a), b) and c) as above.

Barstool approach (slightly different from text in that SRM and methane
removal are included with adaptation and conservation in bottom leg)

4) What new satellites, monitoring stations, and other science projects are being planned for the future (if any)? How will these improve our knowledge of the Arctic and the various climatic processes in the region?

NASA, the ESA and the Russians and Chinese are always launching new satellite with better high tech sensors to gather more information on the changes in the Earth System. We need to have a massive increase in scientific study in the Arctic to better quantify what is happening there. However, we know enough to see that if we do not deploy the three-legged barstool approach immediately then our chances are halting our ongoing abrupt climate change will vanish, and emissions from the Earth System will dwarf all cumulative anthropogenic emissions throughout human history. We need the US military budget of $700 to $800 billion dollars per year to be applied to saving human civilization from abrupt climate change.

5) What can be done to save the Arctic and reverse the melting trend? How long would it take to restore the ice cover to, say, mid-20th century levels? Is this even possible with current technology?

We must cool the Arctic as soon as possible using Solar Radiation Management (SRM) technologies. We can deploy SRM very quickly if we treat this Arctic temperature amplification as an existential threat to humanity and put billions of dollars into deployment. It will take many years, perhaps a decade to restore the ice cover but we must start now. If we wait until we have “blue-ocean” events before we deploy then our ability to restore the ice will be much harder and perhaps even futile.

Deployment is possible with current technology. I am specifically referring to Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) methods. I am working today with people on these technologies.

6) How does the melting in the Arctic compare to its southern polar opposite, the Antarctic?

The Arctic is rapidly losing snow cover (mostly in the spring months) and sea ice cover, and is thus the average albedo (reflectivity) of the region is rapidly decreasing. This if feeding back into additional Arctic Temperature Amplification and further darkening and warming, until we have no snow and ice in the region. These vicious feedback cycles have not kicked in to the same extent in the Antarctic. The ice cap there is losing ice causing a rise in sea level mostly from the warming of the seawater undercutting the ice on land that is grounded below sea level. However, since the Arctic is warming so fast due to increased solar radiation absorption (from darkening) there is less heat transported there via the atmosphere and oceans. Thus, jet streams and ocean currents are slowing. Thus, more heat is moving from the equator to the southern hemisphere, making it to Australian latitudes and increasing the temperature gradient to Antarctica and thus increasing the speed of the jet streams there.

7) Finally, what’s your message to climate change deniers who reject the science and believe the whole thing is a giant hoax?

Climate change deniers cannot be tolerated by society any longer. They are threatening the future of everybody on our planet. Send them all to Guantanamo for intensive and mandatory climate science basic training, and when they get clued in they can be reintroduced into society.

Interview with Paul Beckwith http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/03/interview-with-paul-beckwith.html
Posted by Sam Carana on Saturday, March 12, 2016

Look I don't want to go too far with this analogy.  It's flawed and there really are many variables, but you know, as someone who teaches the morphing of Weimar Germany into the Third Reich, the whole violence at political rallies thing obviously raises a few disconsonant tremors.

The Trump rally in Chicago had to be cancelled because protestors violently disrupted it.  Not Trump's fault you might say.  And you'd be wrong.  A couple of days earlier, at another Trump rally in North Carolina, one of his supporters socked a protestor firmly in the face.  And wasn't it Trump who calmly noted that "I'd like to punch them in the face, I really would" when referring to protestors who dared disrupt his meetings?

It's no great surprise that if you deal in the politics of populist hate and demonise whole sections of the population, then you might get throw-back in your political meetings.  Hate isn't easily contained. And what starts in a campaign can easily go on to infect a whole nation.  Political leaders have a responsibility for the way in which a nation's discourse is conducted, and it's one which Trump is failing mightily.

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He’s the subject of a new, savagely attacking book by TomBower, but sometimes it is worth remembering Tony Blair’s strong points.  The most obvious of these is that he was one of the twentieth century’s most successful electoral politicians, the Labour Party’s most successful ever leader, and an undoubted driver of social liberalisation.

