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JimD

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2017 Predictions
« on: December 24, 2016, 03:51:56 PM »
Last year was kind of fun.

I reviewed all the 2016 posts and my candidate for best prediction has to go to OLN

Quote
6. The Chicago Cubs may actually buy enough talent this off-season to advance to the World Series in October 2016.

Holy Cow!!!  We all bow to your mastery!

Ok, put your tin foil hats on and get to typing.

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

be cause

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2016, 04:36:00 PM »
in 2016 I predicted Dumbald for president and Brexit over here .. neither odf which I wanted . The pole was never ice free . I am certainly forecasting it will be this year .. and lowest minimums by whatever measure .
My greatest concern is the Garlic press .. if it melts out N of Canada we may begin to find lows roaring around Greenland similar to @ the Antarctic . Without ice there would be a lot of open water W of Greenland and more scope for storminess
May we all have a peaceful year what ever the weather .. bc
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

Iceismylife

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2016, 05:42:53 PM »
My prediction for 2013 was for a black swan event.

I'll rerun it this year.  There will be a paradigm busting event this year.

icefisher

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2016, 07:43:09 PM »
Sub 1MM area by Sept. 16 2017 with preconditions.  Polar vortex remains land based for at least 50 days of the Jan-Mar 2017 time frame; Fram export remains active for at least 60 days prior to the beginning of melt and the 80N temp equals or exceeds the long term average for at least 80% of summer.  In short, if we get another repeat of 2007 during 2017.  Otherwise, With three months remaining in the freeze season there is still time for the ice to recover even if ice volume lags behind area and extent.  The ultimate demise of Arctic Sea Ice is assured at this point.  Our individual and societal adaptability will be sorely tested during 2017 -- the first of many "final exams". 

johnm33

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2016, 10:26:50 PM »
One from three last year, so the failures run again and I'll add
1. Thick ice covers Hudson then gets covered by snow and lasts late into the melt season.
2. Rainfall in NE greenland causes disturbing amounts of melt.
3. Ice shelves in Weddel/ Queen Mauds land begin to break.
4. Continental shelf begins slow collapse into Nansen basin
5. Jakobshavn Isbrae southern branch retreats past the bend before Sept.

oren

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2016, 11:31:51 PM »
I'll just go with the "easy" one - record low PIOMAS volume, AMSR2 area and possibly also extent in September.
Oh, and the world will become even more of a mess.

Archimid

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2016, 03:07:25 AM »
1. Max sea ice extent is reached late, followed by a crash
2. El niƱo returns during MJJ
3. <1 million km2 arctic sea ice by September.
4. The freezing season is delayed until October or later, followed by fast refreeze and then stall.
5. Weather weirding over the world, due to changes in the atmospheric patterns
6. Wild fires records are broken again.
7. Flash droughts become a thing.
8. Trump is no longer  BFF with Putin
8. Trump fumbles the US economy, the big hits will be felt in 2018.
9. Trump takes us to war.
10. We lose at least one major city of the world by either war or climate. By this I mean long term disruption.
11. Several climate scientists are accused of crimes unrelated to climate in a very public way. They get turned into scapegoats. People either sheer or keep quiet out of fear. Most scientists tuck their tails between their legs and keep silent. Climate research is silenced.
12. Many of the tools this forum uses become classified.
13. Towards the end of the year, climate change becomes undeniable to most of the world.
14. The Trump administration try to blame it on climate scientists for not warning him. Whether that works or not is for 2018.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

OrganicSu

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2016, 07:08:18 AM »
1. Global temperatures beat 2016's temps
2. Mauna Loa CO2 levels increase by a new record
3. Artic sea ice extent, area and volume are lowest on record for >350 days of the year.
4. Miami Dade property values decline by >10% December 2017 v's December 2016.
5. Global cereal and rice production levels are >5% less than 2016 levels.
6. Outside the US it becomes increasingly easy for the general population to talk about climate change (I know, not quantifiable)

I also know I know close to nada and never win any bets.

