National Climate Assessment

I was a youth during those years, but I had a close view of hippi-hood from my PhD (theoretical Maths) father and his wanderings. The educated among them (quite a few) had no use for mainstream politics, but they knew how to distinguish fact from fiction, did not rely on Church to present science, and valued expert opinion outside of their own fields.

In short, they were smart enough to know when *not* to have an opinion. I miss those days too.

 

Fair enough.
I'm trying not let the glossy, over-produced wrapper dissuade me from picking through the data with an open mind.
I'm not as well educated or nearly as well published as some of the authors, so it will take me some time....

 

This might be relevant:
Watch: John Oliver and Bill Nye Show Why Cable News Climate "Debates" Are So Ridiculous | Mother Jones

 

You still haven't elaborated.

But I found something else of relevance:

How Low Will the Arctic's Summer Sea Ice Go?
"The sea ice of the Arctic hit its maximum extent for the year on March 21, peaking at 5.7 million square miles, some 282,000 square miles below the 1981-to-2010 average, after a late-season surge in ice formation. That area was the fifth lowest maximum in the satellite record, which goes back to 1978 ...

The late surge in ice growth was followed by a rapid retreat in early April, before the rate of melt slowed later in the month."

It is unclear what this means for this year's summer ice minimum, as forecasting accuracy has been poor.

 

+1

IMHO summer ice scares including the fabled polar bear photos did a disservice to people understanding what is going on. Of course polar bears can swim, they aren't dying out there. They do have more trouble killing other things if they can't sit on the ice. The world is not going to see a 6 meter sea level rise any time soon. In fact the best science says that the rise should be less than 1 meter in the next 100 years, and it is extremely unlikely to be over 2 meters during that 100 years. The problem is it is most likely to rise between 1 and 3 feet (0.3-1 meter rounding). Those studies discrediting the polar bear photo and the apocalyptic fast rise are absolutely right, but.... the ice is melting, and there is nothing we can do about sea ice or WAIS as these depend on currents and weather that have nothing to do with man. Now we can slow it a little, but the last 2 interglacials had much higher sea levels than we have now, and our ghg output has accelerated the rise. Ignoring the science doesn't help anyone, not the exagerations, or pretending its not happening.

The best we can do is mitigate the suffering. Storm surges will get much worse, as we have been building more and more in low lying areas. Army corps of engineers wanted to build a sea wall to protect nyc from storm surges like sandy in the 1960s. It had nothing to do with ghg warming, simply the sea level was higher than when the city was built. In texas galviston has been crushed twice, its even more likely to get crushed a third time. new orleans will get hit again, as will miami and new york. We can stop building these places up and build more protection. It is much worse for some other countries than the US.