It is his election winning expertise that is most pertinent when we consider his recent intervention about the EU referendum debate.  In an interview with Nick Robinson on Friday’s “Today” programme, Blair urged the pro-EU (or “Remain”) campaign to adopt a far more positive and enthusiastic stand.  Implicitly criticising the emphasis on negative results if we leave (what the “Out-ers” have dubbed “Project Fear”), Blair said that he wanted to see “passion” on the side of those campaigning to stay.  Indeed, in his interview he showed once again how well he can articulate his cases, outlining a cogent and clearly heart-felt belief in the positive benefits of the European cause.

Blair is right.  While the Remain side appear to have had the best of the arguments up to now, they are going to have to make out a case that inspires people as well as one that injects fear of the unknown.  For all its flaws there is much that inspires about the EU project and the Remainers shouldn’t ignore its capacity to hold the voters’ imagination.  One of the great errors of political leaders supporting the EU over the years has been both a failure to properly articulate that belief and a reluctance to challenge some of the developments of the EU lest they be seen as undermining the whole project.

The referendum should be welcome to pro-EU supporters as a chance to gain proper public approval for the whole extraordinary project and to stop skulking around in the shadows of bureaucratic torpor.  That the Out campaigners, with their recourse to almost the whole of the British print media, should be able to pain themselves as plucky insurrectionists is partly a damning indictment of the failure of leading pro-EU politicians to do more than assume the rightness of their cause. 

Well, the EU campaign is, for the moment, the “Remainers” to lose.   They have a credible case, more credible leaders and a single campaign compared to the scrabbling between three different “Out” campaign for the electoral commission’s money.  Boris Johnson may be emerging as the face of the anti-EU protagonists, but his shtick is becoming old and less potent with voters outside of the Tory party.  Set alongside him is a group of largely grumpy and unappealing politicos who look and sound as if they are seeking refugee status in the 1950s.

As for Tony Blair, he has not only given the In team a prodding to more urgent and positive action, but has shown an often unrecognised level of self-awareness in his own precluding of himself from the campaign proper.  Cameron and co may be happy with that, but they at least need to imbibe some of his electoral elixir if they are to assure themselves of victory on June 23^rd.

In 2015, mean global carbon dioxide grew by 3.09 parts per million (ppm), more than in any year since the record started in 1959. An added polynomial trendline points at a growth of 5 ppm by 2026 (a decade from now) and of 6 ppm by 2029.

NOAA data, added trend points at 5 ppm growth a decade from now

There are a number of elements that determine how much the total temperature rise will be, say, a decade from now:

Rise 1900-2016: In January 2016, it was 1.92°C (3.46°F) warmer on land than in January 1890-1910, as discussed in an earlier post that also featured the image below.

Rise before 1900: Before 1900, temperature had already risen by ~0.3°C (0.54°F), as Dr. Michael Mann points out.

Rise 2016-2026: The image at the top shows a trend pointing at 5 ppm growth a decade from now. If levels of carbon dioxide and further greenhouse gases keep rising, then that will account for additional warming over the next ten years. Even with dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, temperatures will keep rising, as maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission, so the full wrath of the carbon dioxide emissions over the past ten years is still to come.

Removal of aerosols: With dramatic cuts in emissions, there will also be a dramatic fall in aerosols that currently mask the full warming of greenhouse gases. From 1850 to 2010, anthropogenic aerosols brought about a decrease of ∼2.53 K, says a recent paper. In addition, people will have emitted a lot more aerosols since 2010.

Albedo change: Warming due to Arctic snow and ice loss may well exceed 2 W per square meter, i.e. it could more than double the net warming now caused by all emissions by people of the world, calculated Professor Peter Wadhams in 2012.