JMP

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2016, 11:18:32 AM »
In 2017 US climate denial begins a transformation to acceptance but it's one that is possibly even more disturbing. The awful surprise is that this sort of wider public acceptance turn out to actually be WORSE. 
The majority of the public who are still deniers begin a swift migration of thought toward accepting that climate change exists but are immediately led to conglomerate around three concepts (concepts of secondary denial? or post denial?):

1. Yes there is warming, but there is nothing that can be done (or should even be attempted) to change what is happening. We are doomed or we are not. The Earth will still provide for us or not. Everything remains God's will. It's fate. We can't publicly plan for the future / Continue BAU. 

2. It's an accident anyway and (even if human caused nobody's fault so don't blame any one industry or sector) and it's still fair game for anyone to profit from climate change as they see fit. The best we can do is to actually increase profits now in order to save for a more expensive future. If there is any solution (which there isn't) it must be funded by having more money now.  Privately, to plan for the future - continuing on converting fossil fuels / all resources to short term profit (and investing in the stock market or infrastructure) is still the best possible way to move forward. Don't blame the fossil fuel industry.

3. Climate research has failed us so far, (many scientists told us it wasn't happening, they said the Earth was cooling etc) and it will continue to mostly be a waste of money (we've spent all this money so far and yet science cannot tell us how to reasonably (painlessly) solve the problem) so unless science can tell us how to make more profits, or actually save lives, it's mostly useless.  While no scapegoat is currently needed, interference with profit motive etc, may threaten a necessity for one, so don't even consider it.  Blame science.     


Not every denier in the US will start to think like this of course, and there are different ways to slice and dice this I'm sure, but I'm predicting 2017 begins a move toward a sort of craven enfolding of the acceptance of climate change reality, into an increasingly idealized, myopic, hope that their view of capitalism is still best.   Pretty sure even as climate reality hits, most who were deniers will cling to their other core ideologies and fuel addictions (even double-down on them) until the very last moment.    :-\     

Avalonian

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2016, 01:23:58 PM »
I try not to indulge in these sorts of games, because I always lose. However, I am having a very strong feeling about some worrying things happening. Specifically:

1. The remainder of the freeze season ice parameters vacillate a lot, and don't get very much higher. As the central pack thickens in Jan-Feb, the high levels of southern ice start to disperse. Storms through the Atlantic and Pacific into the spring stop the extent and area increasing much on either front. Volume finally deviates dramatically from the previous years' curves, as we're starting to see.

2. Fearsome early melt in April and May stalls a bit as the clouds build (a genuine negative feedback that becomes recognised for the high summer), but not enough to save it. Increasing storminess acts as a blender on the unusually thin pack during June.

3. The thickest remaining multi-year ice detaches from Northern Greenland, and ends up fragmented and quite possibly swept out the Fram. The top of Greenland has frequent rainstorms poured over it as a result.

4. Changes in circulation patterns lead to dramatic and undeniable (but not yet catastrophic) methane releases from the Laptev/ESS; NH levels spike to well over 3000 ppb.

5. Mainstream news begins to over-use the word 'collapse' to describe the Arctic situation.

6. Trump accepts the reality of climate change, under pressure from the EU and China, together with the Arctic collapse... but endorses geoengineering solutions (ideally ones with alleged [i.e. pipe-dream] lucrative side-effects, like ocean fertilisation). Luckily, most people notice that these could result in even worse problems, but the result is zero progress.

7. The Arctic autumn is carnage. Ice grows, but in weird places, and keeps getting melted out or moved.

8. Next year's predictions on here are a wee bit dire. 

9. Bruce declares himself heartily sick of acorns.  ;)

JimD

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #10 on: December 25, 2016, 05:29:12 PM »
....
Oh, and the world will become even more of a mess.

Hey! No cheating!  lol
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

JimD

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #11 on: December 25, 2016, 07:51:48 PM »
Well I guess I did pretty well overall last year - sadly.  But I must confess that clear up to about 10pm on election night I thought my call of Hillary winning the election was sound.  While I noted that I expected the rise of populism/nationalism to grow strongly I was expecting the 2016 election results to result in 2020 with the rise of a really scary version of Trump2.  So the future turned out to be closer than I expected.  Not that we won't get scary version 2 in 2020 anyway as that is the general trend to expect in a declining/collapsing world.

