Social Security and the importance of a word
(By - Scott Burns, www.dallasnews.com)
The Social Security trustees released their new report last Wednesday. Hours later, Huffington Post writer Nancy Altman posted a story with this headline: “2015 Trustees Report Confirms That Expanding Social Security Is Fully Affordable.” Altman is co-founder of Social Security Works, an organization with the laudable goal of expanding Social Security rather than shrinking it. Read more…
This posting is presented for informational purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. Any opinions or interpretations presented are either those of the original author or, in the case of articles authored by the AMAC Foundation, are the opinions of AMAC Foundation staff, originally trained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA) and certified via the AMAC Foundation. Any links included in the article are valid on the posted date; socialsecurityreport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the links’ validity. NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity. To submit a question, visit our website (https://amacfoundation.org/services/) or email us at ssadvisor@amacfoundation.org. Because we are a non-profit organization, there is no charge for these services.
RobertIf you look at the CO2 data from 1958, you’ll find the level of CO2 was already 35ppm above pre-industrial lleves, small compared to what we’ve done since, but not insignificant. Land-use changes and other forms of AGW started before 1950 too.IPCC assumes all anthropogenic forcing factors beside CO (including land use changes, aerosols, other GHGs, etc.) essentially cancel one another out, so that the net radiative forcing for CO2 alone is roughly equal to the total anthropogenic forcing.If one agrees with the IPCC model-based estimate of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity (with all feedbacks) of 3.2b0C on average, we should have seen 0.5b0C warming from 280 to 315 ppmv (when Mauna Loa measurements started in 1958) plus another 1.0b0C from 1958 to today’s 390 ppmv, for a total anthropogenic warming of 1.5b0C.In actual fact we have only seen a bit less than half this amount of warming, so it appears that the 2xCO2 CS assumed by IPCC is exaggerated by >2:1 (if we assume that all warming was anthropogenic, as IPCC essentially does). If we assume that 50% of the observed warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (per several solar studies) then the assumed 2xCO2 CS is high by ~4:1.Using the model-based IPCC 2xCO2 CS of 3.2b0C we should see an added 1.8b0C warming from today’s 390 ppmv to an estimated 580 ppmv by 2100. At the observed 2xCO2 CS, the expect GH warming to year 2100 would be 0.4b0C to 0.8b0C.That’s the order of magnitude range of GH warming we are talking about.Max