Methane eruptions from the seafloor: ". . . we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time," Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. wrote in a paper presented at EGU General Assembly 2008. Authors found that such a release would cause 1.3°C warming by 2100. Note that such warming from an extra 50 Gt of methane seems conservative when considering that there now is only some 5 Gt of methane in the atmosphere, and over a period of ten years this 5 Gt is already responsible for more warming than all the carbon dioxide emitted by people since the start of the industrial revolution.

Water vapor feedback: Water vapour feedback acting alone approximately doubles the warming from what it would be for fixed water vapour. Furthermore, water vapour feedback acts to amplify other feedbacks in models, such as cloud feedback and ice albedo feedback. If cloud feedback is strongly positive, the water vapour feedback can lead to 3.5 times as much warming as would be the case if water vapour concentration were held fixed, according to the IPCC.

The image below puts these elements together in two scenarios, one with a relatively low temperature rise of 3.5°C (6.3°F) and another one with a relatively high temperature rise of 10°C (18°F).

Temperature rise on land a decade from now (without geoengineering)

Note that the above scenarios assume that no geoengineering will take place within a decade.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

As described above, the January 2016 temperature anomaly on land compared to January 1890-1910 was 1.92°C (3.46°F). Globally, the anomaly was 1.53°C (2.75°F), as shown by the image top right.

Putting the elements together for two global scenarios will result in a total rise of 3.11°C (5.6°F) for a relatively low global temperature rise and 9.61°C (17.3°F) for a relatively high global temperature rise, as shown by the image bottom right.

So, will climate catastrophe occur in a decade or later? There are many indications that the odds are large and growing rapidly. Some say climate catastrophe is inevitable or is already upon us. Others may like to believe the odds were rather small. Even so, the magnitude of the devastation makes it imperative to start taking comprehensive and effective action now.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

In 2015, mean global CO2 grew by 3.09 parts per million, more than in any year since the record started in 1959. An...
Posted by Sam Carana on Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Happy Friday everyone! I am glad this one has rolled around, as I feel as if this week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Here's to a calm Friday and a great weekend to boot!

The high of my week was installing a ceiling fan in my bedroom without electrocuting myself! I pretty much did it by myself with the help of a friend for the "brawn" portion of the task. I could not have held it up and installed it at the same time.

The low of my week was when tub decided to not drain. This has not been fixed yet and taking a shower has become of the ship variety (as short as possible!) as I try to avoid flooding the bathroom.

The past week's workouts consisted of two rainy 12 mile runs in the Marin headlands, one great long run in Point Reyes and a wet and wild and dark street run last night at the last minute (one that I wanted to flake out on). All my runs last week were with someone else, which is a new thing for me, and is one that is keeping me honest!

This week I am reading A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. It satisfies my "collection of essays" category for the Read Harder challenge. I am not a huge fan of short stories and/or essay collections, but it is entertaining. However, I am getting through it a lot slower than I normally do.

This week I am listening to this Freakonomics podcast about what it would be like if restaurants went to the "no tipping" policy. They have actually implemented this in some San Francisco restaurants already.

The best money I spent was on a beer and a meal out on Tuesday night. If you have never tried this beer, you should, and if you are ever in Santa Rosa, you should check out the brewery too! They make excellent IPAs and sours!

Plans for the weekend include fixing my tub draining issue, working in the backyard to get everything ready for planting, spending time with my family (I have dragged them into the yard work duties), running and probably making a nice meal to celebrate the fact that the tub has been fixed (biggggg fingers crossed here).

How do you feel about the No Tipping policy? What are your weekend plans? What was the high of your week? 

Embed from Getty Images

Donald Trump's startling success in the current Republican primaries is starting to hit home and spark a tranche of "we could have a president Trump" articles.  None of them make for happy reading and they're not intended to.  Trump is the horror story that most liberal observers of politics - whether that be liberal-right or liberal-left - hoped they wouldn't have to witness.  Could it be that the "pax occidentalis" that has held since the end of the Second World War is about to come apart?

Trump is an easy to recognise trope of the populist nationalist variety.  He shares none of the internationalism of any of his post-war predecessors.  His candidature hearkens back to the days of Warren Harding, but with an added nastiness.  His victory would bring to the White House a man who is perfectly capable of bringing the old international, American protected consensus crashing down.  Anne Applebaum considers this disaster in her Washington Post column, and adds a potential Marine Le Pen presidency of France with a British exit from the EU to the mix, just for good measure.  It's a pretty depressing vision.

Comparisons with Hitler are over-used and inaccurate, but what is apposite is the comparison between the frustrated, politically dislocated electorate of Weimar Germany in 1933 and the current frustrated, politically dislocated electorate of America in 2016.  The Spectator's Freddy Gray has provided a fascinating and cogent analysis of both what it is that Trump is tapping into in America, and how it is likely to play out in America's world role (worth buying this week's edition for, an online preview is here).  Gray writes that  "an ever larger number of Americans feel angry at the system.  The Donald embodies their rage and multiplies it as in a hall of mirrors".  Yes.  Exactly.  That's what populist demagogues do, and when a nation feels uneasy about itself and its manifest destiny, an electorate can turn quite nasty.  Nasty electorates produce nasty leaders.

Gray is particularly good, later in his piece, at acknowledging the huge impact America has had on the nature of the post-war world, and the democratic security that western nations have rather taken for granted, even as much of the rest of the planet disintegrates into strife and savagery.  A president uncommitted to such a role is more concerning than we might think.  As Applebaum notes, Trump has little time for modest democratic politicians and their compromising, negotiated positions, but he does express admiration for Vladimir Putin.  Putin is arguably the most sinister and dangerous man to govern Russia since the late Josef Stalin.  He seems to combine similar levels of paranoia about the non-Russian world with an opaqueness that makes him impossible to read.  (He is, incidentally, superbly portrayed in Netflix series "House of Cards", as fictional Russian president Petrov.)

Of course, much of this is speculative.  Trump is not only not president, the odds are still against that possibility.  Marine Le Pen is not yet president of France and could suffer the same fate as her once popular father.  But electorates are not bound to elect moderate, reasonable men and women, and we may just have reached a time in the affairs of liberal nations when de Tocqueville's fear of democracy may prove wholly justified. 

This month felt shorter than normal! Ha. That was a joke... Really though, February did go by fast, but that is what happens when you are working on the weekdays and are active on the weekends!

Sunrise over lake Tahoe

Running: I felt like I did a lot of running in February, but I ended up with 84 miles of trail running, 50.5 miles of road running (including Jed Smith) and 4 miles on the treadmill for a total of 138.5 miles. I also had 9 miles of cycling, 20 miles of snowshoeing and 20 miles of skiing. This is not keeping in track with my yearly goals for either running or cycling, so I need to pick up the pace!

Reading: This month I only ended up reading three books, but all of them satisfied a category on the Read Harder Challenge.

The Taming of the Queen by Phillipa Gregory (4 stars)
Euphoria by Lily King (3 stars)
The Lake House by Kate Morton (4 stars)

Travel: In February, I went to Tahoe twice; the first time was with the family, where we went skiing and snowshoeing on the TRT and we watched the sun rise over the lake in the morning. The second time was with a group of running friends, where we trekked up a steep mountain the first day (to 10,000 ft) and over a frozen lake the next. Both trips were really cool and it was fun to get some winter cross training in at the same time!

Going down Round Top Mountain

In addition to all of the above, I also spent a lot of time digging in the yard. I am trying to get the backyard ready for spring and my to do list for that is quite long. I built a wall out of cinder block so that I can have a place to plant more stuff and now I need to set up the drip system and possibly build more raised beds. Each thing takes longer than expected, so of course, the going is slow.

The new wall. This corner is a work in progress! 

How was February for you!? Did it seem short to you? Have you started any spring projects yet?