So.  This year!

Some I am just going to repeat from last year as I think they still hold for now.

Climate
1.  Arctic sea ice extent, or lack thereof, is still so far below human radar that it does not matter whether there is a record minimum or not as no one is going to be paying attention (excepting this blog).
2.  All climate trends will of course be down for the duration of our lives, but once again I can't see anyone paying attention yet to the kinds of changes which will be the norm for some years yet.
3.  Since anything we can easily foresee happening is by definition not a Black Swan I would say any big climate change event even slightly possible in 2017 does not have the potential for significant enough civilizational impacts to generate change.  We are in a slow burn situation still, not a wildfire.
4.  US political retrenchment regarding support for climate change agreements or coordinated efforts will naturally slow (already glacially slow) efforts to address climate change.

Security
1.  War and the business of war (and economics of course) will continue to dominate global affairs and national directions - I am including refuges/immigrants in this category.
2.  Climate change and carrying capacity issues will continue to worsen but will not yet be severe enough to trigger wide scale security disruptions.
3.  This election of Trump will accelerate the rise of equivalents in other countries and we are now likely to see political/governmental change pushed by nationalism/populism happen quicker than I would have expected this time last year.  Civilizational collapse seems to be quickening or perhaps it is just noise in the data - we will see where we are at in a year.
4.  Having a different faction of the oligopoly installed in the Executive branch will likely generate some interesting changes in global security/economic/political structures.  But what is beyond me at this point as it seems impossible at this stage to have a clear picture of intent, interests, goals or pretty much anything about the Trump administration other than they will without doubt pursue a path that they think will lead to continuing/furthering the preeminent position of the US.
5. Some place unexpected will have big security issues which generate some kind of major security crisis.  India/Pakistan is a great possibility.  US interference with/in Iran is another.  China I actually don't expect to get out of hand.

Energy
1.  Oil & natural gas prices will remain low throughout the year and average below $60 bbl. Some of this is based upon expectations that there will be a lot of cheating by producers on production quotas (they always do this) and some on the very likely effects of the Trump administration providing regulatory easing of the industry and potential gains in cooperation with Russia (Exxon had a 50 billion development shut down by Obama's sanctions which has a possibility to be renewed in some fashion).
2.  One can only expect, given what we know now about the make up of the new administration, that within the US there will be much less government support for renewables (though they will proceed without them, but at a diminished pace) and an easing of EPA like restrictions on the fossil industries which should boost their ability to make profits and remain viable longer.

Economics
1.  As there does not seem to be any viable method of actually improving the global economy one would expect to see further deterioration of same.  As always there will be local improvements in a few places and serious problems in many.
2.  We are statistically due for a major downturn in the business cycle and many bubbles which led to the last great recession have been reblown.  As we speak Italian banks are being bailed out and who knows where that goes.  There are many locations around the globe with hugely inflated property markets just begging to get hammered into the ground.  Something should break.
3.  Should Trump attempt to start reversing some aspects of globalization as he has indicated he will do we will see big impacts from that in disrupted global economic situations.

