Thanks for the thoughtful explanation of the science, Seonhee
Andrew F. Cronan, AIA, LEED AP
Senior Vice President
GuernseyTingle
4350 New Town Avenue, Suite 101
Williamsburg, VA 23188
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GUERNSEYTINGLE.COM
Original Message------
Not that I advocate the idea of "if you find it from internet, it must be true," I think below summary is scientifically sound. Just a quick search can provide some answers to the claim regarding "CO2 lags temperature".. As mentioned, there are many reasons why earth temperature fluctuate. Each big swing correlates with scientific explanation, such as Earth's orbit, Solar flare, Volcanic activities etc.. But just like Dr. Katharine Hayhoe puts it, they all have natural alibi against causing recent warming trend. She has her YouTube channel called "Global Weirding" that I watched with my child. If you are really care to understand the science, this can be a good starting point.
This is the claim..
"Earth's climate has varied widely over its history, from ice ages characterised by large ice sheets covering many land areas, to warm periods with no ice at the poles. Several factors have affected past climate change, including solar variability, volcanic activity and changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Data from Antarctic ice cores reveals an interesting story for the past 400,000 years. During this period, CO2 and temperatures are closely correlated, which means they rise and fall together. However, based on Antarctic ice core data, changes in CO2 follow changes in temperatures by about 600 to 1000 years, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. This has led some to conclude that CO2 simply cannot be responsible for current global warming."
Figure 1: Vostok ice core records for carbon dioxide concentration and temperature change.
This statement does not tell the whole story. The initial changes in temperature during this period are explained by changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun, which affects the amount of seasonal sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. In the case of warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns.
A 2012 study by Shakun et al. looked at temperature changes 20,000 years ago (the last glacial-interglacial transition) from around the world and added more detail to our understanding of the CO2-temperature change relationship. They found that:
- The Earth's orbital cycles triggered warming in the Arctic approximately 19,000 years ago, causing large amounts of ice to melt, flooding the oceans with fresh water.
- This influx of fresh water then disrupted ocean current circulation, in turn causing a seesawing of heat between the hemispheres.
- The Southern Hemisphere and its oceans warmed first, starting about 18,000 years ago. As the Southern Ocean warms, the solubility of CO2 in water falls. This causes the oceans to give up more CO2, releasing it into the atmosphere.
While the orbital cycles triggered the initial warming, overall, more than 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occured after that atmospheric CO2 increase (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Average global temperature (blue), Antarctic temperature (red), and atmospheric CO2 concentration (yellow dots). Source.
Basic rebuttal written by dana1981
CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?
(https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm)
Also, I am a proponent of accuracy, and when in doubt, I check the "definition" from reputable source, in this case, IPCC can offer the definition.
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: 'a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods'. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes. See also Climate variability; Detection and Attribution. (Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.)
Also, same panel's
Fifth Assessment Report published in 2013 concluded that "It is
extremely likely that human influence has been the
dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."
I don't think this is a forum of real scientific discussion, but as an (ex-)scientist spent close to 5 years of my previous life, doing data collection and analysis on isotopic characteristics of atmospheric carbon dioxide, I felt violated when "science" is not properly represented.
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Seonhee Kim AIA
Director of Sustainability / Senior Associate
Design Collective, Inc.
Baltimore MD
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2018 17:08
From: Dennis Wells
Subject: Complaint to FEMA
Brian,
During the millennia before human's nasty emissions began, climate change happened. A lot. The recent CO2 spike in the hockey stick graph (coinciding with the industrial age) has exacerbated the current warming trend, but it did not cause it. In fact, if you zoom into the famous hockey stick you'll discover that increases in CO2 were always preceded by temperature increases, usually by hundreds of years. The rising temperature happens before the rise in CO2… CO2 does not cause warming. It eventually makes it worse, but clearly doesn't cause it. Even your orthodox science sources will confirm this.
We are currently in the part of the curve where CO2 is making it worse. It would be accurate to say that CO2 causes an increase the rate of climate change. Reducing CO2 output will indeed temper the intensity of climate change, but will not stop it. (If it did, is global cooling preferable to warming?)
Nevertheless, I fully embrace the cause of sustainability. But I embrace it because it's good old common-sense architecture… smart conservation of resources. Not because it will "stop global warming and save the planet."
So far, 97% of all architecture firms have not signed the FEMA letter. My guess is that most of them are not anti-sustainability advocates, or climate denying hayseeds. Maybe they're just common-sense architects.
The bottom line is that sustainable practices are good, and should be promoted. Does it really matter what the motivation is? So please forgive me for being a nit-picker, and I'll forgive you for being a faithful believer.
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Dennis Wells AIA
Oklahoma City OK
Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2018 13:15
From: Brian Alessi
Subject: Complaint to FEMA
Dennis,
As requested in some of you previous posts (see link below*), please site your sources. In particular please state the source for your claim, "Humans and our nasty emissions did not cause climate change. [...] To profess otherwise is religious dogma, not science." I'm enthusiastic to better understand what science you are referring to. And perhaps state and factually explain the inaccuracies you observed when you claimed, "It's this inaccuracy that hurts the sustainability case." It might be helpful to refrain from siting anything from the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heritage Foundation as you did in previous threads that decontextualizes figures and strays from what is considered scientific rigor. Previous replies seem to have provided plenty of relevant, non-biased, scientific data to refute their claims.
*Broad Set of Principles Discussion: View Thread
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Brian Alessi Assoc. AIA
Sustainable Design Studio Leader
The Sheward Partnership
Philadelphia, PA
Original Message:
Sent: 04-28-2018 19:52
From: Dennis Wells
Subject: Complaint to FEMA
The climate has been and will be in flux forever, with or without fossil fuels. This is irrefutable fact. Humans and our nasty emissions did not cause climate change. Denying this is denying reality. Our nasty emissions do exacerbate climate change, but they, or we didn't cause climate change. To profess otherwise is religious dogma, not science. Calling people who deny anthropomorphic climate change "climate deniers" is inaccurate (and insulting). But that's the nature of dogma, isn't it?
It's this inaccuracy that hurts the sustainability cause. If we weren't so damned dogmatic, and we acknowledged reality, others would see architects as rational professionals rather than the <g class="gr_ gr_64 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="64" data-gr-id="64">groupthinkers</g> we are.
The FEMA complaint letter is leftist groupthink, not rational discourse.
It's more rational for us to promote adaptation to climate change rather than prevention. Kudos to the many jurisdictions that are changing regulations in response to the ongoing environmental changes. Shame on those who blame us for it.
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Dennis Wells AIA
Oklahoma City OK
Original Message:
Sent: 04-28-2018 06:33
From: Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham
Subject: Complaint to FEMA
Dennis Wells suggests that FEMA's actions on addressing emergencies are disengaged from an understanding of the causes of those emergencies and therefore have no bearing on its strategic planning <g class="gr_ gr_91 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="91" data-gr-id="91">direction</g>. That's similar to saying that the actions doctors take to treat a disease are disconnected from their understanding of the disease's causes and has no bearing on future medical strategy and funding. This way leads to Parkinson's Law of Triviality or blindness to the elephant in the room. FEMA's current emergency planning methodology is <g class="gr_ gr_65 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" id="65" data-gr-id="65">backward looking</g>, while everything we know about climate change tells us that the future will be very different from the past, and climate models are becoming good enough to project regional changes in ways that could inform FEMA's strategic direction.
Massachusetts (where denial of climate change is no longer an option) is making an effort to integrate municipal vulnerability planning by looking both to the past and to the projected future: <g class="gr_ gr_87 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_hide gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace replaceWithoutSep replaceWithoutSep" id="87" data-gr-id="87">https://resilientma.com/about/</g><g class="gr_ gr_87 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_hide gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style multiReplace replaceWithoutSep replaceWithoutSep" id="87" data-gr-id="87"> .</g> I think of it as integrative planning similar to the integrative design efforts that the COTE community has been working to instill in architectural practice. In my view that is the definition of strategic planning, as opposed to business or operational planning.
Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, AIA
Amherst, MA
Original Message------
Certain architects are concerned that FEMA is amending their Strategic Plan to remove a reference to climate change. These architects believe that communal complaining will cause FEMA to straighten out and recite that climate change causes the emergencies they manage. If the herd complains enough, maybe the government will change its mind!
News Flash: Emergencies will continue to occur whether or not blame is assigned. FEMA will continue to manage emergencies whether they are or aren't caused by climate change. The eliminated language may be true but is meaningless to a Strategic Plan.
The complaint from the herd states: "Eliminating accurate data and causation (from the FEMA Strategic Plan) will severely impact our ability to meet client demands, fulfill our contractual obligations, and carry out the duties of our licensure to protect the public."
Oh please.
Read that quote again… Someone explain how this will severely impact our abilities. Or just explain how it could possibly impact our abilities at all.
Think before you sign.
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Dennis Wells AIA
Oklahoma City OK
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