Politics
1.  There will be strong and continued growth in extreme nationalist political movements as this is a natural byproduct of decline/collapse.  This is markedly strong in Europe and there is growth in the US as well.   I don't expect that this will slow globally nor in the US in particular.  Trump has shown the ability to out maneuver his opponents so far and I would not expect a big change in that right away - having feckless opponents helps him a lot of course.  India is a basket case for this as well as Turkey.  We may cross the line in those two countries where they are just considered dictatorships and no longer some bastardized form of democracies.
2.  Republican control of the US government could now be considered almost absolute - all that remains is a Supreme Court justice or two.  During the year there will be a long string of reversing regulations and policies which they have opposed but before they did not have the strength to change.  They do now and they will act.  A possible rut in this road is that some of the things the new oligopoly faction seems to be in favor of is not at all in line with the establishment Republicans who work for a different faction.  But the Democrats are just going to be ignored.
3.  The Democrats should be in an absolute panic and in a crash program to rebuild/restructure their party but I don't see this happening.  If they are not well down that road by the middle of the year they can write off 2018 as they will get stomped again and Republican control of the Senate will grow substantially.  If the Republicans don't find a way to commit suicide equivalent to what the Democrats just did by 2020 they will have the opportunity by then to have firm control of all 3 branches of the Federal government as well as political control of about 80% of the States.  And then in 2020 following the next census they get the right to redistrict the States electoral districts in which they hold political control.  And over the next 4 years they will appoint a couple of hundred conservative federal judges just to add icing onto the cake.  Clinton blowing this election is likely the biggest historical event since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Collapse Dynamics
1.  Europe/EU will see further degradation of its civilizational complexity. 
2.  There is a reasonable chance that unusual weather patterns boosted by the growing effects of climate change will precipitate national level collapses in third world locations. Mostly related to food production.  They will be bailed out in some fashion by the industrial world - for now.  In not too many more years they will be left to survive on their own.
2.  No progress will be made on curtailing population growth nor reducing our negative effects on carrying capacity.
3.  No progress will be made on halting climate change.
4.  Many countries and locations will see a drop in quality of life, but this will be the norm for the duration of our lives and we are not yet near the points where large scale social collapse will occur.

All in all a year pretty much like this last one.  Crunch time is some time away still and we have lots of time to make things worse.  Which as oren pointed out - we will.
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

Buddy

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2016, 06:02:35 PM »
My predictions for 2017....

1)  Antarctic sea ice at new record low come February 2017
2)  Arctic sea ice at new record low come September 2017
3)  More....and more....bad news will continue to stream out about the Antarctic from scientists...
4)  2017 won't cool off as much as some think.....
5)  FOX News continues to dig their own grave.....which will cave in around them IN LATER YEARS (2018?.....2019?).  The laws of physics don't go away....and neither do video clips ;)
6)  Impeachment proceedings won't start on Trump until sometime in 2018...likely LATE in 2018.  So this will give him 12 - 20 months to really "muck things up" before the impeachment proceedings begin.  He already committed the misdeeds that will take him down.
7)  Coal use continues to plunge in the US....and in most places around the world except for "coking coal" used to make steel.
8)  Natural gas use won't slow down YET.....but their day is coming....and likely BEFORE 2020
9)  We move CLOSER AND CLOSER to the day where the world says:  "We're F***ED unless we go whole hog renewable.  This is coming BEFORE 2020.  And...by then....it will be cheaper to do so anyway (in some places it ALREADY IS CHEAPER).
10)  Stock markets continue higher.  Not because of Trump though.  They have been going higher because of low energy costs.....and will continue higher as energy costs continue push DOWN over the long term....even with Trump and his fossil fuel buddies trying to slow down that move (it will be one more reason to have him impeached....although that is NOT an "impeachable offense" itself).
11)  Obama will NOT stay quiet on global warming.  He understands the stakes.  He is likely to start speaking up more vocally sometime in 2017.....and Trump has already given him the reason to do so.
12)  The age of "truthism" will get a little more steam this year, spurred on by all the lying of FOX News and other "fake news" outlets.  It's still early in the process....but even big things start out small at first.  Sometime in 2017 or 2018 it likely picks up a little steam....spurred on by the lying and impeachment proceedings of Donald Trump and the continued lying of FOX News (the founder of Fake News).  Out of Trumpism.....is born Truthism.  Who would have "thunk it"?









FOX (RT) News....."The Trump Channel.....where truth and journalism are dead."

misanthroptimist

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2017, 07:08:54 PM »
In 2009, I WAG'd that the Arctic would be ice-free for the first time in 2017. Just for fun, I'm sticking with it since there's a slim chance that it could happen.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: 2017 Predictions
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2017, 02:10:48 AM »
1 - Open water at North Pole gets press attention

2 - Watts Up With Truth (WupTrue) claims (falsely) there was open water in nineteen fifty something.

3 - Larsen C massive calving - of course!

4 - WupTrue claims that Larsen C is naturally variable sea ice .
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes