Open thread weekend

Posted on January 25, 2013 by | 1,260 Comments

by Judith Curry

Its your turn to introduce topics for discussion

I am in the throes of working on a big proposal due Feb 4, so not much time for blogging until then.  Fortunately, several interesting guest posts are forthcoming.

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1,260 responses to “Open thread weekend”

  1. kim | January 25, 2013 at 1:34 pm |

    Sensitive points. Evvybody’s got tetchy lately.
    ========

    • mwgrant | January 25, 2013 at 1:37 pm |

      What’d you mean by THAT!? ;op

    • Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 2:44 pm |

      Skeptics are not afraid of nature. The curious skeptic respects nature and gains strength by understanding limitations and breaking down barriers to the unknown. It is superstition and fear that freezes the weak — logically and spiritually – and, fear of climate change has frozen Western academia to death: government funding of global warming alarmism is a fraudulent inducement to deceive the public and academia has been a willing accomplice.

      • Alexander Biggs | January 25, 2013 at 5:24 pm |

        Wagathon, on the whole I agree. But skeptics need to agree that AGW has occurred. The global warming between 1910 and 1940 did happen and there is no other credible explanation than man-made CO2. 15 million model T Fords, electricity in every town…..etc. But why did it stop and reverse so dramatically in 1940? Because CO2’s specific heat was never responsible. It must have been one or more of CO2’s vibration nodes that were swallowing the energy. When it mysteriously stopped in 1940, quantum mechanics carries the secret wraped in its theories. After all, no one would argue that the CO2 molecule could not lose one photon of energy in the right conditions and that is all it takes to close a major vibration mode. But the 1910-1940 heat was still in the atmosphere and by 2000 had worked its way through the oceans, almost doubling the 1940 increase in temperature (0.45 to 0.9C). The IPCC ignored all this.

      • Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 5:32 pm |

        It’s the sun stupid.

        “Carbon dioxide is 0.000383 of our atmosphere by volume (0.038 percent) … Only 2.75 percent of atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic in origin … If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, our anthropogenic CO2 contribution today would be equivalent to the linoleum on the first floor.” ~Reid Bryson

      • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 7:15 pm |

        Those numbers are wrong Wagathon

      • Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 7:30 pm |

        Proof of the failure of the Western educational system is the difficulty global warming alarmists have understanding simple concepts like–e.g., ‘parts per million.’

      • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 7:37 pm |

        hilarious coming from someone who doesn’t understand percentages.

      • Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 7:47 pm |

        “There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures — one-twentieth of a degree by 2050.” ~Dr. Fred Singer

        [Source: Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service; in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal

      • Myrrh | January 28, 2013 at 9:51 pm |

        omanuel | January 26, 2013 at 7:54 am | Science magazine reports hot, hot heat from the magnetic Sun.

        http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/01/magnetic-sun-produces-hot-hot-he.html?ref=em

        I really don’t understand these arguments, looking to find ‘heat sources’ for the increasing heat from the photosphere layer.

        I’ve only been thinking of this for a couple of months and then not a lot, so perhaps you’ll indulge me as I think it through a bit more with you here..?

        Ignoring the quite frankly silly AGWScienceFiction narrative that gives the Sun’s temperature as 6000°C which they take from the narrow 300 mile wide photosphere band and claim, as Pekka confidently tells me, that the Sun produces very little longwave infrared (radiant heat) as they show proof in those interminable planck diagrams, the Sun is actually considerably hotter, 15 million degrees hot at its core.

        The Sun is around 15,000,000°C not 6,000 – and something that hot must be giving off a lot of heat. [27 million degrees Fahrenheit]

        Because, this heat is the Sun’s thermal energy, it’s great heat energy, on the move in transfer by radiation.

        (Which in the real world is thermal infrared, aka heat, aka radiant heat, aka the Sun’s thermal energy in transfer via radiation which AGWSF calls longwave infrared, so AGWSF says that the Sun gives off very little heat…)

        Why would the relative heat flow from the Sun be any different in principle from, say, an incandescent lightbulb which radiates out 5% visible light and 95% thermal infrared, heat? Or a steel billet at white hot which radiates most of its energy as heat?

        (And just to add here, ignoring the equally frankly ludicrous idea from AGWSF that visible light is heat.., to make clear I’m sticking with traditional physics which is that light is light and heat is heat, light is not a thermal energy.)

        In the real world physics the hotter something is the faster the heat from it flows and its movement is always spontaneously from hotter to colder.

        I think, what we could be seeing in the bands outward is residual layers left behind as what must be an enormous heat flow from the core rushes out at great speed into cold space. This is 15 million degrees of heat, longwave infrared, rushing out from the core with nothing more than the Sun’s gravity to contain it. [“the Sun blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour” *1.]

        What is creating this gravity? It can’t be the 300 mile wide photosphere, it takes mass to create gravity and visible light is tiny and isn’t a solid surface [though AGWSF likes to pass this off as a “surface”, it is actually considered where the Sun’s atmosphere starts], it can only be primarily the core which is some 150 times as dense as water.

        Actually, let me go back to the issue of calling it “surface” when it is really atmosphere – http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/Curric_7-12/Chapter_2.pdf

        Astrophysicists classify the Sun as a star of average size, temperature, and brightness—a typical dwarf star just past
        middle age. It has a power output of about 1026 watts and is expected to continue producing energy at that rate for another 5 billion years. The Sun is said to have a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers, about 109 times the diameter of Earth, but this is a slightly misleading statement because the Sun has no true “surface.” There is nothing hard, or definite, about the solar disk that we see; in fact, the matter that makes up the apparent surface is so rarified that we would consider it to be a vacuum here on Earth. It is more accurate to think of the Sun’s boundary as extending far out into the solar system, well beyond Earth. In studying the structure of the Sun, solar physicists divide it into four domains: the interior, the surface atmospheres, the inner corona, and the outer corona.

        The “surface” which we see is simply a thin layer of light which is the solar disc, which is the visible layer and “There is nothing hard, or definite, about the solar disk that we see; in fact, the matter that makes up the apparent surface is so rarified that we would consider it to be a vacuum here on Earth”.

        However, there is something “hard or definite” about the core which is a plasma 150/160 times as dense as water, and “The energy output of the Sun’s core is so large that it would shine about 1013 times brighter than the solar surface if we could “see” it.”

        Now, it goes on to say “The immense energy produced in the core is bound by the surrounding radiative layer. This layer has an insulating
        effect that helps maintain the high temperature of the core.

        Is that really what it is doing?

        The radiative layer is much less dense than the core, there may well be light bouncing around it “for a hundred thousand years”*2, but, is it really stopping that 15 million degrees of invisible heat.., all or most of which could be the ‘thousand times brighter energy we can’t see’? And if it can’t, than neither can the other layers.

        Isn’t this layer more likely to be similar to our own atmosphere for example, which molecules of nitrogen and oxygen bounce around visible light but which cannot stop the more powerful, bigger, thermal infrared heat energy from travelling through?

        Isn’t this radiative layer simply a residual layer left behind the great 15 million degree radiant heat which is travelling at the speed of light and so a heck of a lot faster than the billions of particles are travelling..? Kept in place by the core’s gravity.

        Anyway, ditto the other layers. I see these simply as effects from the immense thermal energy generated by the dense core, in effect all of them “atmospheres” of the core under its gravity relative to their mass as on Earth we have the different layers of atmospheres from the surface out- in other words the core is the real surface of the Sun. [what would 150 times denser than water equate to on Earth?]

        So, the typical angst scientists have about the Sun trying to work out why it goes from hot to colder until the photosphere and starts heating up again and trying to find what is ‘creating the heat in these hotter outer layers’, is, I think, backwards, because it seem to me the natural flow of heat from hotter to colder through different densities and amounts of the atmospheres around the core can explain it all, these are simply effects, what the heat left behind.

        Ah, I’ve just found how dense the core is – “The Sun’s core is about 16 million K and has a density around 160 times the density of water. This is over 20 times denser than the dense metal iron which has a density of “only” 7 times that of water.”*3

        *1 http://beyondweather.ehe.osu.edu/issue/the-sun-and-earths-climate/the-sun-earth%E2%80%99s-primary-energy-source
        *2 http://www.thesuntoday.org/glossary/layers-of-the-sun/
        *3 http://www.astronomynotes.com/starsun/s2.htm

  2. R. Gates | January 25, 2013 at 1:57 pm |

    Comments on this new animation of Arctic sea ice volume from PIOMAS, created by Andy Lee Robinson (courtesy of Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice Blog):

    • kim | January 25, 2013 at 2:02 pm |

      Yikes, curves flying through space like magic carpets. And how many polar bears died creating the sound effects?
      =========

    • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 2:48 pm |

      looks like the canary in the coal mine is leaning awkwardly

      • R. Gates | January 25, 2013 at 2:58 pm |

        Wonder when AGW skeptics expect this trend to reverse and their new glacial advance to begin?

      • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 3:12 pm |

        2007

      • Rob Starkey | January 25, 2013 at 3:56 pm |

        A reasonable skeptic might not make a prediction, but would evaluate the data upon which others predictions were based and form a conclusion based on that evaluation.

      • Edfim | January 25, 2013 at 4:37 pm |

        R. Gates,

        It’s a guess, no more wild than the consensus ‘disappearing arctic ice soon’ prediction, but I think at the latest by 2020 we will see the likely overblown and misattributed trend reverse.

        By the way, global sea ice is almost on average now.
        http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

      • Edim | January 25, 2013 at 4:42 pm |

        R. Gates, forget about overblown and misattributed (sorry). It will reverse by 2020.

      • The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | January 25, 2013 at 5:44 pm |

        40+ years of Arctic sea ice volume decline to reverse in 2020? Must be something very substantial to reverse this very strong negative trend. Let me guess the thinking here: (tongue in cheek, okay, so chill)

        The long-awaited and much anticipated cool phase of the AMO?
        The Maunder Minimum II?
        The Iron Sun rusting?
        A. Watts long-awaited and much anticipated “major” paper is so many pages long that it covers the planet, reducing global albedo?

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:04 pm |

        R. Gates

        You missed something.

        The study cited by Edim was on global sea ice, which is back to close to the baseline value.

        This includes Antarctic sea ice, which is growing and Arctic sea ice, which (as you pointed out) is receding.

        The former gets almost no press coverage, while the latter gets lots of ballyhoo, like the article you posted.

        Whether or not global sea ice reaches the baseline by 2020 is anyone’s guess.

        Max

      • GaryM | January 25, 2013 at 7:30 pm |

        If the Earth were naturally warming following the LIA, wouldn’t you expect a continuing decline in sea ice? Add to that natural variability and whatever cyclical changes may exist with regard to Arctic sea ice (why are all the scary graphs just ASI? Why not use total average global sea ice, like you all do with temps?) And if so, how much loss would be attributed to which?

        When the canary in the coal mind starts having trouble breathing, it would be of less concern if the cage were hung next to gas powered generator, in a chamber full bat guano.

        But hey, don’t let complexity of attribution or uncertainty bars get in the way of a good, scary graphic.

      • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 7:36 pm |

        Appeals to global sea ice are just a lame deception attempt to mislead people into missing the fact arctic sea ice is rapidly approaching summer zero.

      • GaryM | January 25, 2013 at 7:50 pm |

        Appeals to only Arctic sea ice are just a lame deception attempt to mislead people into missing the fact global sea ice likely is a better measure of globaclimarewarmingchange, and much less dramatic.

      • Herman Alexander Pope | January 25, 2013 at 10:25 pm |

        R. Gates – Look at the cooling after the Roman Warm Period and look at the cooling after the Medieval Warm Period. The next glacial advance and the cooling will arrive on a similar time scale, just like it always does.

      • Herman Alexander Pope | January 25, 2013 at 10:41 pm |

        Earth warms, the oceans warm, Arctic Sea Ice melts, the snows start, the ice rebuilds, the earth and oceans cool and the Arctic freezes, the sea ice maxes out, the snows stop, earth warms, ice retreats and you can repeat this process, over and over and over and over. This has repeated in the same bounds for ten thousand years.

    • vukcevic | January 25, 2013 at 2:59 pm |

      Yes.
      Little to do with CO2 and a lot to do with ‘polar amplification’
      http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-Arc.htm

      • Julian Flood | January 26, 2013 at 5:27 am |

        Polar amplification should work at both Poles. And the same theory predicts an atmospheric hot spot which isn’t there.

        I love the magnetic correlation though.

        See:
        http://www.mikereyfman.com/photo/photo.php?No=6&Gallery=Polar-Bears-Svalbard-Spitsbergen-Norway

        See the pale area on the sea surface behind the bear? that is a smooth, oil and/or surfactant polluted water which is less rippled than clean. It has lower albedo and less emissivity than a clean water surface. At a larger scale it would produce fewer aerosols and less cloud would form above it.

        Enough light oil spill — that is the oil needed to make smooths — comes down the rivers of Siberia to equal one Exxon Valdez every four weeks. It’s big oil, it’s anthropogenic, what’s not to like?

        JF
        Got screw? I got hammer….

      • Peter Davies | January 27, 2013 at 6:50 pm |

        Julian, interesting point re pollution from Siberia. Do you have any citations please? BTW the bears seem healthy, at least for the time being.

    • jimmy | January 25, 2013 at 5:32 pm |

      The sea ice thing is an interesting study in how scientists interpret the accuracy of their predictions.

      If the sea ice shrinks 50% less than anticipated, the predictors (perhaps with some rationalization and backpedalling), conclude that the predictions were wrong.

      If the sea ice shrinks 50% more than anticipated, the predictors claim victory. Somehow, because it’s moving in the anticipated direction, it’s “righter”. Even though the prediction is just as wrong.

      I just find that kind of interesting.

    • wayne | January 25, 2013 at 5:35 pm |

      Yep, that’s what four cm/yr in thickness by 33 years will get you (per PIOMAS). I think Gates is a bit frightened when that is spread to be extent. It’s ok Gates, the open water area per day in 2012 was, get this, LOWER than in 2011. It’ll come back, but black soot might keep it suppressed a bit with so many starting to burn wood with prices of energy so high. That doesn’t help.

    • Bob Ludwick | January 25, 2013 at 6:22 pm |

      1979 huh?

      Wasn’t that about the time when the ‘hot news’ was ‘Catastrophic Global Cooling’ and that catastrophe could only be avoided by ‘doing something right now’. And wasn’t the most powerful piece of evidence the record HIGH levels of Arctic sea ice?

      Well, whatever we did must have worked, because sea ice apparently began declining right away. Luckily.

      • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 7:17 pm |

        No Bob you are just getting a bit carried away making things up.

      • Bob Ludwick | January 27, 2013 at 11:42 pm |

        @Lolwot:

        Silly me, I KNOW that the ‘Great Global Cooling Myth of the ’70’s’ has been thoroughly debunked (See Wikipedia and multiple debunking papers by climate experts) and all agree that there never was a ‘Cooling Scare’ or calls for action to stave such a thing off and since I am well along in my dotage I am sure that all the stories on the subject that I remember reading in the popular press and major news papers at the time are simply figments of my overheated denialist imagination.

        Nevertheless, the memories are persistent and apparently I am not the only codger who has conjured them up out of whole cloth, as several other fogies commenting on this piece:

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/25/the-cia-documents-the-global-cooling-research-of-the-1970s/

        (yeah, I know, another totally discredited denialist rag, but references are included) seem to imagine that they remember much the same thing. I know that us old folks are supposed to have ‘tricky’ memories, but for some reason, a false memory of stories sounding the global cooling alarm seem to be amazingly widespread among those of us who followed (or imagined that we followed) science reporting back in the 70’s.

        Of course most of us were not climate scientists, so when all the major media, the CIA, science textbooks, and scientific periodicals were ballyhooing the imaginary cooling problem, how were we to know that REAL climate scientists were ridiculing the whole idea and trying, with no initial success, to warn us of our TRUE doom: WARMING. (See Wikipedia for reports, written by climate experts, on their efforts.)

        Fortunately, they were able to turn THAT little publicity faux pas around, once the politicians understood that an existential threat to the planetary biosphere justified unlimited political power to combat it, and now enjoy the multi-billion dollar economic rewards and near infinite political power that they so richly deserve for their unceasing efforts to spread the warning of our true nemesis: Anthropogenic CO2 driven Global Warming/Global Climate Change/Global Climate Weirding/ Global Bad Thing to be Named Later. Whoda thunk it?

    • Bill | January 25, 2013 at 9:27 pm |

      It would be even more informative if you made the animation go back to 1959, or 1910, or 1850. Oh wait, we only have satellite data since 1979.
      That’s the problem with much of our new data, be it seal level from TOPEX or sea ice by satellite or Sea temp.’s from Argo. They are measurements from new techniques that often can’t be directly compared to the older data.

      For example, is the sea level data actually different? From memory, I think the the sea level from satellite I just saw earlier today was 3.2 mm/year +/- 0.4 mm The older data is 2.5 mm/year (I read this; it seems a bit higher than some I’ve seen like 1.8 mm/year) plus/minus error bars. If it was 2.5 +/- 0.4, you could not really be sure that the 3.2 mm/year was really higher than the 2.5 mm within error, especially given that they are different techniques. I just need a bit more, which time will tell one way or another.

    • jim2 | January 25, 2013 at 11:35 pm |

      Cherry picking.

    • R Barker | January 26, 2013 at 1:20 pm |

      If you take a look at the global sea ice area, the present condidtion is close to the 1979 – present mean. Don’t know about whether antarctic sea ice volume is also more. My guess is it would be proportional to the area in the absence of contrary factors.

  3. Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 2:32 pm |

    It isn’t always the case that everything about a hoax is false. Skeptics of Western global warming are really aware of obvious mistakes that fall within their particular areas of expertise and most skeptics take issue with the picture of impending calamity that global warming fearmongers always try to paint. Climate scaremongering may win a few headlines but facts are facts. The truth always has appeal and no matter how well-funded a hoax finally dies when lying lynx are finally spotted and the public sees it has been lied to and feels tricked, manipulated and deceived by supporters of the hoax.

  4. vukcevic | January 25, 2013 at 2:46 pm |

    Most of the institutional scientists have to protect their patch from any outside predators.
    For years we are told:
    -It is CO2
    -It can not be the sun
    -The TSI is nearly constant
    There is more to the solar or whatever drives it than the TSI. Only few days ago I went to some old geomagnetic data from 1990s and guess what: the Earth’s magnetic field has a strong magnetic ‘zing’ fully synchronised with the sunspot cycle:
    http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GMF-SSN.htm
    I doubt that any institutional scientist would whish to follow the above finding, despite fact that it is totally unknown to the either the solar or the Earth sciences.

    • Paul Vaughan | January 25, 2013 at 3:10 pm |

      vukcevic wrote: “Only few days ago I went to some old geomagnetic data from 1990s […]”

      Please save us some precious time by linking directly to the data. IF you do so: thanks sincerely.

  5. Paul Vaughan | January 25, 2013 at 2:56 pm |

    SWH = Significant Wave Height
    Climatology Animations (average annual cycle – monthly resolution – global) …

    Maximum SWH
    http://i46.tinypic.com/2mot9c7.gif

    Mean SWH
    http://i50.tinypic.com/o0pk50.gif

    Color Scheme:
    Small = ~5m = magenta
    Medium = ~8m = royal blue
    Large = ~12m = bright green

    Credit: Significant wave height climatology animations have been assembled using Australian Department of Defence [ http://www.metoc.gov.au/products/wms_M10_swh.php ] images developed from data provided by the GlobWave Project [ http://www.globwave.org/ ].

    • R. Gates | January 25, 2013 at 3:01 pm |

      That’s awesome. I take it that the biggest waves in each hemisphere generally occur in that hemisphere’s winter?

      • Paul Vaughan | January 25, 2013 at 3:35 pm |

        Yes sir.

        I hope nature-appreciating readers will take the time to comparatively study a whole pile of climatology animations — summary list here …
        http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/unprecedented-third-consecutive-la-nina/comment-page-1/#comment-40885

        Beginners: To quickly understand annual global SWH patterns, start with the 850hPa wind animation and note how it lines up with annually cycling average sea level pressure (SLP) gradients.

        Everyone: Be aware that the solar cycle modulates terrestrial circulatory morphology and multidecadal meridional integration. I’ve invested time in the construction of these animations in the hopes that they will foster stronger awareness of the role of geometry in flow modulation. Without strong awareness of asymmetries, paradoxical misinterpretation of solar-terrestrial statistics is inevitable.

  6. A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 3:03 pm |

    This week saw a startling claim by Willis Eschenbach

    WUWT: Always Trust Your Gut Extinct
    Posted on January 25, 2013
    by Willis Eschenbach

    “In 1988, E. O. Wilson, an ant expert with little knowledge of extinction, made a startling claim that extinction rates were through the roof. He claimed there was a “Sixth Wave” of extinctions going on, and that we were losing a huge amount, 2.7% of all the species per year. This claim quickly went viral and soon was believed by everyone.”

    Wilson’s work is pretty familiar to me, and I did not recall him ever using a phrase as imprecise as “Sixth Wave”.

    A bit of digging establishes that (apparently) *none* of the Ed Wilson references that Willis Eschenbach cites ever use this phrase (for example, the phrase “Sixth Wave” appears in *none* of Wilson’s books) Doh!!!

    Hmmm … so perhaps Willis should either (1)  provide a scholarly reference to support his quotation, or else (2)  retract his (mistaken?) “viral” claim. `Cuz hey, those “viruses” do spread pretty freely, eh? Willis Eschenbach, please don’t be a viral carrier of incorrect quotations!

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    A free-as-in-freedom, non-viral reference that (verifiably!) *does* use the phrase “Sixth Wave” is John Cairns excellent The Unmanaged Commons – A Major Challenge for Sustainability Ethics. Cairns’ article is a very good summary of what biologists like Ed Wilson are really writing about. Highly recommended … because Cairns’ reasoning, scholarship, science, and economics *ALL* are sound.

    Conclusion  Your “gut extinct” should warn you to be wary of poorly-referenced, cherry-picked, out-of-context (pseudo?)-quotations on WUWT!

    Perhaps Anthony and Willis should post another apology for their scholarly missteps?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • DCA | January 25, 2013 at 3:33 pm |

      Why don’t you go to WUWT and address Wilis directly.

      • John | January 25, 2013 at 4:19 pm |

        Yeah and at least there leave the annoying hearts, exclamation marks and smileys behind, so maybe somebody there will take you seriously…

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 4:38 pm |

        John recommends: “leave the annoying hearts, exclamation marks and smileys behind, so maybe somebody there will take you seriously…

        John, it’s the scholarly references, that document WUWT‘s various errors, infelicities, and illogicalities, that Willis and Anthony should take seriously, eh?

        And of course, everyone here on Climate Etc should take them seriously too!

        As for smileys, they do no harm … and they cheerfully signify that a logical argument and/or a verifiable scholarly reference may be lurking nearby!

        As in the present post, eh? \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • John | January 25, 2013 at 4:51 pm |

        @smileyface,
        Through all the smileys, bold fonts and exlamation points I vaguely catch something about the phrase “sixth term” being used, which apparently is distracting some from the core of Willis’ argument about the ridiculous percentage of 2,7% of all species disappearing yearly….try writing “red herring” in bold-italic-blue-color-with-a-smiley-face-clown-hat-before-and-aft.

      • Scott Basinger | January 27, 2013 at 8:03 pm |

        They ran out of emoticons.

    • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 5:47 pm |

      fan,

      either you enjoy posting bs or you are simply incompetent.

      It doesn’t take but a few minutes to confirm that Wilson has used the term sixth wave. Whether he was the first isn’t relevant. What is relevant to the discussion is that the term is widely in use and the idea that the planet is facing mass extinctions of species is repeatedly expoused.

      http://old.fnps.org/palmetto/taylor_syd_does_life_on_earth_have_a_future__notes_from_the_conference_keynote_address_by_stuart_l_pimm_phd_vol_21_no_1_november_2001.pdf

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earth-faces-catastrophic-loss-of-species-408605.html

      http://science.blogdig.net/archives/articles/November2006/11/Eremozoic_Era.html

      • Streetcred | January 25, 2013 at 6:19 pm |

        The consensus is that ‘fan’ is a weak kneed coward who won’t address his BS at the appropriate blog … like sniping from behind the curtain and giggling like a school girl … all that smiley rubbish!

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 6:30 pm |

        Timg56 asserts: “Fan, either you enjoy posting bs or you are simply incompetent. It doesn’t take but a few minutes to confirm that Wilson has used the term ‘Sixth Wave’.”

        That’s odd … precisely *none* of your links document Ed Wilson’s use of the term “Sixth Wave.” Why is that, Timg56?

        Note  An academic “quote” has a standard meaning: the person used that phrase verbatim in a verifiable publication. `Cuz otherwise, careless and/or forgetful and/or agenda-driven writers could just claim any old phrase was a quote, eh?

        For folks who don’t like to read Ed Wilson’s scientific works (Willis, is that you?), here’s a Library of Congress video Ed Wilson speaking about his deepest (mixed conservative/liberal/scientific/religious!) beliefs.

        What Climate Etc readers will see is the real Ed Wilson, who is a wider deeper broader person than the narrow-minded/narrow-hearted imaginary Ed Wilson that WUWT tries to fob off on its readers. Enjoy! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 7:21 pm |

        fan,

        looks like you are out to show us it is incompetence.

        The first linked article is a keynote address where Dr Pimm quotes Dr Wilson. Now, is it possible that Dr Pimm was in error? Perhaps.

        The second article references Dr Wilson’s claim or 30,000 species a year going extinct. OK, there is no direct quote regarding “sixth wave of extinction”, but it is clear that Dr Wilson is of the opinion that species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate.

        The third linked article includes a defintion of a term – from a Wilson paper, that uses the phrase sixth wave.

        So your claim above is in error. Which is not surprising, as you are often in error here. Only one of the links can be said not to document his use of the term. One could possibly be argued whether it does, but that would be one of those semmantics thingy’s you mentioned elsewhere as being on a check list for moderating away posts. That leaves one that is undeniably documentation of his use.

        I must say that one thought I repeatedly return to whenever I see you trying to argue a postion (at least I’m assuming that is what you are doing) is that our son made a smart choice in attending WSU.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 7:36 pm |

        • Links reviewed by timg56 : three

        • Links authored by Ed Wilson: zero of three

        • Usages by Ed Wilson of “sixth wave”: zero of three

        Still, it’s never a mistake for folks to read, for themselves, Ed Wilson’s own words — not pale ideologically-distorted filterings of those words — or listen to Ed Wilson lecture in his own voice.

        So thank you, timg56, for working so effectively to cultivate *more* rational discourse here on Climate Etc! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 7:39 pm |

        fan,

        care to tell us what my ideology is?

      • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 7:48 pm |

        fan,

        from Dr Wilson’s book The Creation:

        Eremozoic Era (ehre mo ZO ik) [Origin: EO Wilson, 2006]

        noun.

        the age of loneliness.
        the upcoming biological age after the sixth great extinction, when earth will be depauperate of nearly all life due to human activities.
        Usage: The human hammer having fallen, the sixth mass extinction has begun. This spasm of permanent loss is expected, if it is not abated, to reach the end-of-Mesozoic level by the end of the century. We will then enter what poets and scientists alike may choose to call the Eremozoic Era — The Age of Loneliness.”

        Dr Wilson sounds like someone I’d like to meet.

        You sound like someone to toss the scraps of organic waste at which my wife puts in zip lock bags and makes me take down to Portland to use as compost.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 7:53 pm |

        timg56 requests  “fan, care to tell us what my ideology is?”

        LOL … Timg56, please let me confess plainly, that I am no more qualified to speak to your ideology, than Willis Eschenbach/Anthony Watts/WUWT is qualified to speak of Ed Wilson’s.

        The main difference is, I’ve got sense enough not to guess about your beliefs. Whereas with regard to Ed Wilson’s beliefs, well … Ed speaks plainly enough for himself, eh?

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

        morediscourse@tradermail.info
        A fan of *MORE* discourse

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 8:09 pm |

        Timg56 confesses “Dr Wilson sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

        Yah, sure, you betcha (as we Swedes say). Beginning at minute 8:20: “The ideal scientists first thinks like a poet, then works like a bookkeeper, and finally, writes like a journalist.”

        It doesn’t get much better than that, does it tim56? \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Robert I Ellison | January 25, 2013 at 10:33 pm |

        The following are excerpts from E.O. Wilson’s acclaimed book The Diversity of Life. In this 1992 work, Wilson reflects on the evolution of life and man’s destruction of the natural world.

        **

        The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us, grace of mankind. Earth has at last acquired a force that can break the crucible of biodiversity. The creation of that diversity came slow and hard: 3 billion years of evolution to start the profusion of animals that occupy the seas, another 350 million years to assemble the rain forests in which half or more of the species on earth now live. There was a succession of dynasties.

        One can hardly doubt that global extinctions are continuing – but they are are not anything to do with global warming. Indeed – we have lost a generation in framing the wrong responses to the wrong problem.

    • DocMartyn | January 25, 2013 at 6:50 pm |

      http://eowilsonfoundation.org/the-diversity-of-life

      E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
      “The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us, grace of mankind. Earth has at last acquired a force that can break the crucible of biodiversity. The creation of that diversity came slow and hard: 3 billion years of evolution to start the profusion of animals that occupy the seas, another 350 million years to assemble the rain forests in which half or more of the species on earth now live. There was a succession of dynasties.”

      http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html
      “There is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that Earth is currently faced with a mounting loss of species that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past. As long ago as 1993, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that Earth is currently losing something on the order of 30,000 species per year — which breaks down to the even more daunting statistic of some three species per hour. Some biologists have begun to feel that this biodiversity crisis — this “Sixth Extinction” — is even more severe, and more imminent, than Wilson had supposed.”

      http://www.rewilding.org/thesixthgreatextinction.htm

      “A few biologists—including geneticist Michael Soulè (who was later the founder of the Society for Conservation Biology) and Harvard’s famed E. O. Wilson—put these worrisome anecdotes and bits of data together. They knew, through paleontological research by others, that in the 570 million years or so of the evolution of modern animal phyla there had been five great extinction events. The last happened 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous when dinosaurs became extinct. Wilson and company calculated that the current rate of extinction is one thousand to ten thousand times the background rate of extinction in the fossil record.

      That discovery hit with all the subtlety of an asteroid striking Earth: RIGHT NOW, TODAY, LIFE FACES THE SIXTH GREAT EXTINCTION EVENT IN EARTH HISTORY. ”

      http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/extinction/index.html

      “We’re in the midst of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction crisis. Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson estimates that 30,000 species per year (or three species per hour) are being driven to extinction. Compare this to the natural background rate of one extinction per million species per year, and you can see why scientists refer to it as a crisis unparalleled in human history.”

      http://www.myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=Wilson_EO

      “Edward Osborn Wilson is working to merge evolution and faith in a desperate attempt to save the planet from what he calls the sixth extinction, the greatest catastrophe to hit earth since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. ”

      You are a disgrace.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 7:21 pm |

        • Links supplied by DocMartyn: five

        • Links authored by Ed Wilson: one out of five

        • Usage of the term “Sixth Wave”: zero out of five

        It’s surprising that so many folks here on Climate Etc have trouble grasping what the word “quote” means … fortunately, whenever Ed Wilson writes or speaks on subject of extinction, what he says is well-worth reading … because Wilson’s deep wisdom shows us plainly the scientific shallowness and moral short-sightedness of WUWT-style rate-quibbling and cherry-picking.

        So thank you for those excellent thoughtful links, DocMartyn! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • DocMartyn | January 25, 2013 at 7:32 pm |

        The opening line of the E. O. Wilson FOUNDATION begins

        “The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us, grace of mankind. Earth has at last acquired a force that can break the crucible of biodiversity.”

        and you quibble. You are utter scum.

      • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 7:37 pm |

        Doc,

        fan will argue that this does not meet his standard for being a quote

        http://raysweb.net/specialplaces/pages/wilson.html

        It is true that he does not use the exact phrase sixth wave, but he does talk about a new era of extinction. If one counts the previously identified waves, they should hit the number 6. Amazing, huh?

        The fact that Dr Wilson is renowned in his field of study, has had an impressive career and is by all accounts I’ve read, a wonderful human being (and who knows, perhaps even more pleasant company than Willis), is not proof that he is incapable of making statements or holding opinions that may not be well supported by the evidence. And that is Willis’ point. That claims by Dr Wilson and others regarding the planet facing a new, unprecendented, wave of extinctions do not add up.

        To expect fan to address that point is likely a futile wish.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2013 at 7:43 pm |

        DocMartyn, it appears that you (and Willis Eschenbach) are having great difficulty in locating even *one* use by Ed Wilson of the imputed (by Willis) phrase “Sixth Wave”.

        Gee … maybe that’s because Ed Wilson’s real messages are quite different from the messages of ignorance and hate that Wilson’s cherry-picking ideological opponents impute to him?

        So why not open your mind and your heart, DocMartyn? You might like the result! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Steven Mosher | January 25, 2013 at 9:01 pm |

        In the words of anthony, Wilson never said sixth wave

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 9:09 am |

        What a lapse that he never said it. Does he still have time?
        ============

      • Tom | January 26, 2013 at 9:44 am |

        E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
        “The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us, grace of mankind…. There was a succession of dynasties.”

        Made in China
        or
        you know the one

      • Dennis | January 26, 2013 at 10:21 am |

        Help me here Fan, is a wave worse than a spasm?

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 10:28 am |

        So which is sillier and more absurd, the ‘sixth-wave’ concept, or Phan One’s defense.
        ===========

    • Canman | January 25, 2013 at 11:01 pm |

      Here’s a YouTube video about it;

    • logicalchemist | January 26, 2013 at 11:25 am |

      As best I can figure out John Cairn’s article “The Unmanaged Commons – A Major Challenge for Sustainability Ethics” promotes maintaining a static environment. This argument ignores the proven fact that “the environment” never was and never will be static. One only has to look at the geologic record to see that major ecolgical changes have taken place many times in history- starting before the first stirrings of life and continuing in until now. The scale of past environment changes is staggering- the earth has a mass of ~5.8 x 10^24. The mass of carbonate- CO2 ion, is ~ 0.2 x 10^24kg. The amount of CO2 produced by man, ~12 gigatons/year 1.2 x 10^12 kg, isn’t even a rounding error by 7 orders of magnitude. Crustal movements process something like 50 cubic kilometers a year- 20 x 10^12 kg/yr. So at best we can say that woman’s and man’s impact on the earth approximates that of plate tectonics.

      Point by point-
      -oppose any activities that impair the integrity of the global commons….?what constitutes the “integrity” of an ever-changing complex system? I have no idea either.
      -improve my environmental literacy so that I am aware of threats to the global commons….there are few things that can threaten the global environment- a large meteor impact, a super-volcano eruption, a nearby supernova, a major change in the sun. Even explosion of every nuclear device on the planet would affect the environment for only a few thousand years. Extremely uncomfortable for mankind perhaps, but life and the environment would survive..
      -oppose any further increase of the human population on this finite planet….the population is on track to stabilize at ~9 billion if the underdeveloped nations are allowed to continue their development. Easily within manageable carrying capacity and likely to occur within the next 50 years if it is not stopped.
      – oppose a laissez faire market system ruled by conscience alone, since it rewards for lack of conscience….Global management of the economy by an uncontrolled(i.e. unelected by the people and not otherwise controlled) organization also rewards lack of conscience. One only has to look at the rapacious corruption in the United Nations and the threat of its uncontrolled expansion.
      -oppose all activities that diminish posterity’s use of the commons….barring a catastrophe mentioned above, the commons will always be there.
      -country that attempts to solve its population problems by exporting people….countries don’t export people. People are the most valuable resource they have. People export themselves seeking better conditions.
      -social arrangements that enhance responsibility for the global commons…..see comments on the UN. Unrestricted control by any entity group, or social arrangement is far more likely to damage the future environment than any individual actors.
      -global commons is effectively limited in its capacity to accommodate use……capacity is determined by technology. Even applies to the stone age. They traded choice flint for weapons and other valuables like shells, pearls, gold and silver across thousands of kilometers. More technology and more use of energy increases the size of the global commons.
      -the “right” to use the global commons must be matched by an operational responsibility to nurture and care for it-…..only if you can come up with an operational definition of “nuture and care for it”.
      -global tragedy is the price that will be paid for misuse of the commons…..global tragedy would also come from over-zealous centralized controls that limit us from expanding our economies into space.
      -I will not be misled by accusations of uncertainty and “unsound science” by those who benefit from the status quo…..I also will not be misled by uncertain, unsound science promulgated by those who benefit from it.
      -on a planet with diminishing natural capital, humankind cannot be governed by ethics that ignore natural systems (ecosystems) and posterity…..the natural capital only diminishes when new technology is not allowed to flourish. Mankind has shown a remarkable capacity to enhance and improve the environment and correct actual hazards of new technologies.
      -the basic theorem of ecology that one can never do merely one thing…..trying to maintain a static ecology is inherently impossible. It is the one thing that will guarantee a disaster through restriction of adaptability.
      -that access to the resources of the global commons must be controlled (i.e., managed) so that the unscrupulous do not destroy them….the access to the global commons must be managed by free trade and interchange between individuals to limit the damage done by uncontrolled and unscrupulous large groups.
      -that food and other resources should never be sent to any population that has exceeded the carrying capacity….this is patently ridiculous. It would mean the abandonment of every area with a population of over 2-3 people per hectare.
      -Management of the global commons now appears heretical, but, as the ecological collapse continues, it may increasingly appeal to common sense…..I see little sign of collapse but many signs of unrestricted self aggrandizment from groups and organizations. The best approach to maintain a desireable environment is to increase the use of energy and spread it’s use as widely as possible to increase the quality of life and the adaptability of people to the changes that will inevitably occur in the environment.

      • DocMartyn | January 26, 2013 at 1:56 pm |

        There are currently 1.9 million identified, with a total of 9 million guesstimated. According to E. O. Wilson, the average time of a species is a million years; at steady state we should be able to observe 10 speciation events a year and the extinction of 10 species per year.

      • Faustino | January 26, 2013 at 9:25 pm |

        logicalchemist, I propose that you be made head of all Green organisations, with unlimited powers to determine their policy. That should fix it.

    • DCA | January 26, 2013 at 6:37 pm |

      Fan,
      Using your line of logic, one could say that Willis never meant to “quote” Dr. Wilson. If you’re so hung up on “verbatim” and “quote”, then how do you get the idea that Willis was doing this? In your first post you wrote, “I did not recall him ever using a phrase as imprecise as “Sixth Wave”(my emphasis). Did you really mean “precise”?

      From the links and paragraphs from his books above Dr. Wilson clearly talks about a “sixth great extinction” . It is also clear that Dr. Pimm thought Dr. Wilson used the phrase because he wrote, “E.O. Wilson,…….., calls it the “sixth wave of extinction”” . Do you think Dr. Pimm owes Dr. Wilson an apology or has Dr. Wilson demanded that Dr. Pimm correct the quote? Any reasonable person would think that Dr. Pimm was paraphrasing the quote, “sixth great extinction” and it seems others have used this phrase because it might be more of a catch-phrase and has become more like a simile or metaphor with the word “wave” being the metaphor.

      Willis wrote “He claimed there was a “Sixth Wave” of extinctions going on”. He didn’t use the term “said” like Dr. Pimm did. He used “claimed”. Willis did use quotation marks but like Dr. Pimm he was probably paraphrasing the concept, “sixth great extinction”, and Dr. Wilson was clearly one of the first to be outspoken about the issue.

      You really sound like a criminal defense trial lawyer who is trying to get a defendant caught red handed and has confessed to a crime but now has a change of heart because his lawyer can’t stand to lose a case. If the denizens on Climate Etc are the jury, it sure doesn’t look like you’re going to win this one but no one can say you didn’t earn you fee, counselor.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 26, 2013 at 9:07 pm |

        DCA posts “If the denizens on Climate Etc are the jury [on whether Willis quoted and/or summarized Wilson properly] it sure doesn’t look like you’re going to win this “ LOL … it’s a pleasure to accept your advice DCA!

        Climate Etc readers are hereby encouraged to carefully compare:

        • Ed Wilson’s real views on extinction, with

        • WUWT‘s distorted summary of those views.

        All who read both accounts carefully, will learn much about Ed Wilson and the practices of science from the former … and much about WUWT and the practices of denialism from the latter!

        Now let the Climate Etc jury commence deliberation! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • DCA | January 29, 2013 at 8:58 am |

        Willis wrote about this two years ago here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/ and Dr. Craig Loehle rewrote and developed the ideas, and got it peer-reviewed and published in Diversity and Distributions, available here: http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3463

        The jury has already rendered its verdict not only at the D&D journal but the vast majority of the 321 comments of WUWT along with practically all the comments here on Climate Etc.

        Sorry counselor, you lose. I guess you can always appeal the verdict again because it’s already been appealed three times now, once at the D&D journal, once at WUWT last week and a third time here on Climate Etc.

      • DCA | January 29, 2013 at 9:15 am |

        Fan,

        There is an old trial lawyers’ saying “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.”

        I hope you don’t hurt yourself pounding your fists.

    • Scott Basinger | January 27, 2013 at 8:07 pm |

      “The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us,”

      I think you need some more hairs to split. This just makes you look sillier than you normally do, Fan.

  7. Rob Bradley | January 25, 2013 at 3:30 pm |

    Chip Knappenberger in the Wall Street Journal today looks at the tempeaature effect from the Keystone XL pipeline oil being burned in the U.S.: 0.00001 C/year.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323940004578256270618537596.html.

    And assuming that the oil would be burned in part or total outside of the U.S. if Keystone XL were not built, this number would be much smaller.

    So what is the fuss about, again?

    • harrywr2 | January 25, 2013 at 4:13 pm |

      There is not temperature effect from the Keystone Pipeline.

      Pipelines are merely the ‘preferred method’ to move liquids. Rail works equally well.

      The discussion about Keystone isn’t whether the oil gets burned…it’s whether it gets hauled by railroad or pipeline.

      The cost differential is at most $3/barrel.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 4:35 pm |

        Wouldn’t it have a lower carbon footprint by pipeline? Efficiency is a big consideration.

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 8:18 pm |

        cap’n

        You are right, of course.

        More fossil; fuel based energy is required to move oil by tank truck, rail car or tanker ship than by pipeline.

        Don’t have the rail plus tanker (via Vancouver and the Panama Canal to Houston or Vancouver Long Beach and Houston by rail car), but.

        Moving the 830,000 bbl/day crude to Houston by:

        tank truck would generate around 3 million tons CO2 per year, and by
        rail car would generate around 1.8 million tons CO2 per year

        You’d have to subtract the CO2 generated to pump the oil via pipeline, but this is a relatively small number.

        So the Keystone pipeline would reduce CO2 emissions compared to moving Canadian crude to Houston via rail car or tank truck.

        Max

  8. David Wojick | January 25, 2013 at 3:49 pm |

    Speaking of extinctions the UN is cloning the IPCC with a new biodiversity assessment group. http://www.ipbes.net/about-ipbes.html says this:

    “Biodiversity from terrestrial, marine, coastal, and inland water ecosystems provides the basis for ecosystems and the services they provide that underpin human well-being. However, biodiversity and ecosystem services are declining at an unprecedented rate, and in order to address this challenge, adequate local, national and international policies need to be adopted and implemented. To achieve this, decision makers need scientifically credible and independent information that takes into account the complex relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and people. They also need effective methods to interpret this scientific information in order to make informed decisions. The scientific community also needs to understand the needs of decision makers better in order to provide them with the relevant information. In essence, the dialogue between the scientific community, governments, and other stakeholders on biodiversity and ecosystem services needs to be strengthened.

    To this end, a new platform has been established by the international community – the ‘Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES).”

    Robert Watson, who helped found the IPCC, is helping found IPBES. Many scary assessments to follow. All unprecedented of course.

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:42 pm |

      Sir Robert “the science is settled” Watson, the guy also who pulled a “7C warming by 2100” prediction out of a dark spot where the sun never shines, in order to frighten the AGU attendees in San Francisco last year?

      Wow!

      Like General Douglas MacArthur, some of these “old soldiers (in the war against global warming) never die”.

      Max

      • David Wojick | January 26, 2013 at 1:18 pm |

        Watson got his start organizing the big scary science report on stratospheric ozone that put the Montreal Protocol over the top. That became the model for the IPCC and so it goes, year after year, decade after decade, green without end.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:23 pm |

        But now it’s become an ‘Open Threat Weakened’.
        ==================

    • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:01 am |

      Global warming increases sustaining capacity for all life and increases the diversity of life. To the extent there is an anthropogenic component to the increase it is all to the good. Besides, the fertilizing effect of this anthropogenic CO2 seems to be even more effective than its warming effect, thus increasing total life and diversity of life by synergy.

      Atmospheric CO2, in virtually perpetual free fall, has just had a dead cat bounce, fortunately rebounding off the resilience of the human species and spirit.
      ==============

      • Anteros | January 26, 2013 at 4:28 am |

        “…Co2, in virtually perpetual freefall..”

        On the mark, spot on and in the bullseye. How many ppm back in the ‘old’ days? 200,000? 300,000?

        There has been a long, chaotic, variable – but relentless – decline throughout the history of the planet..

        And Lo! We unwittingly (but fortuitously) provide a temporary boost for the benefit of not only ourselves, but the generality of life on earth.

        And what cries do we hear?? “All change is bad! Change due to Hom Saps is necessarily terrible and catastrophic!!!”

        ***

        Methinks they doth protest too much.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 10:39 am |

        You know a religion is doomed when the heretics have the ear of Gaia.
        =========================

      • andrew adams | January 26, 2013 at 12:11 pm |

        On the mark, spot on and in the bullseye. How many ppm back in the ‘old’ days? 200,000? 300,000?

        Citation needed.

      • Anteros | January 28, 2013 at 5:00 am |

        “Citation needed”

        Indeed not – it was a question. How many ppm?

        Perhaps you’d be better thinking (yourself) when your best guess is as to when the CO2 content of the atmosphere was 250,000ppm? And if you haven’t got a clue or don’t want to guess it really doesn’t matter. The (important, in case you didn’t get it) point is that it is a mere fraction of what it once was.

        Which leads to the undeniable statement “It has been falling” [relentlessly]

      • andrew adams | January 28, 2013 at 5:26 am |

        Well it certainly hasn’t been anywhere near that level in the last 500m years, in fact it probably hasn’t been above 7,000ppm during that time.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere

        We have pushed up CO2 levels to the highest they have been in more than 10m years. It’s true that CO2 levels have been higher during much of the time before that, but then the world was different in many ways and that was long before humans came onto the scene, so it doesn’t say anything about our ability to withstand the effects of current (and increasing) levels.

      • andrew adams | January 28, 2013 at 6:47 am |

        Actually that last remark may not be totally true. If, for example, the historical record were to indicate that we are likely to see a substantial rise in sea levels with higher CO2 levels then that would be relevant.

      • Anteros | January 28, 2013 at 2:46 pm |

        Fair points aa, but when you say that sea level rise would be ‘relevant’, my feeling is that in reality it would be relatively unimportant. We’ve had an average of about 6mm per year over the last 15,000 years (300 feet) and humanity has barely noticed. Of course, it’s easy to imagine problems – catastrophes, even – but human adaptability is immense, and I think sea level rises will always rank low on the list of things human beings have to worry about.
        3000 children die every day from diarrhoea, and our imagination concerns itself with the fact that some people may (or may not) have to move from where they are living in 30 or 40 or 50 years time? For me it is always a question of perspective – and recognising that however powerful is the force of imagination, [see the long and embarrassing history of scares, and predictions of imminent disaster] reality trundles along regardless – with much more significant events passing us by.

      • andrew adams | January 28, 2013 at 5:15 pm |

        Anteros,

        First of all, it’s a bit misleading to say we’ve had 6mm slr a year for the last 15,000 years when the large majority of that happened prior to 7,000 years ago. For the last few thousand years sea levels have been fairly stable.
        And it’s nothing to do with imagining problems, it’s about making observations which lead to the conclusion that such problems are a real possibility, likelihood even.
        It’s perfectly possible to worry both about problems that are occurring now and those that might occur further into the future. The thing is, if you don’t worry about future problems then suddenly they become today’s problems and you run out of time to do anything about them. And people having to leave their homes is a problem if there are very large numbers of them and there are not many places for them to go, especially if they are relatively poor.

  9. Manfred | January 25, 2013 at 4:13 pm |

    As I haven’t yet seen a simple computation with the new data, I tried it by myself. My result is very close to Nic Lewis’ estimate. I also included the new black carbon forcing estimate which will further reduce CO2 sensitivity by almost 20%. Computations are based on IPCC data + additional estimate with latest black carbon forcng..

    The estimates including black carbon are
    Transient climate sensitivity : 0.83 K
    Equilibrium climate sensitivity : 1.35 K

    Remarks:
    Transient sensitivity below AR4 “very likely” range.
    Equilibrium sensitivity in AR4 “very unlikely” range.

    Computation

    CO2 Climate Sensitivity from Instrumental Temperature Record and based on IPCC Data

    What is the best time span for an estimate ?

    1945-2005

    Why ?

    1. CO2 increase from 1750-1945 was only 30 ppm (280-310 ppm) but took off after 1945.
    2. Minimizes influence of PDO/AMO decadal oszillations, as they were in very similar phases at 1945 and 2005.

    CO2 @ 1945: 310 ppm
    CO2 @ 2005: 380 ppm

    380/310 = 1.226

    1.226^3.4 = 2.

    Due to logarithmic temperature increase, temperature difference has then to be multiplied with 3.4 to compute sensitivity for CO2 doubling.

    HadCrut global temperature increase 1945 –2005: 0.4 Kelvin
    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl

    How to compute equilibrium sensitivity from transient climate sensitivity ?

    Quote IPCC AR4
    “Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a most likely value of about 3°C, based upon multiple observational and modelling constraints. It is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. {8.6, 9.6, Box 10.2}
    The transient climate response is better constrained than the equilibrium climate sensitivity. It is very likely larger than 1°C and very unlikely greater than 3°C. {10.5}“

    Take quotient of mean values:
    S(equilibrium) / S(transient) = 0.5*(4.5+2) / 0.5*(3+1) = 1.62

    Sensitivity Estimates
    —————————-

    IPCC AR4 Estimate

    IPCC AR4 total net forcing was assumed to be about equal to CO2 forcing.
    Attribute all incease to CO2.
    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/faq-2-1-figure-2.jpeg

    AR4 transient climate sensitivity : 0.4 K * 3.4 = 1.36 K
    AR4 equilibrium climate sensitivity : 1.36 K * 1.62 = 2.2 K

    IPCC AR5 Estimate

    CO2 forcing only about 0.75 of total forcing due to reduced aerosol cooling.
    http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/ScreenShot2012-12-13at43419PM_zps4a925dbf.png

    AR5 transient climate sensitivity : 0.4 K * 3.4 * 0.75 = 1.02 K
    AR5 equilibrium climate sensitivity : 1.02 K * 1.62 * 0.75 = 1.65 K

    Remark: transient sensitivity at the edge of AR4 “very likely” range.

    State of the Art Estimate

    Due to black carbon forcing doubled, CO2 forcing is only about 61% of total forcing
    (Black carbon forcing about doubled to about 1.1, add 0.55 to AR5 total forcing)
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50171/abstract
    http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/ScreenShot2012-12-13at43419PM_zps4a925dbf.png

    Transient climate sensitivity : 0.4 K * 3.4 * 0.61 = 0.83 K
    Equilibrium climate sensitivity : 0.83 K * 1.62 * 0.61 = 1.35 K

    Remarks:
    Transient sensitivity below AR4 “very likely” range.
    Equilibrium sensitivity in AR4 “very unlikely” range.

    Possible further corrections:

    Temperature increase 1945 –2005: 0.25 K instead of 0.4 K

    Reasons:

    Overwriting of SST meta data without proper reason after 1941 (increased SST warming from about 0.2 K to 0.3 K)
    http://climateaudit.org/2011/07/12/hadsst3/
    See “The new HadSST3 dataset still contains some seemingly arbitrary assumptions…” and subsequent text.

    UHI warming not accounted for (about half of land warming since 1979 due to UHI / non-climatic contamination):
    http://www.webcommentary.com/docs/rrm-pjm-1207.pdf
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/

    Best Transient climate sensitivity : 0.25 K * 3.4 * 0.61 = 0.52 K
    Best Equilibrium climate sensitivity : 0.52 K * 1.62 * 0.61 = 0.84 K

    Best estimate probably still too high due to missing solar amplifier consideration. (IPCC forcing universe cannot explain Medieval, Roman, Minoan and other Warm Periods.)

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 5:01 pm |

      Manfred

      Interesting calculation.

      Let’s see if one of the CAGW supporters takes a crack at refuting it.

      Max

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 5:51 pm |

      Manfred

      OK. I’ve gone through your calculation.

      There are a couple of minor “typos” in the text, which do not change the results, however.

      In the “IPCC AR5 estimate” for ECS:
      AR5 ECS = 1.02K*1.62*0.75 = 1.65K

      In the “State of the Art estimate for ECS:
      ECS = 0.83K*1.62*0.61 = 1.35K

      In the “Possible Further Correction” estimate for ECS:
      Best ECS = 0.52K*1.62*0.61 = 0.84K

      You will probably get some flak from CAGW supporters on the adjusted “warming since 1945” and/or the “UHI correction”, but the rest seems pretty straightforward to me and hard to argue with.

      Let’s see if anyone tries.

      Max

  10. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 5:36 pm |

    Auditors might appreciate this brief, via Rattus Norvegius at Eli’s:

    > [A] audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Charles Koch who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 5:53 pm |

      Willard

      Are you referring to BEST donors?

      Max

    • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 5:54 pm |

      I am shocked. This is likely just the tip of the iceburg, as long as they have money they are likely to do more. It is time to take control of Koch Industries and all the other Big industry giants and make them state owned since they obviously know nothing about science, the environment and likely are white, male and Christian.

    • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 5:56 pm |

      willard,

      try following the embedded links.

      The one where some guy at Drexel “estimates” $500 million in funding – it leads to another Independant article dated 1/25, which is basically the same story line as the article from the 24th, only with Michael Mann making another of his usually whiny appearances. Nothing in support of the $500 million estimate is provided.

      I could estimate the length of my tallywacker at 10 1/2 inches. Doesn’t make it so. I’m willing to bet my estimate, though off, is closer to being accurate than the $500 million one.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 5:59 pm |

        I believe you are referring to this cameo appearance, timg56:

        > The trust has given money to the Competitive Enterprise Institute which is currently being sued for defamation by Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania University, an eminent climatologist, whose affidavit claims that he was accused of scientific fraud and compared to a convicted child molester.

        Now, where was the last time I heard someone talking about scientific fraud?

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 6:07 pm |

        Willard, Mann’s affidavit claims he was accused of scientific fraud. I think he was actually accused of being a scientific joke with no sense of humor which is more like defamation of Nobel prize almost winner character.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:15 pm |

        It’s OK for you to think that, Cap’N. You’re just mad.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 6:19 pm |

        Willard, “It’s OK for you to think that, Cap’N. You’re just mad.” Must be because of all the Coke I was forced to drink due to deceptive advertizing :)

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:20 pm |

        Willard

        Let’s see how “eminent climatologist” and Nobelist, Michael (the “shtick”) Mann’s, libel suit ends up.

        I’m not taking any bets.

        The US tort law system is even wackier than the GISS temperature record.

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:46 pm |

        I don’t believe your madness is related to my high-fructose-syrop beverage of choice, Cap’n.

        Tony’s Making Me Do It.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 12:56 am |

        Hey, I once nearly bought a cell of that cola’s Ice Bear.
        ===========

    • John Carpenter | January 25, 2013 at 6:03 pm |

      Ah yes, the Koch brothers conspiracy. They are definitely at the root of evil climate denialism. How far and wide thier reach, only astute auditors will know.

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:05 pm |

      For reference, here’s the 25/1 article timg56 kindly suggested we read:

      > Commentators believe that it is becoming increasingly common for wealthy individuals with vested interests in fossil fuels to fund climate-change scepticism anonymously through labyrinthine financial arrangements. The Donors Trust is one way of doing this. It is a “donors-advised fund” and has special status under the US tax system, giving its wealthy donors anonymity as well as highly beneficial tax concessions.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/top-climate-scientist-denounces-billionaires-over-funding-for-climatesceptic-organisations-8467665.html

      Absolutely open science. Labyrinthine financial arrangements. What would be the average?

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:13 pm |

      A not so old study by Drexler:

      > A new study conducted by Dr. Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, along with Jason Carmichael of McGill University and J. Craig Jenkins of Ohio State University, set out to identify the informational, cultural and political processes that influence public concern about climate change. The study, which was published today in Climatic Change, one of the top 10 climate science journals in the world, reveals that the driving factor that most influences public opinion on climate change is the mobilizing efforts of advocacy groups and elites.

      http://www.drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2012/February/Bob-Brulle-Climate-Change-Study/

      If that conclusion is OK, no wonder there are so many ClimateBallers. Which is OK, since they’re all mad.

      We also note the name of Dr. Shaun Lovejoy’s alma mater.

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:30 pm |

        Willard

        You are hitting the jackpot with your “conspiracy” theories!

        Max

      • kim | January 25, 2013 at 6:33 pm |

        Look, those evil brothers have amplified the effect of their money with a global temperature standstill. Isn’t that against the tax code or should be?
        ============

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:51 pm |

        Perhaps you should stick to your eyeballing, demands for future evidence, model bashing (except for your precious Lewis) and talk of CAGW assumptions, MiniMax.

        I’m no Zeke.

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:52 pm |

        kim

        It’s shocking!

        Not only is this “conspiracy” trying to thwart communication of scientific concerns about rampant human-induced global warming, it is undermining the very foundation of the scientific consensus by stopping the warming itself.

        Glad Willard brought this “conspiracy” to our attention.

        It must be squashed immediately!

        It is of urgent priority that global warming be made to resume immediately, even if this requires a massive use of taxpayer funding.

        Max

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 6:54 pm |

        Willard

        You state that you are no Zeke.

        No.

        You sure as hell aren’t.

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 6:56 pm |

        You have been forewarned, MiniMax.

        Thank you for playing.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 6:59 pm |

        Kim, Max, Willard is on to something. Koch is pronounced “coke” and Willard has already discovered that Coke is trying to get future generations to consume there products. It is almost like people in business like to stay in business. What bast$$ds!

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 7:08 pm |

        Cap’n

        You write that “Willard is on to something” and mention “coke” in the same sentence.

        Is that what he’s on?

        Does that explain his erratic posts?

        I thought he’d just OD’d on IPCC hubris.

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 7:09 pm |

        Nice catch, Cap’n!

        Why do we talk of the “bitter truth” when it tastes so sweet?

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 7:20 pm |

        Willard, “Why do we talk of the “bitter truth” when it tastes so sweet?” Luckily Pepsico can be trusted, they donated about 5% more to the DNC.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 7:30 pm |

        Seems that the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation agree with you there, Cap’n:

        > Many of the arguments were drafted on behalf of the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation by Coca-Cola’s law firm, King & Spalding. For years, each group has received donations from Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., but Hispanic Federation President Jose Calderon told the Daily News that those contributions had no impact on their decision to join the lawsuit against the city.

        http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/naacp-hispanic-federation-fight-soda-restrictions-article-1.1247187

      • timg56 | January 25, 2013 at 7:59 pm |

        Dr Brulle’s (et al) study sounds reasonable. What i didn’t see was any reference to the $500 million figure. Nor did I see anything about advocacy being one-sided. But then the article didn’t link to the paper (or I missed it.)

        Is the average citizen swayed by advocacy groups? If they weren’t, we wouldn’t see so many of them or so much money being spent. The question is, Is one side dominating the debate? The argument for Big Oil / Fossil Fuel / Koch brothers appears to have more basis in conspiracy thinking than fact.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 8:17 pm |

        timg56,

        There is no immediate relationship between Brulle’s estimate and its other study. Strange that this estimate is not backed up by anything more substantial.

        I cited the study because I found its result surprising. I also wished to mention McGill U by pure chauvinism.

        I’m not sure to which debate you are referring, though. What do you have in mind?

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 12:48 am |

        De bait and switch.
        =====

      • Henry Galt | January 26, 2013 at 5:31 am |

        “… the driving factor that most influences public opinion on climate change is the mobilizing efforts of advocacy groups and elites.”

        They got that right.

        From the UN IPCC, through ‘all the world’s Scientific Academies’ via myriad NGOs and activist groups, pliant politicians, Common Purpose and the state controlled education systems of the first world.

        Nice work if you can get it. Oh, yeah, you can. Merely state that climate change has adversely affected (insert field of interest here). Grunt, grunt, pop. Another paper to be quoted as proof that global warming is ruining all our fun. Easy really.

      • phatboy | January 26, 2013 at 5:31 am |

        I wonder who funded thatstudy?

  11. maksimovich | January 25, 2013 at 6:07 pm |

    Makarieva has been accepted and published in its final form
    http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013.html

    • curryja | January 25, 2013 at 6:33 pm |

      Guest post coming soon!

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 7:10 pm |

        Great!

        We’ll have something sensible to talk about again.

        Max

      • Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 9:48 am |

        Now some, not Eli to be sure, might think you would mention the grounds on which it was published. The editor who accepted the paper wrote
        ——————————–
        The authors have presented an entirely new view of what may be driving dynamics in the atmosphere. This new theory has been subject to considerable criticism which any reader can see in the public review and interactive discussion of the manuscript in ACPD. Normally, the negative reviewer comments would not lead to final acceptance and publication of a manuscript in ACP.

        After extensive deliberation however, the editor concluded that the revised manuscript still should be published – despite the strong criticism from the esteemed reviewers – to promote continuation of the scientific dialogue on the controversial theory. This is not an endorsement or confirmation of the theory, but rather a call for further development of the arguments presented in the paper that shall lead to conclusive disproof or validation by the scientific community. In addition to the above manuscript-specific comment from the handling editor, the following lines from the ACP executive committee shall provide a general explanation for the exceptional approach taken in this case and the precedent set for potentially similar future cases: (1) The paper is highly controversial, proposing a fundamentally new view that seems to be in contradiction to common textbook knowledge. (2) The majority of reviewers and experts in the field seem to disagree, whereas some colleagues provide support, and the handling editor (and the executive committee) are not convinced that the new view presented in the controversial paper is wrong. (3) The handling editor (and the executive committee) concluded to allow final publication of the manuscript in ACP, in order to facilitate further development of the presented arguments, which may lead to disproof or validation by the scientific community.
        =====================================

        Eli confidently looks forward to the avalanche of crank papers from the Oliver Manuals and Tallblokes of the world which will soon inundate ACP. They asked for it, go give it to them guys. The predictable outcome, of course, is that people are going to cite this example as a reason to throw ACP invitations to review into the trash pit.

      • curryja | January 26, 2013 at 10:23 am |

        A guest post from Makarieva and Shiel should be coming within the next few days, best to defer discussion on this until the topical post.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 10:34 am |

        Microclimate is what Makarieva can you get.
        ============

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 12:12 pm |

        +1

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 12:50 pm |

        The Bunny’s twitched its ears it’s wrong, but the editors aren’t convinced Makarieva’s wrong. So who are the curious, Bunny? Cats, mebbe?
        ==========

      • Dennis | January 27, 2013 at 6:24 pm |

        Eli, if you think that this getting into ACP is bad, you should see some of the stuff that is getting into IPCC. Its proof, prooooof that IPCCS voodoo science, etc.
        Is that a megaphone problem? or is that different?

    • Edim | January 26, 2013 at 7:24 am |

      From the Abstract:

      “Phase transitions of atmospheric water play a ubiquitous role in the Earth’s climate system, but their direct impact on atmospheric dynamics has escaped wide attention.”

      If it’s true that phase transitions impact has escaped wide attention (driving winds), it should be interesting discussion.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 10:36 am |

        She got eaten alive @ Id’s, and has risen cyclonically from the boney ashes. A Fire Bird.
        =======

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 12:13 pm |

        kim she got eaten alive everywhere. eli makes a good point above.

      • Edim | January 26, 2013 at 12:18 pm |

        Eli’s point is, “heretics!” and “I am afraid of scientific scrutiny”.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:01 pm |

        Go tell Aunt willard that the Old Grey Goose is dead, and the little ones chew on the bones, oh.
        =============

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 2:00 pm |

        From the Rabett’s mouth:

        > Eli confidently looks forward to the avalanche of crank papers from the Oliver Manuals and Tallblokes of the world which will soon inundate ACP. They asked for it, go give it to them guys.

        http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2013/01/atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.html

      • Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 3:23 pm |

        Eli’s point is not heretics, it’s cranks. You, of course are welcome to debate science with the dragons.

      • Edim | January 26, 2013 at 3:55 pm |

        Eli’s projecting. I am looking forward to the guest post.
        http://thd.pnpi.spb.ru/~makariev/

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 6:07 pm |

        I thought Eli’s best point was the difficult of getting reviewers. scientists will just ignore bad science that gets published, not a problem. The deeper issue I thought he was pushing at was reviewer blowback. I have less of a problem with crankery and more of a problem with good folks wasting their time ( I think reviwers should be granted the right to have a rebuttal published.. full stop no negotiation )
        on the positive side I wish more cranks would spend time detailing their crankery. it would keep them off the street …

      • Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 6:17 pm |

        More or less what Steve said, although there is the megaphone problem, see, here appearing in this distinguished journal is proooof, prooooooof, that Dr. Makarieva’s majic medicine, etc.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 7:38 pm |

        As far as I can tell, reviewers like Isaac Held here didn’t get a second shot at responding to the responses to their first comments. These responses just blew off his main points, and I am fairly sure Isaac Held would have had more to say on them given a chance. This is the unfortunate thing about the ACP procedure. If you know the reviewers aren’t going to get it back, you just have to make a half-way convincing argument to the non-expert editor, and it gets accepted. The editor is a respected aerosols guy, but this is not his field. Other journals would for sure send it back to someone who rejected it first time before publication.

      • Douglas Sheil | January 30, 2013 at 2:37 am |

        Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 6:17 pm |
        If I undertand you correctly: you imply an apparently coherent but radical theory should be rejected on principle — because it will attract questions from some ill defined group. If I read you correctly this would seem to suggest that science cannot be open to radical ideas as they will waste too much time and the effects are disruptive. Right?
        My view is that science should embrace new and stimulating ideas. That is what we do! Doesn’t mean that they will all be right — but some might might be. Its our job to find these ideas and evaluate them properly.
        I remember you gave some useful suggestions on vapour dynamics in a previous discussion.
        Thanks again for those!
        Best wishes
        Douglas

    • jim2 | January 26, 2013 at 9:46 pm |

      This does not sound like anything new, but guess we’ll see …

  12. Myrrh | January 25, 2013 at 6:36 pm |

    From a discussion elsewhere between Jim Cripwell and oneuniverse
    on the CO2 signal being indistinguisable from zero by observed data
    and a request for data – http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/12/open-thread-weekend-6/#comment-288467

    I posted a link to Bob Tisdale

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/21/noaa-sotc-claim-that-2012-was-warmest-la-nina-year-is-wrong/
    “INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE EL NIÑO AND LA NIÑA AND THEIR LONG-TERM EFFECTS ON GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES?

    “Why should you be interested? NOAA also conveniently overlooked the fact that their own datasets indicate El Niño and La Niña events, not manmade greenhouse gases, are responsible for the warming of global sea surface temperature anomalies over the past 30 years and the warming of ocean heat content in the tropics since 1955. I’ve searched sea surface temperature records and ocean heat content data for more than 4 years (more than 3 years for the ocean heat content data), and I can find no evidence of an anthropogenic greenhouse gas signal. That is, the warming of the global oceans has been caused by Mother Nature, not anthropogenic greenhouse gases.” Bob Tisdale

    And I’ll add another, an in a nutshell precis of Miskolczi by Arno Arrak

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/24/of-doric-columns-and-climate-change/#comment-1208026

    “..Already done by Ferenc Miskolczi. It’s extent is zero. In 2010 he used NOAA database of weather balloon observations to measure the absorption of long-wave radiation by the atmosphere and discovered that it had been constant for 61 years. At the same time, the amount of carbon dioxide in air increased by 21.6 percent. Greenhouse theory tells us that absorption of long-wave radiation by carbon dioxide is the energy source of global warming. But Miskolczi has proved that the added carbon dioxide had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of long-wave radiation by the atmosphere. This is an empirical observation, not derived from any theory, and it overrides any predictions from theory. Greenhouse theory is incapable of explaining it but Miskolczi shows that its cause is negative water vapor feedback. With it, the greenhouse effect is dead. And the theory of anthropogenic global warming likewise is dead. While Miskolczi is the first to use this particular database to study long-wave absorption by the atmosphere, the same analysis could have been performed even before IPCC got started. That is because in 1988, the year IPCC was established, it already contained forty years worth of observations. That would have been enough for the same analysis that Miskolczi performed in 2010. It would have proved that anthropogenic global warming does not exist and that there was no justification for starting up the IPCC. Miskolczi has been vilified and called a crackpot by true believers in the blogosphere, to the extent that opponents of global warming have been afraid to cite his work. That avoidance of Miskolczi should stop because it proves without a doubt that the so-called global warming “science” is nothing but a pseudoscience.”

    Any more to add to these?

    • lolwot | January 25, 2013 at 7:22 pm |

      yeah I think Fan (or was it someone else?) has compiled a whole list of these “ideas”

    • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 10:41 am |

      Myrrh

      That’s a compelling list of evidence supporting a GH effect of (near) zero, but I think that oneuniverse has got the scientific method backward here.

      “Null” = “zero” (in German)

      The “null” hypothesis is that increasing CO2 has “zero” effect on our planet’s climate.

      In his exchange with Jim Cripwell, it is up to oneuniverse to refute the “null” hypothesis by showing empirical evidence, which falsifies it.

      It is NOT up to Jim Cripwell to provide evidence for the “null” hypothesis – it is always the other way around.

      As I understand it, this is what Jim Cripwell has requested and, so far, it has not been forthcoming.

      Max

      PS If either Jim Cripwell or oneuniverse disagree with what I have just written, they should comment giving reasons.

      • oneuniverse | January 27, 2013 at 1:08 pm |

        Max, to repeat :

        Since I haven’t made a claim that increasing atmospheric CO2 will lead to an increase in global temperature (although I’ve explained why I think it’s plausible that it might), I’m not sure why you and Jim are looking to me to provide evidence to support the claim.

        Jim, one the other hand, has made this claim: “the climate sensitivity for CO2 added to the atmosphere form current levels, has been proven to be indistinguishable from zero, by observed data.”.

        How can the data have ‘proven’ it when there are large uncertainties in the magnitudes of non-CO2 forcings and their effect on the measured observables? This would be big news if true – I’m highly skeptical of his claim, and it’s reasonable to ask him for the data and quantitative analysis ie. the details of the proof, which he hasn’t provided.

      • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 6:39 pm |

        oneuniverse

        You have clarified your position.

        You do not necessarily support the “consensus” claim that CO2 is a GHG, which has caused and will cause a significant increase in global average temperature with increased concentrations, therefore you do not feel the need to support this claim with empirical evidence.

        Good. So be it.

        Looks like you and I might not be that far apart.

        I also do not support the IPCC claims, especially those leading to CAGW, as outlined in its AR4 report, as they are not backed by empirical scientific evidence, as discussed earlier.

        Max

      • Dagfinn | January 28, 2013 at 5:20 am |

        manacker: I happen to think that the IPCC reports don’t support CAGW. There’s a certain subjective element to that, since CAGW is not really a well-defined concept, but still, at least 95 per cent of CAGW claims are rhetoric, propaganda and exaggerations on top of the IPCC reports. So I’m curious as to which IPCC claims you think “lead to” CAGW.

      • oneuniverse | January 28, 2013 at 6:54 am |

        manacker: You have clarified your position.

        I just repeated, using cut-and-paste, what I’d written earlier. I did make it clear, from early on in my conversation with Jim, that I was asking him to back up his own claim of negligible climate sensitivity to CO2. (Your suggestion that I’ve got the scientific method backward is incorrect, by the way)

        Dagfinn, statements such as these from the SPM of AR4 WGII have a catastrophic aspect IMO.

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 7:29 am |

        Dagfinn

        You write:

        manacker: I happen to think that the IPCC reports don’t support CAGW.

        adding

        I’m curious as to which IPCC claims you think “lead to” CAGW.

        The concept “CAGW” (for potentially catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) is not a term that was invented by me.

        It is a commonly used expression for the IPCC premise that most of the observed warming since around 1950 has been caused by increased human-induced GHG concentrations and that these could lead to a potentially serious threat to humanity and our environment unless human GHG emissions are sharply curtailed.

        More specifically, IPCC outlines this premise in its AR4 report, as follows:

        1. human GHGs have been the cause of most of the observed warming since ~1950 [AR4 WGI SPM, p.10]
        2. this reflects a model-predicted 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2°C±0.7°C [AR4 WGI Ch.8, p.633]
        3. this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment from anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the range of 1.8°C to 6.4°C by the end of this century with increase in global sea level of up to 0.59 meters [AR4 WGI SPM, p.13]
        4.resulting in increased severity and/or intensity of heat waves, heavy precipitation events, droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high sea levels [AR4 WGI SPM, p.8],
        5. with resulting flooding of several coastal cities and regions, crop failures and famines, loss of drinking water for millions from disappearing glaciers, intensification and expansion of wildfires, severe loss of Amazon forests, decline of corals, extinction of fish species, increase in malnutrition, increase in vector borne and diarrheal diseases, etc. [AR4 WGII]
        6. unless world-wide actions are undertaken to dramatically curtail human GHG emissions (principally CO2) [AR4 WGIII]

        That’s CAGW, as outlined by IPCC, in a nutshell.

        Max

      • Dagfinn | January 28, 2013 at 11:27 am |

        Well, I think that’s an alarmist spin on the IPCC results. But I will admit that the IPCC itself is partly responsible since the SPM focuses one-sidedly on negative impacts, neglecting to mention some of the positive ones from the full report.

        My version is more like this:

        Water access: net gain from AGW.
        Direct effect of heat on humans: net gain from AGW.
        Effect of heat on crops: I don’t think this is a major issue if farmers are smart enough to grow different crops when the climate changes.
        Sea-level rise: expensive adaptation but manageable.
        Hurricanes: projected changes are not that great and adaptation is possible.
        Diseases: I’m not sure how scary this looks if we take the IPCC projections at face value. So this might be somewhat debatable.

      • gbaikie | January 28, 2013 at 12:16 pm |

        “My version is more like this:

        Water access: net gain from AGW.
        Direct effect of heat on humans: net gain from AGW.
        Effect of heat on crops: I don’t think this is a major issue if farmers are smart enough to grow different crops when the climate changes.
        Sea-level rise: expensive adaptation but manageable.
        Hurricanes: projected changes are not that great and adaptation is possible.
        Diseases: I’m not sure how scary this looks if we take the IPCC projections at face value. So this might be somewhat debatable.”

        In the above I would replace AGW with Global warming [as in being in a warmer period rather than being in a colder period].
        So water access: net gain from being in warmer periods.
        Though it’s obvious that humans create dams and these are greatest factors in water access. But that goes without saying [it’s not vaguely disputable] and is not the issue. Though it relates to this water issue in regard to a loss the storage water due by having glacier recede, in that the area occupied by a glacier can replaced with an area used for dam.

        And obviously a dam is a better way to
        store water for human use [life in general grow better in water as compared to ice]. Or lake is a generally improvement over the same size chunk of glacial ice.

        The single greatest effect which seems mostly related to human activity
        is the increase in global CO2 [or one can not argue the human activity has reduced global CO2 levels- and only question is how much increase in CO2 is due to human activity]. And this increase in global CO2 has significantly improve the growth of plants- whether crops or in nature.
        This is small reason millions to billions of people have enough food to eat- a larger factor is an improvement in farming technology and market type distribution of food to people who need food.

    • Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 3:29 pm |

      Miskolczi had his fingers on the scale. To get his result (and there is some real question about how he did that) he used the wrong version of the TIGR database, one that is much too dry.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 4:09 pm |

        And he defines his optical depth in just the IR window region, where by definition little or no effect is expected. His optical depth truly is only in terms of radiation from the surface that is emitted to space, ignoring that the GHG effect is emitted from the atmosphere, and not seen in the window region.

      • Eli Rabett | January 26, 2013 at 6:18 pm |

        SOD has an interesting series on that point (although not in relation to Mis) with some revealing graphics. He is up to part 10

        http://scienceofdoom.com/2013/01/23/visualizing-atmospheric-radiation-part-ten-back-radiation/

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 27, 2013 at 5:23 am |

        SoD has built a Matlab model that’s fairly good in calculating clear sky radiative effects and has some additional features like imposing the stability requirement on the lapse rate that it cannot exceed the adiabatic value. I have downloaded the model and made some modifications to it to learn more on quantitative details. The overall picture has not changed much from the use of the morel but now I know much more about some important quantitative details that I haven’t seen discussed or described elsewhere.

        This exercise has confirmed also that Miskolczi had done a fair part of the same radiative calculations, but for some reason stopped short of doing the next step that would correct the error Jim D mentions. He did calculate the altitude profile of the point of emission of radiation to space, but he did that for one CO2 concentration only. Repeating that same calculation with a higher concentration and comparing the results would produce the correct result that most of the radiative forcing comes from changes in radiation originating in the atmosphere rather than at surface. I really cannot understand, why he didn’t do and report the results of such a simple additional step.

  13. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 6:46 pm |

    Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science,
    … say no more lol. When east meets west.

  14. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 7:04 pm |

    Via Planet3, Jon Foley on pet theories, which might explain why ClimateBallers disagree with one another:

    > [P]eople are reluctant to give up their pet hypothesis, and never develop a real theory. For example, people who love technology, markets and economics will usually persist in believing those change the world, even when they don’t. Others strongly believe in political change, and persist in believing that, even if evidence suggests otherwise.

    http://planet3.org/2013/01/23/jon-foley-on-why-environmentalists-disagree-with-each-other/

    #YouQuarterbacks, stop coveting your pet theories!

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 7:24 pm |

      Willard

      Foley is right.

      “Human nature” is the reason why nobody agrees with anybody else.

      But I also think that (especially in our western culture) we are taught as children (or at least used to be) to challenge the status quo.

      Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 8:21 pm |

        Here’s a better way to challenge the status quo than to keep repeating your eyeballing, your model bashing, and your meme hammering, MiniMax:

        > We produce new reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies over the last millennium, based on a model which includes the e ects of external climate forcings and accounts for the long-memory features displayed in the data sets. Our reconstruction is based on two linear models, one in which the latent temperature series is linearly related to three main external forcings (solar irradiance, greenhouse gas concentration, and volcanism), and the other in which the observed temperature proxy data (tree rings, sediment record, ice cores, etc.) is linearly related to the unobserved temperatures. Uncertainty about the
        linear relations is modeled using additive noise (errors). We have carefully investigated the correlation structure in regression errors using rigorous statistical tests, and we nd that a long memory fractional Gaussian noise is proper for both linear models. We then use Bayesian estimation to reconstruct the past unobserved land-air temperature anomalies and combined land-and-marine anomalies over the period 1000-1899. In addition, we show that the long memory model helps to quantify the uncertainty of the reconstruction more precisely,
        and the use of external climate forcings is crucial in substantially reducing uncertainty levels. Our reconstruction compares favorably with previous results, as measured via the validation metric of empirical coverage probability for 20th-century observations. Finally, we provide
        a measurement of equilibrium climate sensitivity over the last millennium based on our posterior reconstruction samples.

        http://www.stat.purdue.edu/~viens/publications/BLTV.pdf

        Please note that the full expression is status quo ante bellum:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_ante_bellum

      • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 8:33 pm |

        Hey, wiley willie, I’ve got an even better way to “challenge” things.

        Manfred has done some calculating based on the post WWII temperature and CO2 record to come up with some estimates for CS
        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-289107

        He’s “challenging the status quo” based on (oh horrors!) actual physical observations.

        Why don’t you take a crack at challenging his challenge, if you feel up to it.

        If you feel it’s a level too high for you, I’ll understand.

        Max

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 10:46 am |

        Willard, me boy

        Aren’t you going to take on Manfred’s challenge?

        Should be easy for a guy as intelligent and eloquent as you.

        C’mon. Have a go.

        Max

      • harrywr2 | January 26, 2013 at 12:31 pm |

        manacker

        ‘“Human nature” is the reason why nobody agrees with anybody else.’

        Species Survival is why no one agrees with everyone else.

        Let’s examine the case of misidentifying a wolf.

        Well it could be a wolf…or it could be a harmless little puppy dog.

        If we all agree it’s a harmless cute puppy and we are wrong…then we will all be eaten. Our species will become extinct.

        The only rational solution from a species standpoint is that some of us have to disagree about everything…that way some of us will survive in the event that the ‘consensus’ is wrong.

        I always find it interesting that various people get themselves all worked up over the ‘anti-vaxers’…if we didn’t have the ‘anti-vaxers’ the government would have to randomly select a control group to insure species survival in the unlikely event that a vaccine proved deadly.

        It’s good that some people voluntarily forgo their vaccines and risk personal illness or death in order to guarantee species survival in the event a vaccine ends up being faulty.

      • Annonn | January 26, 2013 at 12:45 pm |

        Harry –

        Or you could follow the Precautionary Principle, and kill the puppy. Just in case.

      • Tom | January 26, 2013 at 1:08 pm |

        harrywr2, I am very happy that you took the shot for your cat too.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 1:56 pm |

        MiniMax,

        I have no commitment regarding Manfred’s napkin. A napkin is a napkin is a napkin. If Manfred wishes to turn this napkin into a more formal calculation, he can ask for your help, or submit it to climate scientists for feedback.

        ***

        Speaking of commitments, here was the last time you challenged me with numbers:

        > I think we’ve beaten this dog to death and should move on.

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/04/multidecadal-climate-to-within-a-millikelvin/#comment-283851

        It did not turn that well for you. Nor did it turned that well when we read together, for instance:

        MiniMax asserts with the lone proof of his own ignorance that:

        > NO empirical evidence to support the premise a) that most of the past warming (since ~1950) has been a result of increased human GHG concentrations and b) that this demonstrates a high climate sensitivity, which leads to the conclusion that c) AGW represents a potential threat to humanity and our environment.

        These are not premises. The first two are conclusions not unlike John Nielsen-Gammon’s:

        http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/

        Readers that are not as thick as a brick like manacker that there are empirical evidence for at least (a) and (b) in NG’s post.

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/#comment-256539

        When someone challenges your point, MiniMax, repeating it does not suffice. Repeating the same thing over and over again is called an argumentum ad nauseam:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam

        ***

        More generally, you do not seem to understand how scientific discussions work, MiniMax. I believe Vaughan noticed the same thing not so long ago:

        > Max doesn’t really believe all this stuff he comes up with, he’s too smart for that. He’s just having fun seeing whose leg he can pull.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/20/berkeley-earth-update/#comment-288772

        I don’t mind much your misdemeanours, MiniMax, as they are par for the course. (Go, Team Denizens!) I could mind. Then I’d wonder about other hypotheses than that you’re simply pulling legs. Even you should expect by now that I’d start looking for evidence of these hypotheses.

        If that is what you want, please do continue.

        Thank you again for playing,

        w

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 2:16 pm |

        My hands, kim, my hands.

        But you can go first, if you do care about lukewarm symbology.

        I thought you thought that CS was a round zero.

    • Steven Mosher | January 25, 2013 at 10:03 pm |

      my pet theory is that people who own pets are nicer than people who dont own pets.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 12:44 am |

        Pet’s rock. Rah rah pet rah.
        =======

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 2:03 am |

        My Swedish friend has this pet theory:

        > It’s not the fart that kills, it’s the smell.

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 2:22 am |

        Since we’re on the subject of essential knowledge of Scandinavian languages: in Norwegian, we also have the word “gangfart”, which means walking speed.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 2:47 am |

        There is a danger in switching back and forth between languages.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 4:56 am |

        There is a danger is switching back and forth”

        That’s why I always go forth and back

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 10:48 am |

        Yeah. Pet’s rock.

        Unless they’re pet rocks.

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:01 am |

        In German we have a whole series of common “farts” (spelled “fahrts”):

        Ausfahrt = exit
        Einfahrt = entrance
        Auffahrt = trip up
        Abfahrt = departure
        Rundfahrt = round trip
        Hinfahrt = trip to somewhere
        Rückfahrt = trip back
        Himmelfahrt = Ascension
        etc.

        No matter where you go in Germany, you’re “fahrting” (one way or the other)

      • Alex Heyworth | January 27, 2013 at 1:27 am |

        Is that why Germany is so keen on wind power?

  15. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 7:05 pm |

    From David Wojick, ‘The UN is cloning the IPCC with a new
    biodiversity group.’

    Hey, a shiny new Yew – Nighted – Nay – shuns bureaucracy,
    The Inter – governmental Platform and Bio – diversitee and Eco –
    system Sirvices,” The IPEBS, that should get the message across
    and make the serfs sit up. Oh Gaia!

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 7:15 pm |

      Beth

      Who’s picking up the tab for this new UN offshoot and in what resort locations will they have their global “pow-wows”

      Ouch! (Don’t tell me.)

      Max

  16. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 7:29 pm |

    Max,

    Who’s paying? Why, the looooooong suffering public, of course.
    Quiet down there, u serfs.

    Beth, (one of the serfs.)

    • manacker | January 25, 2013 at 8:27 pm |

      Beth

      You got that right.

      Serfdom ain’t much fun.

      Be much better to get to travel to exotic places to meet in air conditioned meeting rooms and figure out how to squeeze the serfs a bit more.

      Max (a fellow serf)

  17. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 7:53 pm |

    Judith says a new post is coming on A Makarieva’s new paper,
    ‘Where do winds come from?’ That’s great, it was discussed
    over several days at The Air Vent in October 2010. Fascinating
    thread with insightful comments by the scientist and posters.

    http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/where-do-winds-come-from/

  18. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 8:34 pm |

    Iceland’s Prime Minister explains the recent resurrection of his country:

    • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 25, 2013 at 9:05 pm |

      Yep, sometimes you have to think outside the box and not bailout everyone :)

    • Steven Mosher | January 25, 2013 at 10:01 pm |

      ya, set them geeks free from working at banks.

      • Tom | January 25, 2013 at 11:26 pm |

        Pass Book Savings…

        The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks were to be located in major cities. Each bank was to operate autonomously in its region. A Fed Bank had a board of directors and an executive structure similar to that of any commercial bank or business firm. Commercial banks in a Federal Reserve district could become members of the Federal Reserve if they fulfilled certain requirements, including buying stock in their regional Fed Bank according to a formula based on their capital value. The Fed Bank then paid them a statutory annual return of 6 percent on the value of this stock. Member commercial banks therefore became the “stockholders” of the Fed banks.

        their ought, to be a law.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:07 am |

        A half a tenth is a dollar, right?
        =========

  19. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 8:37 pm |

    Guess it serfs us right , fellow serf, we should’a fought back more.
    Say, goin’ surfin his weekend…well some tame swimming. Wish a
    few of us Denizen Serfs could get to one of those ex-ot ic con-
    vention places fer a sceptics week-end, lol. Any oil money grants
    available …say, where’s Tony B ? (irony tag.)

    Beth the serf.

  20. Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 9:35 pm |

    The Fire-Ready-Aim C02 policy of government scientists in the EPA is a dramatic realization of self-defeating bureaucratic authoritarianism. What shall we call government-funded global warming fearmongers who would condemn the third and developing world to misery, poverty and death if not an army of Liberal Fascists who would deny nature to spread their secular, socialist doomsday?

  21. Beth Cooper | January 25, 2013 at 9:44 pm |

    In Nassim Taleb’s ‘Prologue to The Black Swan’ Taleb observes that
    ‘the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be
    lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or ‘incentives’ for skill.’

    The government’s role would therefore seem to be providing a milieu favourable to aggressive trial and error, not bank rolling via the public purse, likely inefficient businesses or banks. We win, regardless of
    which competitors fail, by the provision of better technologies and
    produucts at *no cost* to us.. Cool eh?

    • Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 10:08 pm |

      Check out “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” on Netflix and you might change your opinion about–e.g., Asians being good at math is because they’re lucky.

  22. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 9:52 pm |

    From Bart Verheggen’s tweets:

    > A record of the past written in an ancient ice core now reveals that Greenland’s ice sheet is not melted as easily as some fear. But the message is not entirely reassuring: it also implies that Antarctica has much greater potential to raise sea levels than previously thought.

    http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-defied-ancient-warming-1.12265

    • Herman Alexander Pope | January 25, 2013 at 11:34 pm |

      They find out they were wrong about Greenland Ice. They quickly arrive at new, different conclusions, with even more declarations of the new thoughts being right with no doubt expressed. I would expect them to look at new evidence that is different and increase their uncertainty. Finding out that they made a mistake makes them press on with less uncertainty.
      Finding out that Greenland is more stable than they thought makes them certain that Antarctic is more unstable than they thought.
      Antarctic is judged to be unstable based on Arctic being more stable. That does not make any sense.
      The Antarctic could easily loose enough ice to make up for what Greenland did not lose and still be very stable.
      Before, they judged Antarctic to be more stable, based on Antarctic data, and now they have changed that based on data from somewhere else.
      This NEEM data is very important, but the conclusions that they derived from it so far are very suspect.
      When they found that they made mistakes, that they should report their mistakes and go back and reconsider what else that they may have wrong.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 1:39 am |

        > When they found that they made mistakes, that they should report their mistakes and go back and reconsider what else that they may have wrong.

        Yup.

        Something’s rotten in the state of Greenland.

        All that theorizes must die, passing through nature to the Internet.

  23. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 9:57 pm |

    Just as we doubted it in a recent thread, researchers found evidence of the existence of leprechauns:

    We have known for over 20 years, since Sen wrote the book on famine in 1981, that hunger comes not from there not being enough food being produced, but from some people not having access to that food (either through their own production or through the market).

    And yet again and again we hear a weird underpants gnome-esque non-sequitur, in which

    1. The problem: There is already enough food in the world to feed everyone
    2. ?????
    3. The solution: Produce more food!

    http://www.rovingbandit.com/2013/01/taking-sen-seriously.html

  24. willard (@nevaudit) | January 25, 2013 at 9:59 pm |

    Correlation or causation?

    Internet Explorer vs Murder rate:

    http://i.imgur.com/h2JClux.jpg

    #YouQuarterback — be the judge!

  25. stefanthedenier | January 25, 2013 at 10:59 pm |

    why have I being censored? is the truth so scary?

  26. Joe's World {Progressive Evolution} | January 26, 2013 at 12:08 am |

    Same here!

    • Tom | January 26, 2013 at 1:34 pm |

      That makes you nine, simple.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 12:02 am |

        FOMBS cites a false dichotomy between a market that is regulated to death – the heart’s desire of pissant progressives – and so-called laissez faire economics. Not having done a political rant – in the service of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – for a while here it is.

        The reality of the scientific enlightenment and libertarian thought in our great western tradition is far different. To quote from that exemplar of libertarian thought – F.A. Hayek.

        ‘There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom…there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody…Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of the assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong….To the same category belongs also the increase of security through the state’s rendering assistance to the victims of such “acts of God” as earthquakes and floods. Whenever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself or make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken….There is, finally, the supremely important problem of combating general fluctuations of economic activity and the recurrent waves of large-scale unemployment which accompany them….’ Hayek – The Road to Serfdom

        I think perhaps Hayek is the impetus for Beth’s ‘serf’ jokes. But in seriousness – Hayek’s views encompass health care and welfare – as opposed to the US conservative impulse. In the libertarian worldview the state exists to protect the weak from the rapacious in defending the rule of law, to vouchsafe democracy, to provide services that the market can’t or won’t provide, to defend the populace from external aggression. There is no reason in principle that laws should not encompass – for instance – laws against pollution, laws to set aside wilderness areas or to legislate against child labour. The line is indistinct – but the potential to cross lines into egregious limitations of personal freedoms exists at all times and require vigilance to identify and resist. One line concerns the optimum size of government taxes and expenditure. Beyond a nominal share of about 30% of GDP – government begins to stifle economic growth and unfairly gather to itself too many of the fruits of labour and production.

        The rule of law extends to the regulation of markets – rules about prudential oversight of banking, information flows in markets, anti-monopolistic laws, the regulation of interest rates to prevent asset bubbles and other such rules as promote the efficiency of markets.

        There is no reason at all why the succouring of populations in need as a result of natural disasters, war, famine or plague should be limited to the national boundaries. Should aid promote free and fair markets, trade, economic growth, democracy and the rule of law – the much need maximisation of human welfare is guaranteed. As is population management, environmental progress, advances in health, education and human happiness. There is no collectivist agenda that can work a fraction as well as the balanced implementation of libertarian ideals – freedom, democracy, the rule of law and free markets. Progress in human development, the elimination of international conflict and the realisation of sustainable environments this century requires that the libertarian agenda be pursued with clarity in objectives and the fervour of heroes of freedom of the past. All good comes from human freedom and that is challenged today by the Godless hordes of green neo-socialists barbarians inside the walls of western civilisation.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 4:38 am |

        Robert I Ellison reminds us “The state exists to protect the weak from the rapacious in defending the rule of law … The rule of law extends to the regulation of markets Should aid promote free and fair markets, the much needed maximisation of human welfare is guaranteed.”

        Your rational and spirited advocacy, here on Climate Etc both of carbon markets and of ObamaCare is noted and appreciated, Robert I Ellison!

        It’s nice to see science, economics, and morality so nicely reconciled, eh?

        “Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don’t believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodations concretely.”

           — Judge Learned Hand

        Much appreciated too is the wise recognition — that is very much in the tradition of the Founders and Framers of the US Constitution — of the absolute scientific, economic, and moral necessity for wise compromise that the sobering realities of globalized climate-change are now requiring of the 21st century!

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 4:49 am |

        PS: today’s XKCD holds substantial lessons for the many “outsider science” advocates who post here on Climate Etc!

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 5:33 am |

        FOMBS,

        We are reminded of the clarity of analysis that emerges form the Hartwell Group – something that you would do well to learn.

        ‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.

        The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation

        We want of course workable, pragmatic solutions that increase human dignity and the resiliance of global communities.

        And though I suggest that libertarians would endorse social health insurance – the devil (or barbarian as the case may be) is in the detail and I know too little about obamacare to comment. I was recently in a public hospital in Australia – an infected toe is no laughing matter apparently – paid for by my private health insurance. The facilities were top notch and the staff too attentive. The food was bloody awful. I felt a little aggrieved that I was denied the most expensive antibiotics for purely bureaucratic reasons as my insurance was paying. All in all I am happy that the service is available universally. My private insurance – however – assures me that I avoid long waiting lists for many types of treatment.

        Hayek as well talks about the accomodations that are unavoidable in a democracy – although I suggest you read and reread Hayeks words quoted by Faustino above. Wise words indeed on the fine balance between freedom and tryranny. I will certainly attest that America was founded on the libertarian ideals I hold dear – that America is the greatest and purest example of individual freedom and must continue to succeed and be a beacon of freedom for the world. It remains only for you to rediscover your libertarian roots aye FOMBS? Else I would suspect you of merely mouthing platitudes while being complicit in the overthrow of liberty.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 6:20 am |

        Robert I Ellison  “It remains only for you to rediscover your libertarian roots aye FOMBS?”

        The pragmatism of America’s Founders and Framers, as interpreted by America’s great jurists like Learned Hand, has withstood every trial — even the harshest! — for more than two hundred years.

        Whereas new-fangled ideologies like “libertarianism” have not been tested even as sternly as Marxism … isn’t that true Robert I Ellison?

        Libertarianism and Marxism both are simple-minded ideologies that sound wonderful in principle, and both are highly entertaining as fiction … and yet it is exceedingly doubtful that either can be made to work in practice!

        When it comes to the grappling responsibly with the sobering, accelerating, globalized reality of climate-change, it is imprudent to repose much trust in untested economic and political ideologies. That is why it is reasonable to repose 10X more trust in the tried-and-true pragmatic principles of a jurist (say) Learned Hand, than in the untested theoretical principles of (say) Ayn Rand. And as for the “Hartwell Group” … their pure-minded theoretical ideals have never been tested at all!

        Shall we not prudently embrace pragmatic principles that are tested-and-true, Robert I Ellison, and alike reject the seductive-yet-shallow temptations of ideological Marxism and ideological Libertarianism?

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 7:12 am |

        Fan

        Your words appear to make sense.

        – Marxism is a freedom stifling dead-end.

        – “Ideological Libertarianism” (as you imagine it) is the “wild West” variety, where anything goes and there is essentially no rule of law. This is also bad.

        – The ideal is somewhere in between (as the Chief, Faustino and Beth have all also stated), with individual freedom plus responsibility to the overall society as the key criteria.

        But, from your comments on this site, I believe that you would draw the “ideal line” much closer to the “Marxism” side than the other three I have mentioned above (or than me, for that matter).

        So to me you might appear to be a “Marxist”, while to you I may appear to be a “wild West Libertarian”.

        Where you stand depends on where you sit, as they say.

        Max

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 7:28 am |

        Although we may wrangle about the details, overall your post’s informed historical perspective, rationality, and good manners, all are (IMHO) wholly commendable manacker!

        If it should come to pass that James Hansen’s scientific worldview proves to be correct — supposing for example, that the Earth remains in sustained state of energy imbalance throughout the coming decade, such that the sea-level rise-rate accelerates (as Hansen’s thermodynamical models predict) — then local economic ideologies will have to be supplanted by global economic ideologies … at least insofar as sustaining the planetary commons is concerned.

        To insist “No! That can’t happen! That’s impossible” is mere futile irresponsible denialism, eh?

        Soberingly, it’s becoming evident that no established economic ideology grapples effectively with this global-scale challenge and responsibility, eh Manacker? So we are all of us going to live in interesting times, eh?

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 8:12 am |

        Fan

        Yes. Times are (and will continue to be) interesting.

        Where you and I have our largest disagreement, it appears, is whether or not “James Hansen’s scientific worldview proves to be correct “.

        Only time will tell.

        As you know, there are hypotheses, scientific papers and model studies, which either support or refute this “worldview”.

        The “null hypothesis” is that human GHGs will have no appreciable impact on our planet’s future climate. (“Null” = “zero”)

        “Hansen’s scientific worldview” is that the “null hypothesis” is incorrect and that (among other things) the rate of sea-level rise-rate resulting from AGW will accelerate so that the rise can be measured in meters in this century, wiping out coastal cities and settlements across the globe.

        As a rational skeptic, my point of view on this is quite simple: The “Hansen scientific worldview” is not corroborated by empirical scientific evidence, which would falsify the “null hypothesis” (Feynman and Popper).

        Until this is the case, Hansen’s premise remains an uncorroborated hypothesis in the scientific sense, nothing more.

        The good news is that we do not have to wait until the sea level has really risen by meters to test Hansen/s premise.

        The premise is all based on a posited mean 2xCO2 ECS of 3.2C and rapidly accelerating human CO2 (and other GHG) emissions, leading to collapse of major landed ice sheets (Greenland, Antarctica) and the meter-high sea level rise.

        Recent studies (Schlesinger 2012, Gillett 2011, Lewis – not yet published), which are based on actual observations rather than simply model predictions, are showing that the 3.2C value for ECS is likely to be too high by a factor of at least 2:1, with a big open question still being the amount of natural climate forcing.

        Satellite observations by Spencer&Braswell 2007 and Lindzen&Choi 2009/2011 are confirming a low 2xCO2 ECS.

        More work is needed, of course, but if added actual physical observations confirm these recent findings, we may have a major breakthrough in falsifying the “null hypothesis”, at the same time also falsifying the “Hansen scientific viewpoint” of a highly sensitive climate.

        If, at the same time the controlled experimental work at CERN validates the hypothesis proposed by Henrik Svensmark and others that natural changes in galactic cosmic rays influence cloud nucleation thereby also affecting our climate, we could have added constraints on natural forcing as well as on the 2xCO2 effect, enabling an even closer estimate.

        As you write, the times are interesting.

        Max

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 8:59 am |

        Reply is above, I hope, Manacker!

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Wagathon | January 28, 2013 at 1:53 pm |

        The ‘hockey stick’ is the smoking gun that the Left has been using fear, propaganda, practicing practicing black arts – say anything they believe works for them, demonize all who oppose their political agenda, do whatever it takes – to plunder the savings of the productive and gain political power over the people and the witchdoctors of academia have been a willing accomplices. The fundamental challenge of our time is surviving liberal fascism not AGW.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 4:23 pm |

        FOMBS knows little of the history of the scientific enlightenment. The libertarian ideals are indeed the ideals on which America was founded – individual freedom, free markets, the rule of law and democracy. Who could argue with that. They are ideals to be defended by each new generation with the fervour of the heroes of freedom of the past.

        The economic principles on which free markets should be founded are likewise confirmed by history. At the centre of prudential management of markets is the managment of interest rates to prevent asset bubbles and the maintenance of balanced government budgets. It is clear that the relative success of the Australian economy over decades – for instance – is founded on the management of these two things. This owes much more in the rational scheme of things to Friedrich Hayek than Any Rand. Common sense and the tried and true rather than inflexible ideology.

        From FOMBS we get obfuscation rather than clarity – something that seems a defining quality of the modern pissant progressive. It stems from a need to hide their true agendas. Nothing less than the complete dismantling of industrial economies in many instances. What about you FOMBS – are you a closet wrecker hoping to take advantage of catastrophe to coast to ideological supremacy and world domination? Planet Earth to FOMBS…

        What we have seen is failure over more than 20 years to move on carbon mitigation. What we get from FOMBS is more arm waving propaganda. What we get from the Hartwell Group is pragmatic proposals on black carbon and tropospheric ozone, technological innovation and cheap renewable energy, the consevation and restoration of agricultural land and ecosystems, health, education and development initiatives that inevitably reduce population pressures. The difference between arm waving and clarity in policy objectives couldn’t be more stark.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 4:56 pm |

        Robert I Ellison asks “What about you FOMBS – are you a closet wrecker hoping to take advantage of catastrophe to coast to ideological supremacy and world domination?”

        All I can say is, the earthlings must never master PSI climate-change theory!

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 5:42 pm |

        Willard linked to an article that talked about droughts and floods as an impetus to transformative economics – and the need to prepare the rhetorical and political strategies in advance.

        Again – you seem to deal in obscurantism, misdirection and deceit.
        These behaviours are a far greater blight on effective communication than any misguided theories of the so-called dragon slayers. Your science is hardly any better being barely recognisable as such consisting of misunderstanding and confusion – and perhaps quite deliberate obfuscation.

        If you want to deal in honest discourse by all means – but I fear that is a bridge too far. Climate Pragmatism – on the other hand – ‘offers a framework for renewed American leadership on climate change that’s effectiveness, paradoxically, does not depend on any agreement about climate science or the risks posed by uncontrolled greenhouse gases.

        The new report brings the Hartwell framework into an American perspective, and it is authored by a broad group of 14 international scholars and analysts representing a diverse range of political and ideological positions — from the conservative American Enterprise Institute to moderate Democratic think tank Third Way and the liberal Breakthrough Institute.’
        http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation

        You instead seem obsessed with so called economic transformation as a panacea for all ills of the world – and are content to peddle climate apocalypse as a vehicle for dideological purposes. If you want progress on mitigation – by all means. If you want the wars of values that is the climate war – by all means again.

        The world is still not warming for a decade ot three more – according to the science. So sad too bad.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 28, 2013 at 9:05 pm |

        Hey Chief, Since you are on the topic of floods and chaotic stuff, you might get a kick out of this :)

        http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/01/tidal-forcing.html

        Kind of a hoot if it’s right :) There are a couple of papers on the lunar orbital cycles, but I haven’t see one that included lunar and precessional.

      • RiHo08 | January 28, 2013 at 9:24 pm |

        Capt’nDalla
        Again, my little brain does not compute the variance between lunar cycles and deep ocean mixing. I need a boost. I’m still stuck on the surface.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 28, 2013 at 9:42 pm |

        Polar sea ice is the boundary of the coldest sinking water that drives part of the deep ocean thermohaline currents. Change the rate of the sea ice formation and the location of formation, changes the flow characteristics of the sinking highest density salt water. Slow, more stable sinking produces less mixing since its flow is more laminar. Increase the rate and there is more mixing. Mixing efficiency determines total ocean heat capacity.

        Also breaking fixed sea ice free allows it to move away from the pole and melt more quickly. That releases a good bit of stored energy. Higher tidal flooding also increases evaporation which in turn increases precipitation relocating glacial mass if you have a place to park it.. The poles are the real heat sinks of the planet, mess with them and stuff happens.

        What is funny is the correlation with vocanic and geomagnetic. Solar forcing obviously can’t cause volcanoes, but shift enough water and ice and things get entertaining. So it kinda looks like people are looking at a lot of effects instead of causes :)

        Vaughan Pratt may get a chuckle since he is trying to figure out the volcanic part of his millikelven model.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 9:35 pm |

        Chief,

        There is no need to use my name as a hook to repost your Breakthrough discovery. It does not suit you well and messes with initial conditions to which you are most sensitive.

        If you want to comment on that study you’re exploiting right now, you can reply to it in a nested comment. Readers would not need to search to see how gratuitous are your remarks. Or perhaps is this your own peculiar way to deplore obscurantism?

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 9:38 pm |

        OK. The comments are broken, yet again.

        Judy, please snip comments instead of deleting them. It might help keep the arborescence intact. Keeping a trace of your moderation might also have a dissuasive effect.

      • tonybclimatereason | January 29, 2013 at 3:10 am |

        Willard

        Two good suggestions from you, snipping shows intent and effect
        tonyb

      • Peter Davies | January 29, 2013 at 4:14 am |

        Hi Tony, glad that you enjoyed your skiing holiday.

        Problem for Judith is that she doesn’t have the time to read everything that is posted and to snip will take even more time.

        Apparently she is reluctant to allow others to assist in the moderation role.

        I reach for my toggle wheel when the ad homs start to fly.

      • climatereason | January 29, 2013 at 7:48 am |

        Peter

        Thank you, I had a very nice holiday

        Hopefully things will be a bit calmer on the ad homs front with periodic reminders and civility will rule the day. If Judith will not set up some sort of light touch moderation team however things might slip. We shall see.

        tonyb

      • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 1:48 pm |

        tony b

        Welcome back from your holiday in the mountains.

        Did you learn more about that medieval silver and gold mine that was covered up by advancing snow and ice during the LIA?

        (Or did you spend all your time “schussing” down the mountainside?)

        Max

      • Tonyb | January 29, 2013 at 2:00 pm |

        Hi max

        Unfortunately it was much too cold and snowy to search for silver mines this time round. I did dome downhill and some langlauf and ate too much sacher torte.

        Tonyb

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 11:19 pm |

        ‘It’s an old worry about the viability of democracy that lies at the heart of our fixation on disaster: that people are too irrational and unruly to cope with complex issues or distant futures; that they’re neither timely nor decisive enough to act prudently in good times or resolutely in bad. Only educated, farsighted actors are capable of such things, the story goes, whether in service of aristocracy, monarchy, or technocracy. We fervently hope that disasters can compel a moment of truth, because otherwise we fear those emergency measures will come to pass — and, in darker moments, we think we need them.’ http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-flood-next-time/

        Wee Willy – yes I have reverted because your minimax and don don habits do nothing to compel respect. Nor does the link you so approve of. Or the gratuitously vacuous snark passing for comment.

        It astonishes me far we are from rational discourse. This study that I am exploiting now? Seems to suggest that ‘Pragmatic Climate’ says something other than what I directly quoted. But no – it seems rather that the commodity of catastrophe is peddled to ‘compel a moment of truth’ that leads to a radical reorganisation of rational economic principles. The goal it seems is more the old revolutionary one of the overthrow of power structures however they are formulated. Economic ‘degrowth’ and fiscal redistribution requiring suspension of democracy and the rule of law. Emergency measures concieved in ‘darker moments’ indeed. Arising out of fears of technocrats unjustly gathering to themselves all power and wealth. In the nonsensical fantasy of the pissant progressive there is no solution but the ultimate solution – the overthrow of of established power seeded by a climate of manufactured catastrophe. It seems unlikely – it seems more likely that in the moment of a destabilised polity that the ruthless opportunist waiting in the wings pounces and inevitably imposes a rule by brute power.

        I would rather avoid the risk and devise solutions – at the risk of questioning the value of your lofty idealism – rather than wait for the ever more hysterical declarations of climate disaster.

        One of the quite simple approaches is conservation agriculture – http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/5.html – please note the graph of production and income over time. It is the most dynamic social movement in global agriculture since the Dust Bowl spurred the soil conservation movement in America and thence the world. It relies on building soil carbon. A 1% increase in soil carbon is easily achievable in carbon depleted agricultural soils – and would sequester 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Nearly twice human emissions thus far. This seems too simple, practical and positive – and far from conducive to a climate of fear. So I am inclined to think that such a popular movement would lack support from the typical pissant progressive.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 11:50 pm |

        You’re mad, Chief.

        That’s OK.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 12:31 am |

        Wee Willy,

        You seem to have run out of steam prematurely. I suggest you take the Kim masterclass in one line profundities.

        Cryptic is good but I prefer a more earthy medium.

        I am mad as a cut snake and flash as a dunny rat with a gold tooth.
        All it really takes is a soupcon of equanimity and a modicum of couth.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:52 am |

        In case readers do not get the context of “That’s OK, you’re mad”. Here it is, courtesy of Tony:

        > I’d point out that Zeke has his interpretation but nowhere did I say “fraud”. He’s mad, and people don’t often think clearly when they are mad. That’s OK.

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/a-question-for-zeke-hausfather/

        I believe that Tony wins an Internet with that line.

        This is the line of the week.

        ***

        In case readers are mad at pissant progressives while citing the Breathrough Institute’s, let’s recall its mission statement:

        Who We Are

        We are progressives who believe in the potential of human development, technology, and evolution to improve human lives and create a beautiful world.

        We are researchers, analysts, and writers who reject outmoded orthodoxies on the Left and Right, and are dedicated to new ways of thinking, new political frameworks, and new policy paradigms.

        We are the authors of reassessments of progressive assumptions, from “The Death of Environmentalism,” which argued for transcending a nature-based politics, to “Counterterrorism Since 9/11,” which describes how security and rights increase together, to “Climate Pragmatism,” which proposes an innovation-adaptation-regulation focused alternative to Kyoto.

        http://thebreakthrough.org/about/mission/

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 10:08 am |

        looks like pissant is in the eye of the beholder, eh willard?

        Of course, Chief gets to determine which progressives are pissant, because he, like many “skeptics,” has an eye that only beholds truth (justice, and the American way).

        It reminds me of how slaveholders shared the clear vision seen in Chief’s simplistic jinogism:

        The libertarian ideals are indeed the ideals on which America was founded – individual freedom, free markets, the rule of law and democracy.

      • Wagathon | January 29, 2013 at 10:37 am |

        It’s that fireball in the sky. The sun is the only independent variable: changes in solar energy explain both global warming AND global cooling (it happens, really!). “If the Earth determines that Canada should freeze again, the best response would simply be to sell your Canadian real estate. The Earth moves on… So should we.” (Neil Reynolds)

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 11:30 am |

        Joshua,

        No need to rub it in. Focus instead on his interesting idea of conservation agriculture. Think of it as conversation culture.

        ***

        Folowing up on uncertainties, here’s what I just found:

        This website presents a data-rich view of climate and a discussion of how that data fits together into the scientists’ current picture of our changing climate. But there’s a great deal that we don’t know about the future of Earth’s climate and how climate change will affect humans.

        http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties

        The NASA has a website to talk about uncertainties.

        Have any Denizens ever cited this resource?

        If not, auditors ought to wonder why.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 29, 2013 at 11:55 am |

        Willard, that is an incomplete list. One of the largest uncertainties is the THC.

        http://www.whoi.edu/science/po/people/rhuang/publication/2008JPOGuanHuang.pdf

        That is a step in the right direction, but since Hansen and the “gang” assume that natural “unforced” variability range is virtually inconsequential, that ASS U MEs certainty that does not exist. With the growing TIDE of circumstantial evidence that the certainties are over estimated and uncertainties not even known unknowns, this looks like a train wreck in progress. It really looks like it is going to be incredibly entertaining :)

      • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 1:44 pm |

        Joshua

        You may have missed this bit of US history but (unlike in many places where slavery is still practiced today) it was abolished by law in the USA in 1865.

        So the “rule of law” there no longer condones slavery.

        Nor do the “libertarian ideals”, to which the Chief referred.

        And, yes, Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder 60 some odd years earlier. But that does not detract from his thoughts on individual freedom, free markets and the rule of law and democracy.

        Max

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 2:08 pm |

        Thanks for the update, manacker,

        No, I hadn’t realized that slavery has been abolished in the US. Thanks for filling me in (imagine my embarrassment).

        But it seems that I didn’t make my point sufficiently clear. So allow me to elaborate:

        The Chief referred to the individual freedom, free market, and rule of law that were the founding ideals of the US. Well, those founding ideals were viewed by the founders as specifically endorsing the view of human beings as property, and the systematic denial of those human beings any degree, whatsoever, as dignity.

        To elaborate further, it is all fine and good to write empty and jingoistic platitudes about the value of those founding ideals, for the purpose of elevating one’s own ideological perspective (as Chief regularly does), and to further leverage that personal sense of superiority to denigrate hundreds of millions of your fellow human beings as “pissants” and as “the enemy.” But such exploitation of those founding ideals ignores the reality that the devil is in the details. What is important is how those ideals are manifest, specifically. No jingoism and self-congratulatory denigration of other humans will further those ideals, and no matter how important Chief feels his keyboard battle against his imagined adversaries might be, the reality is that his comments on blogs will have zero impact on anything of any real substance.

        So the “rule of law” there no longer condones slavery.

        Nor do the “libertarian ideals”, to which the Chief referred.

        And so you support my point. You reference “libertarian ideals” as being variable over time, changing depending on circumstance, being used to justify different phenomena by different people at different times. What those “libertarian ideals” once condoned, they condone no longer. In your opinion. I’m sorry, manacker, but I see no particular reason to see your interpretation of those ideals as being inherently more valid than the interpretation of slave-holders. In some areas I might agree with your interpretation and ins some areas I might disagree. Until such time as you show me some evidence that you are a supernatural being (let alone a rational skeptic as opposed to a “skeptic”), I’m afraid I will not accept your interpretation (or that of the Chief) as being definitive.

        And, yes, Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder 60 some odd years earlier. But that does not detract from his thoughts on individual freedom, free markets and the rule of law and democracy.

        I must say, although you have written many classic posts, that one may take the cake. The fact that Jefferson was a slave-holder does not detract from his thoughts, say, about the nature of individual freedom?

        Beautiful!

      • jim2 | January 29, 2013 at 2:43 pm |

        @Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 2:08 pm –
        What a crock! The Rule of Law has nothing to do with slavery. You can say that SOME people did not apply the rule of law with perfection, but that isn’t the same thing. A lot of rules are violated, that in no way means the rule in question isn’t necessarily a good thing. You need a logic lesson.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 3:08 pm |

        The devil is indeed in the details – of which Johua has a typical trivial command.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290193

        The libertarian challenge is as I say to frame a positive narrative for the future of the world. The essence of this future is free markets, free peoples, economic development, sustainable environments, democracy and the rule of law as defined in the best contemporary practice. Times change and the Whig ideal with it. I am not mad but it is that challenge and how it may be expressed that engages my attention from time to time.

        Although I note that there is some understanding dawning in Willard about conservation farming and the many on site and downstream benefits. With Joshua it is just fun to call him a pissant progressive and say he looks like a monkey and smells like one too.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 29, 2013 at 4:55 pm |

        Robert I Ellison asserts  “The libertarian challenge is as I say to frame a positive narrative.”

        Robert I Ellison, it is good to know that rational libertarians will be abandoning free-market ideology.

        After all, it’s completely apparent, to every citizen with common-sense, that computerized trading at micro-second speeds, by computer programs that are written by PhDs in mathematics, that are employed by giant corporations … has nothing to do with cultivating Jeffersonian virtues in the body politic, eh?

        Uhhh … the efficient cultivation of civic virtue *is* what free markets are all about eh?

        And so it’s obvious, that free markets are *not* a virtuous end-in-themselves, right? `Cuz putting markets first — in the modern computer era especially> — would be ack-basswards, willfully ignorant, ideology-first crazy-talk, eh?

        Seems to me, that today’s main challenge for strict libertarians, it to appreciate that strict libertarianism nowadays makes very little sense!

        Perhaps that’s why strict libertarians do poorly in elections nowadays … it’s because voters have learned plain common-sense? And as for non-strict libertarians … they’re not easy to distinguish from Bill and Hillary Clinton, eh?

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      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 5:27 pm |

        Free markets are a virtuous end in themselves but they are and never have been moral. Although one can argue that the actor in markets should have an ethical frameworks in which to make decisions – this is not always guaranteed. It is not always guaranteed in society that people will act justly or honestly. This is why we have courts and jails – a core function of the government in imposing the rule of law – and why we have rules for markets. You deliberately and falsely conflate libertarianism with laissez faire economics. Laissez faire economics is an object lesson in economic theory – not to be confused with the real world. Libertarianism is a practical and pragmatic and ongoing reflection on laws and rules, methods and means, the roles of government, industry and the polity. There are some fundamental tried and true techniques for economic managment – chief amongst these is the management of interest rates, the balancing of budgets, reasonable restraint in government taxation and expenditure, and effective and transparent banking and market regulation.

        It is a shame that America is relearning these lessons – at some considerable cost to the ordinary person and American power. But you will find that free markets will not be abandoned any time soon.

      • GaryM | January 29, 2013 at 6:04 pm |

        “Free markets are a virtuous end in themselves but they are and never have been moral.”

        Half right. Free markets are not moral. Nor are science, governments, corporations, education, hammers…. But free markets are also not a virtuous end in themselves, and for the same reason.

        That which is not human is not moral or immoral, virtuous or sinful. A free market is a mechanism. It is the economic mechanism of what has been the freest, most powerful, most generous culture in history. But “free markets” also existed on a limited scale in the trading of slaves and sale of horribly addictive drugs, hardly virtuous ends in themselves.

        It is people who are moral or not. What we are witnessing now is an experiment in attempting to retain a free market, while jettisoning the moral framework of the society in which it developed. We shall see what the law of unintended consequences has to say about that.

        “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

        Alexis de Tocqueville

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 6:17 pm |

        It is people who are moral or not. What we are witnessing now is an experiment in attempting to retain a free market, while jettisoning the moral framework of the society in which it developed.

        No doubt:

        Jefferson still needed a cohort of “labourers in the ground” to carry out the hardest tasks, so the Monticello slave community became more segmented and hierarchical. They were all slaves, but some slaves would be better than others. The majority remained laborers; above them were enslaved artisans (both male and female); above them were enslaved managers; above them was the household staff. The higher you stood in the hierarchy, the better clothes and food you got; you also lived literally on a higher plane, closer to the mountaintop.

        If only we had retained that moral framework – eh?

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 6:21 pm |

        “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

        And there we go. No morality without faith. No confirmation bias there. Nosireebub.

        Say, Gary, I may have missed it, but I still don’t recall seeing your explanation for how you were so completely wrong in your conspiracy theorizing about how the pre-election polls were rigged to give Obama the advantage. Did you see how, contrary to your unhinged analysis, in fact the vast majority of polls underestimated Obama’s performance?

        Surely you provided an explanation, right? I mean you couldn’t have possibly ducked the issue for this long, could you?

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 6:35 pm |

        The virtuous end is the provision of sustenance and shelter – which is best achieved with free markets.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 6:53 pm |

        ‘Jefferson and other members of the founding generation were deeply influenced by the 18th-century European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. Enlightenment philosophy stressed that liberty and equality were natural human rights.

        Colonial Americans argued that King George III and Parliament had denied them the basic rights of British citizens. Despite the pervasiveness of slavery in their society, the revolutionary generation envisioned a new American government that secured the rights and freedoms of its citizens. However, these rights and freedoms did not extend to slaves.’

        In resulted in the paradox of slavery – but the fires of freedom are not quenched that easily and ultimately emerged in the formation of the Republican Party.

        ‘In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened the new territories to slavery, was passed. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs remained strongly opposed. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.’

        Ultimately – the US paid a heavy price for the abolition of slavery. .

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 7:04 pm |

        Felons indeed David Springer – some poor sode were transported for failing to meekly starve to death and the population was salted by Scottish enlightenment freedom fighters. We quickly grew taller, stronger, smarter and much more assertive to those who might otherwise assume that they are our betters. Australia is our place in the sun – Australis felix.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 8:39 pm |

        That’s sod of course – mysterious appearances and disapearances are occurring. I must say it makes posting intersting.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 9:33 am |

        Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 7:04 pm | Reply

        “We quickly grew taller, stronger, smarter and much more assertive to those who might otherwise assume that they are our betters.”

        In other words you quickly became more American. A noble goal indeed. Maybe someday you’ll get there.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 3:48 am |

        Well it is this way Springer – we might accept Texans as fellow travellers – but the rest of the country is all hat and no cow.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 8:35 pm |

        So let’s recap wee willie,

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290058

        First the repetition was of course accidental – and to make some point of it is most ungenerous.

        > I’m not sure in which way Stern was wrong. Here’s a thought experiment to settle this.

        So this example was not serving as an analogy to climate modelling, but as an analogy for the use of the word “wrong”. Since you insisted so much about the chaotic nature of weather and the intrinsic indeterminacy of climate modelling, I played along, for conversation sake. But I had no commitment to do so.

        I also played along because even if you were to prove that climate modelling is not like poker modelling, we’d learn something. It provided me the incentive to do some digging (to draw some more cards, to keep with the theme) and found some interesting stuff about chaos theory, which I’ve not touched since at least a decade. My old thesis advisor was quite fond of attractors.

        Surely the point was that Stern ‘had a good hand’. My response by reference to a considerable scientific expertise was that the quality of the hand was unknown as past some time there was no longer a single deterministic solution and that – realistically – we don’t know how to estimate the spread in solutions with confidence (McWilliams 2007).

        So there is no realistic basis for either the original or upwardly revised claim. The foundations of the prognostication evaporate and what we are left with is the fallacy of assertion. Asserting something without proof is an error.

        You should think more about chaos as the core of models and as identified both phenomenonologically and numerically in climate.

        My point is that: poker is a game played by using models, we can model weather forecasting as a game, and this game would share structural similarities with the family of poker games, since it relies on models to make decision under uncertainty.

        I am quite bored with poker analogies. Models rely on equations that propagate through time. Weather models initialise conditions providing a window of some veracity for a few days until the solutions diverge from reality. Longer term probabilistic forecasts rely on similarities of current to past conditions. Stochasticity is in play in poker but the uncertainty in climate and weather is a different animal. There is uncertainty in data measurement and in representing processes at very small scales. These lead to structural instability and sensitive dependence in models – leading to what is perhaps best understood as ‘irreducible imprecision’ (McWilliams again). Poker does not assist in comprehending the fundamental maths of models or understanding their nonlinear behaviour.

        Thought experiments help visualize complex problems by setting up a simplified representation. Climate projections have the same utility: they help simplify what would otherwise be intractable. Both could be considered cognitive amplifier:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification
        Cognitive amplifiers are not required to have predictive skills to have their use. (We could ask for potential economic value alright, pending further specification of that concept, but let’s not digress.) If that’s the only weapon you got, you try to make the best of it.

        No one is suggesting that models not be used to explore conceptually how climate works – nor indeed that probabilistic forecasting will not be feasible at some time in the future as Palmer – and many others – suggest.

        You have progressed from Stern has a good hand to climate models are not deterministic but chaotic in the sense of theoretical physics and don’t have predictive skills. Congrats – I doubt that Stern understands that.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 8:51 pm |

        > Surely the point was that Stern ‘had a good hand’.

        No. Try again.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 9:04 pm |

        I’m not sure in which way Stern was wrong. Here’s a thought experiment to settle this. Suppose I tell you I have very, very good chances my next Poker hand just after having raised.

        You’re logical fallacy is splitting hairs. All that’s left in the tank wee willie?

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:25 pm |

        Chief brings up a nice flush:

        (1) The Devil are in the details.

        (2) You are splitting hairs.

        Procrustes would fold with envy.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 9:39 pm |

        ‘And though I suggest that libertarians would endorse social health insurance – the devil (or barbarian as the case may be) is in the detail and I know too little about obamacare to comment.’

        Procrustes of course changed the length of his guests to suit the bed.

        The logical fallacy is distraction.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:46 pm |

        > Let’s try the more direct way: I don’t think Stern was saying that his calculations were incorrect, but that, in retrospect and considering the new game state, they might have been a bit too optimistic. Twas a figure of speech, really.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-289613

        Chief simply equivocated the word “wrong” to coatrack his pet topics on Stern’s back, starting with the assumption that none but him and his coterie realizes that weather is chaotic and that climate models can’t predict anything.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 10:15 pm |

        ‘Chief’ merely commented that Stern was wrong in the first instance and that there was no confidence that he was right in the second.

        Twas merely a flippant comment.

        But I hate to be mischaracterised – and the endless shifting sands of arguments with wee willie.

        What I argued was that models are chaotic – as they most certainly are – and that there is no single deterministic solution to climate models. Therefore was was as yet no rational basis for using models to claim something about the temperature in 2100. Did I not say this? Weather and climate are chaotic as well – but I digress. This is the logical fallacy of assertion without proof. So Stern was and is wrong to make a claim to knowledge that can’t be obtained from models. At best models can estimate probabilities of future temperatures – and that is a project for the future still.

        I will quote again from James McWilliams. ‘McWilliams’ primary areas of scientific research are the fluid dynamics of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, both their theory and computational modeling. Particular subjects include the maintenance of the general circulations; climate dynamics; geostrophically and cyclostrophically balanced (or slow manifold) dynamics in rotating, stratified fluids; vortex dynamics; planetary boundary layers; planetary-scale thermohaline convection; the roles of coherent structures in turbulent flows in geophysical and astrophysical regimes; numerical algorithms; statistical estimation theory; and coastal ocean modeling.

        In the past several years he has helped develop a three-dimensional simulation model of the U.S. West Coast that incorporates physical oceanographic, biogeochemical, and sediment transport aspects of the coastal circulation. This model is being used to interpret coastal phenomena, diagnose historical variability in relation to observational data, and assess future possibilities.’

        ‘In each of these model–ensemble comparison studies, there are important but difficult questions: How well selected are the models for their plausibility? How much of the ensemble spread is reducible by further model improvements? How well can the spread can be explained by analysis of model differences? How much is irreducible imprecision in an AOS?

        Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence.’ McWilliams 2007.

        There is no single solution. The individual model ensemble members are chosen after the fact on the basis of ‘a posteriori solution behaviour’. It looks good so it’s in. Confidence evaporates entirely.

        So this is hardly unknown except to me and ‘my coterie’. A very nice coat it is too. It is just that Stern – and by extension wee willie – is utterly clueless.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 12:41 am |

        Nicolas Stern admits he was wrong:

        The Stern review, published in 2006, pointed to a 75% chance that global temperatures would rise by between two and three degrees above the long-term average; he now believes we are “on track for something like four “. Had he known the way the situation would evolve, he says, “I think I would have been a bit more blunt. I would have been much more strong about the risks of a four- or five-degree rise.”

        http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davo

        This of course your original comment wee willie. The argument remains that there is no credible way to estimate either the 2 or 3 degrees rise or 4 or 5. And it becomes a rationale for wild claims about wars for food and water other imminent catastrophes. To somehow suggest that he then embraces uncertainty or that his much criticised zero discount rate is the soundest of economic principles is – apart from being utter nonsense – your logical fallacy of shifting goalposts. We were discussing the logically impossible temperature predictions. You make and can make no possible challenge to this charaterisation of models that is self evidently the way it is. Except to make silly little disparaging exclamations abotu chaos.

        The simplest and most rational way to project temperature is simply to accept that there are natural decadal variations and assume that all the warming in the instrumental record is from greenhouse gases – unlikely to be sure – and to project the trend of the instrumental record forward. We get a 0.7 degree C rise this century. Not nearly dire enough for catastrophists lke Stern I realise.

        We can of course undertake risk mitigation. Risk exists. As the dreaded Tsonis points out – a chaotic system is intrinsically sensitive and the risk is both ends of the cooling/warming spectrum and may exceed comfortable limits. Risk mitigation I have addressed elsewhere and shant repeat myself just yet.

        But yes both you and Stern continue to be relatively clueless – but you at least are rich in red herrings.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 5:38 am |

        (This ended up in the wrong spot so am re-posting)

        Chief and Willard

        It doesn’t take a genius to see what Stern is doing here.

        When Nature is working against your doomsday predictions by interjecting a “standstill” in global warming as measured by thermometers all over the globe, and general public confidence in catastrophic climate change science is beginning to wane, the best thing to do is go on the offensive and ratchet up the fear factor with the old “it’s worse than we thought” ruse.

        It’s so obvious it hurts.

        Max

      • Peter Lang | January 30, 2013 at 7:28 am |

        Manacker,
        Your comment was worth repeating :)

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 7:57 am |

        Thanks, Peter

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 8:46 am |

        Chief’s claim against Stern (and other progressive pissants) is this:

        > The argument remains that there is no credible way to estimate either the 2 or 3 degrees rise or 4 or 5.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290295

        Chief’s sole argument for his incredibilism is this:

        > What I argued was that models are chaotic [which leads to] logically impossible temperature predictions.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290295

        Following suit on red herrings can be relevant to a discussion. Most of my arguments tackled this sole argument. Nobody disagree that weather is chaotic are that models are not predictors. Chief’s argument against Stern (and other progressive pissants) has no merit and, standing aside that Chief seems to have borrowed Don Don’s vocabulary of rhetorical terms, his claim that I’m moving the goal posts is false.

        ***

        More on incredibilism over there:

        http://planet3.org/2012/08/24/incredibilism/

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 9:05 am |

        “incredibilism”?

        versus

        “credulity”?

        Go Team!

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 1:33 pm |

        ‘The global coupled atmosphere–ocean–land–cryosphere system exhibits a
        wide range of physical and dynamical phenomena with associated physical,
        biological, and chemical feedbacks that collectively result in a continuum of
        temporal and spatial variability. The traditional boundaries between weather and climate are, therefore, somewhat artificial’. A UNIFIED MODELING
        APPROACH TO CLIMATE SYSTEM PREDICTION by James Hurrell, Gerald A. Meehl, Davi d Bader, Thomas L. Delworth ,
        Ben Kirtman, and Bruce Wielicki

        To quote myself – in context his time – What I argued was that models are chaotic – as they most certainly are – and that there is no single deterministic solution to climate models. Therefore there was as yet no rational basis for using models to claim something about the temperature in 2100.

        I know I have quoted this before from Slingo and Palmer 2011 I know.

        Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic.

        This really seems to be a clear cut – and quite eveident if you understand the maths – statement in peer reviewed science.

        Tim Palmer is of course well known as the head of the ECMWF. ‘My DPhil was in general relativity theory from Oxford in the mid 1970s, after which I moved into the field of weather and climate dynamics and prediction, first at the UK Meteorological Office and then at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts. I have been a visiting scientist at the University of Washington and more recently was the Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge.’

        And you reply with some article or other on a space cadet blog site claiming that sceptics bear some similarity to the cartoon Incredibles? Your credibility is zilch and incredibily attains a new high. .

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 10:37 pm |

        > Twas merely a flippant comment.

        Indeed, but let’s not forget that it also helps Chief divert the discussion into Stern’s cluelessness.

        Here’s thy wiki page for Nicholas Stern:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stern

        No award or recognition can prevent Stern from being clueless about models uncertainty, of course. But here’s evidence that he acknowledges them:

        [W]e must recognize that predictions must be in terms of risks, uncertainties, and probabilities. There is uncertainty about future emissions, about the possibilities of absorption of greenhouse gases by the land, forests, and oceans, about the magnitude of warming from changes in greenhouse gas levels, and about the effects on local climates around the world. The issue for policy is how to manage risk, taking account of strong scientific evidence that the risks are potentially very large. These are not small probabilities of something nasty, but large probabilities of something catastrophic.

        http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/24/climate-what-you-need-know/?pagination=false

        The topic of that book review might help explain Chief’s beef.

        The only occurence of “chaotic” is in this sentence: “In the absence of such basic preparations, negotiation by international bureaucrats on issues that require technical underpinnings and the evaluation of complex policies risk being unproductive, misguided, and chaotic.” This book review does not provide any evidence about Stern’s knowledge of chaos theory.

        Chief is welcome to have a ball. Chaos, chaos, chaos. Perhaps he could copy-paste his McWilliams’ quote again.

        ***

        Besides the usual criticisms (Nordhaus, Tol, etc.) of the Stern Review, here’s one from Dan Dennett’s alma mater:

        This report reviews and explains the differences between Stern and his academic critics. While the Stern Review is not a perfect document, it rests on much sounder ground than the economists who have attacked it. The Stern Review illustrates important ways in which economic analysis can be made to reflect the urgency of the climate problem. And it raises crucial questions about the economic aspects of climate change – even though it ultimately fails to find successful solutions to some of the important problems.

        http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/pubs/rp/sterndebatereport.pdf

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:10 pm |

        A research program from Princeton U:

        In the spring of 2011 the research community Communicating Uncertainty: Science, Institutions, and Ethics in the Politics of Global Climate Change received funding from PIIRS. The three-year interdisciplinary community was led in its first year by Robert O. Keohane, professor of international affairs in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs .

        The research community examines issues of uncertainty with respect to global climate change and other international environmental problems and aims to improve the capacity to discuss and weigh related policy prescriptions. Through multiple lenses, the research community will draw on the expertise of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory to work on real cases. The laboratory, located on Princeton University’s Forrestal Campus, is one of the world’s leading climate modeling centers. Sixteen Princeton faculty members from several disciplines compose the community’s core group:

        Climate scientists provide an understanding of the kinds of scientific uncertainties that arise.

        Historians contribute perspective on how uncertainty has been handled in the past regarding fields in which public policy depends in part on scientific knowledge.

        Specialists on international relations analyze the politics of climate change within global institutions, while regional specialists examine case studies of societies that have been more or less successful in adopting policy measures aimed at addressing the effects of climate change.

        Other social scientists investigate how uncertainty in scientists’ work on climate and other international environmental issues is understood by various audiences, ranging from high-level nonscientist policymakers to the general public.

        Ethicists question how policymakers concerned with ethics make decisions in light of uncertainty. What are the moral and political principles in play? What constitutes responsible communication of underlying science and policy rationale? What institutional designs facilitate such communication?

        http://www.princeton.edu/piirs/research-communities/communicating-uncertainty/

        Note the presence of Peter Singer, yet another Aussie.

        ***

        This spring, there are meetings. Note the one on Wednesday, April 24:

        IPCC Report on Climate and Uncertainty
        Howard Kunreuther University of Pennsylvania, and Elke Weber, Columbia University
        Commentator: Felix Creutzig, Technical University Berlin

        Kunreuther’s publications’ page:

        https://opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/37/research

        Searching for “Tipping Climate Negotiations, Climate Change and Common Sense: Essays in Honour of Tom Schelling. R. Hahn and A. Ulph (eds.) Oxford University Press” made us find this other page:

        http://www.opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/papers/

        There is a title under the name of both Kunrenther and Weber. Here is the abstract:

        > Utilizing findings from psychology and behavioral economics, this paper proposes strategies that reduce individuals’ cognitive and motivational barriers to the adoption of measures that reduce the impacts of climate change. We focus on ways to encourage reduction in carbon‐based energy use so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage investment in adaptation measures to reduce property damage from future floods and hurricanes. Knowledge of individual decisionmaking
        processes can guide these prescriptive interventions, such as choice
        architecture in combination with effectively‐framed economic incentives.

        http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/WP201219_HK-EUW_AidingDecisionsAdaptCC.pdf

        We forecast that the meeting will be around this idea.

      • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 4:01 pm |

        Joshua

        Your last comment is as confused as your usual drivel related to climate change.

        I’m not going to get into a silly debate with you on Thomas Jefferson or libertarianism.

        It’s pointless.

        Max

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 4:27 pm |

        manacker.

        It’s pointless.

        Because there is so much “point” to your many other comments at Climate Etc. They show others how they were wrong, and you were right. They convince people of your viewpoint.

        Yes, that’s why you didn’t respond to my laughter at your notion that Jefferson being a slaveholder is irrelevant to his views on individual freedom. Because there would be no “point” in trying to justify such a ridiculous statement. I mean it’s not like you’re ducking having made such a lame comment, or anything like that.

        No. Of course not.

        Too funny.

      • David Springer | January 29, 2013 at 5:13 pm |

        @Joshua

        Thomas Jefferson was against slavery, kind hearted, and pragmatic.

        He thought it would be cruel to free slaves before projects could be built and a welfare system established. He proposed locating the projects outside the United States sort of like what England did with felons in Australia. That worked out well for Australia. We’ll never know if Jefferson’s plan would have worked as well.

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 5:57 pm |

        Really, David?

        Thomas Jefferson was against slavery, kind hearted, and pragmatic.

        Tell me, how did Jefferson treat those slaves – in his work at upholding chief’s libertarian ideals of individual freedom, a (virtuous) free market (of slave trade?), and the rule of law? Did he rape a women that he enslaved, perhaps, in a kind-hearted and pramgatic way? I mean what better way to demonstrate his concern over a woman’s individual freedom than to rape her, eh?

        I wonder if he struggled against slavery as did the Quakers, who Willis thinks just “sit around and quake?” What do you think?

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 6:09 pm |

        Ah yes, those “libertarian free-market ideals,” in support of “individual freedom,” and consistent with the “rule of law.”

        Jefferson takes the 4 percent formula further and quite bluntly advances the notion that slavery presented an investment strategy for the future. He writes that an acquaintance who had suffered financial reverses “should have been invested in negroes.” He advises that if the friend’s family had any cash left, “every farthing of it [should be] laid out in land and negroes, which besides a present support bring a silent profit of from 5. to 10. per cent in this country by the increase in their value.”

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 6:12 pm |

        More of the “libertarian” ideals: “Free market,” “individual freedom,” and the “rule of law.”

        A letter has recently come to light describing how Monticello’s young black boys, “the small ones,” age 10, 11 or 12, were whipped to get them to work in Jefferson’s nail factory, whose profits paid the mansion’s grocery bills.

        But hey – who could think that whipping black boys should have anything to do with Jefferson’s views on individual freedom?

        Oh. My aching sides.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 9:02 am |

        And their free descendants today murder each other over NOTHING. Is that an improvement of some kind over being whipped, Joshua?

        http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/01/29/15-year-old-girl-shot-and-killed-in-kenwood-neighborhood-park/

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 9:04 am |

        Weather and climate are both chaotic,
        So let’s throw linear fits.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 10:04 am |

        Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 6:12 pm | Reply
        A letter has recently come to light describing how Monticello’s young black boys, “the small ones,” age 10, 11 or 12, were whipped to get them to work in Jefferson’s nail factory, whose profits paid the mansion’s grocery bills.

        But hey – who could think that whipping black boys should have anything to do with Jefferson’s views on individual freedom?

        Oh. My aching sides.

        ——————————————————————————-

        Maybe you could arrest the side splitting laughter by realizing those wielding the whips were as black as those doing the whipping. Black on black violence using whips in Montecello 250 years ago has become black on black violence today using guns instead of whips. And the reasons for the violence far less clear. The Monticello boys could have avoided the lash by doing what they were told. This girl here was doing everything right and she still died at the hands of members of her own race:

        http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/01/29/15-year-old-girl-shot-and-killed-in-kenwood-neighborhood-park/

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 10:23 am |

        Maybe you could arrest the side splitting laughter by realizing those wielding the whips were as black as those doing the whipping. Black on black violence using whips in Montecello 250 years ago has become black on black violence today using guns instead of whips.

        Ah. The hilarity continues. Jefferson wasn’t responsible for the violence because it was blacks who did the whipping. No matter that those blacks who did the whipping were freakin’ slaves owned by Jefferson – with no rights of their own, and whose very existence was owed to them doing as their master bade them to do.

        I mean I’m sure that those doing the whipping merely decided to do it on their own, that it had nothing to do with productivity and Jefferson’s income, and that no doubt, Jefferson never heard anything about it, as being “kind-hearted and pragmatic” surely he’d want the people he held in bondage – and systematically denied the rights that he dedicated his life in fighting to obtain for white people – to only be denied human rights, and not be whipped.

        Is there no end to your ability to avoid accountability?

        Say – willard, if you’re reading, what would you call David’s attempt to transition the discussion of Jefferson’s slave ownership to his feelings about violence in 21rst century in black communities in Chicago?

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:03 am |

        The point you seem unable or unwilling to grasp is that violence against blacks didn’t diminish with abolition. Instead of a black overseer’s whip in southern slave states it’s a black gang banger’s gun now in every state and the problem is arguably worse because even innocent little girls doing everything right like the one in the article are not safe in a northern state.

        At any rate slavery is illegal in all 57 of these United States and little black girls still aren’t safe but it isn’t white people who are killing them. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 11:10 am |

        the problem is arguably worse because even innocent little girls doing everything right like the one in the article are not safe in a northern state.

        The hilarity continues. The problem is worse than when blacks were relegated to slavery, systematically denied any component of human rights, whipped with impunity, raped with impunity, fed just enough scraps to keep alive, chained, sold, punished for learning how to read, not allowed to vote, etc. The problem is worse than when every black person was subjected to violence with no need for explanation and no legal accountability for doing so.

        Spectacular!

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:44 am |

        Illinois was never a slave state.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 11:12 am |

        The point you seem unable or unwilling to grasp is that violence against blacks didn’t diminish with abolition.

        A truly spectacular comment unto itself. Imagine the ignorance required to make such a statement!

      • Howard | January 30, 2013 at 11:26 am |

        At least Springer reminds us all that you are not such a bad guy after all Joshua ;^)

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 11:34 am |

        > Violence against blacks didn’t diminish with abolition.

        Since violence only applies to people and not furniture, this statement is trivially true.

        We could even claim that it has increased, since at the time of abolition it was zero.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:48 am |

        Wrong again, Wee Willie. Your command of language leaves a lot to be desired. Simple referral to a dictionary once in a while would improve your writing tremendously. Violence is by definition not confined to free men. I might concede its confinement to living things but even that’s arguable.

        vi·o·lence

        /ˈvī(ə)ləns/

        Noun

        1.Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
        2.Strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 11:53 am |

        A dictionary won’t give you the legal term, Big Dave.

        Go fetch, big boy!

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 11:58 am |

        If you have access to Jstor, here’s something that might help you, Big Dave:

        http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1228541

        No, I’m not helping you rehearsing an old Internet claptrap.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 11:59 am |

        Perhaps you can start from the beginning, Big Dave:

        > Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law, and is closely tied to legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a natural person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 12:17 pm |

        In the spirit of full disclosure, here’s where we’re heading, Big Dave:

        http://www.thecorporation.com

        Please do continue.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 12:41 am |

        I guess I failed to realize this blog is actually a court of law.

        But you’re still wrong:

        http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/violence

        Law: the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.

        While the exercise of physical force agains the slave was legal the exhibition of force was clearly to intimidate the slave and thus still falls under the definition of violence. One can’t intimidate furniture but only a complete imbecile would argue that a slave could not be intimidated. Thanks for playing. I hope your game improves but until it does you’re just not in my league.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 31, 2013 at 1:29 am |

        > Collectivist – limits obsessed – redistributive – dangerous – naive.

        Chief for the win!

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 3:56 am |

        Yea – willie for the pissant progressive hall of fame. We have these two ideas. Optimal economic growth – which we know how oto engineer. And it is not with the reckllessness of the US and Europe. This is contrasted with ‘economic degrowth’. This seems an example of utterly incompatible aspirations. So prepare to be further marginalised as the world declines to warm.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 4:25 am |

        The world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is conceived in love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

        Much better – it packs another meaning into the sentence by conflating birth and invention – family and the creative soul.

        These postcards from the Climate War have been fun. In the real world the rivers are rising and there is no fresh food, bread or milk in the shops. Amazing how fragile our systems are and how much care and luck it takes to maintain them. Eh – let them eat lasagna. Speaking of which – I can smell it – it’s cooked. Bye.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 1:04 pm |

        > If you want to do a check on “climate uncertainty” […]

        After replaying his CAGW card using other words, MiniMax now returns to his other pet card: CS.

        Here’s what I already said on another subthread:

        > But you can go first, if you do care about lukewarm symbology.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-289429

        MiniMax should already know that I don’t care much about lukewarm symbology.

        Readers will notice MiniMax’ silence on that subthread.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 1:54 pm |

        Willard

        “Lukewarm” is a good expression.

        Doesn’t change the fact that several new papers and articles are suggesting that that model derived (2xCO2) ECS in AR4 was exaggerated by a factor of two.

        Maybe it is telling us that future warming from CO2 will be “lukewarming”.

        Ever thought about that while you contemplate your navel and ponder “uncertainty”?

        Max

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 2:21 pm |

        wee willie linked to a couple of articles recently – one was discussing war and famine and other dire outcomes of global warming and the other using weather related disasters to create a revolution in society. It seems disingenuous in the extreme to then quibble about CAWG.

        Neither of these articles has any relevant science but are simply the usual litany of catastrophe from cult of AGW millennialist space cadets. Neither of them is worth a second glance.

        Climate sensitivity is of course variable both spatially and temporally – and actual warming from CO2 seems quite minimal. This is not is not to say that abrupt and nonlinear is not potentially an issue. But the politics of carbon mitigation is problematic – principally as the world is not warming for a decade or three more at least. Just so long as the space cadets hold on to their agenda to use wether disaster and ever wilder declarations of dire futures – documented in the Jacobin article – to create a social and economic revolution will be just as long as practical responses elude us.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:36 pm |

        It’s a bit unnerving to think about how often I find myself nodding my head in agreement with a curmudgeon like you. An acquired taste perhaps. Like beets or horseradish.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:37 pm |

        Damn broken threading. Lest there was any doubt the curmudgeon is Ellison.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 12:01 am |

        I assure you the feeling is quite mutual Springer – and please tell me when you get the urge to dance naked so I can avoid the hemisphere.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 12:16 am |

        You should be so lucky.

      • Doug Cotton | January 31, 2013 at 4:59 am |

        Actually Robert there is a minuscule net cooling effect from carbon dioxide, the main cooling being from water vapour which reduces the thermal gradient in the troposphere, and thus leads to a lower surface temperature. Without water vapour, the Second Law of Thermodynamics may be used to show that the surface temperature would have been at least 300K, rather than only about 288K. This is because the thermodynamic equilibrium state of maximum entropy is necessarily that for which a thermal gradient evolves, which is the very gradient they thought they had to explain with the old late 20th century conjecture of a radiative greenhouse effect, which was postulated and promulgated by those who were unfortunately unaware of the implications of the laws of physics. Just the biggest scientific mistake the world has ever seen – but don’t worry, evidence will smash it later this year and it will pass into the history books – and remain there as a reminder that valid science always wins out, sooner or later.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 7:48 pm |

        Actually Doug…that was as far as I got because I have added you to the list of those I simply pass over. Your physics are simply a mish mash of nothing much at all. And you take yourself way too seriously as well.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 1, 2013 at 5:51 am |

        “We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” David Attenborough

        timg56 did some other useful research – ‘http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290381

        There are at least two world views. For one the equation is people and the use of resources and the need is to reduce one or preferably both. The other understands that there are things that can be achieved in population essentially through economic development, health, education and there is much we can do with resources with technological innovation. Indeed that there is much that can be achieved in ecological conservation and restoration and in carbon mitigation. Progress that has eluded us for decades. We believe that sustainable economic growth is not just possible but is the key to a bright future for humanity.

        Let’s call the two world views – in absolutely neutral language – pissant progressives and liberal defenders of freedom, justice and democracy. The world views are of profoundly incompatible. In the method of Marcuse – liberal truths are buried in obfuscation and vilification. There are expressions that are not allowable in the public spaces. Quite literally in some laws proposed for Australia – proposals that are almost universally rejected and that will never see the light of day. It was proposed in a government appointed review of media laws – for instance – to make publication of climate scepticism illegal in the media and on the net. A laughable attempt to curtail free speech. There is however this urge to totalitarianism that is always an undercurrent in the progressive zeitgeist. As Hayek said – from “the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.” We have seen it before.

        One side wants a rich, resilient world building on our technologies. The other side promulgates dire prophecies in the hopes of creating a revolutionary moment in which societies and economies can be radically reshaped. The choice between hope and despair seems a simple one.

      • Myrrh | February 1, 2013 at 7:18 am |

        I repeat in the correct place..

        Myrrh | February 1, 2013 at 5:46 am | Reply
        Gosh, and I thought it was AGW/CAGWs who took themselves way to seriously, believing in fantasies and passing themselves off as scientists.

      • Doug Cotton | February 2, 2013 at 1:41 am |

        And I’m sure your physics would be as you describe, Robert T Ellison if you were to attempt to explain the 720K temperature at the Venus poles which receive less than 1W/m^2 of direct insolation..

        Try reading Dr Hans Jelbring’s peer-reviewed 2003 journal paper http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/FunctionOfMass.pdf

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 2:03 pm |

        Clicking on MiniMax’ name still brings me bad luck.

        Here was the response above:

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290389

        Here it is again:

        > Ever thought about that while you contemplate your navel and ponder “uncertainty”?

        After playing CAGW and CS, now MiniMax plays AdHominem, or perhaps in this case AbdHominem.

        As if searching for resources and sharing them amounted to navel gazing.

        Readers should wonder what pontificating around a few pet cards sounds like, then.

        Let’s hope Big Dave will bring me luck again.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:51 pm |

        willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 2:03 pm | Reply

        After playing CAGW and CS, now MiniMax plays AdHominem, or perhaps in this case AbdHominem.

        As if searching for resources and sharing them amounted to navel gazing.

        Readers should wonder what pontificating around a few pet cards sounds like, then.

        “Let’s hope Big Dave will bring me luck again.”

        Normally people have to rub my tummy to bring them luck. I can hardly begin to say how glad I am that you were able to reap the benefit absent physical contact. Overjoyed is too mild to express the emotion. An urge to dance naked in the moonlight thanking any and all pagan gods who might be listening is perhaps a better way to convey it.

        P.S. re; AbdHominem/navel gazing.

        Clever and stupid at the same time. I wish you’d focus on learning the definitions of real words, words like ‘violence’ instead of this self-indulgent wordplay that a precocious fifth grader could best you at.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 31, 2013 at 1:27 am |

        > Normally people have to rub my tummy to bring them luck.

        Clicking on the reply button next to your name suffices for me, Big Dave.

        > I wish you’d focus on learning the definitions of real words [.]

        You were supposed to bring back a real definition of the word violence, Big Dave. Something with more bite than your some Random dictionary. Have you lost your way to the library?

        Here’s one just for you:

        Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence

        Slaves does not meet this definition, Big Dave.

      • David Springer | February 1, 2013 at 6:33 am |

        So in effect you’re saying Webster died and gave the job of authoritative definition of words in the english language to the the world health organization.

        Interesting point of view you have there. Interesting in how stupid it is.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 4:10 pm |

        Chief should have paid due diligence to that Jacobin article before saying this:

        > Just so long as the space cadets hold on to their agenda to use wether disaster and ever wilder declarations of dire futures – documented in the Jacobin article – to create a social and economic revolution will be just as long as practical responses elude us.

        Here’s how the author of the article underlines her take on the problem, with our emphasis:

        [C]ould disasters also focus public attention on the creeping crisis that threatened the region’s future one foot of marshland at a time? In that respect, Katrina and BP seemed like potential moments for transformation, when people would be energized around issues they’d once dismissed as the province of environmentalists.

        The reality has been more complicated. Awareness and understanding of the coastal crisis jumped, and civic participation boomed — at least among those who’d come back — as people tried to figure out what the future of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana would be. Sustainability is on the tip of every tongue — though there’s little consensus on what it means.

        http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-flood-next-time/

        Chief’s beef is unjustified.

        Yet again.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 12:51 am |

        ‘Crises and disasters are of particular interest to politics that seek to transform embedded institutions and practices, whether radical or reformist. They bring underlying processes and patterns to the surface and shake the foundations of the status quo, offering a view of how things might be reconstructed differently — and the chance to do so.’

        ‘Climate change fundamentally challenges the hyper-individualist, growth-obsessed tenets of modern American liberalism, to say nothing of conservatism.’

        The thrust is bitingly clear to a jaundiced eye such as mine. Collectivist – limits obsessed – redistributive – dangerous – naive. Nothing that offers means of increasing the wealth and resilience of societies.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 12:56 am |

        That was of course a reply to wee willie and his self serving quoting.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 10:36 am |

        I will close my weekly review of searching for “climate uncertainty” results in my search engine, tweaked so that it will give me the weekly hits.

        There’s this one by Frank Ackerman, mentioned elsewhere in the thread, advertizing a forthcoming book:

        As we explain, both science and economics have continued to advance since Stern’s path-breaking work. After a review of “climate science for economists,” we examine three major areas: the treatment of climate damages in economics; new developments in economic theory; and the economics of mitigation and adaptation. Here are a few highlights from our book:

        Recent studies suggest that peak temperatures, once reached, will persist for centuries, if not millenia. Mitigation scenarios have often assumed that the world can “overshoot” a target such as 2°C of warming and then come back to it through later emission reductions; since this option is not available, much more stringent reductions are needed for climate stabilization.

        There is essentially no basis for the projection of future climate damages in many models. The use of simple, often quadratic, “damage functions” shapes the results of leading climate economics models, solely on the basis of modelers’ guesses. Empirical research, meanwhile, is finding increasingly ominous evidence of climate damages in agriculture, forestry, ocean acidification, and other areas.

        http://triplecrisis.com/climate-economics-the-state-of-the-art/

        Yet another economist that remains skeptical of model projections.

        ***

        Since I have no real dog in this economists’ fight and am more interested in issues of Open Access, I tried to post this comment:

        > I agree, the cost is unfortunately high; authors don’t get to set the prices that publishers charge for books (we would have priced it much lower). Can you persuade your library to buy a copy?

        Editors can choose their publishers according to their pricing policy.

        There are ways to publish research papers that can compete on the apps’ market. For instance, Jean Goodwin’s **Between Scientists & Citizens: Proceedings of a Conference at Iowa State University** costs a buck:

        http://jeangoodwin.net/2012/07/26/between-scientists-citizens-proceedings-of-a-conference-at-iowa-state-university-june-1-2-2012/

        Authors might try to find klout the modern way.

        For more background, v.

        http://www.aaronsw.com

        I will try later.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 11:08 am |

        Willard

        You comment on your search for “climate uncertainty”.

        If you want to do a check on “climate uncertainty”, check out all the recent papers and articles pointing to a (2xCO2) equilibrium climate sensitivity around half of that previously estimated by IPCC based on model predictions (Judith’s “bombshell” on an earlier thread).

        It will be interesting to see how IPCC reacts to all this new information in its AR5 report, to be published next year some time. (Judith felt it was unlikely that IPCC would try to “sweep this under the rug”, but we’ll have to wait and see).

        Max

      • Steven Mosher | January 29, 2013 at 11:07 pm |

        you might like one of my favorite authors,Carlyle. err he went way way too far this piece , but read it. Its the source of the phrase -the dismal science

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasional_Discourse_on_the_Negro_Question

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 2:42 pm |

        Language is fluid – but the Whigs in both Britian and the US were clearly on balance abolitionist and had many more ‘progressive’ elements to their platforms. They continued in the tradition of Locke and Hume and others from the Scottish enlightenment. If you read Hayek’s essay – Why I am not a conservative – there is a little history.

        This is clearly the purest lineage of modern libertarian ideals. Although perhaps we should follow Hayek is this as well and identify as Whigs. The problem with that is that no one has the remotest idea what that means and the purpose of language is utterly defeated.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:22 pm |

        There ought never be enough uncertainty communicatin’:

        In the spring of 2011 the research community Communicating Uncertainty: Science, Institutions, and Ethics in the Politics of Global Climate Change received funding from PIIRS. The three-year interdisciplinary community was led in its first year by Robert O. Keohane, professor of international affairs in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs .

        http://www.princeton.edu/piirs/research-communities/communicating-uncertainty/

        Note the participation of Peter Singer, yet another Aussie:

        http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/

        ***

        Among the meetings scheduled for spring 2013, there is this one:

        IPCC Report on Climate and Uncertainty
        Howard Kunreuther, University of Pennsylvania, and Elke Weber, Columbia University

        Here’s the publication page of Kunreuther:

        https://opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/37/research

        Searching for “Tipping Climate Negotiations, Climate Change and Common Sense: Essays in Honour of Tom Schelling. R. Hahn and A. Ulph (eds.) Oxford University Press”, we stumbled upon this other publications’ page:

        http://www.opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/papers/

        A paper by Kunrenther and Weber there: Facilitating and Aiding Human Decisions to Adapt to or Mitigate the Impacts of Climate Change .

        The abstract:

        > Utilizing findings from psychology and behavioral economics, this paper proposes strategies that reduce individuals’ cognitive and motivational barriers to the adoption of measures that reduce the impacts of climate change. We focus on ways to encourage reduction in carbon‐based energy use so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage investment in adaptation measures to reduce property damage from future floods and hurricanes. Knowledge of individual decision‐ making processes can guide these prescriptive interventions, such as choice architecture in combination with effectively‐framed economic incentives.

        We predict that the meeting will be around those lines.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 5:00 am |

        Will this nest – in case not. – http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290140

        So obviously Breakthrough is not the pissant progressive who believes in ‘economic degrowth’, the overthrow of democracy, mandatory tofu and compulsory sterilisation? Someone tell Joe Romm that they are not a conservative conspiracy.

      • climatereason | January 30, 2013 at 9:38 am |

        Willard

        From a British persective and having only just read the comment and its context, surely Anthony Watts meant Zeke is mad as in the ‘angry’ meaning, not the ‘mentally unbalanced’ sense of the word.
        tonyb

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 9:47 am |

        tonyb,

        Yes, it’s quite obvious that Tony meant “angry” when he said “mad”.

        That does not excuse his ad hominem.

      • climatereason | January 30, 2013 at 10:08 am |

        Willard and Josh

        I agree that there no call for the Ad Homs. Accusations of fraud help no one, personally I dont subscribe to the fraud or conspiracy theories.

        Joshua ; The name changes are beyond my own comprehension. I am logged in as both names for historical reasons and sometimes the ‘system’ decides to use one name and sometimes another.

        tonyb

      • Wagathon | January 30, 2013 at 10:31 am |

        The climate is composed of many too many elements that simply cannot be added up and divided to arrive at a statistically meaningful average. The usefulness of an average global temperature has been compared to an average of all telephone numbers and calculating the world’s average currency exchange rate. Even if we could determine a statistically relevant, scientifically meaningful average global temperature, what will the gold standard of temperature be that we are all supposed to desire and work together to bring about? If we only could.

        It sounds like attempting to fabricate a leaning Tower of Nazi Babel to demand that everyone agree on an ideal average global temperature–even if that were possible. And, what if we don’t? What if trying to control Earth’s climate is the real disaster? The only disaster.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 9:49 am |

        tony –

        surely Anthony Watts meant Zeke is mad as in the ‘angry’ meaning…

        I don’t think that anyone questions that. But with that interpretation, it is nonetheless a condescending remark, and unaccountable for Zeke’s objection to Watts’ irresponsible implication of fraud.

        Additionally, if being “angry” were reason to dismiss criticism (assuming that Zeke even was “angry”), then Anthony would have to dismiss almost every one of Willis’ posts at WUWT.

        BTW – tony – is there an explanation for when you use climatereason and when you use tonyb?

      • Wagathon | January 28, 2013 at 5:07 pm |

        The witchdoctors of academia have been willing and material enablers in the use by their government employers of the authority of science to advance the political objectives of the Left. The promotion by Liberal Utopians that modern man is destroying the planet must ultimately be seen as a victory for Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev who years ago predicted in Russian, “We will bury you!” The modern English translation is, Choose Socialism, Vote Democrat and Stop the Seas from Rising! Global warming is nothing but a hoax and a scare tactic aimed at superstitious and gullible hypocrites to grab political power and destroy Americanism.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 4:17 pm |

        You seem to know little of the history of the scientific enlightenment. The libertarian ideals are indeed the ideals on which America was founded – individual freedom, free markets, the rule of law and democracy. Who could argue with that FOMBS?

        The economic principles on which free markets should be founded are likewise confirmed by history. At the centre of prudential management of markets is the managment of interest rates to prevent asset bubbles and the maintenance of balanced government budgets. It is clear that the relative success of the Australian economy over decades – for instance – is founded on the management of these two things. This owes much more in the rational scheme of things to Friedrich Hayek than Any Rand. Common sense and the tried and true rather than inflexible ideology.

        From you we get obfuscation rather than clarity – something that seems a defining quality of the modern pissant progressive. It stems from a need to hide their true agendas. Nothing less than the complete dismantling of industrial economies in many instances. What about you FOMBS – are you a closet wrecker hoping to take advantage of catastrophe to coast to ideological supremacy and world domination? Planet Earth to FOMBS…

        What we have seen is failure over more than 20 years to move on carbon mitigation. What we get from you is more arm waving propaganda. What we get from the Hartwell Group is pragmatic proposals on black carbon and tropospheric ozone, technological innovation and cheap renewable energy, the consevation and restoration of agricultural land and ecosystems, health, education and development initiatives that inevitably reduce population pressures. The difference between arm waving and clarity in policy objectives couldn’t be more stark.

      • tempterrain | February 1, 2013 at 9:52 pm |

        “Libertarianism and Marxism both are simple-minded ideologies that sound wonderful in principle”

        Well I’m not sure about Libertarianism, but I wouldn’t say that Marxism was simple minded. Particularly with Americans, mention of Marxism often brings North Korea into the conversation with suggestions that if anyone is even slightly sympathetic to what Marx wrote they should go and live there! Which its why its often a tricky subject to discuss – and no I don’t want to live in North Korea!

        But I’d say Marxism was more applicable to our modern day western mixed economies than is generally realised. It’s not just on questions of social health care, in fact I don’t believe Marx had anything to say on that topic. But he did advocate free education and graduated levels of income tax which we all take for granted. Marx spent nearly all his time writing about capitalism and had very little to say on what socialism may be like , so I would argue that Marxism is more to do with capitalism than either socialism or communism.

        It is true that Marx did predict the demise of capitalism and that hasn’t happened. But maybe if he hadn’t made that prediction it would have done. Keynes, Hayek and all other respected pro-capitalist economists will have all read and digested what Marx had to say and have, I’d say particularly Keynes, developed theories of capitalist management which have helped prevented any such occurance at least up until now.

        We are living in an in-between type of society. Yes we have capitalism but there is a high degree of socialism involved in all economies too. The political debate is nearly always about just what the mix should be, and I think I , for one, am happy with that.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 1, 2013 at 11:09 pm |

        The battle of values is not at the fringes between slightly more or slightly less social services – but around utterly incompatible views on economic growth. You describe not socialism but any modern economy – indeed as was the prime concern of Hayek.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290732

        You would find if you looked that Hayek’s view of interest rate management to avoid assett bubbles are of much more fundamental importance to the Australian economy – every month – than any Keynesian insprired rush of blood to the head.

        ‘‘There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom…there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody…Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of the assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong….To the same category belongs also the increase of security through the state’s rendering assistance to the victims of such “acts of God” as earthquakes and floods. Whenever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself or make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken….There is, finally, the supremely important problem of combating general fluctuations of economic activity and the recurrent waves of large-scale unemployment which accompany them….’ Hayek – The Road to Serfdom

        Like marxism – readical environmentalism leads to peddling of a climate of disaster to creare a revolutonary moment such that economic systems can be reinvented. The success of such an endevour would be an extreme danger to the polity. The difference is between economic growth and sustainable futures and ruin.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 1, 2013 at 11:10 pm |

        I was replying to temp. way up above.

      • tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 12:35 am |

        Hayek, as indeed were Marx and Keynes, is an economist. There is no reason to suppose he, or any of them, has any insight on the question of CO2 emissions and AGW. Or any insight on whether oil supplies will peak or on how pollution will affect human and environmental health and the growth of the economy.

        Science and politics/economics are totally separate issues. Its fair enough to have political views but science has to trump them. If they don’t fit in with scientific reality change your politics. It makes more sense than trying to do it the other way around.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 12:58 am |

        ‘In 1950, Hayek left the London School of Economics for the University of Chicago, becoming a professor in the Committee on Social Thought. Hayek’s first class at Chicago was a faculty seminar on the philosophy of science attended by many of the University’s most notable scientists of the time, including Enrico Fermi, Sewall Wright and Leó Szilárd. During his time at Chicago, Hayek worked on the philosophy of science, economics, political philosophy, and the history of ideas. Hayek’s economic notes from this period have yet to be published. He did not become part of the Chicago School of Economics, but his recognition of the impact that demand and velocity had on money were a fundamental influence on it.[35] It can be noted that he never taught at the Economics Department which unwaveringly refused him access.’ So Hayek is much more than an economist.

        The question is – despite the vagaries of climate science – what policy is what the most effective response is. And the science is very vague as you should be aware. The models are theoretically probabilisitc but in practice nonlinearity is glossed over. There are modes of natural warming and cooling that that we understand little and that are likely to shift seemingly randomly at unpredicitable intervals. Build me a climate machine and I will say it trumps something or other – if it works. But until then deliver me from the pious expressions of the cult of space cadets.

        The most effective policy response is the one that works.

        ‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.

        The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’

        http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation

      • Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 1:09 am |

        The question is – despite the vagaries of climate science – what the most effective policy response is. The other question is how much torture syntax can take before it becomes incomprehensible.

      • Doug Cotton | February 2, 2013 at 1:31 am |

        Now explain the Venus temperatures, tempterrain using actual measurements by the Russians which were used to estimate that the mean radiation from the Sun which reaches the Venus surface was no more than 10W/m^2. So no more than 10W/m^2 of energy directly absorbed from the Sun goes back into the atmosphere. Thus no more than 5W/m^2 of that energy comes back down as back radiation. But you would need over 16,000W/m^2 to maintain the surface at over 730K, now wouldn’t you? Are you sure the atmosphere was isothermal initially?

      • tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 2:40 am |

        Doug Cotton,

        Unlike you I’m not claiming to be the world’s expert on both the atmospheres of Venus and Earth but for a start I’d just question this figure of 10W/m^2

        The energy incident on the Venusian atmosphere is, according to my figures 661W/m^2. The figure for Earth is 343W/m^2. Venus is 0.72 of the distance earth from the Sun so applying the inverse square law this seems about right.

        The abedo of Venus is given as 0.8 so this would mean 0.8 x 661W would be reflected (mainly from the the clouds in the atmosphere? ) and 0.2 x 661W = 132W/m^2 would be absorbed on the surface. Or are you saying that 122W is absorbed in the clouds?

      • tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 3:19 am |

        Doug,

        Just to continue with what I wrote previously, having thought about it a bit more, we can calculate that the effective temperature of Venus when measured from a point far away in space is about 210K or -60 degC which is surprising low. That is because the albedo of Venus is low.

        So -60degC Is effectively the temperature of the upper layer of the Venusian atmosphere, or more correctly the upper layer of the troposphere where the convection occurs.

        Now, according to the graph in Wiki

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus

        The temperature of the upper layer is actually -100degC. That corresponds to the region where the temperature starts to rise again. The same as our stratosphere. Is it called a stratosphere on Venus? I’m not sure.

        Anyway I agree with Roy Spencer that the presence of a lapse rate shows the existence of a GH effect. You can’t have one without the other. So we have 70 km of Venusian atmosphere with a lapse rate of approx 10K/km means the surface is warmer by some 700 degrees that the outer atmosphere.

        So I’m not saying I can explain the measured temperatures to a high degree of precision but everything does look to be in the right ballpark.

      • tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 3:39 pm |

        Doug,

        You’ve not replied so are you happy with the above explanation? Has the penny dropped yet?

        I’d just make one more point: If we were to measure the Venusian temperature from some distance out in space, using its emitted IR radiation, we would measure -60degC, or close to it , which corresponds to a temperature in the upper region of the Venusian troposphere. We couldn’t measure the surface temperature directly as the troposphere is opaque to IR.

        But say the atmosphere wasn’t opaque but instead was transparent to IR. In all other respects say it had exactly the same properties (albedo, mass, density etc) as the present one including its transparency to visible light. I know that’s not realistic but this is a thought experiment!. We wait a time for all temperatures to restabilise.

        We repeat the experiment and remeasure the Venusian temperature and we should get exactly the same result. -60 degC. Because -60degC is the temperature that Venus needs to be in order to maintain its energy balance when it is in equilibrium.

        But, now instead of measuring the temperature in the upper reaches of the troposphere we are directly measuring the surface temperature, because now the atmosphere is totally transparent to IR, and which has cooled by around 600 degC.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 29, 2013 at 1:09 am |

        Robert I Ellison “I felt a little aggrieved that I was denied the most expensive antibiotics for purely bureaucratic reasons as my insurance was paying.”

        Just to break it to you gently, Robert I Ellison, physicians commonly prefer not to prescribe expensive antibiotics except in life-or-death cases … because the microbes haven’t evolved resistance to them.

        So when narcissistic patients ask to be treated with expensive antibiotics, the Hippocratic Oath requires that physicians gently fob-off these patients with administrative excuses … because explaining these considerations to narcissists never works, eh?

        This medical example of the Tragedy of the Commons shows yet another reason why unregulated markets perform poorly in medicine … and why far-right economic ideologues have yet to specify any viable alternative to ObamaCare, eh?

        It is a pleasure to augment your appreciation of the rich interplay of ethics and economics, Robert I Ellison!

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 1:58 am |

        Is this back again? No matter.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290082

        Happy to relieve your further misapprehension FOMBS.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 1:59 am |

        Hmmm – I tink the threading has totally lost the plot.

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290082

      • Peter Lang | January 29, 2013 at 2:33 am |

        JC,

        Robert Elliston said:

        Hmmm – I tink the threading has totally lost the plot.

        I suggest this is an example of why no nesting is worth a try, perhaps on Open Threads for a start. Just post comments in the order they are submitted and refer to previous comments by person, date and time. That part can be automated with reply buttons, but without nesting.

      • Peter Davies | January 29, 2013 at 4:20 am |

        Peter Lang’s idea of no nesting (Jan 29 at 2.33am) is now actually being implemented.

        Go team!

      • David Springer | January 29, 2013 at 8:32 am |

        No nesting is not being implemented. Nesting is broken and there’s just no telling where a comment will land in the tree at this point. Near as I can tell deleting comments f*cks up WordPress nesting. When Curry went on the snipping rampage she sacrificed the nesting in the threads where the snips happened.

      • Girma | January 29, 2013 at 7:32 am |

        I disagree strongly, as you can not then have a one to one detailed exchange that is good for the two of them and it is also good for the rest because it can be easily skipped.

      • Peter Lang | January 29, 2013 at 8:05 am |

        Girma
        @ January 29, 2013 at 7:32 am

        I disagree strongly, as you can not then have a one to one detailed exchange that is good for the two of them and it is also good for the rest because it can be easily skipped.

        Sure you can. It’s done this way on many other web sites. In my experience it is by far the best way. You don’t have to go searching through the comments on the active threads to find what new has been said since you last looked at the thread and to try to find if anyone has responded to your comments. Instead, when you return, you start reading where you left off. It works much better than nesting, IMO.

      • David Springer | January 29, 2013 at 8:41 am |

        With only three levels of nesting its utility is reduced. Without a user ability to open/close nesting levels its utility is further reduced. There’s not a whole lot of utility left at this point. No nesting is the least utility and is really only suitable for small numbers of comments. For blogs with fewer than say 25 comments per article no-nesting is the way to go. More than that and nesting is required. For hundreds of comments under a single article you need the standard features of user able to open/close nesting levels. Those are typically called forums not blogs.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 29, 2013 at 8:45 am |

        Springer on nesting,

        Sounds like a plan. Could you find or write an ap that works with wordpress?

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 29, 2013 at 9:40 am |

        captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2, there may be plugins that handle it already, but if not, one could certainly be made. Of course, one could also just fix WordPress so it doesn’t break nesting when comments get deleted.

        By the way David Springer, you can actually tell where a comment will land even if nesting gets broken. There are three places a comment may land, and all three are predictable. The first possibility is if you reply to a regular comment, your reply will land where anticipated. The second possibility is if you reply to a comment that has been orphaned, your comment will land at the very bottom of the page. The third possibility is if you make a top level comment (not replying to someone), your comment will land at the bottom of all non-orphaned comments.

        The comments that land at the bottom when nesting is broken are ones that are attached to trees that no longer exist. To prevent the borked nesting like happens here, all that is needed is a modification to the code which handles deleting comments.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 29, 2013 at 9:45 am |

        Brandon, “Of course, one could also just fix WordPress so it doesn’t break nesting when comments get deleted.”

        I quick fix would be a “snipped” place holder, just add a Snip button by the delete button

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 9:18 am |

        I should have said that *I* couldn’t predict where a comment would land and hadn’t put any thought into it because I really don’t care. I have enough software development problems of my own to deal with. Curry could just delete the text inside the comment instead of the whole comment to stop it from happening. Probably an extra few clicks per snip – edit / select all / delete / save.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 9:39 am |

        > Probably an extra few clicks per snip – edit / select all / delete / save.

        Yes. Just adding a click can become a drag and UX can be an hindrance in the beginning. OTOH, if we believe how snips work at Steve’s, it can be a time saver in the middle run.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 9:41 am |

        Clicking on Big Dave’s name served me well, so far.

        MiniMax, not so much.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 7:13 am |

        Can the consensus of science be trusted?

        This video proves *NOT*!!!

        And plausible-seeming ideology-driven economic systems — Marxism, libertarianism, etc. — are comparably likely to work as these machines, eh?

        \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 6:05 am |

        Chief

        There is no doubt that a line can be drawn to find the “ideal” between the extremes of a “wild West” society and one where “Mother State” takes care of everything, and that each individual might draw that line in a slightly different place.

        And I agree completely with your closing statement that “all good comes from human freedom”, and, yes, that freedom is being “challenged today by the Godless hordes of green neo-socialists barbarians inside the walls of western civilisation.”

        The amazing part is that at least the more naïve of these think they are doing this for the common good.

        Max

      • Joshua | January 28, 2013 at 1:13 pm |

        The line is indistinct – but the potential to cross lines into egregious limitations of personal freedoms exists at all times and require vigilance to identify and resist.

        […]

        All good comes from human freedom and that is challenged today by the Godless hordes of green neo-socialists barbarians inside the walls of western civilisation…

        Ah yes indeed. Thank god that the chief is here, as a brave keyboard warrior, to fight for freedom and to stand strong against the “enemy,” – that come in the form of hordes of greens who breed like rats inside the walls of western civilization, who hold the reins of power as they attempt to crush the good intentions of “skeptics.”

        Just imagine where we’d be without brave souls like the Chief, who from behind their keyboards write post after post to turn the tide against the injustice.

        I mean sure, all those in western civilization do suffer terribly at the hands of chief’s enemies… but thank god he’s around because it could be so much worse.

        Lol! I love these guys.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 9:24 pm |

        Joshua,

        As usual you excel in the complete absence of any meaningful content. A litany of quite unmemorable slurs intended to marginalise and ridicule.

        The truth is that you are a 5 percenter. In Australia these people live in inner city enclaves, vote green, sip latte and pontificate on the pestilence of the human race, the evils of capitalism and the limits to economic growth.

        Tedious beyond words. The challenge for libertarian ideals is to frame a positive narrative for the future. The future belongs – as the past has – to those who can best articulate a peaceful and properous future. The clearest path for the human race this centruy is freedom, free markets, the most robust of democracies and the rule of law by the consent of the governed. If you object to the agenda or the rhetoric – it makes about as much difference to the world as a monkeys fart. And you look like one too.

        Excuse me if I again refuse to take you at all seriously. You have simply not – again – cleared that bar.

        Robert I Ellison
        Chief Hydrologist

      • Joshua | January 28, 2013 at 10:25 pm |

        Chief,

        I will acknowledge that your combining relentless pomposity with obsession about arses, farts, and cleaning off your keyboard is a rather unique feat.

        I will remind you that your simplistic preaching about the benefits of freedom and democracy is bland and banal and fails to substantiate your exalted sense of self-worth.

        I will point out that despite your delusions of grandeur, writing repetitive posts on blogs, full of hand-wringing about conspiracies of “pissants,” wouldn’t do squat to save the world from your imagined enemies even if they were real.

        And I will promise you that at the very moment that I have the slightest concern over whether the chief (perhaps a title awarded to you for your leadership role in the 101st division of the fighting keyboard commandos?) takes me seriously, you will be the first to be informed.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 11:54 pm |

        Joshua,

        Oh the tedium. Do you have anything but complaints about imagined (or real) slights, accusation of pomposity and vague claims of conspiracies? As for inane and banal – and here I was trying for the grand and florid oratory of past heroes of freedom. Admittedly whilst comparing the impact of your prose to a monkeys fart – and saying that you look like one too. Sadly – perhaps I owe more to the scatological humour of Rebelais than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

        As for Chief – I dropped it because of I was bored with dickwads who – in full knowledge of source of the appellation – continue to try to make some idiot point or other.

        Biosketch. Robert styles himself in the blogosphere as a Chief Hydrologist. ‘Cecil Terwilliger (brother to Sideshow Bob) was Springfield’s Chief Hydrological and Hydrodynamical Engineer. He opined that this was a sacred vocation in some cultures. The more I thought about this the more it resonated with me. I am an hydrologist by training, profession and (much more) through a deep fascination with water in all its power and beauty. Given the importance of water to us practically and symbolically, there is more than an element of the sacred.’

        So I am named after a would be clown in the Simpsons. Webby could never understand this – placed me on his climate clown list with a puzzling complaint that I was self identifying with a clown. As for the chances of me taking you seriously – don’t hold your breath.

        Robert I Ellison
        Cheif Hydrologist

      • R. Gates | January 29, 2013 at 7:34 pm |

        Robert I Ellison humorously said:

        “The future belongs – as the past has – to those who can best articulate a peaceful and properous future.”

        ____
        O f course, this is not what the past has shown at all. The sword has proven quite an effective tool in carving out (yes out of human flesh) vast expanses of the past—nothing to do with peaceful articulation at all. The powerful and violent have swept across vast reaches of the planet with the only truth being the power of the sword itself combined with a skilled and powerful hand, killing millions of otherwise “peaceful and articulate” people and forever changing history. Think of Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, etc.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 8:51 pm |

        They rather prove the point Gatesy. Brief but bloody passages in history. The world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is created with love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

      • R. Gates | January 30, 2013 at 2:40 pm |

        Robert I Ellison said:

        “…the future is created with love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.”

        ______
        All very noble and poetic but only half the story. History is a process whereby creation and destruction exist side by side. Yin/Yang, love/hate, joy/sorrow, and all the rest exist in eternal conflict and balance. The lion kills the gazelle so that both species might go on. Life and death exist as a partnership as it were, and the times of destruction, death, and chaos can be equally as long as the times of love and joy and sunshine in the meadows. The wolf comes calling and will have his due.

      • gbaikie | January 30, 2013 at 2:54 pm |

        “Robert I Ellison said:

        “…the future is created with love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.”

        ______
        All very noble and poetic but only half the story. History is a process whereby creation and destruction exist side by side. Yin/Yang, love/hate, joy/sorrow, and all the rest exist in eternal conflict and balance. The lion kills the gazelle so that both species might go on. Life and death exist as a partnership as it were, and the times of destruction, death, and chaos can be equally as long as the times of love and joy and sunshine in the meadows. The wolf comes calling and will have his due.”

        Destruction may be inevitable, but this does not mean it is something one should seek. The gazelle should run from the lion. The gazelle *should* “obey” and seek “the unquenchable fire within”. As should the lion.

        And history is not up and down, there are seasons and eons. It is a dance
        and song.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:59 pm |

        “The lion kills the gazelle so that both species might go on.”

        That’s one of the stupider things you’ve written and you’ve written a great many stupid things. What benefit does the lion confer upon the gazelle? Forcing the gazelle to get some exercise perhaps to ward off coronary disease and diabetes?

      • tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 9:59 pm |

        Robert Ellison said The lion kills the gazelle so that both species might go on.”

        Dave Springer That’s one of the stupider things you’ve written…. What benefit does the lion confer upon the gazelle?

        Much as it pains me to admit it I have to go with Robert on this one. Gazelles exist as a species only because they have evolved to be as they are to evade capture by predators. Similarly wolves and deer, birds and cats etc. No cats means birds, like the Kiwi bird, evolve in the direction of flightlessness. Expose them to cats and they are get eaten and go almost extinct.

        So if I can give Robert a compliment it would be to suggest that he’s said much more stupid things than this.

        But, just because the evolution of one species is very much dependent on the evolution of another, does it really follow that humans should let GH emissions rise out of all control?

      • Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 11:40 pm |

        What I said was that the world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is conceived in love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

        What I didn’t do was make any sort of dimwitted allusion to social Darwinism or make a weird little climate argument by analogy to gazelles, lions and kiwis.

        As has been said repeatedly – the most effective policy response is the one that works.

        ‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.

        The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’

        http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation

        The people standing in the way of progress in many needs of society and the environment is not us. TT – I suggest you stop playing games and deal in good faith for a change – you may as well because the game is moving on without you.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 3, 2013 at 2:15 am |

        And I would like an apology for your suggestion that you agreed with me. Defamation in my books as it implies that I am much less clever than I think I am or am about as dumb as I think you are. Whatever. It is based on something I didn’t say.

      • Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 3:55 am |

        Robert

        You have no empirical proof that there would be “environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings” because “climate forcings” are all natural and primarily from extra terrestrial sources over which mankind has no control. The laws of physics fully explain this, showing how surface temperatures relate to such things as atmospheric height, gravity and mean specific heat of the atmospheric gases, and that no greenhouse effect has been responsible for raising Earth’s surface by 33 degrees or the Venus surface by about 500 degrees.

        I suggest you also read this* peer-reviewed journal paper which, you may note, refers to the thesis which the author wrote for his PhD in Climatology back in 1998. No one has successfully rebutted his work with valid physics. Either be the first to do so, or stop propagating the greatest scientific mistake of all time, because it’s going to cost many lives. Think on that, even if you have a vested interest in maintaining the hoax.

        * http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/FunctionOfMass.pdf

      • Robert I Ellison | February 3, 2013 at 4:20 am |

        If you read the reference Doug instead of going over your rigmatole – you would note that is dicusses such things as black carbon, tropospheric ozone, sulphides, health, education, economic governance, restoration and conservation of farmlands and ecosystems. Essentially – we don’t need to know anything about climate or to have any expectations to recognise that these are goods by themelves.

        This is the third time I have posted this in the past day. Pay attention.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-lqgBxcNes

        We can by conservation farming increase farm productivity by 70%, decrease input costs, conserve soil, water and nutrients and improve downstream environments.

        Frankly – I think your pseudo physics is not worth spending a microsecond on. On the other hand you would do well to study practical and pragmatic options such as given in the link – one that you have not bothered to open before spouting your usual nonsense.

      • Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 6:35 pm |

        And one of the problems of “increasing farm production” is that we deplete the minerals in the food supply (especially selenium) which are vital for good health and longevity. The soil should be rested one year in seven in order to regain it’s minerals. Instead we produce two crops a year in many cases.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 3, 2013 at 8:27 pm |

        We need much more intensive soil and vegetation management systems to meet the challenge of the 21st century.

        Part of this is cycling nutrients in the soil – and even adding micronutrients in the form of crushed rock to soils to kick start the soil formation and soil ecologies needed to restore soil function and enhance pedogenesis.

        It is not rocket science – http://www.fao.org/ag/save-and-grow/ – but you are comparing conventional agriculture with conservation agriculture. The latter is a whole new ball game for 15% of Australian farmers and growing rapidly because of the productivity increases and decreased input costs. It includes a whole range of techniques – from adding biomass, crusher dust and charcoal on smallholder farms (about 70% of global agriculture) – to high tech GPS guided farm equipment and weed recognition software that guides pin point weedicide applications.

        And has the potential to take 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. What’s not to like.

      • Doug Cotton | February 4, 2013 at 4:13 am |

        And are they replacing such important a mineral as selenium? I doubt it. There’s a relative high level around Walcha in NSW, Australia, where there is a high percentage of people living beyond 100, as also appears the case in other selenium rich regions of the world. Selenium helps prevent cancer and works in synergy with vitamin E. Most vitamin E is removed in the process of making white bread, for example, so there are still many problems and many people being, in effect, killed by food processing and modern farming technology, which is all about saving the mighty dollar in production costs, but not looking at the end products. There are numerous studies which show long-term declines in nutrients in many fruits and vegetables, for example.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 4, 2013 at 4:39 am |

        Of course it is not new Doug – http://yourorganicgardeningblog.com/rock-dust-for-bigger-better-tasting-veggies-showier-flowers/ – the importance is in soil processes. Healthy soils mean healthy foods.

        http://us-rem.com/articles/soil-sustainability/

        You don’t really pay attention do you?

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 12:14 am |

        R. Gates | January 30, 2013 at 2:40 pm | Reply

        “All very noble and poetic but only half the story. History is a process whereby creation and destruction exist side by side. Yin/Yang, love/hate, joy/sorrow, and all the rest exist in eternal conflict and balance. The lion kills the gazelle so that both species might go on. Life and death exist as a partnership as it were, and the times of destruction, death, and chaos can be equally as long as the times of love and joy and sunshine in the meadows. The wolf comes calling and will have his due.”

        This is just so incredibly stupid. Let’s embellish a little to illustrate the deep, deep ignorance from which it springs.

        “All very noble and poetic but only half the story. History is a process whereby creation and destruction exist side by side. Yin/Yang, love/hate, joy/sorrow, Hitler/Judaism, and all the rest exist in eternal conflict and balance. The Nazi kills the Jew so that both species might go on. Life and death exist as a partnership as it were, and the times of destruction, death, and chaos can be equally as long as the times of love and joy and sunshine in the meadows. The storm trooper comes calling and will have his due.

        See what I mean, Vern?

      • jim2 | January 28, 2013 at 10:30 pm |

        “Hayek sees interest-group politics as a threat to liberal government and the extended
        order. When a democratic institution is concerned with the political distribution of
        economic benefits to groups, group advantage becomes the basis of legislation, and
        the rule of law is likely to be violated. Political parties become coalitions of interest
        groups, and these alliances provide the legislative majorities by which such groups
        gain privileges that impose costs on the public (Hayek 1979, 5–19). As government
        interferes with market competition on behalf of favored groups, spontaneous order is
        destroyed. Intervention distorts prices and misallocates resources, and these problems
        precipitate further state direction to coordinate economic activity (1979, 89–96).
        Because economic competition among groups is the mechanism of cultural evolution,
        extensive state control of the economy can lead to the desuetude and disappearance of
        the evolved practices that gave rise to the extended order and that support its large
        population (1979, 170–73). The level of living and even the very survival of a
        substantial segment of that population may eventually be threatened when state
        control replaces the market (Hayek 1988, 7).
        Hayek argues that a legislature empowered to violate the rule of law will grant
        exploitative benefits to interest groups. If the institution that makes the rules can also
        distribute favors through the design of policy, it will abuse its lawmaking authority by
        serving special interests. He contends that contemporary legislative institutions have
        become preoccupied with policy formulation to the detriment of the general rules
        necessary for spontaneous order because framing policy offers legislators opportuni-
        ties to acquire political support by awarding privileges to interest groups. When the
        power to design policy and the power to enact general rules are combined in one
        legislative body, the former activity will gain the upper hand, and unrestrained gov-
        ernment will be the result (Hayek 1979, 15–25).
        ”

        http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CE4QFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.org%2Fpdf%2Ftir%2Ftir_15_01_2_boykin.pdf&ei=aUEHUY_fBYSMqQGRloCQDg&usg=AFQjCNHPk06oQfdjPM3FXEob56XC2iZMNA&bvm=bv.41524429,d.b2U&cad=rja

      • Faustino | January 29, 2013 at 2:19 am |

        Living proof, Australia 2007-13.

      • Faustino | January 29, 2013 at 2:23 am |

        My 2.19 was meant as a reply to jim2’s @ 10.30. Getting hard to follow …

      • jim2 | January 29, 2013 at 2:39 pm |

        Living proof – The US too!

      • Peter Lang | January 30, 2013 at 4:51 am |

        Jim 2
        @ January 28, 2013 at 10:30 pm

        +100
        Thank you for those quotes of wisdom.

        The current Australian government demonstrates the truth of what he says. Up until about 2 years ago, our Leftist government had add 16,000 new regulations and removed just 89. It’s add many more since and not sure if any have been removed, but if so not many.

  27. Latimer Alder | January 26, 2013 at 1:31 am |

    Can anyone tell me how I apply for some of this big sceptical money apparently sloshing around the denialosphere?

    I do my bit to fight the good fight against the forces of alarmism…but have never even had the sniff of half a crown. And – judging by the appearance and habits of my fellow sceptics that I have met in person – neither have they.

    So where does it all go? And how can I lay my hands on my fair share? Its been an expensive winter with unexpected snow and ever-rising energy bills.

  28. Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 1:43 am |

    The fundamental assumption of the greenhouse effect is that back radiation has warmed the surface from 255K to 288K. But this assumption is itself based on a false assumption.

    Roy Spencer (in his post about Greenhouse misunderstandings) claims in his point (6) that the atmosphere would have been isothermal at 255K in the absence of any GHG.

    An isothermal atmosphere in a gravitational field would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which reads: “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system”

    In isothermal conditions there would be more potential energy (PE) in eash molecule at the top, and, because kinetic energy (KE) is homogeneous, molecules could “fall” downwards and do work in the process. hence it was not an equilibrium state, let alone one of maximum entropy, as is required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    The Second Law of Thermodynamics has to be obeyed. So (PE+KE) has to be homogeneous, because otherwise work could be done, and so the system would not be at an equilibrium with greatest entropy, as the Second Law requires. In the process of reaching such equilibrium it is inevitable that molecules at the bottom have more kinetic energy, and there are more of them in any given volume, and so that does give a measure of higher pressure, yes. But the whole column could still cool down, maintaining the same gradient and pressure.

    So pressure does not maintain temperature. The relationship in the ideal gas law only applies in adiabatic conditions, but the atmosphere can radiate heat away. If you “turned off” the Sun, Venus atmosphere and surface would eventually cool down.

    We need to consider how the thermal energy actually gets into the Venus surface, especially at the poles. The facts are ..

    (1) the poles receive less than 1W/m^2 of direct insolation.

    (2) the atmosphere 1Km above the poles is at least 9 degrees cooler, and not absorbing much insolation either. It could have at most 1W/m^2 coming back out of the surface, which (at 0.5 absorptivity) would raise it to a mere 7K.

    (3) Rather than being 7K, the lowest Km of the Venus atmosphere is around 720K, just a few degrees less hot than the surface.

    If all convection (resulting from absorbed incident insolation at various altitudes) only went down the thermal gradient (ie towards space) how would enough energy get into the surface, especially if it were even just 1 degree hotter than the base of the atmosphere?

    My answer is that the sloping playing field (the thermal profile) becomes a level playing field due to gravity, so all energy absorbed in the atmosphere (mostly incident insolation) spreads out in all directions, creating convection both up and down, and also diffusion and convection right around the globe producing equal temperatures at equal altitudes, but higher temperatures at lower altitudes. Then intra-atmospheric radiation reduces the magnitude of the net gradient by about 10% to 15% on Venus, (as best I can work out) but by about a third on Earth. Some of the extra reduction on Earth. though, is probably due to release of latent heat.

    Here’s a thought experiment. Construct a perfectly insulated sealed cylinder filled with pure nitrogen gas. Suppose there are two insulating dividers which you can now slide into place one third and two thirds up the cylinder, thus making three equal zones. Warm the middle zone with a heating element, which you then turn off. Allow equilibrium to establish with the warmer nitrogen in the central zone. Then remove the dividers. Those molecules which move to the top zone will lose some KE as they gain extra PE, whereas those which fall to the lowest zone will gain KE as they lose PE. Hence, when the new equilibrium is established, the highest zone measures a lower temperature than the middle zone, and the lowest zones measures a higher temperature than the middle zone. Hence the highest zone measures a lower temperature than the lowest zone. QED.

    So there is no need for any greenhouse effect to raise the surface temperature, simply because gravity cannot help but do so, because the atmosphere must obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 3:04 am |

      Physicists had this argument in the 19th century. Claiming an isothermal column ( for an isolated column) were Maxwell and Boltzmann , on the side of a temperature gradient was Loschmidt.

      They all agreed though that if there were an isothermal gradient, the implication was that a perpetual motion machine was possible and not in contravention of the second law of thermodynamics.

      My money would be on no perpetual motion machine and no thermal gradient but I’d like to be wrong! If such machines were possible we’d have a very green and everlasting source of energy.

      http://physicsessays.org/doi/abs/10.4006/1.3028792

      • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 3:06 am |

        Should be : They all agreed though that if there were a temperature gradient……………..

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 4:39 am |

        “In 1868, J.C. Maxwell proved that a perpetual motion machine of the second kind would become possible if the equilibrium temperature in a vertical column of gas subject to gravity were a function of height. However, Maxwell claimed that the temperature had to be the same at all points of the column. So did Boltzmann. Their opponent was Loschmidt, who died more than 100 years ago, in 1895. He claimed that the equilibrium temperature declined with height, and that a perpetual motion machine of the second kind operating by means of such a column was compatible with the second law of thermodynamics. Thus, he was convinced that he had detected a never‐ending source of usable energy for humankind.”

        As guess, I imagine they would have thought nuclear energy was perpetual motion machine [particularly, if they were aware of
        fantastical ideas like breeder reactors].

        So, Maxwell saying that gravity does not affect equilibrium temperature
        and Loschmidt was saying that “equilibrium temperature declined with height”.
        We know temperature declines with height- but all 3 of them would known this obvious fact.
        But issue is equilibrium temperature, not temperature.
        So what did they mean by equilibrium temperature?
        It means balanced heat.

        So accordingly, Maxwell is correct and Loschmidt is wrong.

        And it’s my impression that Doug Cotton also believes that with atmosphere with decreasing temperature with elevation, that there is balanced heat- or a equilibrium temperature.
        Or seems that is part of what wrote paper about and continually posting about.

        At least it works until you get to the stratosphere, at which point, one has continued decrease in air density, yet air temperature rising.

        Of course we do know how to change the atmospheric lapse rate,
        so if wanted lower equilibrium temperature with elevation, you could manage it.
        So you could have Loschmidt’s “never‐ending source of usable energy for humankind”
        But, it seems like an expensive way to harvest energy.
        And not a perpetual motion machine. But it is practically unlimited
        source of energy.
        But so is wind or solar energy.

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 7:31 am |

        Yes, I am very aware of all that, but their argument about perpetual motion is wrong, as is explained in my paper “Planetary Surface Temperatures. A Discussion of Alternative Mechanisms” as well as in an article awaiting publication, from which I quote below …

        * Rebuttal of counter arguments:

        Sometimes it is assumed that a wire outside the cylinder running from the warmer base of the cylinder to the top would conduct heat back up. However, gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid, and we need to calculate the weighted mean specific heat of the contents of the cylinder, the wire and, to some extent, the walls. All these comprise the total system and the overall equilibrium state, which will not lead to any endless loop of energy flow.

        Another “argument” starts by introducing the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics which pertains to three systems all in equilibrium with each other. However, in the form used, the Zeroth law suffers from the same approximation as does the original Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in that it ignores the effect of an external force field, usually gravity. As the initial assumption is false, so too is the conclusion.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 26, 2013 at 12:44 pm |

        Doug Cotton posts “Gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid.”

        And therefore, because a vertical column of lead (or any relatively dense solid/fluid/gas) has a larger temperature gradient than an adjacent vertical column of aluminum (or any relatively less-dense solid/fluid/gas) — as predicted by the theories of Doug Cotton/PSI — then thermocouples installed at the top and bottom of the paired columns will generate electricity for free, from the temperature difference between the two columns!

        Thank you Doug Cotton/PSI, for so plainly refuting the thermodynamical theories of Doug Cotton/PSI.

        And more seriously, thank you for illustrating to Climate Etc readers that contrarian/denialist cognition is impervious to scientific evidence and reason. It is well to keep this imperviousness in mind, when assessing the skeptical climate-change literature! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 4:35 pm |

        ” Doug Cotton posts “Gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid.”

        And therefore, because a vertical column of lead (or any relatively dense solid/fluid/gas) has a larger temperature gradient than an adjacent vertical column of aluminum (or any relatively less-dense solid/fluid/gas) — as predicted by the theories of Doug Cotton/PSI — then thermocouples installed at the top and bottom of the paired columns will generate electricity for free, from the temperature difference between the two columns! ”

        “A fan of *MORE* discourse” is correct.

        And it actually might be a good energy source-
        if it were true.

        Unlike solar, wind, and trying use the difference temperature due variation of lapse rates- which all have low energy densities.

      • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm |

        Doug Cotton,

        So not only are you saying Planck was incorrect, you’ve now added Maxwell and Boltzmann to the list? That’s an impressive string of scalps. Anyone else you would like to add?

        So you think that gravity induces a thermal gradient in a sold but it doesn’t do it water?

        If that were the case then we could, in principle, sink large metal posts into the ocean floor. The water in the ocean would be warmer at the surface but the temperature gradient in the pole would in the opposite direction. So again the possibility of using this temperature difference as a power source arises.

        The important point in all this is not so much the amount of power generated which could be argued would be small, but more that if any power is generated at all, then we’ve discovered a perpetual motion machine. That would be quite remarkable if it were true. It is more likely that it isn’t, though, and it is likely there is something wrong with our initial assumptions.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 9:07 pm |

        He has also questioned Einstein with his photons containing energy.

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 9:45 pm |

        “If that were the case then we could, in principle, sink large metal posts into the ocean floor. The water in the ocean would be warmer at the surface but the temperature gradient in the pole would in the opposite direction. So again the possibility of using this temperature difference as a power source arises.”

        Well if stick pole deep enough in the muck at the bottom, it can get warmer beneath the muck than surface waters.

        But if pole is not well insulated, it be the same temperature as the water.
        And of course you easier temperature gradient and closer to any market which could a vague interest buying any power one makes. Anywhere on if drill a mile or two beneath the surface. And much greater difference to temperature, unlimited heat, and almost always uneconomical to utilize- it’s called, geothermal energy.

        “The important point in all this is not so much the amount of power generated which could be argued would be small, but more that if any power is generated at all, then we’ve discovered a perpetual motion machine. ”
        But it’s not perpetual motion machine- it’s not generating energy from nothing, rather it’s taking energy from huge reservoir of heat which exceeds all energy needs which all humans could reasonable use. And it’s “renewable energy” [Hooray!!]. The problem is it’s a low density energy.
        It’s not economical. It’s a waste of time and effort.
        You could breed hamster and have run them on trendmills. Or better, horses!
        But again, it’s not economical.

        If you *had to be* in the middle of the ocean [*for some reason*] and the cost of getting power was hideously expensive [no good reason it should be], then maybe it’s option to look at.
        Or if crazy billionaire and want to do it, as a hobby, knock yourself out.

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm |

        I have never said Planck was incorrect. I used Planck curves in my paper Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

        On the issue of a gravitationally induced thermal gradient, yes, Loschmidt was right and Maxwell and Boltzmann have been proved incorrect with over 800 experiments since 2002. It only takes one experiment to prove a hypothesis wrong. You don’t have one to prove me wrong.

        Your thought experiments regarding wires of different specific heat are not valid in deducing endless thermal cycles. That cannot happen at thermal equilibrium when entropy is at a maximum, as dictated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You are trying to violate it yet again, and you will never succeed. I have explained how the wires become a single system – just like two water pipes of different diameter filled with water and joined at the top and bottom. Water does not flow in endless cycles, now does it.

        Give up – you’ll never prove wrong what has been confirmed by over 800 empirical results with experiments done in the real world, not your mathematical world devoid of the laws of physics. Details and references are in my paper on Planetary Surface Temperatures.

      • tempterrain | January 27, 2013 at 12:48 am |

        Doug Cotton,

        You have said “Electromagnetic radiation does not exhibit a particle like nature. Planck’s suggestion of this (made in desperation) was wrong!”

        You now say ” I have never said Planck was incorrect”

        So Planck was quite correct, it was just his desperate suggestion that was wrong?

        Have I got it right now?

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 10:50 pm |

        The process of diffusion (causing the gravitational gradient) is over-ridden by the high rate of solar absorption in the stratosphere. The issue is irrelevant an dthe stratosphere is merely a “hump” in the cooling, which continues in the mesosphere..

      • gbaikie | January 30, 2013 at 8:34 pm |

        “Yes, I am very aware of all that, but their argument about perpetual motion is wrong, as is explained in my paper “Planetary Surface Temperatures. A Discussion of Alternative Mechanisms” as well as in an article awaiting publication, from which I quote below …”

        Suppose you use copper which is the best and cheapest conductor of
        heat [diamond is better but isn’t cheap].
        So you have meter by meter by 1000 meters of solid copper.
        You have it horizontal and you insulated it using best technology available.
        At one end the copper is immersed in boiling water and at other end one wants use this heat of the boiling water.
        How much energy can be transferred from the boiling water end to the
        other end?
        100, 200, 500 watts per second per square meter?
        Any idea?
        Now, if you put it vertical, what is the differences in amount energy
        being conducted?
        Does it matter if the heat is being transferred up or down?
        If so, what is the difference?

        And finally would the amount energy involved have any chance
        of paying the cost of the 1 meter square and 1000 meter length
        of copper?

        Or the price of copper is:
        “Current price for copper $3.68 per pound ”
        http://www.ask.com/answers/42384841/what-is-the-current-price-of-copper-per-pound
        The density of copper is:
        “The density of copper at room temperature is 8.94 g/cm”
        Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/82000/density-of-copper/#ixzz2JVedWAVO
        Or 8.94 tonnes per cubic meter, so total for 1000 meters is
        8940 tonnes. Or say 9000 tons times 2000 [lbs] is
        18 million lbs. Times 3.68 is about 66 million dollars.
        You could also use cheaper steel or iron and at say $1000 per ton that is $7,800 per meter or 7.8 million dollars for this fabricated iron/steel.

        So we got this thing which transfer heat 1000 meters
        {Not saying using water or something else would not work better, but
        could require pumping and other complications]
        and transferring a heat difference of 100 C over 1000 meters
        could price of energy over 100 years pay the 10 million dollars worth of capital [not including cost of money which could be more 10 times this amount] and one is being paid a generous price of 5 cent per KW hour of the electricity generated [and assuming [*somehow*] 100% of the thermal energy is converted into electrical power].

        So if 5 cents electrical power is made in an hour. It’s $438 dollars per year of gross income.
        Not net income.

    • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 7:41 am |

      gbaikie’s argument is wrong at this step:

      So what did they mean by equilibrium temperature? It means balanced heat.

      “Balanced heat” is a meaningless statement to a physicist. In any event, that is not what thermal equilibrium means. And, to make it even more clear, the physicists who carefully worded the modern statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, even spelled it out in their statement of …

      “The Second Law of Thermodynamics: An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system. ”

      THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL TEMPERATURE, BUT ABOUT MAXIMUM ENTROPY STATES. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 4:11 pm |

        “gbaikie’s argument is wrong at this step:

        -So what did they mean by equilibrium temperature? It means balanced heat.-

        “Balanced heat” is a meaningless statement to a physicist”

        If true, then they would be more stupid than most people.

        Therefore as precaution when talking to physicists you instead need to use the term, equilibrium temperature.
        Or talk about a high level of Entropy.

        “In any event, that is not what thermal equilibrium means. And, to make it even more clear, the physicists who carefully worded the modern statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, even spelled it out in their statement of …

        “The Second Law of Thermodynamics: An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system. ”

        THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL TEMPERATURE, BUT ABOUT MAXIMUM ENTROPY STATES. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.”

        I think I was very clear, in saying it is not equal to temperature.

        To try to be clearer, equilibrium temperature is NOT synonymous to equal temperature. Rather the term is “equilibrium temperature”
        rather than “equilibrium” + “temperature”.

        So this is correct :”THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL TEMPERATURE”

        But this is incorrect “THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL HEAT”.
        Though physicists may not like to use the term heat. Because there
        additional form of energies other than what is called heat.

        As for entire statement:
        “THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL TEMPERATURE, BUT ABOUT MAXIMUM ENTROPY STATES. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.”

        This “huge difference” one can only be talking about the potential energy of gas molecules at higher elevation. Or one can say [if not talking to stupid physicists] that higher molecule will get more kinetic energy if it were to travel to a lower elevation. Or simply having a gas molecule travel to higher elevation, it does not lose energy.
        And one can think of it as transforming kinetic energy into potential energy.

        BUT the atmosphere is not about individual gas molecules and where they go, individual molecules are constantly and every nanosecond transferring their “translation motion” [kinetic energy].
        They are part of “machine” maintaining a thermodynamic equilibrium. And continue analogy of a machine, the machine can various loads that it “deals with”.
        So these “loads” can be warm or cool surface. It can be convection [meaning movement of air packets]- such as wind going up, down, and side ways. Or it can be transforming liquids into gases and gases into liquids.

        So, when talking about an atmosphere and it being THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM we talking about the kinetic motion
        of gas molecules of the atmosphere.
        And amount heat or it’s temperature depends average velocity molecules and how many molecules [their mass] are in some volume of the atmosphere.

        Or in regards measuring heat or energy of gas in a atmosphere the kinetic energy equal 1/2 kg mass times average velocity gas molecules [meters per second] equals joules of heat.

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 10:31 pm |

        Who said “equilibrium temperature” ???

        The Second Law of Thermodynamics says Thermal Equilibrium which may be totally different in a vertical plane in a gravitational field.

        Read Wikipedia as I really don’t have time to keep teaching you basic physics – start with “Laws of Thermodynamics” and then “Thermal Equilibrium”

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 10:52 pm |

        Wind is not convection. Convection involves adiabatic movement of air, yes, but not all movement of air is convection. Wind completely over-rides the slow moving convection which is moving at less than 0.05 Km/hour. You will never explain atmospheric temperatures if you don’t understand the differeence.

        Likewise absorption and radiation in the stratosphere over-rides convection, thus explaining the temperature inversion. The thermosphere does an even better job of it, but you won’t feel hot up there. It’s just the air that’s got a high temperature, often a few hundred degrees.

        Of course everything happens at the molecular level. How do you think the temperature in a horizontal plane in an insulated room becomes equal when thermal equilibrium evolves?

        All I am saying, is that is does not become equal in the vertical plane, because of the effect of gravity on each and every molecular movement between collision. At the next collision it has more or less KE to share with the other molecule. Elementary.

        So we equate potential energy loss with the amount of energy required to warm a parcel of mass M by a temperature difference T after a change in height H and we get, where Cp=specific heat) …

        M.Cp.T = M.g.H

        So the thermal gradient (dry adiabatical lapse rate) is given by

        T/H = -g/Cp

        all in just two lines. Elementary!

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 11:06 pm |

        gbaike

        The Second Law is about thermodynamic equilibrium” NOT “thermal equilibrium..”

        I have quoted it several times from Wikipedia, where you will also find a link to their item on “thermoDYNAMIC equilibrium” and you will note that such includes consideration of potential energy, as does entropy.

        Every time you talk about “thermal equilibrium” or “equilibrium temperature” you demonstrate that you miss the whole point.

        So I repeat ..

        THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM IS NOT ABOUT EQUAL TEMPERATURE, BUT ABOUT MAXIMUM ENTROPY STATES. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

      • stefanthedenier | January 27, 2013 at 12:05 am |

        Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 10:52 pm said: ”Wind is not convection”

        Dooug!!! you supposed to stand up for the truth; instead, you are obsessed about: thermodynamics, equilibrium, entropy crap, same as the Warmist & Fakes!… YES, wind is THE ”convection” Horizontal winds collect the heat from the ground / VERTICAL WINDS as on a convayerbelt take the heat up and directly / personally discharge it.!!!
        CONDUCTION DOESN’T EXIST!!! ”conduction” is all about smokescreen; which obviously blinded you as well. To use your words: ”You will never explain atmospheric temperatures if you don’t understand the difference”

        Well every individual atom of O&N takes heat from the ground; and is personally taking it high up, to waste it = same as when individual ant takes the grain to the nest = NO conduction (from one to another)

        B] CO2 is a good conductor of heat, BUT; in the atmosphere CO2 doesn’t ”conduct” any bloody heat. BECAUSE: in-between every two CO2 molecule – there are thousands of O&N atoms, as BEST INSULATORS. good insulator, prevents conduction; should I teach you English?

        same as: copper wire ”conducts” electricity / plastic insulation – INSULATES!!! Therefore: O&N instead of the phony ”conduction” they directly take the heat up, the ”VERTICAL WIND” (made of O&N) is doing the convection of heat high up, to waste it personally / they become cold -.shrink / become heavier per volume -> drop down, to take more heat.

        (spaced grains of copper, with lots of plastic in -between; will not conduct electricity = CO2 molecules, with lots of O2 + N2 in-between, prevent any conduction of heat. Doug, if you keep repeating the Warmist & fake’s gospel -> you will become just another ”closed parashoot brains”

      • Doug Cotton | January 29, 2013 at 3:02 am |

        As I have said, genuine adiabatic convection – the only process (apart from diffusion of kinetic energy in still air) which maintains the thermal gradient (AKA adiabatic lapse rate) is a very slow process, moving air upwards at probably less than 0.05 Km/hr. Wind is obviously normally somewhat faster, and so it over-rides convection in local areas where it occurs. You can demonstrate with a blower heater outside pointing upwards. So I confirm wind is not convection and the result of wind (temperature wise) is totally different.

        After the wind passes, the process of diffusion (conduction) of KE takes over and repairs the damage to the thermal plot. This is what clearly happens on Venus and is the only possible explanation as to how absorbed incident solar radiation leads to warm air passing up the temperature gradient (from cold to hot) and into the surface – all by convection which spreads out in all directions from any source of additional thermal energy. You all have a lot to learn about just exactly how diffusion and convection function in a gravitational field. Start here!

    • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 10:47 pm |

      Planck was right about the Planck function. Climatologists who think carbon dioxide can radiate at intensities reaching well outside the limitations of the Planck curve are the ones who apparently disbelieve Planck.

      Climatologists also postulate that an isothermal atmosphere at 255K would be a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, which is of course garbage, because an isothermal atmosphere would be a complete violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the requirements thereof for thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum available entropy.

      Second Law of Thermodynamics:

      “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.”

      The issue of photons is not relevant, and not needed when discussing electro-magnetic radiation.

      • Jim D | January 29, 2013 at 12:21 am |

        You probably can’t tell the difference between a black body and a gas. The difference is that a black body is an ideal object that radiates with the Planck curve. Gases are far from that, and only radiate (and absorb) at wavelengths consistent with their molecular properties. CO2 is mostly active near 15 microns. Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum are also evidence of absorption properties of specific gases and ions that not black bodies. Didn’t you ever look at spectral lines in flames to tell which metals were present? Lots of the interesting physics is related to spectral properties, not the bland Planck function, and that includes the atmosphere.

  29. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 1:49 am |

    Keeping in the thematic of thy blog:

    > A wide consensus [gasp!] of climate scientists agrees on the many underlying facts around climate science, but these facts are not widely accepted by policy-makers or the general public. [YEAH! Go Team Denizens!] Addressing this issue, the American Statistical Association formed an Advisory Committee on Climate Change Policy, with the objective of improving communication of statistical issues associated with climate change. [You wish.]  This committee has been active in giving public lectures, writing nontechnical articles, and participating in visits to Congress. This symposium will focus on uncertainty. [Garlgarlgarl: more! more! MORE!] The public and policy-makers sometimes equate uncertainty with ignorance and miss the reality that statistically calculated uncertainty is a form of knowledge that can help clarify responses to environmental risks. [That’s what you say, punk!] The three speakers are statisticians with extensive published research in climate change. [Right, and I’m a ninja.] Their talks address uncertainties in observations and climate models, strategies for formulating policies, and methods for communicating uncertainty to decision-makers. [Models, bad.] The discussant is an author and journalist who has been writing for more than 20 years on climate science and policy. [Whatever, Andy.]  The objectives of the session are to provide information about recent scientific developments, as well as discuss the challenges of formulating climate science for policy-makers and the general [Sure: follow the money, I say!]. This symposium will be one of the activities of Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013.

    http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2013/webprogram/Session5841.html

  30. Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 1:50 am |

    I left a couple of comments at Jo Nova’s blog that could be summarized in two sensational headlines: “Skeptical Science goes lukewarm” (without admitting it) and “Skeptical Science revolutionizes climate science” (without admitting it).

    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/spiegel-speculates-on-why-global-warming-stalled/#comment-1229328

    The thing is that in this post, they seem to have figured out the exact human contribution to global warming with such precision that there would seem to be no need for all the complexity of climate modeling, nor for all that uncertainty that the IPCC is telling us about.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/16_more_years_of_global_warming.html

    And their reason why this analysis is lukewarm is this (quoting myself):

    What they seem to find is a nice linear trend of 0.15-0.16 degrees C per decade. It doesn’t look that convincing, but let’s accept it for the sake of the argument. The “problem” is that’s the trend is barely enough to break the so-called scientifically motivated 2 degree target. But they claim we will get increased warming in the future:

    “Given that human greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, and that the natural influences do not show a trend on longer timescales, we must expect increasing global warming in the future.”

    If that’s the case, why hasn’t it happened yet? Why is the trend until now linear? By their logic, it shouldn’t be. It should be accelerating, since CO2 emissions have been increasing throughout the period.

    • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 3:13 am |

      “Given that human greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, and that the natural influences do not show a trend on longer timescales, we must expect increasing global warming in the future.”

      If that’s the case, why hasn’t it happened yet? Why is the trend until now linear? By their logic, it shouldn’t be. It should be accelerating, since CO2 emissions have been increasing throughout the period.

      University of Chicago has an answer for you:

      http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0115707ce438970b-pi

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 3:57 am |

        Yes. And climate sensitivity is defined simplistically as temperature increase per doubling of CO2, which is caused by the logarithmic response to increasing levels of CO2, without going into the physics of that. That’s uncontroversial, so this is perfectly logical and natural, a fact that Skeptical Science fails to mention. And the reason why the climate models predict accelerating temperature rise is positive feedbacks, not the trend in CO2.

        The reason I didn’t mention it is that it doesn’t matter to my argument. Whatever the reason that the temperature trend should accelerate in the future, it should have done so already. And if we take Skeptical Science as gospel (for the sake of the argument), it hasn’t.

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 4:11 am |

        So to spell it out: If the analysis from Skeptical Science is precisely correct, and we apply normal logic to that result, we get an expected 1.3-1.5 C higher temperature 2100. Since we already have 0.7 over “pre-industrial”, that’s 2-2.2 degrees, hardly overshooting the 2 degree target. Lukewarmers!

        Correct me if I’m wrong.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 5:20 am |

        Dagfinn, the worst part is that at the very start they make the false claim that the 16 yr myth in circulation, is about man’s contribution. It’s not about that, obviously.

        The supposed “myth” is: 16 yrs of no significant trend in temps.
        Plain and simple.

        …but interesting that they unwittingly proved that that none of our increasing contributions changed the trend.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 5:59 am |

        Skepticalscience didn’t extrapolate the trend to 2100

        Only strawmen casting skeptics did that.

        They fit a linear trend to their model

        Strawmen casting skeptics shouldn’t take that to mean skepticalscience is saying the warming is exactly linear, or that it will be linear to 2100.

        Simples.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 6:01 am |

        By the way I don’t think strawmen casting skeptics who can’t even be bothered to recognize the need to correct global temperatures for ENSO or the solar cycle should have the right to even comment on what skepticalscience has done.

        It’s like kids trying to comment on the adult class.

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 7:50 am |

         
        \
        It hasn’t happened because they had no idea about the implications of the need for maximum entropy states, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

      • Doug Cotton | January 26, 2013 at 7:58 am |

        Dagfin without going into the physics of that.

        It’s a good idea to go into the physics – then an experienced physicist will see that they ignored the maximum entropy conditions required for thermodynamic equilibrium.

         

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 8:28 am |

        lolwot: Skeptical Science didn’t just fit a linear trend as a random exercise in trend fitting, they claimed that the trend hasn’t changed in the last 16 years, and that this finding applies to the real world in a significant way. If that were not the case, then their analysis would have only theoretical relevance.

        But what they need is an accelerating trend. If they don’t find one, and don’t give a good reason why the trend should change in the future, then the reasonable expectation is that the linear trend will continue.

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 8:59 am |

        Doug cotton: I’m not implying that we don’t need to understand the physics. But in this case, the analysis from Skeptical Science is independent of which physics is behind their linear trend which they claim to be anthropogenic. And my argument, taking their analysis at face value and extrapolating from it, is also independent of the physics behind it.

        The whole discussion is bogus precisely because it assumes that you can ignore the physics. Which is why I say ironically that they’ve revolutionized climate science.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 10:39 am |

        you are simply barking up the wrong tree

        what SS demonstrated was that recent years are consistent with continued warming.

        Demanding that they go beyond this and prove whether that warming will accelerate by 2100 (and why does it have to?) is a strawman to avoid what they did show.

      • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 10:53 am |

        lolwot: “what SS demonstrated was that recent years are consistent with continued warming.” I don’t even know what that means. In fact, I’m not sure that sentence makes sense. “years” (time itself?) being consistent with “warming”?

        I think what they meant was to claim that there had been an actual warming trend and that that trend has remained the same. You seem to imply that they meant something weaker.

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:06 am |

        Sure SS can conclude that recent “lack of warming” (cooling?) is “consistent with warming”.

        That’s SS logic.

        EVERYTHING is “consistent with warming” by definition.

        But outside the very special world of SS, things look a bit different.

        Max

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 11:36 am |

        SS show that the warming since eg 1970 is pretty much still ongoing.

        A lot of people are imaging global warming has stopped because they aren’t analyzing the data correctly.

        This might put things in perspective. Extrapolate the green line.
        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to:1998/trend

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:44 am |

        lolwot

        Don’t be a “DENIER” (like the dudes at SS).

        The “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has not warmed over the past 10-15 years, as the Spiegel article (as well as James E. Hansen’s latest paper) confirm.

        Get used to it, lolwot.

        And move on to something else.

        Max

      • edim | January 26, 2013 at 11:46 am |

        lolwot, extrpolated:
        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/trend

        That green line (the trend) is getting out of reach, don’t you think? I predict it’s gonna remain so, maybe it will be crossed again briefly (the next La Nina) and that’s it. Stay tuned.

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:49 am |

        lolwot

        Is this the trend “extrapolation” you want?

        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/trend

        (It’s the one Hansen and others are talking about.)

        Max

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 12:07 pm |

        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/trend

        “That green line (the trend) is getting out of reach, don’t you think?”

        But by the nature of the green line we should expect the data to be sometimes above and sometimes below!

        If it was always above the line would be wrong!!

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 12:13 pm |

        sadly a lot of folk simply don’t understand what the data show. They imagine some epic pause in global warming for 16 years, when the data are actually consistent with continued warming.
        http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/giss.gif

        While scientists mull over the decadal noise, layfolk wrongly imagine they are trying to explain that the warming has stopped!

      • Dagfinn | January 27, 2013 at 8:26 am |

        And by the way, Tamino’s trendline also points toward a very boring lukewarm future. It’s not enough to indicate “dangerous” warming.

      • Dagfinn | January 27, 2013 at 10:30 am |

        For a comparison, the famous alarmist Jørgen Randers has just claimed that temperatures will be 2 degrees higher by 2050. That’s three times faster warming than these leisurely linear trends indicate.

      • lolwot | January 27, 2013 at 1:03 pm |

        1) Argue that global warming has stopped

        2) when lolwot shows that warming hasn’t stopped, avoid any sort of soul-searching reflection on how the error in #1 was made by silently switching to #3, a different argument.

        3) Argue that the ongoing global warming isn’t alarming

      • Dagfinn | January 27, 2013 at 2:00 pm |

        lolwot: except i didn’t argue your point 1). On the contrary, I started out assuming (for the sake of the argument) that the analysis from Skeptical Science was right, and showed that it implied a lukewarm future.

        I’ve lost count of your straw men. This is probably the fourth or fifth. The first straw man was the straw man accusation. ;-)

    • curryja | January 26, 2013 at 9:10 am |

      The Spiegel article translated by GWPF is excellent, check it out:
      http://www.thegwpf.org/researchers-puzzled-global-warming-standstill/

      • Edim | January 26, 2013 at 9:18 am |

        Surprisingly many commenters are not that puzzled.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 10:02 am |

        They are shocked, shocked, to find that CO2 is not going on here.
        ============

      • David Springer | January 26, 2013 at 10:26 am |

        Being an equal opportunity unemployer I tend to eschew GWPF as biased but it’s bias based on hearsay not witness. I was a bit surprised by the article you linked as it seemed fair and balanced. The more dogmatic on both sides can likely find plenty to dislike in it. I was wondering if you found anything at all objectionable.

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:22 am |

        Judith Curry

        The Spiegel article published by GWPF is interesting more for the reaction to the current “standstill”, than to the “standstill”, itself.

        Several “reasons” for the current stall in warming despite unabated human GHG emissions are suggested.

        One (the most logical one IMO) is missing:

        – because the GCMs overestimated the impact of CO2 on our climate (i.e. the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity)

        This shows me that, while the current “lack of warming” is now generally accepted as a fact, there is still denial among the “consensus group” that it could be that the models (which predicted warming) were wrong.

        Max

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:05 pm |

        Their superest computers told them that 42 was the number to bet on at the Great Climate Wheel.
        =============

      • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 12:02 pm |

        It’s tragedy for politicians that China exists, otherwise could patting themselves on the back and declaring that they caused the US CO2 emission to lower and that is why global warming has stopped.

  31. intrepid_wanders | January 26, 2013 at 1:59 am |

    Here’s a fun one that Judith could comment on concerning the Sun and the stratospheric shake up this year. Jeff Weber of UCAR does not appear to be interested in GHGs or aerosols.

    http://www.npr.org/2013/01/25/170267853/cold-snap-shakes-up-winter-weather-outlook

    From a causality stand-point, he does not sound like he supports AGW->Arctic Ice Loss->Cold NH Winter.

    FLATOW: Well, one last question about this because there is speculation that this weather may be due to the loss of ice during the summertime at the polar region. Is there any evidence for that being the trigger?

    WEBER: No, that has a lot of other dramatic effects on our climate, but for stratospheric warming events, what we’re looking at are very large systems, such as the one that was off of the northeast coast of Japan. Also it’s been correlated to sunspot activity. So that’s kind of a factor that doesn’t affect the troposphere so much, but it does involve some (unintelligible) content action in the stratosphere. So we’re seeing a correlation between a solar activity and then these big, very unstable systems late in the season like we saw off the northeast coast of Japan.

    Second question, is the “(unintelligible)”, heat?

  32. Alexander Biggs | January 26, 2013 at 2:04 am |

    “Wagathon | January 25, 2013 at 5:32 pm |
    iit
    it’s the sun stupid”

    Are you saying that there was no heating in 1910-1940 or the sun varied its output coincidently at that time? What is the probability that the solar output would vary in sync with the greatest use of fossil fuel in history. We have no feedback loops to the sun, do you think there are? Did anyone note any other change in the sun’s output in 1940 when the rise ceased?

    • Dagfinn | January 26, 2013 at 2:25 am |

      The Sun is the official explanation for why it warmed as much as it did in spite of relatively modest GHG emissions. Read the IPCC AR4.

      • Alexander Biggs | January 26, 2013 at 4:46 am |

        “The Sun is the official explanation for why it warmed as much as it did in spite of relatively modest GHG emissions. Read the IPCC AR4.”

        Then the above questions to Wagathon apply to the IPCC as well.
        Juat another IPCC mistake. In any case the IPCC labeled 1961 as a year of normal temperature, when clearly 1910 was 0.5c colder and closer to the average global temperature which prevailed since 1850. I doubt that the IPCC can produce any independent evidence that the sun was warmer enough to produce a temperature rise of 0.45C betweem 1910 and 1940.

      • lolwot | January 28, 2013 at 5:36 pm |

        “If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67°C (153°F). This is much warmer than our earth. The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface, and because there is no convection, and no transport of heat by winds. Adding winds cools the planet a little, but not enough.”

        This confirms the strong warming power of CO2 and confirms manmade global warming.

        CO2 would be left as the primary greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere if water vapor were to be removed, so when they say the cause is greenhouse gases CO2 must be the main one. responsible for Earth’s surface temperature increasing to 67°C (153°F)!

  33. David N | January 26, 2013 at 2:07 am |

    Just because Doug Cotton has no need for an effect, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

    • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 3:25 am |

      It doesn’t exist because its a illusion created by taking out the Water Cycle.

      Temperature of Earth with atmosphere = 15°C
      Temperature of Earth without any atmosphere = -18°C
      Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C

      Can you spot the AGWScienceFiction department’s sleight of hand here?

      There is no “greenhouse gas warming of 33°C from -18 to 15°C”

      The mechanism doesn’t exist.

      Without water, the main AGWgreenhouse gas, the temp would 67°C, not -18°C.

      Science fraud. That is why there is never any show and tell for the CAGW/AGW crowd, it’s not possible to produce real world empirical evidence and data to prove an illusion.

      You’ve been conned.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 5:18 am |

        Temperature of Earth without any atmosphere = -18°C
        Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C

        So the second one which has CO2 in the atmosphere is 85C warmer than the case without CO2.

        And you think that’s arguing against the greenhouse effect….

      • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 6:02 am |

        “Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C” ???

        Where have you got that from?

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 7:58 am |

        lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 5:18 am | Temperature of Earth without any atmosphere = -18°C
        Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C

        So the second one which has CO2 in the atmosphere is 85C warmer than the case without CO2.

        And you think that’s arguing against the greenhouse effect….

        Good grief, you can’t even show how your AGW “greenhouse gases” are able to raise the temperature of anything the fictional 33°C and now you want to claim that the trace gas carbon dioxide can raise the temperature 100°C!

        How can any of you claiming this possible think you’re capable of scientific reasoning when you have no sense of scale or any understanding of the power to do work?

        None of you has anything of value to say about climate when you claim that visible light from the Sun has the power to heat land and water at the equator to the intensity it is heated which gives us our huge winds and weather systems so hardly surprising that you’d claim supermolecule powers for carbon dioxide – pathetic.

        tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 6:02 am | “Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C” ???

        Where have you got that from?

        Standard industry figure in traditional science. The minus 18°C is the Earth without any atmosphere at all, compare with the Moon, and the 67°C is what it would be with the majority of atmosphere in place, which is mainly nitrogen and oxygen, but without water, think deserts.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle

        “Effects on climateThe water cycle is powered from solar energy. 86% of the global evaporation occurs from the oceans, reducing their temperature by evaporative cooling. Without the cooling, the effect of evaporation on the greenhouse effect would lead to a much higher surface temperature of 67 °C (153 °F), and a warmer planet.”

        Not that you’ll find it any more on the link it gives as source…

        When it finally sinks in for some of you that this really is a con based on faking physics you’ll spot more of the changes to the basics created by excising whole processes, giving the properties of one thing to another, taking laws out of context and as here, word play- but what you have now is a world completely imagined, it has not one iota of its matter/energy/ properties and processes in the real physical world.

        These are magic tricks to make you believe you’re hearing real physical descriptions, beginning by changing the traditional concept of the greenhouse atmosphere around Earth which as in a real greenhouse this both heats and cools the Earth, AGW claims it only heats.

        It is the heavy real gas voluminous ocean of our atmosphere AIR practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen which is the traditional greenhouse gas blanket trapping the heat from the Earth, compare with the Moon. It is the water vapour which cools this 67°C down in the Water Cycle. As water vapour is lighter than Air and rises taking away heat from the Earth’s surface and releasing it in the colder heights when it condenses back out to water or ice, coming back to Earth in rain which is carbonic acid, that is, water vapour takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in a continual cycle. You don’t have rain in the your Carbon Cycle.

        You actually don’t have any atmosphere at all, let alone any water cycle..

        Unless you are willing to understand the traditional basic physics here, and it is getting harder to find teachers for the masses, you will continue to believe in a fantasy world. Maybe you’re OK with that.

      • David N | January 26, 2013 at 8:52 am |

        It’s unclear from what you wrote, exactly what you think “doesn’t exist.”

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 11:15 am |

        The 67C figure is wrong. Absurdly so.

        Do you actually have another source for that figure than wikipedia?

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 12:15 pm |

        David N | January 26, 2013 at 8:52 am | It’s unclear from what you wrote, exactly what you think “doesn’t exist.”

        AGWScienceFiction’s “The Greenhouse Effect” doesn’t exist. Which is the 33°C warming attributed to “ir imbibing greenhouse gases without which the Earth would be minus 18°C”

        Firstly, they have given, fraudulently, that minus 18°C figure to the “the atmosphere minus agw greenhouse gases”, when it is nothing of the sort, it is the temperature of the Earth without any atmosphere at all – our atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and oxygen.

        So, The Greenhouse Effect 33°C doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion created by science fraud of claiming the Earth would be colder without them.

        Which can be seen more clearly by, secondly, the real Earth without the main AGW greenhouse gas water would be 67°C, not minus 18°C.

        The AGWScienceFiction’s The Greenhouse Effect has taken out the Water Cycle.

        In other words, the real Earth would be 33°C colder minus the whole atmosphere, not minus the AGWSF “greenhouse gases”.

        And. The real atmosphere also does not warm the Earth 33°C from the minus 18°C without it, there is no direct link to such an effect, it doesn’t exist.

        With the whole atmosphere in place which is mainly nitrogen and oxygen but without water the temperature would be 67°C – this is the real greenhouse gas blanket keeping the heat from the surface from escaping too quickly, this is the very heavy ocean of the real gas AIR pulled in by gravity. Weighing 14lbs/sq inch, 1 stone per square inch, 1 ton/sq ft, that’s how heavy it is on your shoulders. That’s the Earth’s thermal blanket, not a piddling amount of trace gas which “thermal blanket” would be practically 100% holes..

        Water vapour is lighter than Air and around 1-4% of the atmosphere, so while it contributes a certain amount to the weight of the whole real gas atmosphere’s thermal gravity blanket without which the Earth would be minus 18°C, it’s main role is in cooling the surface, think deserts.

        It is the thick heavier mass of the practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen which is the blanket keeping the Earth from the -18°C temp it would be without it.

        Without water the Earth would be a very hot desert, 67°C.

        That’s the traditional greenhouse effect of nitrogen and oxygen warming the Earth and water cooling it down to 15°C.

        Just like a real greenhouse which is both heated and cooled to get optimum temperatures for plant growth, that’s where the analogy came from in the first place.

        The “33°C warming” doesn’t exist, neither in the real traditional science greenhouse gases of nitrogen and oxygen warming the planet, nor in the AGWSF “greenhouse gases warming”, the latter fraudulently claiming the Earth would be -18°C without them.

        lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 11:15 am | The 67C figure is wrong. Absurdly so.

        Do you actually have another source for that figure than wikipedia?

        Try thinking it through.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 12:25 pm |

        Basically Myrrhs Fraud is based on a single erroneous and badly sourced sentence on wikipedia

        and from this he fraudulently throws around the number 67C a lot.

      • David N | January 26, 2013 at 2:08 pm |

        Myrrh, thanks for pointing out that the nasa.gov source makes no mention of any 67°C surface temperature. I let Wikipedia know. Maybe it’s you who’s been conned. Hope you can find another source.

        Even if the number is true, I don’t see why it’s necessary to deny the obvious (things with temperatures radiate IR) to make your argument.

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 4:24 pm |

        David N | January 26, 2013 at 2:08 pm | Myrrh, thanks for pointing out that the nasa.gov source makes no mention of any 67°C surface temperature. I let Wikipedia know. Maybe it’s you who’s been conned. Hope you can find another source.

        Leave it be, it stands as a testament to the skullduggery of AGW/CAGW takeover of our science institutions. It used to be on that page, but as we see time and time again, real world physics has been replaced by the agenda driven AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect even at the highest science levels. NASA used to teach that the heat we feel from the Sun is longwave infrared, thermal infrared, now it teaches that this doesn’t get through the atmosphere.

        Even if the number is true, I don’t see why it’s necessary to deny the obvious (things with temperatures radiate IR) to make your argument.

        It’s not easy to show the clever magic tricks behind your Greenhouse Effect, if it was easy to see no one would have been fooled by it.

        Radiated IR from the Earth, upwelling, is insignificant in the scheme of things, that’s why the sleights of hand have eliminated real gas and substituted empty space with the theoretical ideal gas descriptions – you don’t have any atmosphere at all! You go straight from the surface to empty space.

        You have no idea how much has been taken out of the real world to create the imaginary world of AGW’s Greenhouse Effect, because you don’t have traditional physics basics with which to compare.

        It’s probably lost to the general population now.. That’s why you can’t grasp the enormity of the con, the cleverness behind it.

        And so, can’t appreciate just how funny this AGW world is. No atmosphere, no water cycle, no rain in the carbon cycle, supermolecules defying gravity and with no attraction so no rain, and, no heat from the Sun/Sun’s heat can’t get through some unexplained invisible glass like barrier and replaced by visible light heating land and water – it really is a comic cartoon world.

        The deliberate dumbing down of basic science for the masses to promote this AGW fictional Greenhouse Effect has been successful. All I’m hoping to do here is to get some of you to think about it, because the real world physics, natural philosophy, is wonderful in itself and our understanding of it has been a very recent phenomenon in the history of mankind. It’s a shame to lose it so quickly for the general population.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 6:06 pm |

        “It used to be on that page, but as we see time and time again, real world physics has been replaced by the agenda driven AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect even at the highest science levels.”

        First you appeal to a 67C figure that you admit you have no idea how it was calculated and you cannot reproduce the steps.

        You believe it on faith alone. That isn’t science.

        You appeal to bizarre 2nd gunman style conspiracy theories to cling to your AWOL sources.

        That isn’t science.

        For the final time. Explain exactly how the 67C figure is calculated.

        And don’t say:

        Wikipedia.

      • David N | January 26, 2013 at 6:26 pm |

        Myrrh, if I read between all the bitter accusations and conspiracy theories, it seems that you are arguing that evaporation plays a much larger role in cooling the surface than radiation than the general greenhouse effect model claims (about 25%).

        If I might suggest…it would be more persuasive if you produced your proposed alternative energy budget, instead of pounding the table on theoretical temperatures in impossible situations.

      • Myrrh | January 27, 2013 at 8:10 pm |

        lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 6:06 pm | “It used to be on that page, but as we see time and time again, real world physics has been replaced by the agenda driven AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect even at the highest science levels.”

        First you appeal to a 67C figure that you admit you have no idea how it was calculated and you cannot reproduce the steps.

        You believe it on faith alone. That isn’t science.

        You appeal to bizarre 2nd gunman style conspiracy theories to cling to your AWOL sources.

        That isn’t science.

        For the final time. Explain exactly how the 67C figure is calculated.

        And don’t say:

        Wikipedia.

        How it’s calculated isn’t relevant to my argument. That it was calculated in traditional science is relevant to my argument.

        I have zilch interest in being distracted by inane posturing about lasers, magnifying lenses or this red herring you’ve introduced because you have no real science to offer in rebuttal to my challenge.

        I am showing the sleights of hand used in this con by giving traditional industry physics of temperatures, I gave the wiki page which gave the traditional figure and gave its source, the Source is not wiki it is NASA.

        From what I’ve been researching I think it was still carried in 2009 and expunged in 2010.

        The last time I heard it mentioned was in a programme about Hawaii a couple of years ago. The geologist from the university showed the water cycle there and said that without water the Earth would be 67°C.

        If you understand the Water Cycle and the properties of water this makes sense; think deserts, think heat capacity, think water vapour lighter than air becoming heated and rising to condense back to liquid water or ice when it reaches the colder heights and releases its heat and so forming clouds and coming back to Earth in rain etc. . The power of water to cool the atmosphere is well understood, evaporation is well understood. Rain is well understood.

        AGWSF’s Greenhouse Effect doesn’t have the Water Cycle. It doesn’t have rain in its Carbon Cycle. All rain is carbonic acid which is water and carbon dioxide joined together by attraction. AGWSF doesn’t have attraction, it has ideal gas elastic collisions… The residence time of water in the atmosphere is 8-10 days, so, carbon dioxide fully part of the water cycle has the same residence time with water.

        Carbon dioxide is being continually washed out of the atmosphere in the Water Cycle.

        That why you don’t have the Water Cycle, that’s why you don’t have rain which is carbonic acid in your Carbon Cycle – because real world physics blows the AGW Greenhouse Effect to smithereens.

        Real world physics proves the AGW The Greenhouse Effect is a con, a science fraud from beginning to end..

        So, shrug, if you’re not interested in exploring the sleights of hand that’s up to you, but I’ve given sufficient information from real world traditional physics to show that the fisics claims you, generic, make a) are fake and b) are impossible.

        Evaporation and the great capacity of water to cool –

        http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleevaporation.html

        “In fact, the process of evaporation removes heat from the environment, which is why water evaporating from your skin cools you.”

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

        Typical of the now corrupted science from those who should know better excising rain from the Carbon Cycle: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page5.php

        Read it see how they’ve avoided mentioning carbonic acid rain in the cycle after first giving the AGW narrative science fraud that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere..

        “All of this extra carbon needs to go somewhere. So far, land plants and the ocean have taken up about 55 percent of the extra carbon people have put into the atmosphere while about 45 percent has stayed in the atmosphere. Eventually, the land and oceans will take up most of the extra carbon dioxide, but as much as 20 percent may remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.”

        Up to you.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 12:34 am |

        It seems lolwot thinks 1 molecule of CO2 in 2,500 could raise surface temperature by 85 degrees. Pretty hot stuff. LOL lolwot. Then water vapour cools it back to 33 degrees above the 255K. But the IPCC wanted WV to have positive feedback, not negative feedback as is implied by the well known fact that the wet adiabatic lapse rate is only about two-third of the dry one.

        The facts are that the force of gravity has to be taken into account when applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which requires maximum possible entropy in thermodynamic equilibrium.

        In fact, the redistribution of temperature by gravity tilts the thermal gradient to a point where surface temperature is raised about 50 C degrees, and then water vapour reduces the slope so that it’s only about an extra 33 degrees. But strictly speaking, the 255K is somewhat approximate because they treated the Earth as being flat.

      • Jim D | January 28, 2013 at 12:43 am |

        Doug Cotton, you were quoting the theory of your friend Myrrh, not lolwot. Nobody believes the 67 C number except Myrrh. Also 255 K comes from a spherical earth, not a flat earth, but there are some “skeptics” using a flat earth to come up with higher forcings and temperatures.

      • Myrrh | January 28, 2013 at 7:18 am |

        Jim D | January 28, 2013 at 12:43 am | Doug Cotton, you were quoting the theory of your friend Myrrh, not lolwot. Nobody believes the 67 C number except Myrrh. Also 255 K comes from a spherical earth, not a flat earth, but there are some “skeptics” using a flat earth to come up with higher forcings and temperatures.

        The 67°C is standard industry figure in traditional science – the properties of water are very well known. Water takes the heat out of the environment – it has a very great heat capacity which means it absorbs great amounts of heat before it shows any change in temperature.

        Water vapour is lighter than the practically 100% heavy blanket of nitrogen and oxygen around us, the real gas fluid ocean of Air. As water evaporates at the surface from the direct thermal infrared heat from the Sun it rises and on reaching the colder heights it releases its stored heat energy up and away and condenses back into liquid water or ice, forms clouds and comes down as rain.

        This is the Water Cycle, it is continuous. That’s why it is called a cycle. The residence time of water in the atmosphere is 8-10 days.

        Carbon dioixide is fully part of that Water Cycle, because, all rain is carbonic acid, because water and carbon dioxide have a great attraction for each other. Water removes all the carbon dioxide around it in the same residence time of 8-10 in the Water Cycle.

        So, there are two ways water cools here, taking out heat at the surface by cooling the immediate envioronment and taking this heat up and away from the surface in the colder heights, heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder.

        Hot air rises cold air sinks. That’s how we get our huge equator to poles winds and dramatic stormy weather, by differential heating at the surface.

        The Water Cycle has been taken out of the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget – deliberately to promote the illusion of their “33°C warming by ir imbibing greenhouse gases” – to hide this 67°C which the temp of the Earth would really be without them.

        to hide this 67°C which the temp of the Earth would really be without them

        That is the scam.

        The 67°C figure is tradition real word physics based on real world properties and processes of real gas molecules under gravity.

        http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceansandclimate.htm

        “Earth with a static atmosphere and no ocean
        If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67°C (153°F). ”
        http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceansandclimate.htm

        AGWSF has tweaked all the physics basics creating the biggest science fraud in history to date. It has created a completely imaginary world with impossible properties of gases, light and heat, etc. Unless one desconstructs all their basic claims one won’t see just how they have accomplished this. This is what also creates more confusion in these arguments, when some who understand what AGWSF have done in in corrupting the basic physics in one area will take for granted corruption in another area in which they are not familiar.

        And deliberately introduced into the education system we have a whole generation who are totally screwed on basic physical properties and proecess in the real world around us. If you really give a dman about science at all and climate science in particular then you should be affronted by what I am trying to tell you, not with me, but with those who introduced this and with those science institutions and universities who continue to teach this fake fisics..

      • David N | January 28, 2013 at 8:13 am |

        Myrrh,

        From the webpage you cited:

        Most of the sunlight absorbed by earth is absorbed at the top of the tropical ocean. The atmosphere does not absorb much sunlight. It is too transparent. Think of a cold, sunny, winter day at your school. All day long, the sun shines on the outside, but the air stays cold. But if you wear a black coat outside and stand out of the wind, the sun will quickly warm up your coat. Sunlight passes through the air and warms the surface of the ocean, just as it warms the surface of your coat. Most of the ocean is a deep navy blue, almost black. It absorbs 98% of the solar radiation when the sun is high in the sky.

        and:

        If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67°C (153°F). This is much warmer than our earth. The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface, and because there is no convection, and no transport of heat by winds. Adding winds cools the planet a little, but not enough.

      • David N | January 28, 2013 at 8:16 am |

        … the important bits being:

        Most of the ocean is a deep navy blue, almost black. It absorbs 98% of the solar radiation when the sun is high in the sky.

        and:

        The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface

      • Myrrh | January 28, 2013 at 3:46 pm |

        David N | January 28, 2013 at 8:13 am | Myrrh,

        From the webpage you cited:

        “Most of the sunlight absorbed by earth is absorbed at the top of the tropical ocean. The atmosphere does not absorb much sunlight. It is too transparent. Think of a cold, sunny, winter day at your school. All day long, the sun shines on the outside, but the air stays cold. But if you wear a black coat outside and stand out of the wind, the sun will quickly warm up your coat. Sunlight passes through the air and warms the surface of the ocean, just as it warms the surface of your coat. Most of the ocean is a deep navy blue, almost black. It absorbs 98% of the solar radiation when the sun is high in the sky.”

        So? Unless you, you, can show that visible light from the Sun heats the land and water of the Earth’s surface you have no heat from the Sun in your world. Because AGWScienceFiction has taken out the direct heat from the Sun, thermal infrared, and claims that visible light does this heating..

        It’s for you to show visible light from the Sun can physically do this, and until you, and generic, really do this, you live in a world without heat from the Sun – doesn’t that bother you?

        We cannot feel Light. We cannot feel shortwave infrared which is classed as Reflective not Thermal. The great heat we feel from the Sun is thermal infrared, longwave infrared, that is the Sun’s thermal energy in transfer by radiation. It heats matter by moving the molecules into vibration. Water is a great absorber of this direct, beam, heat from the Sun – and so are we as it penetrates several inches into us and heats the water in us, heats our blood and flesh and bone as we absorb it.

        and:

        “If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67°C (153°F). This is much warmer than our earth. The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface, and because there is no convection, and no transport of heat by winds. Adding winds cools the planet a little, but not enough.”

        The greenhouse gases in traditional physics from which this figure comes are the practically 100% of our atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen. The traditional greenhouse is these plus water, as in a real world greenhouse designed to obtain optimum growing conditions by both trapping heat and by cooling.

        The heavy voluminous real gas thermal blanket around the Earth of nitrogen and oxygen kept in place by gravity and heated from the surface first heated by the Sun, is the heating part. This thick real greenhouse gas thermal blanket keeps the heat from the Earth from being lost quickly as it is on the Moon without an atmosphere. With this in place but without water (the main AGW greenhouse gas) the temperature would 67°C, as he says, these are the traditional greenhouse gases of our greenhouse gas atmosphere in real world physics.

        So what does he mean here? Is he using “greenhouse gases” in the traditional sense meaning the thick heavy blanket of nitrogen and oxygen, is he confused and actually thinks the trace ir imbibing gases that are left after water is taken out are really capable of raising the Earth’s temperature from minus 18°C it would be without any atmosphere which is practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen, or, is he being ambiguous to get past the pc consensus censors..?

        You decide. I have now read countless explanations of the AGWSF greenhouse effect and most of the time there is just confused thinking of mixing and matching memes, but every now and then I come across, as here, information from real world physics but couched in seemingly ambiguous terms. There are of course also pages as I gave above the NASA page on the Carbon Cycle. This appears to me to be deliberately and cleverly written knowingly taking rain out of the cycle, because, whoever wrote it mentions carbonic acid several times, but only connecting the great absorption of carbon dioxide by water of the ocean. I don’t find it credible that the writer didn’t know that water in the atmosphere is likewise a great absorber of carbon dioxide, that the writer didn’t know that all natural rain is also carbonic acid…

        Oh, and your first quote is from Robert Stewart who wrote the piece and and the second is a quote from George Philander’s book, Our Affair With El Niño, chapter 7: Constructing a Model of Earth’s Climate, page 105.

        You have to bear in mind that AGW fake fisics memes have been in general education for some time now, clear references to traditional physics will be difficult to find. I’ve seen lots of pages doctored. Connolley (sp?) altered thousands of enteries in wiki to take out traditional physics which conflicted with his AGW narrative, for example.

        The NASA quotes I give about the thermal infrared from the Sun being the heat we feel and that we can’t feel shortwave infrared (it’s classed with Light traditionally) was taken off line completely at one time. They gave notice that they would be doing this and I tried to save it on webcite, but it disappeared from there too. There seems to have been something of a kerfuffle at NASA over this, because a few days later it was back on line.. Still with the notice that it would disappear and redirection to a new narrative without the traditional teaching. NASA now has the full on AGWSF which claims that infrared doesn’t get through the atmosphere. If you’re interested I’ll dig out my post where I discovered this was happening.

        Anyway, regardless of any ambiguity in that piece and for whatever reason, it does give the two figures from traditional physics which I’ve given.

        It correctly gives the minus 18°C figures as the Earth without any atmosphere at all, and not as the AGWSF Greenhouse Effect has it, that this is the temperature of the Earth with nitrogen and oxygen in place and only minus their version of greenhouse gases, the ir imbibing ones which is mainly water.

        And it correctly gives the 67°C temperature of the Earth without water but with the rest of the atmosphere in place, the practically 100& oxygen and nitrogen thermal blanket.

        When you know this you can see how silly the idea that a trace gas can be substituted for the heavy weighing down on us fourteen pound on every square inch real the thermal blanket of nitrogen and oxygen ..

        You should be able to see from this the AGWSF Greenhouse Effect illusion of “33°C warming ir imbibing greenhouse gases, mainly water”, there’s no connecting logic from the -18 direct to the 15. And see how this is a clever combination of sleights of hand, changing meanings from real physics etc.

      • Myrrh | January 31, 2013 at 2:39 pm |

        Ever the optimist.., perhaps the silence from you is from intense cogitation?

        WUWT has a new post on Connolley’s shenanigans at wiki, this time because the Germans have taken note of it:

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/30/wikipedia-climate-fiddler-william-connolley-is-in-the-news-again/#comment-1212755

        There are other links given in posts to more stories about him, but I think Caleb makes an interesting point, that the Germans in getting to know about this could be quite irate about being taken for yet another ride..

        Lew Skannen, one of several giving their experiences with Connolley the conman corrupting the science and adjusting the climate narrative to his Green agenda, has a suggestion: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/30/wikipedia-climate-fiddler-william-connolley-is-in-the-news-again/#comment-1212773

        There is no AGW The Greenhouse Effect – science fictions require continual corruption to keep them going, not science facts.

  34. Gary Moran | January 26, 2013 at 5:20 am |

    What happened to the December 2012 global mean temperature? I’ve been tracking Hadcrut3 since 2008 (using Tamino’s YouBet methodology, but on 1975-2004, to see if GMST can break through the the bottom of 2*SD from the trend) and this is the first time the temperature has been that low in the 21C without a la-nina influence. In fact one of the things that had struck me about GMST is how quickly it bounced back when la-nina relaxed, and this fact had convinced me that while temperatures might be flat there was also no “pressure” to bring GMST down.

    December 2012 looks anomalous, and given its across all the datasets it isn’t due to methodology. Perhaps it’s connected to el-nino blowing itself out in the autumn–but that looked weird too. Any thoughts?

    • JCH | January 27, 2013 at 1:17 pm |

      I agree with you on the absence of “pressure”. I think they’re underestimating arctic warming.

  35. Bjarne Bisballe | January 26, 2013 at 5:22 am |

    It is the moon, stupid

    I stumbled over this

    http://ansatte.hials.no/hy/climate/defaultEng.htm

    A collection of papers claiming that the arctic climate is influenced by the moon’s nodal (18,6 year) cycles (the 2006 papers)

    Cyclic tidal waves influenced by the moon cycles varies the vertical stirring of the surface water and it also changes the flow of the sea currents.

    An interesting theory, but I am not the right person to evaluate it.

    Someone here who can?

    • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 6:11 am |

      “An interesting theory, but I am not the right person to evaluate it. Someone here who can? ”

      Any pseudo-theory that claims to explains warming, independently of any human influence, will be evaluated positively by most so-called sceptics on this blog. Their scepticism tends to vanish just when it would be most useful to them!

      • Edim | January 26, 2013 at 7:14 am |

        Turn it around.

      • tempterrain | January 26, 2013 at 8:26 pm |

        OK.

        Their scepticism tends to vanish just when it would be most useful to them! Any pseudo-theory that claims to explains warming, independently of any human influence, will be evaluated positively by most so-called sceptics on this blog.

      • Bjarne Bisballe | January 27, 2013 at 3:49 am |

        It is definitely not at pseudo-theory and it is not a theory on warming, but a theory on how ocean currents are directed to different local areas in the northern parts of the Atlantic Ocean influenced by small changes in gravity.
        It gives a good explanation about variations in local fishery and the extent of the sea ice, because the various sub-currents have different temperature and different plankton content.

      • Edim | January 27, 2013 at 4:11 am |

        tempterrain, you’re right, skeptics are not skeptical of the null hypothesis (no ACO2 effect basically). To miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult.

        It’s the warmists who insist on mechanism if the paradigm is to be shifted.

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 27, 2013 at 4:14 am |

        Just looking at the graph there’s a significant possibility that the observed signal is statistically much less significant than thought by the author. The deep dip around 1920 is so strong that it alone can influence the outcome very much. Such a single strong deviation may well dominate the outcome and the observed period be determined by it’s location relative to one or two maximums.

        When the outcome is determined by so few minimums and maximums there isn’t enough evidence for any conclusion about periodicity. The apparent statistical significance involves implicit assumptions about periodicity, but gives little evidence on the validity of these implied assumptions.

    • Edim | January 27, 2013 at 4:22 am |

      Interesting temperature series. Once again the 1940s as warm (if not warmer) as the 2000s.

  36. Edim | January 26, 2013 at 7:11 am |

    I commented on the other trend on the physical implausibility of the “trapped radiation” and the consensus (radiative) explanation of the atmospheric GHE. I agree with this formulation:

    “Is it therefore necessary to pay attention to trapped radiation in deducing the temperature of a planet as affected by its atmosphere? The solar rays penetrate the atmosphere, warm the ground which in turn warms the atmosphere by contact and by convection currents. The heat received is thus stored up in the atmosphere, remaining there on account of the very low radiating power of a gas. It seems to me very doubtful if the atmosphere is warmed to any great extent by absorbing the radiation from the ground, even under the most favourable conditions.

    I do not pretent to have gone very deeply into the matter, and publish this note merely to draw attention to the fact that trapped radiation appears to play but a very small part in the actual cases with which we are familiar.”

  37. Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 8:48 am |

    This is a short essay on why the warmists theory, that increasing atmospheric CO2 will automatically lead to increasing global temperatures, is false. It does not require a great knowledge of Physics, Statistics or Mathematics to follow, just an ability to check and understand some basic facts and make logical conclusions from them.

    Let us agree some facts first.

    The warmists always like to state their argument in the form of, increased atmospheric CO2 = increased warmth. However, this is not an accurate representation of the science. What they should say, for accuracy, is that…… ‘Increased CO2 in the atmosphere, leads to an increase in Radiative Forcing on the Earth and an increase in Radiative Forcing leads to increased warming on the Earth’.

    What is is true though, is that only the first part of that latter statement is a proven fact.

    The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is not a separate forcing, it acts as an amplifier of the radiative forcing effect of the Sun. Take that away and you are not left with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ forcing you are left with nothing.

    So let us agree to use the correct terminology in our agreed facts and talk about the increased Radiative Forcing (RF) caused by the increased CO2.

    Warmists will say why not jump straight to increased CO2 = increased warmth, as physics demand that this must happen if we push additional energy, via increased RF, into a system and it makes it simpler to understand. I am sure a lot of the cleverer warmist scientists like to do this deliberately, because it deflects attention away from a rather obvious truth, that we will come to later.

    So, is it obvious in physics, that applying increased heat energy to a system, will lead to a long term increase in that systems temperature?

    Well in a non-dynamic system that is absolutely true. If I stick one end of a bar of metal in hot water, the other end will heat up after a time. If I stick the feet of a cadaver in hot water the head will heat up after a time. However, if I stick the feet of a living person in the hot water what happens to the head now?

    Oops, what has happened to the physics? Nothing of course but in a dynamic system, like the human body, the input of heat at one point may trigger dynamic processes that cause no long term heating in the system as a whole. Indeed it is perfectly possible for the human to end up cooler for a time. It all depends on the strength of the triggered feedback processes and whether they are negative or not.

    So we can all agree that increasing energy into one part of a dynamic system does not necessarily lead, automatically, to a general heating of that system.

    Now the Earth’s climate system is a dynamic one, we can all agree on that, changing one process will often lead to a change in a connected process which may be a positive or negative effect.

    So what empirical evidence is there that increasing Radiative Forcing long term on the Earth causes it to warm long term?

    Err… that would be none then!

    We do, however, have irrefutable evidence that the Earth does NOT warm long term in the face of increased RF.

    We actually have a good record of the effect of an increase in Radiative Forcing on the Earth because of the Suns behavior. The Sun has been increasing its output and therefore the RF on the Earth, by about 1% every 100 million years and will continue to do so for billions of years. You could look at the ‘Faint Sun Paradox for starters which shows that three billion years ago liquid water was present on the Earth meaning that temperatures must have been similar to, or warmer than, today’s. It could not have been much colder. So the Earth has not warmed in the face of a 30% increase in RF for 3000 million years. However I do not use these facts, remarkable as they are, as evidence that the Earth does not warm in the face of increased RF, as the Earth was totally different then, different atmosphere, virtually no life etc.

    No, instead let us look at the last 500 million years. If we went back then it would look familiar. The atmosphere was like today’s, life had colonised and exploded across the land, plate tectonics were in full operation etc. We would notice one thing different however. What would that be you might ask?

    http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C01/E4-03-08-02.pdf

    Well since that time the Sun has increased its RF on the Earth by about 5%, (equivalent to about five doublings of CO2) a very significant sum, amounting to about 65 WM2 at the top of the atmosphere.

    So what would we notice that was different back then? Well it was lot hotter then. A lot hotter! The global temperature being about 22C compared to today’s 14-15C.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

    Since that time there have been about three halvings of CO2 in the atmosphere, leaving a net increase of about two doublings about 27Wm2 at the TOA.

    So for hundreds of millions of years the Earth has been cooling long term in the face of significantly increased RF. This is a fact, not conjecture, real empirical, undeniable evidence.

    So the warmists theory, correctly stated as………….. ‘increasing the RF on the Earth, by emitting more CO2, will automatically lead to a warmer Earth’, is falsified. Fact!

    So what ‘evidence’ do they have to continue with their theory.

    Physics, in the form of ‘increased energy = increased warmth’, is no proof in a dynamic system, as I have demonstrated.

    Empirical evidence is no good, it falsifies the theory.

    No they have the MODELS!. You know, computer models that tell you what you have told them to tell you in the first place, just quicker. These computer models are not like Star Trek, you can’t just ask them a question and expect them to give you the answer. No, you have to tell them what the answer is first, they output what you have input. If you want it to tell you that increasing CO2 means higher temperatures and increasing aerosols means lower temperatures then you have to tell it so and give a parameter for its value.

    So having constructed these models and input the various parameters and adjusted the values to best suit, how accurate are they?

    Well I used to believe what the scientists said about AGW but that was before I looked into the subject myself and realised the Models had to be wrong. Notice, not might be wrong but HAD to be wrong.

    Of course the Models, on the forecast for the 21st century, are currently running well off. However, that is not the reason I know that they are wrong, that is actually a point in their favour!

    What did the Scientists predict, via their Models, for the 21st Century?

    They predicted a massive acceleration in the rate of global temperature rise, averaging about four to five times, the warming seen in the 20th century.

    Of course the alarmist scientists and their followers, now that their Models are currently way off, say that. of course the Models are off, you can’t expect them to match the temperature record on a decadal or even longer period. That is because of natural variation in the Earth’s climatic processes which can mask and even reverse the true climate signal. They have to admit therefore, that this natural variation (weather) can be very strong, it is not only holding back the forecast, massively increased, forcing effect of the 21st Century, it is also absorbing all the vast pipeline heating that was forecast to kick in at the end of the 20th Century.

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/plot/wti/from:2001/trend

    You remember the ‘pipeline’ heating don’t you? This was the heating, that the alarmist scientists were saying, at the end of the last Century, that was inevitable, even if we had stopped producing CO2 full stop at the start of this Century. Funny that we don’t hear the alarmists banging on about this ‘pipeline’ heating anymore isn’t it. I wonder why?

    There is no way that these scientists would have said that natural variation could be so large and strong at the end of the last Century. Their theory and models are built on the assumption that it isn’t! However, now it comes to the crunch, they agree it is to save their Models. And you know what? I agree with them.

    The fact that the Models are off so far this century, is not any proof that they are wrong. Why is that?

    Well the Models just output the climate signal, they average out the ENSO induced natural variation, that we see with the PDO cycle for instance. The temperature record has this natural variation ‘weather’ signal added to the climate signal it is also measuring.

    So we are comparing apples and oranges. Whilst the Models and Temperature Records both measure or output the underlying climate signal, the temperature record has an additional cooling or warming signal added to it via ‘weather’.

    Now we can all understand this and the alarmist scientists apparently now agree. The Models, if they are outputting an accurate climate signal, should not, cannot, MUST not match the short to medium term temperature records, for other than those periods when the ‘weather’ signal is neutral.

    So how did I come to immediately realise that the Models are wrong?……………….

    Because the Models, on their hindcast, DO match quite closely, the temperature record of the 20th Century!!!

    Seeing that, as all the readers of this essay and the scientists themselves, must agree that that is impossible for an accurate Model, then it follows that they must be wrong.

    Of course, we know why they do match the 20th century temperature record, they were tuned to do so by their creators. You can see why they did it.

    One, they didn’t think natural variation had large effects on the climate signal.

    Two, they didn’t even know about some of the ENSO effects, e.g. the PDO cycle was not identified until 1996.

    Three, they probably thought nobody would take much notice of models that couldn’t even match the known temperatures.

    This disconnect, between the Models climate signal and the Temperature Records climate plus ‘weather’ signal, should have been even more apparent in the 20th century than the 21st, according to their own theory. According to them, the average forcing effect of increasing CO2 was much lower in that Century than they say it is in the 21st Century. Therefore, it should have been much easier and noticeable for the Earth’s ‘weather’ effects to hold back and reverse the underlying climate signal the Models produce.

    In their hubris they overlooked the fact that an orange doesn’t equal an apple, no matter which way you cut it.

    So 500 million years of empirical Earth history directly disproves the notion that increasing Radiative Forcing must equal a warmer Earth. It is an undeniable fact.

    Also the Models are falsified, not by their 21st Century forecasts but by their 20th Century hindcasts and I defy any alarmist out there to try and stitch them together.

    I think skeptics out there should just stick to and concentrate on these two most obvious facts. No point going esoterical, as Climate Science is in its infancy and we are nowhere near fully understanding the processes that are driving the climate and we can just get sidetracked.

    The facts as stated above are obvious and understandable and blow huge holes below the waterline in the good ship CAGW.

    Perhaps they will try and say that the Earth has changed recently and though it has actually continually cooled long term since life colonised the land, even in the face of a large increase in RF, that things are now different and it will warm in future.

    If so in view of the massive empirical evidence of the past they will have to provide strong evidence of what has caused this past cooling, when this changed to warming exactly, what were the factors involved, what was the strength of these factors etc etc? I don’t fancy their chances because even in quite recent times, in geological terms, the Earth is continuing to cool. In the current ice age, the glacial and inter glacial periods are steadily getting cooler.

    As far as the Models go, they are caught!

    Reality has caught up with them. In defending their forecasts, having to agree that the models outputs are necessarily different to the temperature record and to admit that the ‘weather’ signal can be very significant, then they have completely undermined their hindcasts of the last century.

    To reiterate, an accurate climate model should not, cannot, must not, except for the shortest time, and the very long term, match the temperature records.

    Alan

    • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 11:25 am |

      “The warmists always like to state their argument in the form of, increased atmospheric CO2 = increased warmth. However, this is not an accurate representation of the science. What they should say, for accuracy, is that…… ‘Increased CO2 in the atmosphere, leads to an increase in Radiative Forcing on the Earth and an increase in Radiative Forcing leads to increased warming on the Earth’.”

      That is not an accurate representation of the science.

      Aren’t you concerned about accuracy?

      What you should have said, for accuracy, is that increase CO2 in the atmosphere, leads to ln(C / C0) * 5.35 radiative forcing (but you might need to be more even more specific for accuracys sake). The earth generally warms when the net radiative imbalance is positive, but there is also noise!

      • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:39 am |

        “Noise” (what we are unable to explain with our hypotheses and models)

        Over the past 10-15 years this happened to be as large (or even larger) than what we ARE able to explain.

        It’s a “noisy” world.

        (some scientists refer to this as “uncertainty”)

        Max

    • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 12:12 pm |

      I am glad you are looking at paleo evidence and forcing. I have always endorsed those. Forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% solar increase and should warm the earth in a similar way. Paleo evidence as recent as the Eocene 50 million years ago shows how warm it gets with a couple of CO2 doublings, and skeptics are just ignoring that. You bring up the fainter sun 500 million years ago. As you know, these periods included the Carboniferous which are now the coal-bearing layers (hence their name), but that carbon was in the carbon cycle back then, so the faint sun was compensated by the large amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. These ideas back up the importance of atmospheric composition as being critical to preventing an ice world back then. Without GHGs, assuming the same albedo, the temperature with a 30% fainter sun would be -39 C instead of -18 C, just an ice world. Thanks to GHGs life thrived. It’s all consistent.

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 12:42 pm |

        Look, I know warmists tactics are obfuscation but talk to the facts I have given, not speculation.

        Facts are 500 million years ago the Earth was in its current climatic configuration, similar atmosphere, life across the land, plate tectonics, carbon cycle in place etc.

        Since then there has been the equivalent of approx five doublings of CO2 increase in RF less three halvings of CO2, leaving a net increase of the equivalent of two doublings of CO2.

        Don’t use reduction of CO2 as an excuse as I have already accounted for the reduction. There was nowhere near the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere at that time that you have inferred. Look it up!

        Since that time temperatures have REDUCED by approx 8C.

        Warmists theory is that the Earth MUST warm in the face of increased RF.

        It didn’t, therefore the theory is falsified. Simple.

        Alan

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 1:00 pm |

        “Look, I know warmists tactics are obfuscation but talk to the facts I have given, not speculation.”

        your facts are wrong, recheck them

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm |

        Facts? Facts? All I got is rocks, rocks.
        =========

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 1:13 pm |

        So Lolwot you just come back with BS hoping to distract from the truth. I have given links for temperature and atmospheric composition. Look it up! You just give obfuscation.

        Oh and you and your pals are avoiding the issue that the ‘Models’ must be wrong by the scientists own words.

        Alan

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 1:19 pm |

        Alan Millar, why do you keep saying it was a similar atmosphere 500 million years ago? Our fossil fuels are drawn from the remnants of the carbon cycle in that era and we are restoring them to the atmosphere, which is why the CO2 is increasing. Those geologic layers give plenty of evidence that there was a lot more carbon dioxide in the carbon cycle than in periods since. How do you account for the equilibrium temperature being 21 degrees cooler with the sun 30% fainter when temperatures were clearly not that cold? You seem to have avoided an explanation.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 1:20 pm |

        For a start a 5% increase in solar output is not 5 doublings of CO2.

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 1:21 pm |

        Jim, what Alan is arguing is that the Sun doesn’t affect global temperature at all, because as his “facts” show over the last 500 years the Sun’s output has increased but the Earth has cooled.

        Therefore those claiming the Sun has an influence on global temperature are frauds.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 1:26 pm |

        lolwot, OK, that’s an odd theory. How about the Maunder Minimum? What about that we can even see the sunspot cycle in global temperatures? I asked for his theory of how this could be, but I suspect nothing will be forthcoming, except perhaps for some angry bluster.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:28 pm |

        Fraud green tomatoes aren’t just for white people anymore.
        =========

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 3:05 pm |

        Lolwot you seem unable to grasp the most basic of concepts or statements.

        I am not saying that the Sun has no influence on our climate. I am saying that the warmists theory, that increased RF on the Earth automatically leads to a warmer Earth, is false and all available empirical evidence from the Earth’s past proves this to be so.

        How much simpler can the proof be ?

        RF has increased on the Earth over a long period and the Earth has cooled over the same period.

        This is real empirical evidence and all you have to say things are different now are the ‘Models’.

        You have still not commented on my proof that the current models must be wrong. I presume you accept it then.

        Alan

        ,

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 4:00 pm |

        Alan Millar, I don’t think other skeptics would be happy with your line of reasoning because it implies other factors than the sun at work, doesn’t it. The long-term and short-term (50 million years or last century) changes go well with GHG concentrations. That would be your missing factor to explain the long-term cooling.

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 4:43 pm |

        Jim D

        What I said about the inability of Lolwot to grasp basic statements and facts goes for you as well if not more so.

        I have accounted for the reduction in CO, can’t you read my posts?

        Facts are that RF has increased and temperatures have reduced falsifying the warmist theory.

        You only have the ‘Models’ and they are not evidence.

        In any event I have shown that they must be wrong and I assume you agree as you have not tried to disprove it .

        Alan

      • lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 5:23 pm |

        Alan Miller I recommend you go read up on radiative forcing and energy imbalance are in the context of climate.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm |

        Alan Millar, you have to check your numbers. Doubling CO2 amounts to about 3.7 W/m2 (you seem to be assuming 13 W/m2 because you forgot the factor of 0.25 for the solar forcing averaged over a sphere). It is near 1% of the solar forcing, as you say, but all your numbers are off. A 5% increase would be about 17 W/m2, which becomes 12 W/m2 after removing the albedo reflection, which can be accounted for by 3000 ppm, just to get the pre-industrial temperature, not an unrealistic amount for 500 million years ago, especially if you allow for methane too.

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 7:18 pm |

        “Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm |

        Alan Millar, you have to check your numbers. Doubling CO2 amounts to about 3.7 W/m2 (you seem to be assuming 13 W/m2 because you forgot the factor of 0.25 for the solar forcing averaged over a sphere). It is near 1% of the solar forcing, as you say, but all your numbers are off. A 5% increase would be about 17 W/m2, which becomes 12 W/m2 after removing the albedo reflection, which can be accounted for by 3000 ppm, just to get the pre-industrial temperature, not an unrealistic amount for 500 million years ago, especially if you allow for methane too.”

        Rather than direct sunlight, isn’t CO2 about the longwave IR being
        emitted by the surface?

        No doubt increased solar energy would affect how much is radiated from the surface, why isn’t based upon average skin temperature? Or even average air, if you want.
        Does anyone think the sunlight warms CO2 gas directly?

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 7:23 pm |

        gbaikie, the solar forcing is being compared with CO2 forcing. They are independent forcings of course, and all the significant CO2 effect is in the IR.

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 8:36 pm |

        Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm |
        Alan Millar, you have to check your numbers. Doubling CO2 amounts to about 3.7 W/m2 (you seem to be assuming 13 W/m2 because you forgot the factor of 0.25 for the solar forcing averaged over a sphere). It is near 1% of the solar forcing, as you say, but all your numbers are off. A 5% increase would be about 17 W/m2,

        Jim D

        That statement is proof positive that you have no idea what you are talking about, have no clue about climate science and in general are a bit of an idiot.

        Why are you commenting on a site about climate science when you are clueless?

        A 1% increase in solar output is about 13.6 WM2 at the TOA and about 3.4 WM2 at the surface i.e. about the same as a doubling of CO2. This is an obvious and unchallenged fact amongst anyone who has a clue, which obviously precludes you.

        So I can declare with no possible challenge that all posts by you about climate science should in future be ignored as you are proven clueless by your own statements.

        Alan

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm |

        Alan Millar, your error is equating the solar radiation overhead at noon with a global average. I will leave that as a clue for you to chase up, but it is where the factor of 1/4 comes in.
        As a side note, skeptics are invariably very angry people, it seems. I try to have a reasoned debate and I get this.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 9:37 pm |

        Alan is just mad, Jim D.

        It’s OK.

        Trust Tony on this one.

      • Alan Millar | January 27, 2013 at 5:56 am |

        Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm |
        “Alan Millar, your error is equating the solar radiation overhead at noon with a global average. I will leave that as a clue for you to chase up, but it is where the factor of 1/4 comes in.
        As a side note, skeptics are invariably very angry people, it seems. I try to have a reasoned debate and I get this.”

        You get this because you are clueless and have just repeated a previous clueless statement, which I have already refuted with actual facts.

        The Suns RF at the TOA is about 1366 WM2. A 1% increase in this would be 13.66 WM2 which equates to about 3.5 WM2 at the surface which is equivalent to the approx value of a doubling of CO2.

        Get it? Go and look it up, indeed I would recommend you spend a few years looking things up before commenting again, given your current level of cluelessness.

        What about the proof that the Models are wrong by the way?

        Alan

      • Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 12:07 pm |

        Alan Millar, you are confusing radiative forcing with TSI. They are different by a factor of exactly 4.

      • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 12:12 pm |

        Question in world with say 5 times the CO2 [2000 ppm]
        how much H2O greenhouse gas is there?

      • Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 12:16 pm |

        gbailkie, the world would be 7 degrees warmer than today, and so H2O vapor would increase by about 60%.

      • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 1:03 pm |

        “Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 12:16 pm |

        gbailkie, the world would be 7 degrees warmer than today, and so H2O vapor would increase by about 60%.”

        Thank you for that estimate.
        Do you believe this 60% number is one many would agree?
        And if for some other reason average global temperature
        were 7 degrees warmer would be the same number.
        Or does the kind of warming associated with CO2 have
        significant bearing on this?
        There couple ways to look at this question. Methane
        could add this much according greenhouse effect theory.
        But also many accept that location of land masses have
        large effect upon global temperature, and so where
        continents are, and the presence of mountains, etc
        could cause there to be increase in global temperature
        and if such causes [and others] were causing an increase
        in global temperature by 7 degrees, would this also cause
        60% increase in global water vapor.
        And also the 60% increase in global water vapor is part
        of the 7 degrees of warming. Would it not be more than
        1/2 or more of the increase?

        Now, a different question. What does 60% increase in
        global water vapor look like.
        How is distributed around the world?

        For instance one could say it’s increase in tropical water vapor.
        This could just fatter bulge of troposphere at equator. And/or
        also a wider bulge near the tropics.
        Or it could more uniform globally.

        In sense, it’s same question of where one expects most of warming
        to occur.

        At present, what is something like 90% of global water vapor in
        the tropics.
        And tropics covers 40% of surface area of planet Earth and tropics
        lies between “approximately 23° 26′ 16″ (or 23.4378°) N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23° 26′ 16″ (or 23.4378°) S”- wiki
        And extend latitudes to around 38 degrees north and south then more 1/2 of global surface area. And to 60 degrees around 80% of surface area.
        Surface of earth is 510 million square km. And 40% is 204 million square km.
        If one simply widen the tropical area by 60%, it’s 326.4 million square
        km. Making it well over 1/2 of global surface area- somewhere above 40 degrees latitude.
        If you believe that 90% or less of global vapor is in the tropics, then one has add even more water vapor above 40 degrees latitude.
        But at 90% one still more than doubling the water vapor above 40 degrees. So that’s widening. If one goes up, and so increasing the height of tropical troposphere it could be quite different. It depends
        how high one is thinking it can go.

      • Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 1:31 pm |

        gbaikie, some might say 50% more H2O. It depends whether you take 6% per degree or 7% as I used. 2/3 of the 7 degrees would be from water vapor feedback. I am ignoring what direction cloud feedbacks go as it is not known and considered smaller anyway. I am also ignoring albedo feedbacks due to reduced ice which are positive. The water vapor would be added in proportion to where it is, but that assumes uniform warming. Initially the polar areas and land would warm faster where there is less water vapor, so the water vapor growth would be delayed until the tropical oceans warm. There are a lot of transient effects and 7 degrees is just a global averages, as land and polar areas probably would exceed this.

      • Alan Millar | January 27, 2013 at 1:48 pm |

        “Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 12:07 pm | Alan Millar, you are confusing radiative forcing with TSI. They are different by a factor of exactly 4.”

        Look you plank.
        I KNOW that an increase in total forcing at the TOA is 4 times the forcing at the surface. Can you not understand 13.66 WM2 /4 is approx equivalent to the 3.7 WM2 caused by a doubling of CO2.

        Next time you want to post, stop breathing for a bit whilst you think, as you cannot seem to do both at the same time.

        Alan

      • Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 1:54 pm |

        Alana Millar, the global averaged forcing at TOA is 341 W/m2. I think we agree when you remember there is night and that the earth’s surface is not all normal to the solar rays.

      • Jim D | January 27, 2013 at 1:54 pm |

        …oops typo – Alan

    • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 5:50 pm |

      Models are never falsified. Models are tools used by scientists. They don’t produce evidence they are either consistent with evidence or inconsistent with evidence. When they are inconsistent with evidence we can suspect some combination of the following is true.

      1. the model should be improved.
      2. the evidence should be examined.

      In short, you attempt to have it two ways, first by arguing that models are not evidence and second by arguing that they have been ‘falsified.” What happens when you “falsify’ something that you dont consider to be evidence in the first place? Logically? nothing. On the other hand, if you viewed models as providing evidence, and if a model was inconsistent with other evidence ( like observations ) then it might make sense to talk about a model being “falsified”.

      so, you might want to start over. what is a model and are they important? what can they do? what can’t they do

      • jimmy | January 26, 2013 at 7:03 pm |

        “When [models] are inconsistent with evidence we can suspect some combination of the following is true…

        1. the model should be improved.
        2. the evidence should be examined.”

        Good points. Of course – I know I’m jumping in a little outta context here -there are other possibilities. Models can still have offsetting errors, and thus be consistent with the evidence and still be wrong.

      • Faustino | January 26, 2013 at 7:56 pm |

        Mosher, my experience with models is predominantly in the economics field. I’ve worked mainly with CGE (computable general equilibrium) models, but needed a grasp of others in order to keep up with the economics literature, which I did extensively until ten years ago, not much since.

        I found that the assumptions on which models were based were critical. If different modellers of the same issue came up with wildly different results, it was rarely (though sometimes) due to the modelling process, generally the outcomes reflected the assumptions. My skills in this field were three-fold: being something of a wide-ranging synthesiser rather than a narrow specialist, I could often see problems in the assumptions, pre-run where I was involved, post-run if not. Secondly, I’ve always had a feel for numbers, for ratios, magnitudes and proportions, and I often detected nonsense missed by learned professors. Third, I had a capacity to understand the model outcomes and present them in a way intelligible to non-economists
        .
        So as far as a model “being falsified” is concerned, it depends on your criteria. One criterion would be whether the model is properly specified for the task. If not, can it be corrected, or is it incapable of performing the desired task? Another would be whether the specific modelling work was based on valid assumptions.

        By “evidence,” I assume that you mean the input data. But more important, I think, would be the relationships which are assumed and specified, and surely these can be falsified?

        In my work, the modelling was one element of the decision-making (or advisory) process. It didn’t tell you what to do, but it generally provided a much sounder basis for deciding the merits of alternative options. The ultimate test was whether the model was helpful in understanding issues and determining policy. From my viewpoint, that should also determine an assessment of climate models. Are the underlying relationships properly understood? If not, can the model help to determine them? Is it well-specified for the task? Can it produce results which help our understanding and guide our decision-making?

        And, as Jimmy says, coherent output could mask defects in models, users must be constantly alert.

        In the climate field, I’ve sometimes been able to follow the technical work, but much of it I can’t evaluate. However, I have some capacity to assess the implications for policy.

      • Alan Millar | January 26, 2013 at 8:49 pm |

        Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 5:50 pm | Reply
        Models are never falsified. Models are tools used by scientists. They don’t produce evidence they are either consistent with evidence or inconsistent with evidence. When they are inconsistent with evidence we can suspect some combination of the following is true.

        1. the model should be improved.
        2. the evidence should be examined.

        In short, you attempt to have it two ways, first by arguing that models are not evidence and second by arguing that they have been ‘falsified.” What happens when you “falsify’ something that you dont consider to be evidence in the first place? Logically? nothing. On the other hand, if you viewed models as providing evidence, and if a model was inconsistent with other evidence ( like observations ) then it might make sense to talk about a model being “falsified”.

        Mosher

        “Models are never falsified”.

        Ha Ha, so you want to confirm that you are clueless as well Mosher.

        So if I sent you a model showing you can win money playing roulettte that coulld never be falsified is that what you are saying Mosher? Or are you just playing semantics?

        Models are not evidence of anything and that is a fact. Or do you want to dispute that Mosher?

        Models can also be disproven, proved to be incorrect, or wrong, or to be proven to be false, or to be falsified. Choose your statement Mosher.

        I have shown a proof that the Climate Models are wrong, incorrect, disproven, falsified.

        So instead of trying to play semantics Mosher refute what I have said or STFU.

        Alan

      • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 10:13 pm |

        ‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full

        The models are tuned to reproduce observations but the ability to replicate observations is not a validation of model formulation. I can do the same with a ‘black box’ of random relationships. Beyond that models diverge exponentially as a result of sensitive dependence and structural instability as a result of the nonlienear equations at their core.

        ‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full

        I know I have quoted both these before – but am astonished that the argument persists in a fog of ignorance about the essential maths of the complex systems that are climate models.

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 27, 2013 at 5:55 am |

        When they are inconsistent with evidence we can suspect some combination of the following is true.

        1. the model should be improved.
        2. the evidence should be examined.

        This is fine except that this hides one of the most common biases of scientists and other users of models. The bias is that both the model and the data are commonly accepted too easily and with too little scrutiny when they do agree.

        It’s correct to note that either the model or the data or both should be reexamined when they disagree, but that reexamination should not be interrupted when an agreement has been reached but continued until all details have been checked. Interrupting at first point of agreement is strongly selfconfirmatory.

        An immediate agreement should not either be taken as a proof of correctness as that’s also selfconfimatory. Due diligence should be applied also in these cases.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 2:18 pm |

        Alan Millar,

        I am afraid that you are setting a false dilemma when you say:

        > [I]nstead of trying to play semantics Mosher refute what I have said or STFU.

        The simplest refutations of your claim Mosh could provide rest on semantical grounds. Here are two examples.

        Mosh could reply that he does not wish to say that **all** the models are not falsifiable, just those of the kind used by climate scientists. Your Roulette example, while interesting, is not of the same kind at those used by climate modellers. Some of them (e.g. an unlimited Martingale) are even proven to warrant more than fair chances to win. Casinos have to protect themselves against them.

        Mosh could bite the bullet and say that your own example does not satisfy what falsifiability means. Suppose you have your model M and play a game G of Roulette. You lose some chips on the first try. Does it mean you model got falsified? No. You need more tries. How many? Suppose N: how will this N be realistically implementable? Will your M provide you with any warranty that G will be exactly like it predicts? Et cetera. I’m sure you get the idea.

        Mosh could even combine the two, and claim that this is a knock-down argument of your claim.

        Semantics is a formal discipline. The concept of model belongs to semantics. It’s OK for some arguments for or against models to rest on semantical grounds.

        Please don’t be mad.

  38. Edim | January 26, 2013 at 9:08 am |

    This:

    “The solar rays penetrate the atmosphere, warm the ground which in turn warms the atmosphere by contact and by convection currents. The heat received is thus stored up in the atmosphere, remaining there on account of the very low radiating power of a gas.”

    This is very important, IMO. The Earth’s surface warms the atmosphere by non-radiative modes mostly plus the net IR radiative flux surface-to-atmosphere. The atmosphere is overwhelmed with heat (or energy) due to the relatively high thermal resistance at the space interface (only the so-called GHGs radiate significantly). Atmospheric pressure at the surface is a factor too – state variables of gases are determined by equations of state. All basic thermodynamics and heat transfer.

    • Myrrh | January 27, 2013 at 7:08 am |

      Yes, exactly that! This is what is missing from the AGWScienceFiction’s the Greenhouse Effect – the whole atmosphere has been taken out and replaced by empty space for their “radiation fisics which is so well known..”

      This is the heavy real gas atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen which actually does act like a thermal blanket trapping the upwelling heat from the Earth preventing it from escaping immediately as it does on Moon without an atmosphere.

      With this in place and minus water the Earth would be 67°C, that’s how efficient it is.

      Kept in place by gravity, but don’t mention that word on WUWT – they think its some new fangled unproven concept.. They don’t have gravity because their molecules are the non-existant ideal gas description, massless hard dots of nothing bouncing off each other at great speeds through empty space miles apart from each other and propelled by nothing more than their own molecular momentum; no attraction, no volume, no weight, no density, no nothing. It’s a fantasy world created out of the basic ideal gas description without volume pre Van der Waals. They have no gravity because they have nothing for gravity to act on

  39. kencoffman (@kencoffman) | January 26, 2013 at 9:13 am |

    On this open thread, can I address a query to our friend Myrrh?

    Let’s imagine an experiment where we take a one-mile diameter lens with an optical coating filtering out all insolation wavelengths except for those between 400nm (roughly: purple) and 500nm (roughly: green). If the focus of the 400-500nm light was concentrated to a spot 1 foot in diameter and we put your head at that focus, Myrrh, what would happen?
    When we do this, you’re welcome to wear sunglasses if you like.

    • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 1:10 pm |

      “Let’s imagine an experiment where we take a one-mile diameter lens with an optical coating filtering out all insolation wavelengths except for those between 400nm (roughly: purple) and 500nm (roughly: green). If the focus of the 400-500nm light was concentrated to a spot 1 foot in diameter and we put your head at that focus, Myrrh, what would happen?”

      Creating a one mile diameter lens would be challenging. The largest telescopes in world use mirror segments. Such as the Keck telescope:
      “The primary mirrors of each of the two telescopes are 10 meters (33 ft (396 in)) in diameter, making them the second largest optical telescopes in the world, slightly behind the Gran Telescopio Canarias; however the Gran Canary telescope does not have the capability to use all of its 10.4 meters, thus making the Keck telescopes the largest observable telescope in the world. The telescopes can operate together to form a single astronomical interferometer.”
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._M._Keck_Observatory

      I had thought Gran Telescopio Canarias did achieve this capability a couple years ago [perhaps I am wrong].
      But anyhow, these are reflective mirrors, as compared to a lens that light passes through. These reflective mirrors can have their weight supported [and by a mechanism of how this weight is supported can correct distortion {bend the mirror}- they are “adjustable”]. Whereas a lens in which light passes thru is obviously not supportable in the middle of lens, requiring the glass of the lens to be able to support it weight over the distance of it’s diameter. Upshot is such lens are limited to about 4 feet in diameter if in Earth’s gravity. Of course if not too concerned about the optical quality- if sole purpose was incinerating Myrrh’s head- then one could use different
      technology approaches- Fresnel lens probably being easiest and cheapest.
      But one could instead not have the lens in gravity- you could put it in orbit.
      And you could bring Myrrh up into space so one doesn’t a huge focal distance [and not terrify earthlings in general- enough will unreasonably terrified without having actual good reason] and have the problems trying point this one-mile diameter lens [and without a danger of incinerating swaths of the countryside]. So this way one have focal distance of mile or so. And bring us to the issue of Chromatic aberration:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
      And:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apochromatic_lens
      “An apochromat, or apochromatic lens (apo), is a photographic or other lens that has better correction of chromatic and spherical aberration than the much more common achromat lenses.”
      “Achromatic lenses are corrected to bring two wavelengths (typically red and blue) into focus in the same plane. Apochromatic lenses are designed to bring three wavelengths (typically red, green, and blue) into focus in the same plane.”

      So you don’t “need optical coating filtering out all insolation wavelengths”
      instead you need design lens so the desired wavelengths are arriving one spot- Myrrh’s head.
      Allowing his head to only be incinerated by the selective colors in some fraction of second- and everything else to be out of focus.

      • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:21 pm |

        Now I’ve heard about letting mosquitoes bite you, and swallowing ulcer causing bugs, but I think even Cap’n Stormfield might balk at this voyage of discovery.
        ============

    • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 8:00 pm |

      kencoffman (@kencoffman) | January 26, 2013 at 9:13 am | On this open thread, can I address a query to our friend Myrrh?

      I
      Let’s imagine an experiment where we take a one-mile diameter lens with an optical coating filtering out all insolation wavelengths except for those between 400nm (roughly: purple) and 500nm (roughly: green). If the focus of the 400-500nm light was concentrated to a spot 1 foot in diameter and we put your head at that focus, Myrrh, what would happen?
      When we do this, you’re welcome to wear sunglasses if you like.

      Is this the best responses that I can get to my challenge? The Sun is not a laser, there is no lens in the atmosphere around the equator concentrating the Sun’s rays onto the land and water there..

      Visible Sunlight is benign to the eyes. In full production we have glass windows which optimise visible light from the Sun and reflect away the direct thermal infrared from the Sun. In full production we have photovoltaic systems and thermal panels to garner the different properties of the energies from the Sun; the photovoltaic converting shortwave into electricity, the thermal panels utilising the great heat absorption properties of water to capture the direct heat from the Sun, longwave infrared, aka thermal infrared. In full production we have lightbulbs designed to optimise visible light for photosynthesis and take out longwave infrared, which is radiant heat, in horticultural industries. We know what visible light can and cannot do.

      Visible light from the Sun cannot heat matter, it is too small to move the molecules of matter into vibration which is what it takes to heat matter. Visible light is not absorbed at all by water which is a transparent medium for visible, visible light from the Sun cannot be heating the water at the equator to the intensity this is actually being heated. Water doesn’t even absorb visible on the electronic transition level which molecules of nitrogen and oxygen do, which is how light is reflected/scattered and how we get our blue skies.

      You have to at some point admit you don’t know the difference between heat and light …

      Deal with my challenge as it is written, this is about the claims of AGWScienceFiction’s The Greenhouse Effect energy budget which you claim is real world physics.

      We would not get our great equator to poles winds and dramatic weather systems if the land and water at the equator was not heated intensely by the Sun, the Sun actually, physically, heating the land and water just as you actually physically put powerful heat to work to cook your dinner.

      Prove that visible light from the Sun does this heating of land and water at the equator or stop claiming that it does. Your claim, you deal with this. You are supposedly “climate” scientists or interested in the subject.

      So far none of you has demonstated any grasp of basic weather.

      I’m pointing out that these AGWSF claims are fake fisics, explore it for yourselves in answering my challenge. Don’t just repeat memes churned out by the rebuttal meme production department which are irrelevant and only prove you don’t know what you’re talking about.. Get a grip on yourselves.

      • David N | January 26, 2013 at 8:24 pm |

        It’s interesting that you think photons in the visible spectrum are not absorbed by land and sea. I guess that’s why we can see right through the planet.

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 8:54 pm |

        David N | January 26, 2013 at 8:24 pm | It’s interesting that you think photons in the visible spectrum are not absorbed by land and sea. I guess that’s why we can see right through the planet.

        I said water is a transparent medium for visible light. Water does not absorb visible light but transmits it through unchanged. This is basic bog standard Optics.

        The AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget is immediately by this alone show to be junk science because it claims that visible light from the Sun heats water which is impossible..

        If you have actually studied this subject and paid for the study and have been taught the fake fisics of visible light light heating land and water, then you could demand your money back.. At least confront your teachers and demand they prove it.

      • David N | January 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm |

        Actually, there is a very small amount of absorption in the visible spectrum for pure H20. It’s not zero. Perhaps you haven’t considered this, but the oceans are not pure water. You can’t see straight through to the bottom. This is because the oceans are absorbing visible light.

        If you could point to the time when I insulted you, then I suppose I’d have to grant you the right to adopt the tone you’ve taken above.

      • Myrrh | January 27, 2013 at 8:25 am |

        David N | January 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm |
        If you could point to the time when I insulted you, then I suppose I’d have to grant you the right to adopt the tone you’ve taken above.

        Sorry anyway, but I wasn’t taking any “tone” with you, and I don’t know what it is I’ve said that has upset you.

        Actually, there is a very small amount of absorption in the visible spectrum for pure H20. It’s not zero. Perhaps you haven’t considered this, but the oceans are not pure water. You can’t see straight through to the bottom. This is because the oceans are absorbing visible light.

        This certainly irritates me.. The AGWScienceFiction claim is that visible light from the Sun is the actual energy doing all the heating of land and water and it has excluded all actual direct heat from the Sun, radiant heat, thermal infrared, longwave infrared. I do get fed up with this seeming inability to get any grasp of the scale of the claim here. What possible use is your “small absorption in pure H2O” in heating the water at the equator to the intensity it is actually heated which is how we get our huge wind and weather systems? For all practical purposes water is a transparent medium for visible light – the AGWSF claim is falsified just by this alone.

        You can see straight through to the bottom of clear water because water is not absorbing visible light! And you can see what’s at the bottom because what you are seeing is light reflecting back from the objects at the bottom.

        You can see when diving in the ocean because light is not absorbed by the water, there would be no life in the ocean if water absorbed visible light! That there is attenuation for other reasons does not change this.

        Visible light works on the tiny electronic transition level, in the atmosphere it is absorbed by the electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen and then spat out again, this is how we get reflection/scattering and our blue sky. In a transparent medium visible light doesn’t even get in to play with the electrons, it can’t get in to the dance and is transmitted through unchanged. There is a slight delay here, as water tries to absorb and visible light tries to join in and can’t and is then passed along, because water is denser than air there are more of these encounters and so light is slowed down more, some fourteen times more than in air.

        But, this is what I mean by sleights of hand, memes of fake fisics are brainwashed through the education system and these are taken so much for granted as if real physics that no one bothers to examine them. All I’m trying to do is get people here to think through the brainwashing. If you want to know about visible light you, generic, would need to go first to the science discipline of Optics, you would not go to Thermodynamics.. Now of course we can add Biology to that since the great amount of work done by so many to understand photosynthesis. Which is the absorption of visible light to chemical energy, not heat energy, in the creation of sugars from water and carbon dioxide.

        The claim of the Greenhouse Effect is that visible light from the Sun converts land and water to heat energy, totally replacing the work done by radiant heat from the Sun in the real world. This is a humongous claim!

        It is also physically absurd.

        In the real world it is physically absurd.

        Repeat as many times at it takes to sink in that this is what I am saying, and so my challenge.

        So, please don’t distract by mentioning conspiracy theories, this is a direct science challenge to you, and generic you.. Prove the AGWSF Greenhouse Effect energy budget claim that visible light heats the land and water intensely at the equator which is how we get our huge equator to poles winds and powerful weather systems, or damn well admit it is junk science.

        And stop teaching it.

      • David N | January 27, 2013 at 10:02 am |

        Your accusation that the conventional energy budget ignores inbound IR from the sun is false. Your claim that the oceans are transparent to visible light is preposterous. The properties of pure water are not the properties of the ocean. At depths greater than 1000 m there is no visible sunlight in the ocean, and yet creatures exist at that depth and below. If you truly believe that visible light does no heating then get yourself a class IV blue laser and aim it at your skin. But please do me the favor of trying it on some scrap paper or plastic first. And wear safety glasses.

        It is not necessary for you to disparage others’ education, or accuse them of being “brainwashed,” or of being members of a vast conspiracy in order to provoke a response. Just keep on posting one incorrect statement after another.

      • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 11:39 am |

        “Your claim that the oceans are transparent to visible light is preposterous. The properties of pure water are not the properties of the ocean. ”

        The ocean are the most transparent to blue light and least transparent to red light.
        The oceans are similar to our sky. And are different.
        In terms number of atoms. 10 meters of ocean is most similar to our sky.
        Both are 1 atm of pressure.
        And clear sky when sun at zenith is less transparent than 10 meters of ocean. At 10 meters depth of ocean, the above this does not give you a “blue sky”. One would need to go deeper to get the “blue sky”.
        Or put 10 meters of water on Moon [cover with glass], and the standing bottom and looking up does not give you a blue sky. And at 10 meter depth on the Moon, you receive more solar energy, as compared to on surface of Earth on a clear day.

        The 10 meters of water on the moon would absorb more solar energy than your atmosphere does. If had the bottom of 10 meter deep lunar “pool” of water, painted black. And the water was saltwater like Earth oceans, you would get a solar pond. On Earth a solar pond can reach a highest temperature of the salty water of around 80 C, one the Moon the salty water temperature would over 100 C [above boiling at 1 atm].
        To reach the high temperature of solar ponds on Earth, need a sun which
        reaches a high angle above horizon- summertime and/or lower latitudes.
        And the solar pond needs to be about 10′ depth or less. On the moon since are getting more solar energy, a 10 meter depth pond should still
        be able to reach 100 C.
        If instead the lunar pool bottom being painted black, you had mirror reflecting surface, the solar energy would warm the water coming in and coming out of pool.
        So no matter what color the bottom of the 10 meter deep pool, it would absorb a considerable portion of energy of sunlight- say 70% or more.
        Our sky absorbs hardly any solar energy- whether on the way down to surface or when reflected off the surface. So this is big difference between 10 meters of water and 1 atm of our atmosphere. The 10 meters of water is more transparent yet absorbs more energy, and scatter blue light less. Or our atmosphere is less transparent and scatters
        light to greater extent. And it may be, mostly it scatters light more.
        Now, one might tempted to guess that our atmosphere is mostly just scattering the blue light, if you look through a lot of earth’s atmosphere- from space Earth’s atmosphere glows red:
        Not this [but interesting]:
        http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/05/earths-atmosphere-captured-glowing-in-the-dark.html
        Related:
        “But astrophysicists say the most spectacular view of the night is the moon’s eerie red and orange glow — caused by the sun’s indirect light being filtered through Earth’s atmosphere, trying to reach the moon.”
        http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0812-lunar_eclipse.htm
        Well I can’t find it. But I guess my question is, if we had more atmosphere- say five times more atmosphere, would we have a blue sky?
        I try different tack. In ocean the red light is absorbed- it is absent at say 50 meters depth. And at 100 meters the only dim light which left, is diffused blue light. And with your sky if looking thru a lot of it, the diffused light is is red light.

        Anyways on Earth the most amount of sunlight which is actually absorbed as compared diffusing/scattering is in the Ocean.

      • Myrrh | January 27, 2013 at 4:17 pm |

        David N | January 27, 2013 at 10:02 am | Your accusation that the conventional energy budget ignores inbound IR from the sun is false.

        I didn’t say that. I said it excised the beam radiant heat from the Sun, aka thermal infrared, aka longwave infrared, aka Heat.

        In its place it has put Visible light from the Sun, the infrared it includes is shortwave and not heat, and, it only accords this 1% of the energy – most don’t bother with it, sticking with the main claim that it is “Visible Light from the Sun heating land and water”.

        This is the problem, visible light from the Sun can’t do this. Cannot physically do this in the real world. Either prove it can or stop claiming it, because until you, generic AGW/CAGWs who use this fake fisics actually make the effort to show it can you cannot be taken seriously as scientists at all, let alone climate scientists who should have some grasp of the properties and processes of the Sun’s energy. You have to be ready to defend your claims.

        I said it excised radiant heat from the Sun, longwave infrared. There are two versions to account for the Sun’s missing heat, the first says that the atmosphere somehow magically prevents it from entering and the second says the Sun produces so little longwave infrared, which is heat, that effectively none reaches us.

        Thermal infrared, aka longwave infrared aka radiant heat from the Sun is what we feel as heat from the Sun, we cannot feel shortwaves from the Sun. We cannot feel light.

        You, generic, can’t even agree why it is missing and yet insist that Visible light from the Sun is capable of doing and is doing the powerful work of heating land and water which the actual radiant heat from the Sun does in the real world.

        We can feel the powerful radiant heat from the Sun, longwave infrared. We know this is heating the land and water around us just as it is heating us. We cannot feel shortwave infrared, it is not the thermal energy from the Sun:

        As traditionally taught by NASA:

        “Far infrared waves are thermal. In other words, we experience this type of infrared radiation every day in the form of heat! The heat that we feel from sunlight, a fire, a radiator or a warm sidewalk is infrared. The temperature-sensitive nerve endings in our skin can detect the difference between inside body temperature and outside skin temperature.

        “Shorter, near infrared waves are not hot at all – in fact you cannot even feel them. These shorter wavelengths are the ones used by your TV’s remote control.”

        Your claim that the oceans are transparent to visible light is preposterous. The properties of pure water are not the properties of the ocean. At depths greater than 1000 m there is no visible sunlight in the ocean, and yet creatures exist at that depth and below.

        Water is a transparent medium for visible light, it is transmitted through unchanged. That is simply a fact of the physical world around us, check with Optics. The AGWSF claim is that visible light from the Sun physically heats the water, it has to physically heat the water to get our great winds and weather systems. Visible light from the Sun cannot physically heat water. Why visible light attenuates in the ocean is irrelevant here. The claim is that it physically heats the water of the ocean and it can’t.

        If you truly believe that visible light does no heating then get yourself a class IV blue laser and aim it at your skin.

        I keep getting this nonsensical answer from some. The Sun is not a laser. Nor is there a huge lens around the Earth concentrating the Sun’s rays. What does it take to get you, generic, to step back into the real physical world around us?

        But please do me the favor of trying it on some scrap paper or plastic first. And wear safety glasses.

        Where do you get these, rebuttals? How does that even begin to address my science challenge let alone answer it? You, generic, simply throw these irrelevant ideas at me and walk away from my actual challenge. Visible light from the Sun. This is about the claimed energy budget for the Earth.

        It is not necessary for you to disparage others’ education, or accuse them of being “brainwashed,” or of being members of a vast conspiracy in order to provoke a response. Just keep on posting one incorrect statement after another.

        It’s a matter of fact that this AGWScienceFiction fisics was introduced into the education system to dumb down the masses in order to promote AGW. It’s not a pleasant thought for those on the receiving end of it, I’m very much aware that what I am saying is not comfortable reading, but, you’re adults and interested in science and interested in climate science and if you who are capable of understanding what I’m saying won’t make the effort to deal with this then it will continue to be taught in main stream education. It is effectively book burning for the masses. Some schools still teach the real physics basics here for those specialising in science subjects, but outside of the exam curriculum. It is not taught in traditional physics.

        The problem remains. This is just one aspect of the fake fisics which has been used to create the Greenhouse Effect. I’ve been trying to explain the sleights of hand used here, but it’s difficult to grasp for those without traditional basic physics because it’s subtle, cleverly done so it doesn’t jar.

        You, generic, don’t notice the water cycle is missing, that rain in the carbon cycle is missing, that the whole real gas atmosphere is missing.., because the arguments distract from these things. You could not for one moment accept the meme “carbon dioxide accumulates for hundreds and thousands of years” if you had basic traditional physics under your belt, this is when it becomes obvious because it jars with physical reality.

        Which is why I’ve phrased my science challenge as I have – so anyone seriously attempting to respond will find for themselves that the Greenhouse Effect claim is physically impossible.

      • David N | January 27, 2013 at 4:33 pm |

        Myrrh, at this point I am confident that I have effectively refuted your nonsensical claims. Your continual reassertion of them is not argument. The constant ad hominem attacks on my education make you a very unpleasant person to converse with. So, until you make some new incorrect statements, I’ll be moving on.

  40. Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 9:20 am |

    In the SPM to WG1 of the IPCC’s AR4, we find expressions like “extremely likely” and “very likely” defined on page 3 in terms of numeric probabilities. I am trying to find out what is the scientific basis for these definitions. These expressions are used liberally throughout the SPM to describe the effects of GHGs on the world’s atmosphere.

    It seems to me that the discussion as to whether CAGW exists has become sterile on CE; both sides are merely reiterating well established positions. And as I have observed before, CAGW is a plausible hypothesis, which cannot be proven to be wrong. So I would like to try and shift the focus to the question of scientific likelihood.

    We are currently experiencing SSW. This occurs over the winter pole, though we dont know whether it is associated with the geographic or magnetic pole. Unlike events like ENSO, SSW only cools the earth. We only have data since satellites existed, so we have little idea of the historic values for frequency and intenstiy of this type of event. It is a known unknown. And there are all sorts of other known unknowns, not to mention unknown unknowns.

    Alex Rawls commented on Chaptrer 7 of the first draft of WG1 to AR5. His comments were accepted by the authors of Chap[ter 7, but not by the authors of the SPM; which uses the same sort ofprobabilities found in the AR4. It was for this reason that Alec leaked the whole report; he did not like the probabilites still found in the SPM.

    What I would like to see is a discssion of the scientific basis for the probabilites defined in the SPM of WG1 to AR4. Where do they come from? What are the scientific references? Do they belong in the AR5 in the light of the sort of information that Alec Rawls used?

    Any warmist want to contribute?

  41. A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 26, 2013 at 9:42 am |

    timg56 posts  “Fan will argue that this does not meet his standard for being a quote”

    Only Humans Can Halt the Worst Wave of Extinction
    Since the Dinosaurs Died
    by E.O. Wilson

    The Baiji is a graceful, freshwater dolphin that once abounded along a thousand miles of the Yangtze River. It may now be the world’s most endangered large animal. Caught in a vise of rising pollution and indiscriminate fishing during the past century, its population fell to only 400 by 1980, to 150 in 1993, and is now below 100. Zoologists doubt the species will survive in the wild for another decade. …

      — virally attributed to Wilson’s The Diversity of Life (1999)

    Timg56, thank you for this fine opportunity to show readers of Climate Etc (and Willis Eschenbach too!) what a *real* quotation looks like.

    The quoted passage is of course so beautifully written that it has “gone viral” (in Willis Eschenbach’s handy phrase). And as wildlife experts all know, the prediction of imminent Baiji extinction has come (soberingly) true.

    And yet:

    •  The above passage does *not* appear in Wilson’s The Diversity of Life.

    •  The full text *does* appear in the Fall 2006 newsletter INformation, which is published by organization “Operation Migration”, where it is said to be reprinted from the on-line journal “The Edge” (no further details given).

    •  The web-site “The Edge” presently holds no trace of the story.

    ——————–
    Verdict  Pending clarification of its origins — and despite its ubiquity on the web — the passage may *NOT* be quoted in attribution to Ed Wilson.
    ——————–

    There is a larger issue too, that originates in the (comically bellicose!) contumelious truculence that is characteristic of denialist sites like WUWT, that is exemplified by contrarians like Willis and Anthony:

    Willis Eschenbach says “Matt is accusing me of being “deceptive”, a polite way of calling me a liar. Matt, I won’t have any truck with a man who calls me a liar. You can either retract it and admit you didn’t do your homework, or you and I are done discussing anything ever. I won’t hold for it.”

    Readers of Climate Etc are invited to read for themselves Ed Wilson’s writings on extinction, and then compare these real writings to WUWT‘s incomplete and/or out-of-context and/or flat-wrong pseudo-quotations from those writings, and then consider the following proposition:

    Proposition  Claimed quotations on denialist climate-change websites are so commonly incomplete and/or out-of-context and/or just-plain-wrong, that carelessness becomes functionally indistinguishable from deception and moreover on the part of readers, accepting careless and/or deceptive editorial practices amounts to a personal choice of willful ignorance.

    Fortunately, here on Climate Etc the public discourse is open and vigorous. Good! And if participating in vigorous discourse requires a thick skin and a robust sense of humor … well THAT is a noble tradition of American discourse, that is commended to all participants in climate-change debates!

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

  42. David Springer | January 26, 2013 at 10:47 am |

    Topic: Ice Ages

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

    Note that all previous interglacial periods reached temperature “anomalies” at least close to 3C and the one preceding the extant (Holocene) interglacial reached almost 6C. The only strange thing about the Holocene from this chart is that it’s anomalously cooler than the last several.

  43. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 10:53 am |

    Via Dave Roberts, a paper entitled **The Social Cost of Stochastic and Irreversible Climate Change**, by Yongyang Cai, Kenneth L. Judd, Thomas S. Lontzek:

    > There is great uncertainty about the impact of anthropogenic carbon on future economic wellbeing. We use DSICE, a DSGE extension of the DICE2007 model of William Nordhaus, which incorporates beliefs about the uncertain economic impact of possible climate tipping events and uses empirically plausible parameterizations of Epstein-Zin preferences to represent attitudes towards risk. We find that the uncertainty associated with anthropogenic climate change imply carbon taxes much higher than implied by deterministic models. This analysis indicates that the absence of uncertainty in DICE2007 and similar models may result in substantial understatement of the potential benefits of policies to reduce GHG emissions.

    http://papers.nber.org/papers/w18704

    • Wagathon | January 27, 2013 at 2:09 pm |

      Perhaps the more than decade of cooling oceans caused the current flu epidemic that is indiscriminate in its killing young and old. There should be a paper. We need federal funds to further investigate the correlation. Society must begin the task of finding those to blame for extended global ocean cooling.

  44. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:29 am |

    Ben Franklin invented alarmism:

    > Franklin’s political eye was focused, but his scientific eye was attentive too. All was not well in the French countryside, where one of the worst environmental calamities of modern history was just beginning to unfold. That summer was the hottest on record, and a mysterious “dry fog” had settled across Europe. The combination of heat and air pollution was too much for the weak and elderly. Mortality spiked among farm workers and laborers across the continent.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-boslough/ben-franklin-climate-scie_b_2512146.html

    • manacker | January 26, 2013 at 11:35 am |

      Ben also “invented” cutting unnecessary expenditures (like waste in climate research):

      “a penny saved is a penny earned”

    • timg56 | January 29, 2013 at 7:47 pm |

      willard,

      One of my favorite Franklin quotes:

      “Clarence, it is better to have a gun and not need it, than need a gun and not have it.”

      Oops, my bad, that was a Christian Slater line from True Romance. But I bet Ben wished he had said it first.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 29, 2013 at 8:33 pm |

        “A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one. “

      • timg56 | January 30, 2013 at 12:44 pm |

        Favorite quotes:

        Life is hard, and then you die.

        What goes around, comes around.

        Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

        Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures.
        — I Corinthians 13:7

        “Senator, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” (Very applicable to CAGW.)

        Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
        George Washington

        “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”.
        – Patrick Henry –

        and the newest one –

        “The Mk67 fragmentation grenade – when “F*ck You” simply isn’t getting the point across.

  45. Wagathon | January 26, 2013 at 11:44 am |

    A new FREE paper…

    The Social Cost of Forecasting Human-Caused Irreversible Climate Change

    Issued in January 2013

    Stochastic techniques are used to show that the government-funded manufacturing of fear about the impact of anthropogenic carbon will depress future economic wellbeing as a result of the misallocation of scarce resources and penalizing those who live in the real world by showering preferences on those who pull strings in the metaworld to support hysterical Liberal attitudes about an impending doomsday. An examination of the models that Western academia uses to incorporate the Left’s inchoate and nihilistic beliefs about the uncertainty of weather impacts and blaming capitalism for possible climate tipping events is shown using empirically plausible parameterizations to be on a par with the Salem Witch Trials and represents a preference for imaginary realities common among who are constitutionally incapable of taking care of themselves or providing value to others. We find that the attitudes toward risk demonstrated by those imbued with uncertainty associated with anthropogenic climate change imply that a desire for more and more carbon taxes is directly correlated with those who are determined Marxists despite the fact that socio-communistic economies have been shown to be the sowers of millions of deaths. This analysis indicates that the absence of understanding that when it comes to both global warming—it’s the Sun, stupid—may result in substantial understatement of the potential benefits of recognizing that a growing lack of respect for life, liberty and property is rotting America from the inside-out.

  46. A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 26, 2013 at 11:52 am |

    Dennis asks  “I’m trying to keep up here, is it [an extinction] spasm or an [an extinction] wave?”

    That is a good question Dennis! And Ed Wilson’s answer is simple:

    The sober archaeology of vanished species has taught the following lessons:

       •  The noble savage never existed.
       •  Eden occupied was a slaughterhouse.
       •  Paradise found is paradise lost.

    Humanity has so far played the role of planetary killer, concerned only with its short-term survival. We have cut much of the heart out of biodiversity. The conservation ethic, whether expressed as taboo, totemism, or science, has generally come too late and too little to save the most vulnerable life forms. [But] we know more about the problem now; […] it is not too late. Perhaps we will act in time.

    Now isn’t that more clear than WUWT‘s bizarrely incomplete and/or out-of-context and/or flat-wrong pseudo-quotations of Ed Wilson’s works? Or Willis Eschenbach’s contumeliously truculent (and comedically bellicose!) tergiversation?

    It is the economic implications of Wilson’s writings that are perhaps most unpalatable to operations like WUWT and the Heartland Institute. For Ed Wilson’s solid science brilliantly illuminates Garrett Hardin’s economic analysis upon the Tragedy of the Commons. Hardin’s conclusions can be summarized Wilson-style as follows:

       •  Rational markets never existed.
       •  Unregulated markets slaughter free citizenship.
       •  Capitalism globalized is capitalism degraded.

    Is it any wonder that scientists deplore the ‘Kochtopus’ … and are concerned that free discourse may become an endangered species?

    Opinions differ in this regard (needless to say), and perhaps it is unsurprising that this week Anthony Watts/WUWT is defending the ‘Kochtopus’ with via the same style of contumeliously truculent (and comedically bellicose!) tergiversation that Willis Eschenbach/WUWT has been deploying against Ed Wilson!

    As ordinary citizens increasingly appreciate that Ed Wilson is talking plain ecological sense, they concomitantly appreciate that James Hansen is talking plain scientific common sense, and appreciate that Garrett Hardin is talking plain economic common sense, and even appreciate that Wendell Berry is talking plain old American Yankee common sense.

    For sure, the ‘Kochtopus’ doesn’t favor that kind of discourse, eh?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Tom | January 27, 2013 at 9:42 am |

      Your Pan Am flight 101, is now ready for boarding on Con-course 00, your Big Green Weight Watcher tour of diet camps in North Korea, should leave at almost any time now.

      As Always Fly Safe & Same

    • Dennis | January 27, 2013 at 3:59 pm |

      Fan, that is the Wilson quote you choose? What are you trying to demonstrate, that he is a rational scientist or a religious fanatic? You see, the foundation of the the eco religion is that humans are evil, this is the foundation of most religions. The difference is in what you need to do to wash away your sins and become holy. People like Wilson and Hanson are prophets of this religion and you are a disciple.

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 27, 2013 at 11:03 pm |

        Ed Wilson asserts “The sober archaeology of vanished species has taught the following lessons:

        • The noble savage never existed.
        • Eden occupied was a slaughterhouse.
        • Paradise found is paradise lost.

        Humanity has so far played the role of planetary killer, concerned only with its short-term survival.”

        Dennis asks “Fan, that is the Wilson quote you choose? What are you trying to demonstrate, that he is a rational scientist or a religious fanatic?”

        The quotation demonstrates that Ed Wilson knows ecological history.

        It’s true that dogmatic libertarians, in particular, seek to deny the plain lesson of history: unregulated markets fail catastrophically.

        But that doesn’t change the sobering lesson of history, does it? What is your next question, Dennis? \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

  47. Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 12:02 pm |

    “That’s the rationale for a provision in the Affordable Care Act – “Obamacare” to its detractors – that starting next year allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

    The new law doesn’t allow insurers to charge more for people who are overweight, however.

    It’s tricky to play the insurance game with overweight people, because science is still sorting things out. While obesity is clearly linked with serious health problems and early death, the evidence is not as clear about people who are just overweight.

    That said, public health officials shouldn’t shy away from tough anti-obesity efforts, said Callahan, the bioethicist. Callahan caused a public stir this week with a paper that called for a more aggressive public health campaign that tries to shame and stigmatize overeaters the way past public health campaigns have shamed and stigmatized smokers.

    National obesity rates are essentially static, and public health campaigns that gently try to educate people about the benefits of exercise and healthy eating just aren’t working, Callahan argued. We need to get obese people to change their behavior. If they are angry or hurt by it, so be it, he said.

    “Emotions are what really count in this world,” he said.

    ##################

    just wow.

  48. kakatoa | January 26, 2013 at 12:17 pm |

    Out here in CA, we are trying to decide if our mitigation plan (i.e. our 33%RES) for reducing CO2 levels from the electrical energy generation, transmission and distribution processes should continue to include net metering. A recent paper by Crossborder Energy entitled “Evaluating the Benefits and Costs of Net Energy Metering” concludes that the costs are more then the benefits. There paper notes two previous studies that say the opposite.

    It appears that PG&E billing processes (or at least their cost allocations) could use some improvement-

    “PG&E’s reported manual billing costs per NEM customer ($29.34 per month) were about ten times larger than SCE’s reported billing costs ($2.34 to $3.03 per month); even PG&E’s “automatic” billing costs ($15.55 per month) were five times higher than SCE’s costs.3”

    http://www.seia.org/news/study-solar-net-metering-provide-over-92-million-benefits-california-ratepayers

    I have to admit I never understood why I received a complete (10 to 20 pages of detailed cost allocations) breakdown of the cost allocations PG&E uses as part of what we used to call the details that loaded up into standard costs for my monthly net metering bill back 2006 and 2007. They stopped sending this degree of detail back in 2009 or so. Currently the billing info I get is down to 1 doubled side printed page. If they could only figure out how to print my name and address on that doubled sided page they could eliminate one sheet of paper that has nothing on it but our name and mailing address………..

    PG&E held off installing smart meters for NEM customers for a few years. I didn’t get my SMART meter until about a week ago. I assume they have figured out how to automatically transfer the electronic data that is being sent to them from the meter to the billing department to improve their costs of providing me a bill.

  49. Donald Rapp | January 26, 2013 at 12:35 pm |

    Is there any value in this blog? I can’t seem to find any.

    • curryja | January 26, 2013 at 12:42 pm |

      Open threads allow frequent commenters a venue to let off steam and comment on a wide range of topics. Occasionally someone introduces a new article that is worth reading and provides material for a future topical post. Threads like this help keep comments on the topical threads on topic

    • kim | January 26, 2013 at 1:09 pm |

      P-prapdla no.
      =========

    • Tom | January 26, 2013 at 1:27 pm |

      Mr. Donald Rapp, I am not one bit surprised…

      “Is there any value in this blog? I can’t seem to find any.”

      you, are the eighth commenter to say so.

    • Wagathon | January 26, 2013 at 1:51 pm |

      if not this then what, that?

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 26, 2013 at 1:54 pm |

      Donald Rapp posts “Is there any value in this blog? I can’t seem to find any.”

      LOL … my evil alter ego Fan of *LESS* Discourse agrees entirely, Donald! Let’s shut down all this messy public debate.

      And while we’re at it, let’s slur the scientists, stop the research, fire the professors, and jail the liberals!

      `Cuz hey, then at last everyone will live in a world that’s safe for denialism, right Donald?

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 2:09 pm |

      Donald, you write “Is there any value in this blog?”

      I can only speak personally, but I have learned a lot over the years by participating in this delightful blog our hostess has provided. Specificly, I think I have found two questions which most warmists refuse to answer. These are

      1. Is there any empirical data that proves that as you add CO2 to the atmosphere, from current levels, in causes global temperatures to rise?

      2. Is there any scientific basis for the IPCC to claim in the SPM to WGI of AR4, that it is very likely (>90% probability), that adding CO2 to the atmopshere affects global temperatures?

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 26, 2013 at 4:28 pm |

        Jim.

        It’s not that “warmists” refuse to answer, it’s that you don’t accept their answers as answers.

        There are certainly tens of cases where you have got answers to that question stating where the empirical data is, but when you choose to dismiss all those, you succeed in maintaining your belief that the question hasn’t been answered. People who have answered the question do genuinely believe that the answer is in affirmative, i.e. there is a lot of empirical data that provides evidence on the warming influence of CO2 on the Earth system. The evidence is plentiful and strong but you set requirements that the data does not satisfy. That way you keep on dismissing what science tells. That’s the way of keeping on disbelieving evidence how ever strong it really is. (There are also other words for that, but I have been told that it’s improper to say directly what is the nature of your approach.)

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 4:31 pm |

        > There are also other words for that, but I have been told that it’s improper to say directly what is the nature of your approach.

        Mosh will appreciate this example of indefinite description.

        Tony won’t be mad. That’s OK too.

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 5:12 pm |

        Pekka, you write “It’s not that “warmists” refuse to answer, it’s that you don’t accept their answers as answers.”

        Fair enough. If you are claiming that the answer to my first question is yes, then where is the empirical data that proves that adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels increases global temperatures? I am not interested in any other empirical data; just that specific data.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 5:15 pm |

        1. Is there any empirical data that proves that as you add CO2 to the atmosphere, from current levels, in causes global temperatures to rise?

        2. Is there any scientific basis for the IPCC to claim in the SPM to WGI of AR4, that it is very likely (>90% probability), that adding CO2 to the atmopshere affects global temperatures?

        ###########################

        here is me refusing to answer. If people think this looks like an answer then they can conclude that Jim Cripwell is wrong when he asserts that no one will answer.

        1. Yes there is empirical evidence that adding C02 will cause temperature to rise. That evidence, like all evidence, does not amount to a logical proof, but it is, nevertheless, evidence. In 1896 Arrhenius working on foundations set by Tyndall, predicted that if you raise the level of C02 in the atmosphere that temperature would go up. Note: he could have predicted that temperature would go down or that C02 would have no effect. He predicted up.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius

        Since that time, C02 has gone up. Since that time temperature has gone up. This is evidence for his theory. If he had predicted the opposite it would be evidence against his theory. Now, no theory is proved by evidence for it. But this is clearly evidence FOR the theory. It is not evidence against the theory. To be sure there are other Possible explanations for the warming. It could be ln(leprechans). It could be leprechauns and C02 it could be undiscovered causes. That is why it is evidence FOR and not proof. Proof happens in math and logic, where we can show that a answer is necessarily true. In science we just get evidence for and evidence against. And to be sure there are other bits of evidence against that co exist with the evidence for. So we look to the weight of evidence. But Jim is wrong in two regards. Wrong that no one answers his question and wrong that there is NO evidence. There clearly is evidence.

        Question 2. The answer is also yes. There is evidence. The claims about 90% certainty, however, are not really scientific claims. They are statistical claims about which we could have interesting arguments, however, it is more likely that C02 causes warming rather than cooling. We have no evidence that it causes cooling. No theory that predicts it will cause cooling. Again, Jim is wrong that no one will answer his questions. Many of us have answered his questions in quite a bit more detail than this. But for here an now I keep the answer simple so that people can judge whether evidence has been given. Note, evidence is not proof. Note, Jim may object that the evidence does not convince him. Yes, the glove did not fit, but the glove was offered into evidence.

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 26, 2013 at 5:33 pm |

        Jim,
        You have been told tens of times. If you haven’t accepted that before, why would repeating all one more time make any difference. You must know what I’m talking about. Don’t pretend that you don’t.

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 5:48 pm |

        Pekka, you write “You must know what I’m talking about. ”

        I have no idea what you are talking about. All I want is a reference, or whatever, which provides the empirical data which proves that when you add CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels it causes global temperatures to rise. You seem to claim that this data exists. Fair enough. Where is it?

      • John Carpenter | January 26, 2013 at 6:36 pm |

        A problem I see with Jim asking the same question(s) over and over to the same people is, when will he learn that if he has not gotten the answer (or the one he is looking for) up to this point, he will ever get it here?

        If I ask the same question to the same set of people every day or so and the same result occurs, i.e. not getting the answer I want (or am looking for)….. How long does it take before I ask myself… Hmmmm, maybe I’m asking the wrong question or maybe I cant get my answer here or maybe I don’t understand the answers I have gotten? How long before conclude I will have to go somewhere else my answer?

        Unless the ‘answer’ to his question is really not his motivation for asking the question but rather is just a way of turning it into a statement he wants to make about what he wants to believe. This is no longer a question about science or how science is done… That discussion has been had ad nausium with him and so many here. No, It’s a statement of what he wants others to believe and nothing more. It’s useless to even waste time on that one anymore folks. Move on.

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 6:41 pm |

        Steven, you write “That evidence, like all evidence, does not amount to a logical proof, but it is, nevertheless, evidence.”

        Let us take this one question at a time; climate sensitivity. I asked for proof, and you say there is evidence, but it does not amount to a logical proof. I agree that there is evidence; CAGW is a plausible hypothesis, as I have observed several times. But if the evidence does not amount to a logical proof, then why is the answer to my first question “yes” and not “no”? Surely, if there in no proof, then the data that proves that adding CO2 to the atmopshere from current levels causes global temperatures to rise does not exist. Or where is my logic wrong?

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 6:47 pm |

        Steven, you also write “The answer is also yes. There is evidence. The claims about 90% certainty, however, are not really scientific claims. They are statistical claims about which we could have interesting arguments, however, it is more likely that C02 causes warming rather than cooling.”

        We seem to have a language problem. You say the answer is “yes”, that there is scientific evidence, but then you say they are not really scientific claims. However, assuming you are claiming there is some sort of logical reason for the statements of “extremely likely”, and “very likely” in the SPM, where in the AR4 are these reasons to be found?

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 6:56 pm |

        John, you write “How long before conclude I will have to go somewhere else my answer?”

        You clearly have not read before my reasons for asking these questions, which I have made very clear. I believe the claims of certainty which the IPCC uses in the SPM to AR4, cannot be justified. I am trying to get the warmists to agree with me, which is not easy. The way I am trying to do this is to ask the same question(s) over and over again, with the hope that one day, the wamists will have to agree that the logical answer can only be “no”. This is not easy. It is very difficult to do the equivalent of cross examining a witness on a blog, where the person concerned can simply ignore the question, and not give an answer. Once I can esatablish that the answer to my question(s) is “no”, then I may be able to have a successful discussion on the IPCC statements.

        Is the tactic I am using a good and effective one? I have no idea. We will have to see the extent to which it is successful.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 6:56 pm |

        Jim Cripwell, says “1. Is there any empirical data that proves that as you add CO2 to the atmosphere, from current levels, in causes global temperatures to rise?”

        The answer has two parts. First we don’t know whether you think doubling the CO2 changes the forcing, which is a radiative physics issue. Having established that, can you connect a forcing change to a temperature change, for which we can use volcanoes, the LIA or Ice Ages as evidence.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 6:59 pm |

        > I have no idea what you are talking about.

        Perhaps Jim Cripwell forgot about NG’s answer:

        In other words, those of John Nielsen-Gammon, trends are not the only evidence:

        A flat trend over any time period only shows that other forcings or natural processes are canceling the warming effect of Tyndall gases over such a period. There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods: ENSO (2-7 years plus longer-term variations), solar (11 years plus longer-term variations), PDO (50-70 years), for example. Any of those could be strong enough to cancel the Tyndall gas effect during half its phase. We know for certain that ENSO is more than strong enough to do that, but yet, over the long haul, the magnitude of global warming has recently exceeded the magnitude of ENSO variability. So, in addition to a flat trend over some period of years, I’d want evidence that it was not merely a temporary flat trend. In the absence of such evidence, I’d settle for a trend longer than half a PDO cycle, or 35 years or so. With such evidence, the trend could be as short as a year, because I’d be swayed not by the trend but by the evidence.

        http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/9411951921

        Perhaps Jim Cripwell should stop by John Nielsen-Gammon’s blog and try his signal processing tricks.

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249567

        See also the discussion that follows.

        ***

        John,

        Perhaps you’d like to read back this **Curious Case of Jim Cripwell**, starring Isaac Held:

        > Would you mind if I go post your comment and Jim’s question on Isaac Held’s blog?

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249965

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/08/whats-the-best-climate-question-to-debate/#comment-251006

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/10/communicating-uncertainties-in-natural-hazards-research/#comment-252368

        This might very well be the last time I mention the name “Jim Cripwell”.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 7:01 pm |

        Jim: “Let us take this one question at a time; climate sensitivity. I asked for proof,”

        Jim asked for a square circle and is confused when no one produces one.

        There is no proof in science. There is proof in logic. There is proof in math.In science there is no proof.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence

        http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

        “Proofs have two features that do not exist in science: They are final, and they are binary. Once a theorem is proven, it will forever be true and there will be nothing in the future that will threaten its status as a proven theorem (unless a flaw is discovered in the proof). Apart from a discovery of an error, a proven theorem will forever and always be a proven theorem.

        In contrast, all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such thing as final proven knowledge in science. The currently accepted theory of a phenomenon is simply the best explanation for it among all available alternatives. Its status as the accepted theory is contingent on what other theories are available and might suddenly change tomorrow if there appears a better theory or new evidence that might challenge the accepted theory. No knowledge or theory (which embodies scientific knowledge) is final. That, by the way, is why science is so much fun.”

        “So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?” But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.”
        ― Richard P. Feynman”

        http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/

      • gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 7:05 pm |

        “In 1896 Arrhenius working on foundations set by Tyndall, predicted that if you raise the level of C02 in the atmosphere that temperature would go up. Note: he could have predicted that temperature would go down or that C02 would have no effect. He predicted up.”

        Wiki:
        “”If the quantity of carbonic acid [CO2] in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4°; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8°. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4°; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8°.”

        Of course carbonic acid is not CO2. Carbonic acid is H2CO3.
        Perhaps it is a safe guess to say Arrhenius was mistaken.

        But actual H2CO3 has been isolated:
        ” It is now known that carbonic acid is indeed present in drinks, though at very, very low concentrations. Until recently, the molecule has resisted all attempts at isolation and direct detection. However, a few scientists have been able to produce carbonic acid in the solid state. It is also assumed to be present in cirrus clouds in Earth’s atmosphere and in space.”
        Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2010-12-carbonic-acid-isolated-gas-phase.html#jCp

        And of course CO2 as gas is also in solution in liquid water [and as a gas would quite easy find in drinks:)].

        But, it’s a good guess, he actually meant CO2.
        Though CO2 is not an acid. And he wrote a paper two regarding ions and acids.

        “Hence, the majority of the carbon dioxide is not converted into carbonic acid, but remains as CO2 molecules not affecting the pH. ”
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

        Now, we are all pretty sure that doubling or halving CO2 levels does not increase or decease average temperature by 4 C.
        But your point is he guessed right that CO2 causes warming rather than cooling.
        And guess was based moonlight being absorbed by CO2. And he was interested in finding out what caused Ice Ages, and considered the CO2
        levels was the cause [which is not the causal factor].

        The only really empirical proof involved appears to be concerning
        this:
        “About 1900, Arrhenius became involved in setting up the Nobel Institutes and the Nobel Prizes. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1901. For the rest of his life, he would be a member of the Nobel Committee on Physics and a de facto member of the Nobel Committee on Chemistry. He used his positions to arrange prizes for his friends (Jacobus van’t Hoff, Wilhelm Ostwald, Theodore Richards) and to attempt to deny them to his enemies (Paul Ehrlich, Walther Nernst, Dmitri Mendeleev). In 1901 Arrhenius was elected to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, against strong opposition. In 1903 he became the first Swede to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. In 1905, upon the founding of the Nobel Institute for Physical Research at Stockholm, he was appointed rector of the institute, the position where he remained until retirement in 1927. ”

        So, prizes and recognition would awarded to followers of his belief.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 7:08 pm |

        Mosher said

        “There is no proof in science.”

        What about all yer crap that “science” as you are now using it, doesn’t exist ?

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 7:55 pm |

        Good to go
        ““So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?” But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.”
        ― Richard P. Feynman”

        #########
        well, sometime science is believing in the ignorance of experts.
        Sometimes its believing in the ignorance of commentators like yourself.

      • John Carpenter | January 26, 2013 at 8:00 pm |

        “I am trying to get the warmists to agree with me, which is not easy. The way I am trying to do this is to ask the same question(s) over and over again, with the hope that one day, the wamists will have to agree that the logical answer can only be “no”. This is not easy.”

        Jim, that is a task only second to Sisyphus and one that you should think about shelving. The body of climate understanding most of those you are trying to convince otherwise is pretty substantial and unlikely to change. It is not a question of logic, it is a question of scientific understanding, so you will never find a ‘warmist’ find your answer of ‘no’ as the only logical answer. You need to offer alternative explanations to what is observed.

        Willard, that example was one of my favorites as I followed that discussion as it unfolded. Precious, truly precious. Perhaps one of your best interventions here ever.

      • Jim Cripwell | January 26, 2013 at 8:16 pm |

        Steven, you write “There is no proof in science.”

        You are getting very philosophical. There exists an inverse square law of attraction between electric charges of opposite signs. The last time I heard, which is decades ago, they had empircial evidence that the exponent of 2 was, in fact, 2. followed by 15 zeros. At that time, they had not established that the 16th place of decimals was, in fact, zero. Maybe by this time they have. This is what I regard as “proof” that the inverse square law really does have an exponent of 2.

        This is the sort of proof I am looking for that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global temperature to rise. So far as I can see, it does not exist.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 8:23 pm |

        > There exists an inverse square law of attraction between electric charges of opposite signs.

        Emphasis added.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 8:25 pm |

        Mosher, you changed the subject.

        Existence of science. Before, you said it didn’t exist.

      • stefanthedenier | January 26, 2013 at 8:34 pm |

        gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 7:05 pm said: ”But actual H2CO3 has been isolated:” It is now known that carbonic acid is indeed present in drinks, though at very, very low concentrations. Until recently, the molecule has resisted all attempts at isolation and direct detection”

        gbaikie my friend. you like to sound mysterious with your research / discoveries…. even about the carbonic acid…?

        #1: your blood in the vines is different colour than in the arteries; because is loaded with carbonic acid. That’s how CO2 is carried to your lungs -> so you can exhail it, for your vocal cords to use that CO2, to badmouth CO2! Carbonic acid is almost not acidic

        #2: rainwater is carbonic acid – water vapor uses CO2, to condensate and turn into rain; otherwise stays as humidity in the air. Rainwater pH is seven (7) NEUTRAL!!! CO2 is a rainmaker / life-giver.

        Carbonic acid makes the trees / crops to grow better / and become more prolific.and productive. b] the seawater will never become acidic c] carbonic acid is food for the coral, algae and seaweed – no seaweed / algae = no herbivore critters = wouldn’t be any carnivore. find to blame some other gas, not CO2, not carbonic acid!!! c] the swindlers confuse carbonic acid with sulfuric acid, that damaged few trees from overdosing in east Germany many years ago. Can you remember this: carbonic acid is in your blood / sulfuric acid is in your car battery – they are different If you don’t believe me; CO2 is in the champagne and coca cola – instead of drinking those, have some battery acid instead

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 8:35 pm |

        Mosher.

        Even were you to argue that

        “It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely.”
        …and it’s less likely that science exists…

        hahahahah!

        it still doesn’t answer why you just were treating it as though it does.

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 9:56 pm |

        gbaikie | January 26, 2013 at 7:05 pm | “In 1896 Arrhenius working on foundations set by Tyndall, predicted that if you raise the level of C02 in the atmosphere that temperature would go up. Note: he could have predicted that temperature would go down or that C02 would have no effect. He predicted up.”

        Gosh, Mosh was right, he refused to give an answer..

        Where does Arrhenius provide the answers to the specific question asked by Jim Cripwell? And anyway, Arrhenius got Fourier wrong and imagined a non-existant atmosphere..: http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/

        “Moreover, when Arrhenius (1896, p. 255) added the radiative transfer between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere to the conductive transfer between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, he effectively duplicated the radiative transfer quantity, because it was already included in the conductive transfer quantity (“M”). This quantity is representative of net heat flow in accordance with Fourier’s Law which, further, does not distinguish between kinetic and radiative modes of heat transfer across a thermal contact.

        “Not only did Arrhenius duplicate heat, thereby invoking an energy creation mechanism to equip carbon dioxide with a power source it does not have, he propagated an erroneous explanation of how greenhouses work, which he falsely attributed to Fourier. Moreover, Arrhenius used this erroneous explanation as an alternative focal point for his “Hothouse Effect”. With respect to the “Greenhouse Effect”, as it later became known, this misdirection proved most effective in drawing scrutiny away from the weakest proposition of the idea – as attested by its consequent Concise Oxford Dictionary definition. It is upon this litany of error and misdirection that the “Greenhouse Effect” and the implicitly “anthropogenic” nature of global warming and climate change is based.”

        So, AGW/CAGWs giving Arrhenius as their argument from authority is avoiding the question.

        Of course carbonic acid is not CO2. Carbonic acid is H2CO3.
        Perhaps it is a safe guess to say Arrhenius was mistaken.

        But actual H2CO3 has been isolated:
        ” It is now known that carbonic acid is indeed present in drinks, though at very, very low concentrations. Until recently, the molecule has resisted all attempts at isolation and direct detection. However, a few scientists have been able to produce carbonic acid in the solid state. It is also assumed to be present in cirrus clouds in Earth’s atmosphere and in space.”
        Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2010-12-carbonic-acid-isolated-gas-phase.html#jCp

        All rain is carbonic acid. Perhaps he actually meant carbonic acid? But who knows, because as I given the quote from Timothy Casey, Arrhenius got into a huge muddle because he didn’t understand Fourier et al, so has nothing of value to say in the subject.

        http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-carbonic-acid.htm
        “Carbonic acid is a weak acid that is created when carbon dioxide (CO2) is dissolved in water (H2O), resulting in the chemical formula H2CO3. When the acid dissociates, or gives up a hydrogen ion, the resulting molecule is called a bicarbonate ion. Carbonic acid appears frequently in the natural world. It can be found in sodas, champagne, and blood. The acid even appears in rain.
        ..
        “Carbonic acid even appears as a normal occurrence in rain. As rainwater falls through the air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, producing carbonic acid. Thus, when it reaches the ground, it has a pH of about 5.5. This should not be confused with acid rain which is caused when emissions, such as sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, from burning fossil fuels rises to the air. As it falls, rain absorbs these components, producing acids which can make the pH in rain fall to as little as two.”

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_ocr_pre_2011/context_chemistry/acidrainrev1.shtml
        “Carbon dioxide in the air can dissolve in rain water to form carbonic acid, H2CO3.

        CO2 + H2O H2CO3

        Carbonic acid is a weak acid. It partially ionises to form hydrogen ions.

        H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-

        The hydrogen ions from carbonic acid give natural rain water a slightly acid pH value of 5.6.”

        And for amusement, here’s a typical university indepth gobbledegook on the Carbon Cycle, excising rain..

        http://globecarboncycle.unh.edu/CarbonCycleBackground.pdf

        “Because we can’t deal with that level of complexity, scientists often describe the carbon cycle by lumping similar objects or environments into simpler groups (forest, grassland, atmosphere, ocean) and focusing only on the processes that are most important at the global scale (Figure 2). As you might imagine, part of the trick is understanding just what those processes are.”

        Grin, or rather, part of the trick is hiding that rain exists in the carbon cycle. They’ve managed that very nicely, don’t you think?

      • Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 10:05 pm |

        Ah, sorry gbaikie, missed close italics on your quote.

        Of course carbonic acid is not CO2. Carbonic acid is H2CO3.
        Perhaps it is a safe guess to say Arrhenius was mistaken.

        But actual H2CO3 has been isolated:
        ” It is now known that carbonic acid is indeed present in drinks, though at very, very low concentrations. Until recently, the molecule has resisted all attempts at isolation and direct detection. However, a few scientists have been able to produce carbonic acid in the solid state. It is also assumed to be present in cirrus clouds in Earth’s atmosphere and in space.”
        Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2010-12-carbonic-acid-isolated-gas-phase.html#jCp

        All rain is carbonic acid. Perhaps he actually meant carbonic acid? But who knows, because as I given the quote from Timothy Casey, Arrhenius got into a huge muddle because he didn’t understand Fourier et al, so has nothing of value to say in the subject.

        http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-carbonic-acid.htm
        “Carbonic acid is a weak acid that is created when carbon dioxide (CO2) is dissolved in water (H2O), resulting in the chemical formula H2CO3. When the acid dissociates, or gives up a hydrogen ion, the resulting molecule is called a bicarbonate ion. Carbonic acid appears frequently in the natural world. It can be found in sodas, champagne, and blood. The acid even appears in rain.
        ..
        “Carbonic acid even appears as a normal occurrence in rain. As rainwater falls through the air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, producing carbonic acid. Thus, when it reaches the ground, it has a pH of about 5.5. This should not be confused with acid rain which is caused when emissions, such as sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, from burning fossil fuels rises to the air. As it falls, rain absorbs these components, producing acids which can make the pH in rain fall to as little as two.”

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_ocr_pre_2011/context_chemistry/acidrainrev1.shtml
        “Carbon dioxide in the air can dissolve in rain water to form carbonic acid, H2CO3.

        CO2 + H2O H2CO3

        Carbonic acid is a weak acid. It partially ionises to form hydrogen ions.

        H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-

        The hydrogen ions from carbonic acid give natural rain water a slightly acid pH value of 5.6.”

        And for amusement, here’s a typical university indepth gobbledegook on the Carbon Cycle, excising rain..

        http://globecarboncycle.unh.edu/CarbonCycleBackground.pdf

        “Because we can’t deal with that level of complexity, scientists often describe the carbon cycle by lumping similar objects or environments into simpler groups (forest, grassland, atmosphere, ocean) and focusing only on the processes that are most important at the global scale (Figure 2). As you might imagine, part of the trick is understanding just what those processes are.”

        Grin, or rather, part of the trick is hiding that rain exists in the carbon cycle. They’ve managed that very nicely, don’t you think?

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 10:26 pm |

        Good to go.

        Ah i see what you are talking about. yes, science does not exist. Science is a word we apply to a particular style of behavior. In that style of behavior one does not prove things. In the behavior called math, there is proof. You need to stop thinking about science as a thing ( thats the point of saying it doesnt exist– )

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 10:35 pm |

        Seven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 10:26 pm |
        said:

        “Ah i see what you are talking about. yes, science does not exist. Science is a word we apply to a particular style of behavior. In that style of behavior one does not prove things. In the behavior called math, there is proof. You need to stop thinking about science as a thing ( thats the point of saying it doesnt exist– )”

        Steven,
        This is inconsistent with what you were saying before,
        Before, you told people who were trying to establish a standard for behaviour in science, that they could not say science does this or that, because it does not exist.
        Then you said science is only what scientists do.

        Now however, you are saying scientists do do “this” but not “that”.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 10:45 pm |

        Jim, do you know what a “law” is?
        Do you believe things that are not laws of science?
        Can a law be wrong?
        Here is a clue. Climate sensitivity is not a law, its a parameter.
        Do you know the moon is more than a mile away from the earth without proving how far away it is to 16 decimal places.

        In your everyday life, you act on belief in almost everything you do. You don’t require truth to 16 decimals places to say that something is true, or that something is known. you could, but you don’t. You live and act on many beliefs that are not “proven” to the standard you hold out here. Vast amounts of science is not known to the high degree of accuracy that laws are known to. Yet you rely on it.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 26, 2013 at 11:39 pm |

        Mosher.
        First science does not exist.
        Then science is what scientists do.
        Then scientists do this but not that.

        Therefore science is doing “this” but not “that”
        Which is what you were telling people they could not say.

      • Wagathon | January 27, 2013 at 1:22 am |

        So, is it just a coincidence that a seminary dropout lifetime Leftist politician decended from a life of priivilege — and probably one of the most painfully obvious Western hypocrites of our since andy of the Kennedys — Al {Jazeera) Gore, — just also happens to believe in the unprovable hypothesis of AGW Theory, and… with the IPCC and Obama was awarded the Nobel for doing all anyone ever could do to stab America in the back?

      • JCH | January 27, 2013 at 12:49 pm |

        Actually it was my idea for Jim Cripwell to put his questions to Issac Held or SoD. Willard picked it up and ran with it.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 4:25 pm |

        JCH’s right: he’s the one who chased Jim on the boards to get the puck. I was only standing in front of the net, as usual.

        Sorry for not mentioning, JCH.

        Hope you’re not mad. That would be OK, though. Thus spake Tony.

      • stefanthedenier | January 26, 2013 at 9:54 pm |

        Rob | January 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm said: ” Arrhenius’s prediction that if you raise CO2, temperature will increase. However, neither he nor you can quantify that rise without a true understanding of the dose response. You see Steve, if I need 1 mg of propanalol to lower your resting heart rate by 20 beets/minute and I administer 1 microgram, nothing happens. If on the other hand, I give you 100 mg ( for the sake of argument this is not a lethal dose), I still lower you heart rate by 20 beats/minute ”

        Rob, Arrhenius ”predicted” it wrong, because of ignorant aprouch. Today’s ”predictors” are using confusion.

        you want the truth: #1: oxygen & nitrogen are regulating the ”OVERALL” temp to be always the same; if one place gets warmer than normal -> other place MUST get colder than normal. That’s what the correct physics say.

        when ”overall the troposphere get hotter than normal -> O&&N (troposphere) instantly expands -> releases more heat and equalizes in a jiffy!

        #2: oxygen &nitrogen are 998999ppm in the atmosphere V CO2 that’s only 260-400ppm.
        NOW LETS SEE YOUR TIPPING POINT: if you put on the one end of the scale 998999 kilos V on the other end 300-400kg; how many more kilos you need to get to the tipping point?! b: if you have an elephant on one side of the scale V 380 flies on the other side; how many more flies is needed to the tipping point Rob?!

        P.s. CO2 intercepts some sunlight high up (where cooling is much more efficient) ”during the day”= a bit cooler on the ground – then at night; because proportion in difference in temp between the ground and upper atmosphere is LESS, it slows cooling, at night! Those two factors cancel each other Mosher is shirtless scared from my real proofs, admission that he knows that he is wrong, Rob, are you scared from solid proofs? physics / arithmetic are the most reliable sciences. Arrhenius’s prediction was for the ”Flatearthers” who think that is sunlight 24h on every spot on the planet. have some truth Rob:
        http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 4:13 pm |

      Donald’s mad:

      > Is there any value in this blog?

      That’s OK.

    • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 5:21 pm |

      Depends on what you want. If you want the wrong things you will derive no value from it. If you change your wants, you will derive value. The choice is yours. If you cannot find any value, then you cannot find any value. That fact entails nothing. I find no value in your comment. That is not a criticism, just a fact. Other’s, do find value in your comment. They get to do that. That fact too entails nothing.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 5:25 pm |

        Perhaps Donald wants some material for his next book. That would not be unprecedented. Have I just said “unprecendented”?

      • Rob | January 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm |

        Steve, you are right of course about what you say about Arrhenius’s prediction that if you raise CO2, temperature will increase. However, neither he nor you can quantify that rise without a true understanding of the dose response. You see Steve, if I need 1 mg of propanalol to lower your resting heart rate by 20 beets/minute and I administer 1 microgram, nothing happens. If on the other hand, I give you 100 mg ( for the sake of argument this is not a lethal dose), I still lower you heart rate by 20 beats/minute (pharmacologists back off, it is just a hypothetical). Most things in life have a dose response curve, and the point is, you, or Arrhenius have no idea where you are on the CO2/ temp curve. Are we at the bottom of the curve, at the inflection point, or the ceiling where no matter how much more you add, you’ve reached saturation and nothing further happens. If you could answer that Steve,you would have empirical evidence. At the moment no can answer where we are on the empirical dose response curve.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 8:41 pm |

        “However, neither he nor you can quantify that rise without a true understanding of the dose response.”

        Untrue. First there is no such thing as the true understanding of the dose response. You are making the same mistake at a different level. You can from first principles calculate the first order response. That is roughly 1.2C per doubling. You can also limit the higher order response from below by looking at paleo data ( response required to get out of a snowball earth ) and you can also limit the response from above by using paleo data. Simply you can bound the relation.

        Also, I can quantify the rise in many ways, that is not the problem. the problem is quantifying it to a useable error bounds. All quantification has error, with the response to c02 that error bound happens to be large. That fact does not mean that quantification is not possible. Look, I know you are somewhere between 2 and 8 feet tall. That’s useful for some purposes and less useful for other purposes.

      • Rob | January 26, 2013 at 8:56 pm |

        Steve Mosher, ” You are making the same mistake at a different level. You can from first principles calculate the first order response”
        steve, pharmacological dose response curves are not calculated, they are derived empirically. In theory I do not disagree with you, but you you misinterpreted. Repeat, there is no empirical evidence that show increased CO2 results in elevated temperature. If there was , you could tell me where we are on the dose response curve – and you can’t. To use paleo comparisons is a little like doing forensic pharmacological experiments- fraught with tremendous uncertainty and without validation.

      • Jim D | January 26, 2013 at 9:04 pm |

        We are currently at 33 degrees K on that response curve.

      • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 9:20 pm |

        “Repeat, there is no empirical evidence that show increased CO2 results in elevated temperature.”

        Sure there is. Lets just start with the first order estimate of the response curve. The first order estimate is the estimate of the response to the doubling, absent feedbacks.
        That estimate is made by using radiative transfer equations. You should understand that the physics of how radiation moves through the atmosphere is well understood. We build missiles and radars and satellites based on this physics. This physics tells us that doubling c02 will get us 1.2C of warming. To test this physics field experiments are performed. This wasnt done for climate science in the begining it was done for defense work. when I worked with this data it was classifed. Now, its freely available.

      • Rob | January 26, 2013 at 9:52 pm |

        Steve, I will try one more time to convince you that you have know empiric evidence, on a global scale, that indicates increased CO2 results in increased temp. Remember, I am not arguing with the basic Tyndall effect.

        Allow me to give an example in medicine. If I wish to agonize one of your alpha adrenergic receptors, I can give you a certain dose of epinephrine that I know from empiric evidence will cause a particular pharmacological response. Since the body knows it can’t be over stimulated with an alpha-adrenergic agonist (because bad things might ensue), a biochemical process will be activated to phosphorylate the alpha receptor so that no matter how much more epi I give there will be no further response.

        Your evidence is theoretical, or at least like an in vitro experiment. The example I gave is in vivo, allowing negative feedback. Think of the earth as an in vivo process. Your example of 1.2 degrees of warming/doubling is an in vitro equivalent, devoid of complex feedbacks. I wouldn”t be as certain as you appear to be.

      • Steven Mosher | January 27, 2013 at 9:02 pm |

        Sorry Rob, we will have to disagree on what constitutes evidence and what constitutes empirical evidence especially in observational sciences as opposed to lab sciences. And thanks for showing what we knew. That analogies from other types of science show that there are other types of science.

  50. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 4:20 pm |

    Another bunch of researchers discovered the importance of investing in the word “uncertainty”. Here’s the abstract of **Decision making under uncertainty: bridging the gap between end user needs and climate science capability**:

    This study addresses the recognised gap between what climate science can currently provide and what end users of that information require in order to make robust adaptation decisions about their climate related risks. It identifies five key contributing factors to the gap: (i) uncertainty in climate science; (ii) cognitive bias and challenges of interdisciplinary research; (iii) (mis)understanding and (mis)use of key terminology; (iv) communication (or lack of); and (v) non-climatic influences.

    The study aims to bridge this gap between end user needs and science capability by bringing together decision makers and climate scientists to develop a dialogue and improve understanding about what climate information is required and what information climate science can currently provide and can be expected to provide over the next five to ten years. Aspects of climate science that are likely to remain highly uncertain are also identified.

    Link:

    http://www.nccarf.edu.au/sites/default/files/attached_files_publications/Verdon-Kidd-FINAL-WEB.pdf

    Source:

    http://zunia.org/node/324047

    INTEGRITY ™ — It’s all about Communicatin’

    • curryja | January 26, 2013 at 5:06 pm |

      Good find!

    • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm |

      Kiems and Verdon-Kidd (relatively recently married obviously) are part of a group that evolved under Stewart Franks at the University of Newcastle. I don’t know of Austin at all. This group developed some central ideas on Australian hydrology that originated in the 1980’s with fluvial geomorphologists Robin Warner and Wayne Erskine. This for instance – Quantifying Drought Risk in a Nonstationary Climate – Danielle C. Verdon-Kidd and Anthony S. Kiem. These ideas seem hardly to have hardly penetrated beyond a select group of hydrologists.

      This is compared to the attribution of decadal changes in rainfall to anthropogenic global warming as here – http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Marine–Atmospheric-Research/Fewer-rain-storms-across-southern-Australia.aspx –

      So there are 2 competing memes – decadal variability that is quite natural and decadal variability that is assumed to be caused by warming (and the Asian haze) that is further assumed to be anthropogenic and is promoted by our leading scientific and hydrological organisations. And just how is the typical layperson to decide between a meme that is championed by media, organisations dedicated to promoting global warming and institutions who are constrained to produce politically determined outcomes against an idea struggling to emerge from academia. One side claims certainty and the other stresses uncertainty. Although I would suggest that there is quite lot of certainty in hydrological regime theory. A wicked dilemma indeed.

      For me it is quite evident that these decadal variabilities influence not merely Australain rainfall but global hydrology and surface and ocean temperatures. It is apparent also that these variabilities extend to the centennial and millenial scales. Here is a millennial reconstrustion of ENSO for the Law Ice Dome.

      http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view&current=Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg

      from

      http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1?journalCode=clim

      and is based on teleconnections between the Southern Annular Mode and ENSO. As well as the multi-decadal varibability we are familiar with – it shows a medieval dry period and centuries of La Nina dominance and a modern dry period just when global temperature starts rising. Interesting aye? There is no causality implied here – just a measure of global climate variabiity.

    • Peter Davies | January 26, 2013 at 7:09 pm |

      This paper is worth putting up as a separate thread. There is a lot to ponder over!

  51. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 4:28 pm |

    A researcher switched his whitecoat for a white coat and a bow tie:

    http://www.orsc.edu.cn/~liu/

    His book entitled Uncertainty Theory is on its fourth edition:

    http://orsc.edu.cn/liu/ut.pdf

    Here’s the program.

    First, Uncertainty Theory.

    Second, Uncertain Programming.

    Third, Uncertain Statistics.

    Fourth, Uncertain Risk Analysis.

    Fifth, Uncertain Set.

    Sixth, Uncertain Logic.

    Seventh, Uncertain Inference.

    Eighth, Uncertain Processes.

    Ninth, Uncertain Calculus.

    Tenth, Uncertain Differential Equation.

    Eleventh, Uncertain Finance.

    Twelfth, Chance Theory.

    Notice the FAQ in Appendix. A neat idea.

    • curryja | January 26, 2013 at 5:24 pm |

      Willard, another gem (although it is very tough to get the past the preface). You are definitely earning your place at the table today :)

    • Steven Mosher | January 26, 2013 at 8:48 pm |

      nice photo. Makes me think of ice cream.. which makes me think about Psy and Hyuna who makes me think of fans emoticons

      • timg56 | January 29, 2013 at 7:34 pm |

        Steve,

        How you can get from hot Korean women to fan is beyond me. I’m married to one and I can assure you thoughts of fan are not within a million mile radius when I think about my wife.

        Although thinking about it further, I can see how thinking about a 13 year old (Korean or otherwise) might bring to mind fan’s favorite artiface.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 1, 2013 at 4:35 am |

        It is a reference to cutesy little bubbe pop.

    • Cees de Valk | January 27, 2013 at 4:01 pm |

      I was immediately discouraged from reading it after checking Appendices C.6 and C.7 which are intended to explain why we need such a thing. Painful misrepresentation of how probability would be applied to represent a belief.

    • Scott Basinger | January 27, 2013 at 8:39 pm |

      Crazy hard math.

  52. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 4:37 pm |

    For our beloved Aussies, here’s an episode of **Coverville** dedicated to Australia Day:

    http://coverville.com/archives/podcast/coverville-932-this-day-in-covers-1983/

  53. curryja | January 26, 2013 at 5:17 pm |

    Revkin has an excellent article on climate sensitivity, with extensive statement from Retto Knutti:
    http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/weaker-global-warming-seen-in-study-promoted-by-norways-research-council/

  54. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 5:17 pm |

    An etymological argument bringing together Hannah Arendt and Milton Friedman:

    Crises and disasters are of particular interest to politics that seek to transform embedded institutions and practices, whether radical or reformist. They bring underlying processes and patterns to the surface and shake the foundations of the status quo, offering a view of how things might be reconstructed differently — and the chance to do so. Lenin’s exhortation to revolution in “The Crisis Has Matured,” Rahm Emanuel’s admonition never to let a crisis go to waste, and Milton Friedman’s observation that only crisis creates change may have been in service of wildly different aims, but their strategies have much in common. These crises are typically seen as human-instigated — financial collapses and wars and so on — but the always-dubious distinction between “natural” and “manmade” disasters (is a bread riot a natural disaster?) is increasingly obsolete. Kairos means “weather” as well as “opportunity.” And at a time when catastrophe is predicted for one socioecological system after another, when transformative change seems necessary for human survival, a theory of rapid change has obvious appeal.

    http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-flood-next-time/

    Our emphasis.

    **Jacobin** has the wicked combination: a nice name an a beautiful typography.

    • Faustino | January 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm |

      cf Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations, 1982, for a clear exposition of societal rigidity and causes of transformative change. I used to have this and several related papers, don’t know if I can retrieve any.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 9:46 pm |

        Thanks, Faustino. The thesis of his 1965 book seems like a no-brainer to me:

        In his first book, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), he theorized that “only a separate and ‘selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way”; that is, members of a large group will not act in the group’s common interest unless motivated by personal gains (economic, social, etc.). He specifically distinguishes between large and small groups, the latter of which can act simply on a shared objective. Large groups, however, will not form or work towards a shared objective unless individual members are sufficiently motivated.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson

        I note, though, that **The Rise and Decline of Nations** has not even been cited 7005 times. Gray lichurchur, I say!

      • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 10:32 pm |

        More modern theory of the commons involves informed cooperation amongst stakeholders. See for instance the work of the late Elinor Ostrom.

        This video ‘The Commons of Kitafuji’ embodies these principles that seem foreign to the typical pissant progressive – aye wee willie winky

  55. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 6:14 pm |

    I’ve not seen this article discussed nowhere, but I might have missed it and I’ve not checked:

    > For more than a decade, the target of keeping global warming below 2 °C has been a key focus of the international climate debate. In response, the scientific community has published a number of scenario studies that estimate the costs of achieving such a target. Producing these estimates remains a challenge, particularly because of relatively well known, but poorly quantified, uncertainties, and owing to limited integration of scientific knowledge across disciplines. The integrated assessment community, on the one hand, has extensively assessed the influence of technological and socio-economic uncertainties on low-carbon scenarios and associated costs. The climate modelling community, on the other hand, has spent years improving its understanding of the geophysical response of the Earth system to emissions of greenhouse gases. This geophysical response remains a key uncertainty in the cost of mitigation scenarios but has been integrated with assessments of other uncertainties in only a rudimentary manner, that is, for equilibrium conditions. Here we bridge this gap between the two research communities by generating distributions of the costs associated with limiting transient global temperature increase to below specific values, taking into account uncertainties in four factors: geophysical, technological, social and political. We find that political choices that delay mitigation have the largest effect on the cost–risk distribution, followed by geophysical uncertainties, social factors influencing future energy demand and, lastly, technological uncertainties surrounding the availability of greenhouse gas mitigation options. Our information on temperature risk and mitigation costs provides crucial information for policy-making, because it clarifies the relative importance of mitigation costs, energy demand and the timing of global action in reducing the risk of exceeding a global temperature increase of 2 °C, or other limits such as 3 °C or 1.5 °C, across a wide range of scenarios.

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7430/abs/nature11787.html

    Our emphasis.

    **Probabilistic cost estimates for climate change mitigation**, by Joeri Rogelj, David L. McCollum, Andy Reisinger, Malte Meinshausen & Keywan Riahi.

    Only 30 euros for this article. Tough to estimate the cost per page, as we don’t have an immediate access to the number of pages.

    Nature does not deserve that push.

    • Pekka Pirilä | January 27, 2013 at 7:41 am |

      @ willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 6:14 pm

      I looked at the Rogelj et al article in Nature. The following excerpt from the paper tells about problems in making such an analysis quantitatively meaningful:

      In certain instances, however, the lack of mitigation options (such as renewable technologies, nuclear power or limited biomass and afforestation potential) could require substantially higher carbon prices to keep this target viable. At the limit is CCS: the complete elimination of this mitigation option—either for technological reasons or as a result of social and political concerns—would put the 2 C objective (with more than 66% probability) out of reach in our model, no matter how high the carbon price.

      We see that the results are highly dependent on the use of CCS technology. That tells something about their model. It tells that they don’t allow any other solutions to reach a level that would be sufficient. Going one step further this tells that every model that claims to calculate costs of mitigation is totally dependent on assumptions that cannot be really justified.

      Furthermore every analysis that involves major reductions in CO2 emissions assumes that such a reduction can be achieved maintaining a smooth continuity of the economic system where techno-economic costs represent well full economic costs. Such an assumption is extremely naive. We have a recent example from banking crisis. The related techno-economic costs were close to zero but the economic losses very large. These losses were caused by disruption in the normal operation of the economy.

      Any approach based on high CO2 price induces changes in economy that have a gross effect hugely larger that the direct techno-economic costs. How large losses are induced by those huge changes depends on the rate of change but it depends also on innumerable other factors. These impossible-to-estimate losses apply equally to the economic consequences of mitigation measures as they do to the consequences of climate change.

      The difficulty does not mean that the need to take mitigating factors would necessarily be less, the change may as well go in the other direction. What we can conclude instead, is that doing meaningful long term economic comparisons is beyond the capabilities of every economist. More robust approaches must be used. Long term effects must be included in some way but in a way that doesn’t lose all it’s power when all the complications are taken into consideration. All quantitative economic comparisons must be restricted to a relatively short period (a couple of decades at maximum). Robust semiquantitative methods are probably best for longer term as purely qualitative approaches as also almost worthless as policy guidelines.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 1:33 pm |

        Thanks, Pekka.

        I’m not sure what warrants you to say this:

        > Going one step further this tells that every model that claims to calculate costs of mitigation is totally dependent on assumptions that cannot be really justified.

        Could you break this down a bit for me?

        Seems to me that these models can only provide guesstimates.

        ***

        More generally, I’m not sure how your comment respond to the claim I emphasized. Here it is again:

        > We find that political choices that delay mitigation have the largest effect on the cost–risk distribution, followed by geophysical uncertainties, social factors influencing future energy demand and, lastly, technological uncertainties surrounding the availability of greenhouse gas mitigation options.

        Would you care to expand?

        No, not in a gaseous way.

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 27, 2013 at 2:10 pm |

        Willard,

        On the first point. My reference to “one step further” cannot be supported by a single study like this one but this study is a good example of the problem. I have studied for years similar to those used at IIASA where this work was mainly done as far as can judge from the short paper. My statement takes into account the earlier experience as well.

        Estimating technology development is perhaps the most serious impediment in trying to get trustworthy quantitative results out of these models. As long as it’s not known whether some input assumptions are even possible, how could it be possible to estimate the cost (impossible means infinite cost and that cannot be excluded). Therefore technology optimists find that mitigation will be easy and low cost in the future while technology pessimists get totally different results. It’s not possible to tell who is closer to the truth.

        The timing of mitigation measures is certainly an important factor, but the timing is not a matter of free choice. In order to get good results major changes are needed, while only minor changes can really be implemented even with best will. The only sure way of reducing strongly the emissions is to drive economy to deep depression where people cannot afford to consume much fossil fuels.

        If major mitigation is to be achieved without serious economic consequences better solutions are needed than presently available. From the point of view of final outcome it doesn’t matter whether a little is done today or 20 years in future. What matters is the timing of measures that really do reduce the emissions. Therefore the most important factor is the technology development and perhaps also societal development. Early implementation is in some cases very useful for technology development while it’s just waste of resources in other cases. If the best brains are used in implementing ineffective early solutions rather than in research that’s important for something much more effective later on, then the net outcome of policies that emphasize early deployment may be negative.

        My view is that some European countries, most notably Germany, have fallen in this trap. They are using excessive resources in activities of very little actual value.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 2:21 pm |

        Thank you for your clarifications, Pekka.

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 7:55 am |

      If aggressive greenhouse gas mitigation steps are not undertaken immediately on a global scale, we will have a continuation of the relentless global warming we now see…(oops!)

  56. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 6:22 pm |

    A group of toxicologists (Wayne G. Landis, Judi L. Durda, Marjorie L. Brooks, Peter M. Chapman, Charles A. Menzie, Ralph G. Stahl Jr, and Jennifer L. Staube) discovered the importance of communication:

    > Changes to sources, stressors, habitats, and geographic ranges; toxicological effects; end points; and uncertainty estimation require significant changes in the implementation of ecological risk assessment (ERA). Because of the lack of analog systems and circumstances in historically studied sites, there is a likelihood of type III error. As a first step, the authors propose a decision key to aid managers and risk assessors in determining when and to what extent climate change should be incorporated. Next, when global climate change is an important factor, the authors recommend seven critical changes to ERA. […] Good communication is essential for making risk-related information understandable and useful for managers and stakeholders to implement a successful risk-assessment and decision-making process.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.2047/full

    INTEGRITY ™ — In Five Steps Less

    The article is accessible: Go Team!

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 1:35 am |

      Chief,

      Of course you need to know a bit about probabilities to play poker. What I said is that this is not enough. You don’t know what your opponent has, so any kind of decent decision has to take into accounts stuff like reads, play styles, energy management, pot politics, etc. And even if you have made the most splendid model of the game state, you can lose.

      You can lose and still be right. In the long run, you’ll win by making this call most of the times. (I say “most of the times” because you need to mix it up a bit, but never mind that for the moment.) So one can be wrong in the sense of having one’s strategy defeated by reality, and one can be wrong in the sense of not having maximized the information one had. There are other meanings of “wrong”, but these two should suffice for now.

      The difference between poker and climate is that we don’t get to deal hundreds of hands per week. The one we’re playing right now can be our last. So we better take the right decision.

      ***

      Speaking of simplicity, here’s what Knutti said in the op-ed I quoted earlier:

      Although it may seem far-fetched at first, the problem of climate projection is in fact similar in many respects to the garden party situation discussed above. […]

      He does admit that there are differences (like any analogy), but elsewhere, there is this bit that seems to be written just for you:

      Some argue that structural problems are too big compared to the observational uncertainty, implying that all models are so wrong that we cannot even attach likelihoods to models (Stainforth et al. 2007). I would not go that far. All models can be shown to be inaccurate to some degree if we use enough data to evaluate them. But this may not matter in some cases, and is expected because a model is only an approximate description of the real system. We construct airplanes with computer models without being able to properly simulate turbulence, yet the airplanes fly as expected. So a model serves its purpose if it makes a useful and reliable prediction, even if its structure is simple. In fact the beauty of a model often is its simplicity, and the fact that we can understand it and relate it to the behavior of more complex models (Held 2005). Structural problems that are similar across many models however place a limit on the confidence we obtain from robustness. Some model results are perfectly robust… yet wrong.

      Knutti goes a bit too far by saying that a model needs to make a prediction, but at least this should be enough to argue that poker games with only jokers are not the only game in town.

      Which is good, since a poker variant with only jokers renders the game quite trivial.

  57. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 6:34 pm |

    Just in:

    Nicolas Stern admits he was wrong:

    The Stern review, published in 2006, pointed to a 75% chance that global temperatures would rise by between two and three degrees above the long-term average; he now believes we are “on track for something like four “. Had he known the way the situation would evolve, he says, “I think I would have been a bit more blunt. I would have been much more strong about the risks of a four- or five-degree rise.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davo

    Yes, but Knutti, I can hear some of Denizens say.

    Go Team!

    • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 10:14 pm |

      Stern was obviously wrong in the first instance – there is little cause to think he is right in the second.

      • Faustino | January 26, 2013 at 10:39 pm |

        Not right, only Sterner.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:15 pm |

        Chief,

        If being “wrong” entails one can’t be trusted, I hope you do live among lots of omniscient Saint Bruces.

        I’m not sure in which way Stern was wrong. Here’s a thought experiment to settle this. Suppose I tell you I have very, very good chances my next Poker hand just after having raised. I know the pot is 15k, so I say:

        > I will win 15k.

        But my opponent absurdly tries to bulldoze me and goes all in.

        I therefore win a lot more than that.

        In what sense do you think I was “wrong”?

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:16 pm |

        Suppose I tell you I have very, very good chances to win my next Poker hand just after having raised.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 11:28 pm |

        If being wrong were a crime – we’d all be hanged – wee willie.

        ‘The metaphoric fallacy to a deductive inference (MFDI) is an example
        of incorrect reasoning along the lines of the false analogy
        fallacy. The structure of the MFDI proceeds from analogously relating
        two metaphors and then claiming that a property (quality or
        function) from one compared predicate of the analogy is contained
        by the other predicate. That is, the predication is treated as being
        transitive across an analogy between metaphors. The essential
        problem is not simply covered by claims that arguing from analogies
        is weak, but that the MFDI proceeds from informal semantical
        (metaphorical) claims to a supposedly formally deductive and necessary
        inference. We charge that such an inference is invalid.’ Brian Lightbody and Michael Berman. Informal Logic, Vol. 30,
        No. 2, (2010), pp. 185-193.

        I charge – too – that such an inference is invalid.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 11:31 pm |

        Oh yeah – go space cadets.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:41 pm |

        Nice cite, Chief, but I’m not sure how a Gedankenexperiment is a metaphor or a mix of two.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 1:21 am |

        The so-called thought experiment allows only for winning the bet. An unbiased thought experiment would allow for the possibility of losing. I will let you work out the metaphors.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 2:17 am |

        That was the next step, Chief.

        Let’s try the more direct way: I don’t think Stern was saying that his calculations were incorrect, but that, in retrospect and considering the new game state, they might have been a bit too optimistic.

        Twas a figure of speech, really.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 2:35 am |

        ‘If as suggested here, a dynamically driven climate shift has occurred, the duration of similar shifts during the 20th century suggests the new global mean temperature trend may persist for several decades. Of course, it is purely speculative to presume that the global mean temperature will remain near current levels for such an extended period of time. Moreover, we caution that the shifts described here are presumably superimposed upon a long term warming trend due to anthropogenic forcing. However, the nature of these past shifts in climate state suggests the possibility of
        near constant temperature lasting a decade or more into the future must at least be entertained. The apparent lack of a proximate cause behind the halt in warming post 2001/02 challenges our understanding of the climate system,specifically the physical reasoning and causal links between longer time-scale modes of internal climate variability and the impact of such modes upon global temperature. Fortunately, climate science is rapidly developing the tools to meet this challenge, as in the near future it will be possible to attribute cause and effect in decadal-scale
        climate variability within the context of a seamless climate forecast system [Palmer et al., 2008]. Doing so is vital, as the future evolution of the global mean temperature may hold surprises on both the warm and cold ends of the spectrum due entirely to internal variability that lie well
        outside the envelope of a steadily increasing global mean temperature.’ Swanson and Tsonis – Has the climate recently shifted?

        Palmer by the way champions probabalistic forecasts as the only feasible way forward given the nature of the nonlinear equations at the core of climate models. Stern shows no signs of understanding the new game of climate chance.

        ‘In each of these model–ensemble comparison studies, there are important but difficult questions: How well selected are the models for their plausibility? How much of the ensemble spread is reducible by further model improvements? How well can the spread can be explained by analysis of model differences? How much is irreducible imprecision in an AOS?

        Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence.’

        Simplistic. optimistic, pessimistic or realistic. Which are you wee wilie?

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 2:36 am |

        Oh – the reference – http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 1:43 pm |

        Come on, Chief. Not Tsonis again! I don’t deserve this. Perhaps you’re just mad. In that case, it’s OK.

        Let’s fire up G Scholar, then. Cited 33 times. A first hit gives me an op-ed from Knutti, entitled **The End of Model Democracy?**. There’s even an analogy:

        > Imagine you are hosting a garden party tomorrow and you are trying to decide whether or not to put up a tent against the rain. You read the weather forecast in the newspaper and you ask the farmer next door, and you look at the sky (knowing that persistence is often not a bad weather forecast). So you get three predictions, but how would you aggregate them? Would you average them with equal weight? You might trust the forecast model more (or less) than the farmer, not because you understand how either of them generates their prediction, but because of your past experience in similar situations. But why seek advice from more than one source in the first place?

        http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-010-9800-2?LI=true

        Please don’t tell Bruce. We know how he despisesGedankenexperimenten. That makes him mad. Not that it would not be OK for him to be mad, Chief.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 6:30 pm |

        Wee Willie,

        One is advised to consult the Lorenzian Meteorological Office.

        ‘‘Predictions of weather and climate are necessarily uncertain; our observations of weather and climate are uncertain and incomplete, the models into which we assimilate this data and predict the future are uncertain, and external effects such as volcanoes and anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are also uncertain. Fundamentally, therefore, we should think of weather and climate prediction in terms of equations whose basic prognostic variables are probability densities ρ(X,t), where X denotes some climatic variable and t denotes time. In this way, ρ(X,t)dV represents the probability that, at time t, the true value of X lies in some small volume dV of state space…

        To illustrate the more practical implications of the fact that ρ(X,t) depends on initial state, I want to reinterpret Figure 1.2 by introducing you to Charlie, a builder by profession, and a golfing colleague of mine! Charlie, like many members of my golf club, takes great pleasure in telling me when (he thinks) the weather forecast has gone wrong. This is mostly done in good humour, but on one particular occasion Charlie was in a black mood. ‘I have only four words to say to you,’ he announced, ‘How do I sue?’ I looked puzzled. He continued: ‘The forecast was for a night-time minimum temperature of five degrees. I laid three thousand square yards of concrete. There was a frost. It’s all ruined. I repeat – how do I sue?’..

        If only Charlie was conversant with Lorenz (1963) I could have used Figure 1.2 to illustrate how in future he will be able to make much more informed decisions about when, and when not, to lay concrete!’ http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780511223006&ss=exc

        This is the same idea as James McWilliams and Anastasios Tsonis in the previous quotes. I just thought that Tsonis puts it in English and not in the language of mathematical complexity. It seems likely that you are not merely incapable of understanding but actively resistant to ideas current in the field and expressed by eminently quaified people. Go space cadet.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 7:41 pm |

        Chief,

        The Poker example shows what an uncertain prediction looks like. Making such predictions is essential for humans to simulate Poker strategies. Hell, even machines use such modelling technique!

        I offer you an example of a playing field where most of the predictions are uncertain and you reply: yes, but analogies suck, which still begs for an argument, and then Yes, but Tsonis.

        As if you’ve never told us about Tsonis before.

        As if I was arguing that there are certain predictions.

        As if climate modelling was about making predictions in the first place.

        As if I needed my analogy to convey the idea that Stern was not recanting his previous work.

        Since Tony think this is OK, I believe I might get mad right now.

        ***

        No, Bruce, I won’t give you that pleasure. I will simply remind you that the belle of the week has been using an analogy in an op-ed. You seem to have forgotten to chastise him.

        We’re not playing Poker, Chief. We don’t have the same number of cards in our hands. So far, you’ve not shown me much.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 8:23 pm |

        Come now Wee Willie Winky,

        Predictions of a probabilistic nature are relatively simple in a game of poker. Predictions of climate are orders of magnitude more uncertain. This is the result of relative complexity in the dictionary sense and dynamical complexity in the sense of theoretical physics. The essential tools of poker are the simple maths of probability. The essential tools of climate prediction are the nonlinear partial differential equations of fluid motion. These are intrinsically chaotic. I have quoted this from Slingo and Palmer (2011) previously as well.

        ‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change. http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full

        You were arguing that Stern had a good poker hand – but in essence there is no way to tell this until and unless the trajectory of all possible solutions has been explored in systematically designed model families.

        ‘No, Bruce, I won’t give you that pleasure. I will simply remind you that the belle of the week has been using an analogy in an op-ed. You seem to have forgotten to chastise him.’

        The usual cryptic nonsense. But the real question remains unanswered – at least by you. Simplistic, optimistic, pessimistic or realistic? Shall I hazard an answer for you Wee Willie? So far you are playing old maid with half a deck.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 8:28 pm |

        > You were arguing that Stern had a good poker hand.

        No, I was not.

        I had a good poker hand.

        And this I, in a GedankenExperiment, means the one who entertains it.

        Which could mean you, if you stopped antagonizing for a change.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 9:42 pm |

        Wee Willie,

        The Stern review, published in 2006, pointed to a 75% chance that global temperatures would rise by between two and three degrees above the long-term average; he now believes we are “on track for something like four “. Had he known the way the situation would evolve, he says, “I think I would have been a bit more blunt. I would have been much more strong about the risks of a four- or five-degree rise.”

        This is the ‘poker hand’ we are discussing. My point is that there is no way of determining probability in any meaningful way – as yet. Palmer, McWilliams, Hurrell and many others – including Knutti – .suggest ways forward.

        ‘The extreme efficiency of the zonally averaged climate model also allows to calculate ensemble simulations of several thousand members. This approach has recently been used to demonstrate a strategy of how probabilistic forecasts of climate change over the next century can be obtained. The idea is to run a model many times with different parameter combinations and then used observations to constrain the ensemble, i.e. give those model versions more weight that agree well with observations. Technically, these are Bayesian methods, and the result of this procedure is a probability density function of future warming given the observations of the past century.’ http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/knutti/research.html

        Although I would suggest that initialising models and then running computations is a more theoretically correct method. Nonetheless – there remain fundamental theoretical problems to the realisation of probabilistic forecasts.

        ‘Finally, Lorenz’s theory of the atmosphere (and ocean) as a chaotic system raises fundamental, but unanswered questions about how much the uncertainties in climate-change projections can be reduced. In 1969, Lorenz [30] wrote: ‘Perhaps we can visualize the day when all of the relevant physical principles will be perfectly known. It may then still not be possible to express these principles as mathematical equations which can be solved by digital computers. We may believe, for example, that the motion of the unsaturated portion of the atmosphere is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations, but to use these equations properly we should have to describe each turbulent eddy—a task far beyond the capacity of the largest computer. We must therefore express the pertinent statistical properties of turbulent eddies as functions of the larger-scale motions. We do not yet know how to do this, nor have we proven that the desired functions exist’. Thirty years later, this problem remains unsolved, and may possibly be unsolvable.’ Slingo and Palmer op. cit.

        And…

        ‘Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Gödel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation.’ McWilliams op. cit.

        A million dollars in one of seven Clay Millennium Prizes for Mathematics awaits the further elucidation of the Navier- Stokes partial differential equations of fluid motion.

        ‘Waves follow our boat as we meander across the lake, and turbulent air currents follow our flight in a modern jet. Mathematicians and physicists believe that an explanation for and the prediction of both the breeze and the turbulence can be found through an understanding of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. Although these equations were written down in the 19th Century, our understanding of them remains minimal. The challenge is to make substantial progress toward a mathematical theory which will unlock the secrets hidden in the Navier-Stokes equations.’

        The fact remains that the shift to a global cool mode that occurred after 1998 means that the world is not warming perhaps for a decade or three at least. As my quote earlier on the instrumental hydrological record suggests – it is now apparent that the record is too short to capture the full multidecadal to millennial variability of the climate system. It is now apparent that the potential exists for decadal variability to segue into Bond Event Zero. Or even into – shudder – abrupt glacial cooling in as little as a decade.

        My point remains that Stern’s probability assessments – and his understanding of the climate system – are utterly simplistic. Tsonis – it seems to me – is far closer to the mark with unquanitifed risks at both far ends of the warming/cooling spectrum. It is – in other words – a game of poker in which all the cards are jokers wild. Including you and me Wee Willi Winky.

        Robert I Ellison
        Chief Hydrologist

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 10:04 pm |

        Chief,

        Your position rests on this gem:

        > [A]ll forecasts must be treated as probabilistic.

        This has never been disputed. Not only this has never been disputed, but I’ve offered you a way to see how absurd it would be to dispute it. Your “deterministic this” and “chaotic that” are pure sloganeering.

        If you think that the essential tools to play poker can be reduced to basic probabilities, please do not go play online. Or if you do, please tell me where and when. Most chessplayers around here now play poker. There is always a need for more shrimps in their ocean.

      • Captain Kangaroo | January 27, 2013 at 11:01 pm |

        Oh please wee willie,
        The principle of poker is to maximise return when drawing low probability hands and minimising losses when drawing high probability hands. The probabilities are easily memorized – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability – or calculated for different versions of the game. Nate Silver is in Australia at the moment for a poker tournament. I heard him on the car radio talking about a feel for the probabilities. If you want to bluff – you need patience to consistently play the percentages and unpredictably deviate. So you can take your silly little poker snark and play with someone else.

        Here is the Slingo and Palmer quote – in full – again. ‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic.’ Uncertainty in weather and climate prediction – Julia Slingo and Tim Palmer

        I have shown by reference to leaders in the field of climate modelling that the opportunistic ensemble of the IPCC consists of single solutions from a family of feasible solutions. The ensemble consists of solutions chosen on the basis of a posteriori solution behaviour (McWilliams 2007). The crude interpretation – of which I am fond – is that they pull it out of their arses. The so-called probability of Stern is a mere interpretation of the spread of the models. McWilliams has labeled that simplistic.

        Probabilistic forecasts on the other hand refer to evaluations of the model phase space based on systematically designed model families – as described by Knutti in the quote above. This is not something that we have seen to date as is obvious in any of the extensive science I have quoted.

        The problem with space cadets is that they pretend to intellectual and moral superiority – and respond to challenges of their limited appreciation of science with outrage, insults and claims of demagoguery. They seem also to be invariably very stupid. You seem able to reduce the respected scientists I have quoted extensively to accusations of sloganeering. By all means read the papers in question and frame a narrative includes poker but excludes dynamical complexity. But really I think you have crossed over from respectful discourse to moronic denial of the science that doesn’t fit your groupthink memes. It was bound to happen – aye Wee Willie?

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 11:04 pm |

        Who was that masked man?

      • Jim D | January 28, 2013 at 12:16 am |

        Robert Ellison, yes, does anyone doubt that decadal prediction is a difficult problem, or why else are you putting up quotes about it?

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 1:37 am |

        WP begins its wrecking madness. Let’s hope it’s at the right place, this time:

        ***

        Chief,

        Of course you need to know a bit about probabilities to play poker. What I said is that this is not enough. You don’t know what your opponent has, so any kind of decent decision has to take into accounts stuff like reads, play styles, energy management, pot politics, etc. And even if you have made the most splendid model of the game state, you can lose.

        You can lose and still be right. In the long run, you’ll win by making this call most of the times. (I say “most of the times” because you need to mix it up a bit, but never mind that for the moment.) So one can be wrong in the sense of having one’s strategy defeated by reality, and one can be wrong in the sense of not having maximized the information one had. There are other meanings of “wrong”, but these two should suffice for now.

        The difference between poker and climate is that we don’t get to deal hundreds of hands per week. The one we’re playing right now can be our last. So we better take the right decision.

        ***

        Speaking of simplicity, here’s what Knutti said in the op-ed I quoted earlier:

        Although it may seem far-fetched at first, the problem of climate projection is in fact similar in many respects to the garden party situation discussed above. […]

        He does admit that there are differences (like any analogy), but elsewhere, there is this bit that seems to be written just for you:

        Some argue that structural problems are too big compared to the observational uncertainty, implying that all models are so wrong that we cannot even attach likelihoods to models (Stainforth et al. 2007). I would not go that far. All models can be shown to be inaccurate to some degree if we use enough data to evaluate them. But this may not matter in some cases, and is expected because a model is only an approximate description of the real system. We construct airplanes with computer models without being able to properly simulate turbulence, yet the airplanes fly as expected. So a model serves its purpose if it makes a useful and reliable prediction, even if its structure is simple. In fact the beauty of a model often is its simplicity, and the fact that we can understand it and relate it to the behavior of more complex models (Held 2005). Structural problems that are similar across many models however place a limit on the confidence we obtain from robustness. Some model results are perfectly robust… yet wrong.

        Knutti goes a bit too far by saying that a model needs to make a prediction, but at least this should be enough to argue that poker games with only jokers are not the only game in town.

        Which is good, since a poker variant with only jokers renders the game quite trivial.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 3:33 am |

        Wee Willie,
        You persist in an analogy and call it a thought experiment. To someone less courteous – the descriptors facile and pretentious might come to mind. So let’s drop the philosophy of poker and move to something more relevant.
        I did mention Charlie – and there is some expectation that you would actually glance at the links as it seems relevant to the garden party as well. So here it is in full.
        ‘To illustrate the more practical implications of the fact that ρ(X,t) depends on initial state, I want to reinterpret Figure 1.2 by introducing you to Charlie, a builder by profession, and a golfing colleague of mine! Charlie, like many members of my golf club, takes great pleasure in telling me when (he thinks) the weather forecast has gone wrong. This is mostly done in good humour, but on one particular occasion Charlie was in a black mood. ‘I have only four words to say to you,’ he announced, ‘How do I sue?’ I looked puzzled. He continued: ‘The forecast was for a night-time minimum temperature of five degrees. I laid three thousand square yards of concrete. There was a frost. It’s all ruined. I repeat – how do I sue?’
        If only Charlie was conversant with Lorenz (1963) I could have used Figure 1.2 to illustrate how in future he will be able to make much more informed decisions about when, and when not, to lay concrete! Suppose the Lorenz equations represent part of an imaginary world inhabited by builders, builders’ customers, weather forecasters and lawyers. In this Lorenz world, the weather forecasters are sued if the forecasts are wrong! The weather in the Lorenz world is determined by the Lorenz (1963) equations where all states on the right-hand lobe of the attractor are ‘frosty’ states, and all states on the left-hand lobe of the attractor are ‘frost-free’ states. In this imaginary world, Charlie is planning to lay a large amount of concrete in a couple of days’ time. Should he order the ready-mix concrete lorries to the site? He contacts the Lorenzian Meteorological Office for advice. On the basis of the ensemble forecasts in the top left of Figure 1.2 he clearly should not – all members of the ensemble predict frosty weather. On the basis of the ensemble forecasts in the bottom left of Figure 1.2 he also should not – in this case it is almost impossible to predict whether it will be frosty or not. Since the cost of buying and laying concrete is significant, it is not worth going ahead when the risk of frost is so large.
        How about the situation shown in the top right of Figure 1.2 If we took the patronising but not uncommon view that Charlie, as a member of the general public, would only be confused by a probability forecast, then we might decide to collapse the ensemble into a consensus (i.e. ensemble-mean) prediction. The ensemble-mean forecast indicates that frost will not occur. Perhaps this is equivalent to the real-world situation that got Charlie so upset. Lorenzian forecasters, however, will be cautious about issuing a deterministic forecast based on the ensemble mean, because, in the Lorenz world, Charlie can sue!
        Alternatively, the forecasters could tell Charlie not to lay concrete if there is even the slightest risk of frost. But Charlie will not thank them for that either. He cannot wait forever to lay concrete since he has fixed costs, and if he doesn’t complete this job, he may miss out on other jobs. Maybe Charlie will never be able to sue, but neither will he bother obtaining the forecasts from the Lorenzian Meterorological Office.
        Suppose Charlie’s fixed costs are C, and that he loses L by laying concrete when a frost occurs. Then a logical decision strategy would be to lay concrete when the ensemble-based estimate of the probability of frost is less than C/L. The meteorologists don’t know Charlie’s C/L, so the best they can do is provide him with the full probability forecast, and allow him to decide whether or not to lay concrete.
        Clearly the probability forecast will only be of value to Charlie if he saves money using these ensemble forecasts. This notion of ‘potential economic value’ (Murphy, 1977; Richardson, this volume) is conceptually quite different from the notion of skill (in the meteorological sense of the word), since value cannot be assessed by analysing meteorological variables alone; value depends also on the user’s economic parameters.
        The fact that potential economic value does not depend solely on meteorology means that we cannot use meteorological skill scores alone if we want to assess whether one forecast system is more valuable than another (e.g. to Charlie). This is relevant to the question of whether it would be better to utilise computer resources to increase ensemble size or increase model resolution. As discussed in Palmer (2002), the answer to this question depends on C/L. For users with small C/L, more value may accrue from an increase in ensemble size (since decisions depend on whether or not relatively small probability thresholds have been reached), whilst for larger C/L more value may accrue from the better representation of weather provided by a higher-resolution model.
        In the Lorenz world, Charlie never sues the forecasters for ‘wrong’ forecasts. When the forecast is uncertain, the forecasters say so, and with precise and reliable estimates of uncertainty. Charlie makes his decisions based on these forecasts and if he makes the wrong decisions, only he, and lady luck, are to blame!’

        This is one form of weather forecasting. Climate models project over much longer timeframes. As we have said about the nature of nonlinear equations – these exponentially diverge over time as a result of sensitive dependence and structural instability. ‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution… ’

        The emphasis is mine and is the key to understanding why forecasts are necessarily probabilistic in ways that have not yet been implemented. There are multiple solutions possible within the limits of feasible inputs and the topology of the Lorenz attractors have not been determined rigorously. Solutions diverge from reality on decadal scales as we know and they continue to diverge over the full range of the solution space to an extent that is unknown and remains unexplored in any systematic way.

        You dismiss chaos as sloganeering and Jim retains a touching faith that is utterly misplaced but stubborn. But the models are known without a doubt to be chaotic in the Lorenzian sense. It has been known for decades. It is not a matter of all models being wrong but that there are multiple solutions for all models without there being a way for assigning probabilities to any particular solution or for choosing one solution over another on any rational basis.

        Jokers wild was a metaphor of course – and suffers from the limitations of metaphors that is similar to the problem of arguing from analogy. But suppose the value of the jokers changed unpredictably – and indeed while a hand was in play. That would make it interesting.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 8:57 am |

        Chief,

        Here’s Charlie’s question:

        > The forecast was for a night-time minimum temperature of five degrees. I laid three thousand square yards of concrete. There was a frost. It’s all ruined. I repeat – how do I sue?

        I’m afraid that if he got his forecast by watching TV, he can’t. Let’s hope weather channels protect themselves against such case. Perhaps Charlie could hire a weather gig like Judy’s company and tell that he wishes to pay a premium to insure himself against possible outcomes. But let’s suppose, as Palmer does, that only in the Lorenz world can Charlie sue, and that only in such world are predictions not judged by their skills but by what Palmer calls potential economic value.

        I have not seen where Palmer specifies that value. If that value is also chaotic, I wonder how it can help improve the decision. Not that this matters, since in the end all Palmer does is to shift the burden on Charlie’s shoulders:

        > In the Lorenz world, Charlie never sues the forecasters for ‘wrong’ forecasts. When the forecast is uncertain, the forecasters say so, and with precise and reliable estimates of uncertainty. Charlie makes his decisions based on these forecasts and if he makes the wrong decisions, only he, and lady luck, are to blame!

        I don’t think that Palmer would say that forecasts can be certain. This might explain why his very next section starts with:

        > Essentially, there are three reasons why forecasts are uncertain […]

        I don’t think anyone believes that weather forecasts ever been certain. So I’d like to have an example of a certain forecast, in the Lorenz world or not. Is there one in the Stern review?

        If not, Charlie has no bite against Stern, at least if Palmer’s new way of presenting subjective forecasts justifies you saying:

        > The emphasis is mine and is the key to understanding why forecasts are necessarily probabilistic in ways that have not yet been implemented.

        For I don’t think that Stern would contradict Palmer’s definition of predictability in a Lorenz world:

        > [C]onsidered more pragmatically, the forecast probability distribution in (b) can be considered predictable if the prediction that it is unlikely that X will exceed Xcrit can influence decision-makers.

        http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/48824/excerpt/9780521848824_excerpt.pdf

        Stern’s quote shows him saying something along the same lines. I’m not sure he would so far as to define predictability along the same line as Palmer’s, which leads to the interesting idea that a forecast relies on its influence on the decision-makers. This is interesting, as it transforms weather predictions into a game, and as such is subject to Goodhart’s law:

        > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

        Courtesy of WebHubTelescope.

        A card game where the value of cards change unpredictably becomes a strange dice game. Strange, but duller than craps.

        ***

        In a nutshell, here’s where we are:

        (1) You’re basically asking that we turn forecasts into a game.

        (2) You’re telling me that the poker example is not to the point.

        I do hope for your that the chaotic properties of your system will help you get out of this one. From my point of view, your chances look slim. But I’m not offering any Lorenzian prediction on this one.

        There is no potential economic value anyway.

        ***

        I do hope that this comment will convey some feeling that I can follow this discussion a bit better than the disrespect I’ve endured so far presumes.

        I do also hope that in the future you will call me willard. I search for “willard” on the page to see if somebody replied. I won’t search for any other affectionate terms, and will slow down a bit, since the week-end has ended. If you don’t like “Chief”, I will call you Robert.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 2:45 pm |

        Wee Willie Winky,

        I am not sure that constraining chance to webby expectations improves the game at all. Pick a card – any card, The value of the card face down can be represented by a rather lame probability distribution function. There is a chance that it is a four and the same chance that it is a king. The true value is a random outcome. With models there are also multiple outcomes possible due to chaos – there is no single deterministic solution – it might be a negative 10 or a 42.

        There is in fact a family of potential solutions that emerge from uncertainities in inputs feeding into the nonlinear Navier-Stokes equations.

        ‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision…

        Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence. ‘ James McWilliams

        So the unanswered question remains – are you simplistic, optimistic, pessimistic or realistic? The evidence suggests that Stern is simplistic.

        Chaos is the core paradigm for both models and climate – but very people seem to have much of a grasp at all – and merely throwing up your hands and scornfully dismissing the notion shows more about you than me. It takes a little study and some imagination. I’m sure you can do it.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 3:25 pm |

        Chief,

        > With models there are also multiple outcomes possible due to chaos – there is no single deterministic solution – it might be a negative 10 or a 42.

        This also applies to Poker. This applies to Rock-paper-scissors too. In fact, we can model rock-paper-scissors as a chaotic process:

        http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~whs/dynamo/gallery/RPSchaos.html

        As soon as your decisions are based on interactions between players which have payoffs, you can model a game, be it chaotic or otherwise. That weather forecasting can be modelled as a game follows directly from Palmer’s definition of predictability.

        ***

        > Chaos is the core paradigm for both models and climate […]

        Exactly. Take the Met Office speaking of the Lorenz attractor, with my emphasis:

        > Forecasting the weather is, of course, much more complex than forecasting in the Lorenz attractor, but it does provide a useful analogy. Most of the time the atmosphere behaves rather like the lower-left picture where we can predict with confidence for a few days and have to use probabilities thereafter. Sometimes we are lucky and get situations like the top where we can be confident further ahead, but on other occasions there can be great sensitivity early on like the last case.

        http://research.metoffice.gov.uk/research/nwp/ensemble/concept.html

        A Lorenz attractor is simple compared to weather.

        Chaos is not the trump card you think you have.

        Chaos is a public card everyone can use to complete one’s hand.

        Chaos does not change anything about my poker example, i.e. players seldom can’t predict what will happen.

        ***

        I asked you to call me willard. Please call me willard. I already have more cards like these two cards I just showed you (i.e. the links): the way you will interact with me will change the way I will interact with you.

        I can bring chaos. I don’t mind chaos.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 5:13 pm |

        Willard,

        OK – the little deprecating diminutive is amusing only so far. But you should apply the same courtesy to such as Don.

        The difference between poker and climate models – we won’t talk yet of climate itself – is that of stochastic and chaotic processes respectively. I suspect the former applies to rock/paper/scissors as well – although I haven’t examined the maths.

        Games can be modelled because probability is statistically tractable. Chaos is intrinsically completely deterministic but unpredictable.

        ‘The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.

        It seems everyone is quoting Palmer – as it should be. Palmer’s definition of predictability?

        ‘Nevertheless, however much models improve, there will always be an irreducible level of uncertainty—‘flap of the seagull’s wings’—because of the chaotic nature of the system. Even the climate we have observed over the past century or so is only one realization of what the real system might produce.

        Figure 12 shows 2000 years of El Nino behaviour simulated by a state-of-the-art climate model forced with present day solar irradiance and greenhouse gas concentrations. The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full

        Nothing is certain it seems and the uncertainty in climate models is something yet to be quantified. Really the point is that the Lorenz attractor is simple but still not predictable. Real weather forecasts use initialised models that diverge from reality in a relatively short timeframe. They are pretty good with large and slow moving systems such as we are seeing on the east coast of Australia. The real climate state has perhaps an infinite state space with an immensely complex topology.

        So it is more than time as I said to drop the poker analogy – it is misleading in the extreme. Chaos is not a trump card – but it the theoretically underpinning of complex dynamical systems such as models and climate. Without which no fundamental understanding is possible. To quote from Tsonis.
        ‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ Tsonis et al (2007) – A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts.

        Emergent states in chaotic systems are completely unpredictable as yet. It is what it is.
        Willard,

        OK – the little deprecating diminutive is amusing only so far. But you should apply the same courtesy to such as Don.

        The difference between poker and climate models – we won’t talk yet of climate itself – is that of stochastic and chaotic processes respectively. I suspect the former applies to rock/paper/scissors as well – although I haven’t examined the maths.

        Games can be modelled because probability is statistically tractable. Chaos is intrinsically completely deterministic but unpredictable.

        ‘The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.

        It seems everyone is quoting Palmer – as it should be. Palmer’s definition of predictability?

        ‘Nevertheless, however much models improve, there will always be an irreducible level of uncertainty—‘flap of the seagull’s wings’—because of the chaotic nature of the system. Even the climate we have observed over the past century or so is only one realization of what the real system might produce.

        Figure 12 shows 2000 years of El Nino behaviour simulated by a state-of-the-art climate model forced with present day solar irradiance and greenhouse gas concentrations. The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full

        Nothing is certain it seems and the uncertainty in climate models is something yet to be quantified. Really the point is that the Lorenz attractor is simple but still not predictable. Real weather forecasts use initialised models that diverge from reality in a relatively short timeframe. They are pretty good with large and slow moving systems such as we are seeing on the east coast of Australia. The real climate state has perhaps an infinite state space with an immensely complex topology.

        So it is more than time as I said to drop the poker analogy – it is misleading in the extreme. Chaos is not a trump card – but it the theoretically underpinning of complex dynamical systems such as models and climate. Without which no fundamental understanding is possible. To quote from Tsonis.
        ‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ Tsonis et al (2007) – A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts.

        Emergent states in chaotic systems are completely unpredictable as yet. It is what it is. But by all means – go space cadets and predict to your heart’s content.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 5:15 pm |

        Whoops.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 10:38 pm |

        You did not have to repeat your comment, Chief, as you already did many times now.

        You’ve repeated your comment so many times that it might be worthwhile to recall why I introduced my poker example:

        > I’m not sure in which way Stern was wrong. Here’s a thought experiment to settle this.

        So this example was not serving as an analogy to climate modelling, but as an analogy for the use of the word “wrong”. Since you insisted so much about the chaotic nature of weather and the intrinsic indeterminacy of climate modelling, I played along, for conversation sake. But I had no commitment to do so.

        I also played along because even if you were to prove that climate modelling is not like poker modelling, we’d learn something. It provided me the incentive to do some digging (to draw some more cards, to keep with the theme) and found some interesting stuff about chaos theory, which I’ve not touched since at least a decade. My old thesis advisor was quite fond of attractors.

        ***

        Here’s the only thing I’ll comment in your last iteration:

        > Games can be modelled because probability is statistically tractable. Chaos is intrinsically completely deterministic but unpredictable.

        Poker is a family of games where the outcome is almost always unpredictable. (Even when you hold a royal flush, you don’t know how the betting will turn out.) This unpredictability is exactly why players rely on models in the first place. Players don’t model the card distribution: they only need basic probabilities for that. They model the players’ habits.

        Even machines model players. By contrast, chess engines don’t model chess players. They have all the information they need on the board.

        The fact that games can be modelled is irrelevant to my point. My point is that: poker is a game played by using models, we can model weather forecasting as a game, and this game would share structural similarities with the family of poker games, since it relies on models to make decision under uncertainty.

        ***

        The best strategy in poker would be to become totally unpredictable. This might also apply to ClimateBall.

        ***

        Thought experiments help visualize complex problems by setting up a simplified representation. Climate projections have the same utility: they help simplify what would otherwise be intractable. Both could be considered cognitive amplifier:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification

        Cognitive amplifiers are not required to have predictive skills to have their use. (We could ask for potential economic value alright, pending further specification of that concept, but let’s not digress.) If that’s the only weapon you got, you try to make the best of it.

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 7:59 am |

      “Nicolas Stern admits he was wrong”

      (Looks like he’s setting himself up for another admission that he was even “wronger”.)

      Give ‘im a new crystal ball – the old one’s cracked.

      Max

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 8:18 am |

      Willard

      Let’s see if I can get Stern’s logic.

      He makes a forecast of horrible things that will happen because of posited future global warming, made during a period when we had just seen a major decadal increase in global average temperature.

      Now, some time later, we have seen a decade or more with no further increase in warming, so Stern increases his forecast of future warming!

      What’s wrong with this picture?

      Max

      • Dagfinn | January 27, 2013 at 8:32 am |

        Don’t look so surprised. We’ve been seeing this for a few years now. Higher than expected CO2 is plugged into the models and we get higher future temperatures. Recent observations of CO2 emissions are considered significant, recent observations of temperature aren’t.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 1:49 pm |

        > What’s wrong with this picture?

        The assumption that a plateauing signal is what only matters.

        The assumption that a plateau never hides an otherwise steeper fall in the tick.

        The assumption that a plateau is not a time to hold and wait for a buying signal.

        The assumption that a plateau is not a pleasurable thing, even, perhaps.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 8:40 pm |

        Willard,

        You said

        “What’s wrong with this picture?”

        1/”The assumption that a plateauing signal is what only matters.”

        vs the assumption that Increasingly higher temperature is what was the concern of the Stern ?…

        2/”The assumption that a plateau never hides an otherwise steeper fall in the tick.”

        vs. the assumption that it does not, or even the assumption that it hides a steep decline ?

        3/”The assumption that a plateau is not a time to hold and wait for a buying signal”

        vs the assumption that it is ?

        4/”The assumption that a plateau is not a pleasurable thing, even, perhaps.”
        vs. the assumption that it is?

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 8:49 pm |

        Basically it seem absurd to deny that increasing rise in the temperature signal, is not the thing that mattered. “Mattered”. Not “matters”.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 8:52 pm |

        Basically it seems absurd to deny that increasing rise in the temperature signal, was the thing that mattered to Stern. It was the reason for doing.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 9:42 pm |

        > Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then.

        http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 6:17 am |

        Willard

        Nice try, but have you thought of this reasoning?

        – It has (at least temporarily) stopped warming.

        – Climategate and other revelations of impropriety and data-fudging have eroded the public trust in consensus climate science.

        – Today’s economic problems are much more important to most than posited future climate-induced impacts.

        So, what to do to keep the fear factor up?

        Double the ante (as Stern is trying).

        But it isn’t working.

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 9:07 am |

        MiniMax,

        Have you thought of this one?

        (1) Stern talks about carbon absorption and emission levels.

        (2) MiniMax talks about temperature (at least temporary) stoppage, Climategate, and economic alarmism.

        The last two items are brand new.

        Not that they are new brands.

        Auditors might wonder why MiniMax injects these two old brands into the discussion right now.

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 9:46 am |

        Willard

        As I pointed out to you, Stern is simply trying to keep the “CAGW fear factor” alive, when the overall economic situation, public opinion and Nature itself is working against him.

        He does this by doubling the ante.

        “Help!!! There are TWO wolves attacking me!!!!!

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 28, 2013 at 10:48 pm |

        MiniMax returns the ClimateGate card to his hand.

        MiniMax returns the (temporary) stoppage card to his hand.

        MiniMax plays a Mind Probe on Stern.

        MiniMax plays his favourite card: CAGW.

        Meanwhile, carbon absorption and emission levels are still on the table.

        Will CAGW beat carbon absorption and emission levels?

        Stay tuned tomorrow for another round of RHETORICS ™ !

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 9:23 pm |

      Here’s the correct link:

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos

      Auditors ought to ask why it has not been corrected.

  58. Faustino | January 26, 2013 at 10:37 pm |

    Extreme weather? Here in Brisbane the rainy season is December-March. After a pretty dry Dec-Jan, we’re getting two-months-plus of rain in a few days, around 250 mm / 10 in a day. Winds getting up, and tornadoes threatened. Tornadoes??!!! In Brisbane!! Well, they’ve just been reported from the adjacent Sunshine Coast. We somehow missed the 2011 flood – it stopped unexpectedly 4 metres from our back door – and flooding this time should be localised rather than the 27,000 premises of 2011. Exciting long weekend, but my bike is staying indoors.

    • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 11:09 pm |

      G’day Bruce

      I heard on the car radio that crocodiles were on the road at Ingham. I wondered what the soundtrack was for SUV’s aquaplanning towards crocodiles – and was thinking we needed lots of new words for rain. Just then I hit a pool of water at 100km. Drift to the left – drift to the right across two lanes. The soundtrack – I realised – includes ‘oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit’. It took me four hours to get home Thursday evening. Very exciting – water over the road in several places. The rain was just torrential – but I tucked up snug and warm in bed – blogging and watching Eureka seasons on DVD.

      Cheers

      This is Australia…

    • Robert I Ellison | January 26, 2013 at 11:16 pm |

      G’day Bruce,

      I heard on the car radio that crocodiles were on the road at Ingham. I wondered what the soundtrack was for SUV’s aquaplanning towards crocodiles. I was thinking we need lots of new words for rain. Just then I hit a pool of water at 100km. Drift to the left – drift to the right across two lanes. The soundtrack – I realised – includes ‘oh sh!t oh sh!t oh sh!t oh sh!t’. It took me four hours to get homeThursday evening. Very exciting – water over the road in several places. The rain was just torrential – but I tucked up snug and warm in bed – blogging and watching Eureka on DVD.

      This is Australia…

    • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 3:21 am |

      Okay, we’re now expecting flooding in Bris, the river has crossed the bank in places. 450mm in 36 hours up the road, 300+ expected imminently on the Gold Coast just to the south with 125 km winds. That means the worst weather has just passed us (West End, Bris). 62,000 homes in Bris without power. Good thing I have candle-powered PC and internet.

      Peter D, Robert/Chief knows my name and is also a bit of a joker.

      Just off to water the garden … oh, wait!

      • Peter Davies | January 27, 2013 at 3:25 am |

        Damn, my humour sensor is playing up again! I must be turning into a grumpy old man!

        Hope that not too many have to go through the flooding of their homes yet again!

      • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 3:34 am |

        Peter, grumpy old man? Robert and I will welcome you to the club.

      • Peter Lang | January 27, 2013 at 5:11 am |

        Blame the floods on the coal miners.

      • Alex Heyworth | January 27, 2013 at 5:14 am |

        If you’re not grumpy, you haven’t been paying attention.

      • Latimer Alder | January 27, 2013 at 5:57 am |

        @faustino

        Surely if you actually turn on those expensive desalination plants you installed to deal with AGW your flood problems will go away :-)

        …or did I misunderstand the strategy?

      • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 6:47 am |

        Latimer, the desal plant, the recycled sewage plant, the new water network, were all based on the “obvious” fact that we would “never again” have heavy summer rainfall because of (gasp) “climate change. None of the costly infrastructure has been used, except for a (long overdue) link between two fairly close dams. The state is heavily in debt in part because of that nonsense spending, and is about to be sued in a huge class action for exacerbating the 2011 floods by bad government and bad management. (there’s since been a change of government.)

        Hard to cast blame for the current/imminent flooding, the rainy season has just been unusually (but not unprecedently) intense, with the system covering a wide area and moving down the coast.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 27, 2013 at 6:54 pm |

        ‘Current drought (and other extreme events) risk estimation methods are largely empirical. The observed history of climate extremes is analyzed under the assumption that the chance of an extreme event occurring is the same from one year to the next and that the future will look like the past (i.e., the stationary climate assumption). This assumption is flawed, given that the physical climatological mechanisms that actually deliver climate extremes have been ignored and also given that the impacts associated with anthropogenic climate change are not considered (e.g., Franks and Kuczera 2002; Kiem et al. 2003, 2006; Milly et al. 2008). Previous research has highlighted the existence of multiyear to multidecadal epochs of enhanced/reduced extreme event risk across eastern Australia (e.g., Erskine and Warner 1988; Franks and Kuczera 2002; Kiem et al. 2003, 2006; Kiem and Franks 2004; Verdon et al. 2004a,b). These studies clearly demonstrate that the first step in any drought (or flood, bushfire, or any other climate-driven extreme) risk assessment should be to understand the climate mechanisms that drive periods of elevated risk. For example, numerous studies [refer to Diaz and Markgraf (2000) and references therein] have shown that strong relationships exist between eastern Australian rainfall and streamflow, and the global-scale ocean–atmospheric circulation process known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO refers to the anomalous warming [El Niño] and cooling [La Niña] that periodically occurs in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean in combination with the Southern Oscillation. Previous work has also shown that, while ENSO is important, other climate phenomena also influence Australian climate on interannual to multidecadal time scales (e.g., Nicholls 1989; Power et al. 1999; Kiem et al. 2003, 2006; Kiem and Franks 2004; Verdon et al. 2004a,b; Verdon and Franks 2005; Hendon et al. 2007; Meneghini et al. 2007; Kiem and Verdon-Kidd 2009, 2010). More recently Verdon-Kidd and Kiem (2009a) showed that the three iconic droughts in Australia’s history, the “Federation” drought (1895–1902), the “World War II” drought (1937–45) and the Big Dry (1994–present) are driven by a combination of different climate phenomena operating in the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Ocean regions. Based on this research, there is a clear need for an improved understanding into the multiple interactions between large- and local-scale climate drivers and their influence on drought risk.

        It is also becoming increasingly apparent that the instrumental record is too short to capture multidecadal climate variability. Palaeoclimate records (e.g., coral fossils, tree rings, dust deposits, flood sediments, ice cores) can provide information about the climate system predating the instrumental record. While limited palaeodata exist for Australia, there are numerous reconstructions of the climate phenomena in the Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans. Ocean–atmospheric interactions across these three oceans are known to modulate Australia’s climate. Importantly, this information can be reconciled with the instrumental record (e.g., Verdon and Franks 2006, 2007) to provide insights into the occurrence and length of drought periods affecting Australia prior to observations, hence providing an improved understanding of “normal” and “extreme” Australian conditions (i.e., the baseline risk).’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2010JHM1215.1

        Sorry about the extended quote – but these things have been understood for decades by hydrologists. The debate was expensively hijacked by climate catastrophists like Tim Flannery. Is this an example of better leaving it to the experts? Or is it that everyone is an expert on the weather?

        Here’s a Tim Flannery moment – http://images.theage.com.au/2012/02/17/3051909/1802jh_729_spooner-420×0.jpg

      • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 7:17 pm |

        Robert @ 6.54, your post should be compulsory reading for all state politicians, Flannerians and those who dispute my CAGW letters in The Australian. Not that any of them would understand it.

      • Peter Davies | January 27, 2013 at 8:06 pm |

        Chief has provided a great citation and the Tim Flannery moment involves two of the most deserving people in Australia. Next year they will be gone and the Greens will resume their rightful place in Australian history, which will be as the discredited rump of the late unlamented Communist Party of Australia.

  59. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:20 pm |

    The Province of Ontario elected a woman for the first time in its history:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/01/26/ontario-liberal-leadership-voting.html

    Kathleen Wynne is openly gay.

    Sources tell me that Canada’s Prime Minister is so happy that he’s shooting pucks in his basement.

  60. willard (@nevaudit) | January 26, 2013 at 11:24 pm |

    OK. Seems that certain words are verboten. So here it is again.

    For the first time in its history, the Province of Ontario elected a woman.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/01/26/ontario-liberal-leadership-voting.html

    I can’t divulge Kathleen Wynne’s sexual orientation without triggering moderation.

    Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is so happy that sources tell me he’s shooting pucks in his basement on an old washing machine, like Sidney Crosby used to do when he was young.

    • David Springer | January 27, 2013 at 6:18 am |

      Try g-a-y next time.

    • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 1:27 pm |

      Willard,

      DID NOT elect a woman – as Premier.
      Many have been elected to various positions, of course.
      This woman replaced a Premier when he quit his post. She became party leader, but was not elected Premier.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 1:33 pm |

        Willard
        By the same token Canada already elected a woman – Prime Ministeress Kim.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 2:29 pm |

        I stand corrected, this.

        Are you an engineer, by any chance?

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 27, 2013 at 2:54 pm |

        Willard, no, I’m not an engineer. That’s something I’ve never been accused of before.

        BTW, I gave some of the Dawkins information back on the Berserk thread.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 4:46 pm |

        I was asking, this, because of the way you parsed Mosh’s claim about the existence of science, or the lack of it. (Some might argue that the word “is” does not entail existence, btw.)

        I’ve encountered such litteralism a few times among engineer-minded commenters.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 28, 2013 at 7:54 am |

        I don’t need it to be literal.
        Mosher wants it both ways,that’s all.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 9:41 am |

        There are linguistic occasions when you need to have it both ways, this. Otherwise, it would not be possible to say that science does not exist. How could the word “science” refer to anything, if you can refer to things that does not exist?

        You can talk about concepts as if they existed with minimal ontological commitment to their existence, this. The argument you’re having with Mosh reminds me of the Meinong gambit:

        http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/

        This is a silly gotcha game, this.

      • Tom | January 29, 2013 at 9:54 am |

        willard, that is why we use screen shot.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | January 29, 2013 at 10:51 am |

        No luck for your notions there, WIllard.

        Mosher is doing exactly as he claimed others could not.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 11:13 am |

        I disagree, this. You simply caught Mosh saying something that should be qualified. Mosh’s point is basic epistemology. Around here, undergraduates learn about it at around the middle of the semester. When it’s not taught in at the end of the first course in college.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | February 3, 2013 at 8:06 am |

        Not having a bit of that nonsense, Willard.
        Mosher wants to have it both ways and disallow others.

  61. Doug Cotton | January 27, 2013 at 12:07 am |

    gbaikie made yet another mistake when he said in a comment above

    “it’s temperature depends average velocity molecules and how many molecules [their mass] are in some volume of the atmosphere.”

    Temperature depends only on mean kinetic energy. That kinetic energy is not just translational energy of movement in three dimensions – it also includes rotational and vibrational energy. The total kinetic energy is shared among the degrees of freedom, as per the Equipartition Theorem.

    But Gbaikie is TOTALLY WRONG in stating that temperature has anything to do with the number of molecules (ie the density) and this exposes his lack of knowledge of even First Year Physics. I’m sorry to have to point this out to all the silent readers, but I have found him making so many mistakes regarding physics that I feel it a waste of my time responding to him and any others who try to pretend they understand physics. With nearly 50 years’ experience in physics since I first started to help students with it, I can easily detect the “bluffers” like him, and the errors in what the IPCC propagates, much of which these people merely copy and paste..

    • tempterrain | January 27, 2013 at 1:22 am |

      Doug,

      I’ve noticed that you like bold script. If you want even more emphasis you could use UPPERCASE or have words underlined or even ALL THREE !

      • tempterrain | January 27, 2013 at 1:26 am |

        Correction: Maybe you can’t have words underlined unless they are links. and don’t work.

      • tempterrain | January 27, 2013 at 1:27 am |

        I give up!

      • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 8:04 am |

        tempterrain

        Time to collect on that bet we made several years ago.

        Namely, you bet that the HadCRUT3 record temperature anomaly reached in 1998 (0.517C) would be exceeded in the 3-year period starting with 2010.

        The record (since then)
        2009: 0.439C
        2010: 0.499C
        2011: 0.397C
        2012: 0.394C

        You have my email.

        Contact me to see how we can settle this.

        Thanks.

        Max

      • tempterrain | January 28, 2013 at 5:47 pm |

        Max,

        I have just sent an email to your “@cs.com” address but it bounced back! Can you email me? Thanks.

    • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 2:22 pm |

      “Temperature depends only on mean kinetic energy. That kinetic energy is not just translational energy of movement in three dimensions – it also includes rotational and vibrational energy. The total kinetic energy is shared among the degrees of freedom, as per the Equipartition Theorem.”

      I assume this applies to gas in a pressurized container?
      Let’s say you have cubic meter of CO2 gas at 100 psi
      and 20 C. How much percentage of the energy of CO2 is
      not just translational energy?

      “But Gbaikie is TOTALLY WRONG in stating that temperature has anything to do with the number of molecules (ie the density) and this exposes his lack of knowledge of even First Year Physics.”

      Why does temperature of gas increase if you decrease it’s volume.
      Take 1 cubic meter gas and decrease it to 1/2 cubic meter of gas.

      It will heat up, then subsequently cool down to the container’s
      temperature.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 7:17 pm |

        I have made correct statements with which any physicist would agree. You are introducing red herrings which are easily explained, but you probably wouldn’t understand the explanation because it is now obvious to me that you have no tertiary education (that you remember or ever understood) in physics. Look up Wikipedia and find out the answers for yourself – it may help you to understand, as you obviously have a predisposition not to believe anything I explain to you.

      • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 4:53 am |

        Time’s up.
        “Let’s say you have cubic meter of CO2 gas at 100 psi
        and 20 C. How much percentage of the energy of CO2 is
        not just translational energy?”
        Answer is zero.

        “Why does temperature of gas increase if you decrease it’s volume.”

        You are increasing the density of the gas.

      • stefanthedenier | January 29, 2013 at 5:17 am |

        gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 4:53 am | asked: ”“Why does temperature of gas increase if you decrease it’s volume.”

        mate, ”dry ice” is made from CO2, dry ice is compacted / SHRUNKEN CO2. Is dry ice saying that you are wrong?!Naughty, naughty CO2!

    • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 12:49 am |

      Doug,

      You’re criticising Gbailke saying he “is TOTALLY WRONG in stating that temperature has anything to do with the number of molecules (ie the density)”. Yes that’s right.

      But aren’t you saying the same thing with you theory that gravity causes a thermal gradient at equilibrium? Yes we know that equilibrium is determined by the state of maximum entropy, but as shown by Maxwell and Boltzmann in the 19th century and repeated here W. T. M. VERKLEY
      Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, Netherlands
      T. GERKEMA, Laboratoire des E´coulements Ge´ophysiques et Industriels, Grenoble, France

      http://www.nioz.nl/public/fys/staff/theo_gerkema/jas04.pdf

      the state of maximum entropy in a thermally isolated system, under a gravitational field, is isothermal.

      Its the only one which makes sense when you think about it. If it is thermally isolated it cannot give rise to any perpetual motion machine which it would if there were are temperature gradient. Your previous explanation that that there is a gravity induced temperature gradient in , for example, the solid wire of a thermocouple is obviously wrong. We know there is no lapse rate in the ocean so your claimed temperature gradient induced by gravity in the wire would have to vary depending on whether it was surrounded by a gas or a liquid, which is just absurd.

      I’d say your mistake is in this assumption: “Gas molecules in diffusion process move in free paths between collisions maintaining PE+KE=constant.” You need to think about that some more.

      The alternative way, and I believe the correct way, is to say that KE is a constant. In other words the more energetic molecules move to the top, losing energy, and the less energetic move to the bottom, gaining energy. Its just the same principle as hot air rising and cool air falling.

      Our atmosphere is not thermally isolated. It is a huge heat pump, transferring energy from the surface to the upper layers, from where it is emitted into space. So it cannot be isothermal. There needs to be a temperature gradient to move the huge amounts of heat involved.

  62. mosomoso | January 27, 2013 at 12:35 am |

    I’d just like to share a few reflections on climate change, with reference to my part of NSW, since NSW has recently been used as a poster-child for CAGW. Remember how we were ablaze last week? Well, now we’re wet.

    I note with all this rain that’s tumbling down that nobody predicted it a couple of weeks back. I certainly did not predict it. Chance of a major flood here over the weekend? I’ll predict it, and if it doesn’t happen I’ll just say I never said it or that my comments have been taken out of context or…but you guys know the drill.

    They’ve pulled a chunk of our temp records, though our hottest January must have been between 1910 and 1919, because, except for August, all our monthly heat records were set in that decade. (August was hottest in 1946.)

    Our rainfall records still stand. Now, you would think – would you not? – that the appallingly dry December just past would have been the driest “ever”. Not even close: we had our driest December in 1938. Our wettest was in 1970.

    Anyone doubting the reality of climate change (ie most people who bang on about Climate Change) should consider how we emerged from the 1890s into that poxy Federation Drought. Our wettest January was in 1895. Our driest was in 1900. But nearly all our worst drought months, like all our worst heat months, lie way back in the past. They don’t tell you that, do they? Oh well, since it’s a matter of public record, maybe they don’t feel they have to.

    I notice that there’s been talk of 1939, after the smashing of one of those “ever” records recently, in Sydney. Would you believe that in 1939 not one drop of rain fell here in the month of February, supposedly the wettest time of year? Ten years before that we had our wettest month of any on record: in February 1929 a whopping 882.5 mm!

    Our driest year on record was in 1902. (Sydney’s was 1888). You would think that legendary 1950 would have to have been the wettest, but, in fact, more than two and a quarter metres of rain was dumped on us in 1963.

    What can I say? Climate change!

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 6:18 am |

      The CAGW “canary” of the week isdrought, er.. wildfires, I mean floods!.

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 6:29 am |

      Not the “driest”?

      Not the “wettest”?

      How about the “most unequivocally average”?

      (Gotta have something to blame on CAGW.)

    • Peter Davies | January 27, 2013 at 8:00 am |

      Climate/weather at the global, regional and local levels are on trajectories that will never be capable of prediction because all non-ergodic systems such as climate/weather will never repeat themselves.

  63. Doug Cotton | January 27, 2013 at 1:24 am |

    ARCHIVED PREDICTION

    Let me archive my predictions … based on Roy Spencer’s anomalies …

    2013: Between 0.12 and 0.22
    2014: Between 0.05 and 0.15

    continued slight cooling until 2027

    2026 to 2028 mean of those three years between -0.2 and 0.0

    then 30 years of warming

    2056 to 2058 mean of those three years between 0.2 and 0.7

    then, 30 years of cooling, 30 years of warming

    But, somewhere between 2100 and 2180 the long-term ~1,000 year natural cyclic trend will reach its next maximum and 500 years of cooling starts at a mean rate of about 0.5C per century. The current rate of long-term warming has reduced to about 0.05C per decade from about 0.06C per decade a hundred years ago, because the trend is approximately sinusoidal and is approaching a maximum.

    Signed; Douglas Cotton

    • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 3:25 am |

      Okay, Doug, I’ll get back to you in 2180. I’m just getting the De Lorean out of the garage (in case it’s flooded).

    • gbaikie | January 27, 2013 at 9:23 am |

      I think we will have a cold winter:
      http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/evolution-of-an-arctic-outbrea/4721288
      http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/new-ice-storm-brewing-for-the/4847232
      And the current solar cycle will peak within next few months as predicted.

      And 2013 will continue the flat average global temperature trend.
      I think we have more severe weather during 2013 than is normal- including more hurriances.
      In 2014 I tend to think we get slight bit global warming and milder winter [northern hemisphere]. Warmers will be slightly encouraged. But one year does not make a trend. But could see beginning of El Nino.
      But by 2018 the global average temperature trend will cause the Warmers much despair.
      Within 5 years much could happen in terms geological event such as volcanoes and earthquakes. But more changes could occur in terms of human events. Will the war in Syria still be occurring? Will Africa be having more wars than has now? Will Iran have the Bomb? Will Saudi Arabia have it also. Will China be landing on the Moon? And/or having more social unrest. Will China give up on it’s official one child policy. Will North Korea
      end it’s slavery of it’s people? And certainly we should get some news from South America, perhaps even Cuba.
      And where is there any hope this global economic recession will end?
      Could turn around within 5 years? How? And how will determine the human future for next couple decades.
      I think it could be space stuff affecting this how. Otherwise, I have no clue.

      Anyways where other do get monthly updates on Global temperature,
      other than:
      http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
      Why, if global warming is so important there so little current information.
      And if global CO2 emission is so important why are way measuring
      so terrible? It seems though controlling China emission is not likely, but
      why not work on transparency in terms of reporting. And system which actually measured human CO2 emission?
      Yes the Lefties have never been interested in actual science, but could at least try to do a better job of pretending they are interested?

  64. Beth Cooper | January 27, 2013 at 1:38 am |

    So good ter see, here on Climate Etc, Australia Day being
    given due recognition fer our wonderful sunburnt country’s,
    (when otherwise not awash with floods,) democratic spirit,
    tolerance, humer and rich cultural heritge, ( despite some
    of yous pommie *******s inferring otherwise. :-)

    Bruce.

  65. Beth Cooper | January 27, 2013 at 1:47 am |

    That is quite serficient with the serf jokes, Faustino and Alex H.
    I will not have serfs made fun of!

    Say, Faustino, Happy Australia Day. Don’t know where Alex is from,
    if he’s lucky, he comes from The Lucky Country down under.

    Beth

    • Alex Heyworth | January 27, 2013 at 2:22 am |

      Indeed I do. Happy Australia Day for yesterday.

    • Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 3:32 am |

      Well, Beth, I’m an “accidental immigrant,” came for a short visit in 1979, only 33 years so far. I’m watching England v India one-dayer in Dharamsala, somewhat nostalgic as I first met my (Melburnian, fifth-generation) wife in Dalhousie, another Himalayan resort.

      But HAD to you. Locally “Invasion Day” was due to be celebrated in Musgrave Park, the weather might have intervened, I wouldn’t have been there anyway being a non-supporter of divisive nonsense.

  66. Beth Cooper | January 27, 2013 at 2:56 am |

    Thx fer endorse-ment ) Peter Davies, yer right about cow girls,
    we don’t do needle’n thread, jest too busy practisin’ ropin”
    Hey, Peter, wishin’ u a Happy Lucky Country Day.

    Beth the cow-girl. ( I love ‘Open Thread,’ don’t u?)

    • Peter Davies | January 27, 2013 at 3:21 am |

      Yep Beth had a good day with my daughter’s family over on the coast, Fishin not much chop but the celebratin went well!

      And for once we are not OT! :)

      Hope that you had a good day as well.

    • Captain Kangaroo | January 27, 2013 at 10:00 pm |

      Beth me darlin’,

      I love it when you talk ropin’.

      Best regards
      Captain Kangaroo (retired)

  67. Faustino | January 27, 2013 at 3:41 am |

    Judith, you say “I am in the throes of working on a big proposal due Feb 4.” An auspicious day, my mother was born on 4 Feb 1915, my Vipassana teacher S N Goenka 4/2/1924, after our first marital home (a 13-feet caravan) burned down, we moved a forestry barracks onto a ridge on 4 Feb 81 and a cyclone crossed the coast nearby that night, on that day in 1985 I began work in Canberra … there’s more, but memory fails.

    (Hey, I’ve been home all day with back/leg/weather, indulge me!)

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 9:38 am |

      February 4.

      Auspicious, indeed.

      Birth date (1959) of Barbie (the “doll”, not the Aussie “barbie”) and (1938) Snow White (film version).

      But, ominously, also the date of U.S, Prohibition (1920).

  68. Doug Cotton | January 27, 2013 at 6:58 am |

    If it wasn’t gravity causing the dry adiabatic lapse rate, then it would have to have been carbon dioxide, methane and trace gases doing all of about 50 degrees of warming, because we know water vapour then reduces the gradient, bringing surface temperature back down about a third of the amount it increased.

    So either sensitivity to carbon dioxide is about 50 degrees or it’s nothing.

    See http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/01/waste-heat-as-a-contributor-to-observed-warming/#comment-69235

    • David Springer | January 27, 2013 at 7:23 am |

      Lets get our definitions straight first.

      Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy amongst a number of molecules large enough to negate the possibility of measuring too many outliers in the Boltzmann distribution curve.

      Thermal energy is a measure of average kinetic and gravitational potential energy in a similar number of molecules.

      In an isothermal (non-convecting) atmosphere we observe a temperature lapse rate (dry adiabat) but not a thermal adiabat. Gravitational potential energy displaces kinetic energy in one-to-one correspondence as altitude increases.

      Where the so-called slayer hypothesis goes off the rail is imagining that the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect (which is what the above actually is) can raise the temperature at the base of the column where gravitational potential energy falls to zero above the point it would be at if there were no gravity acting on the column. If there were no gravity acting on the column the entire column temperature would be the same as the temperature at the base of the column.

      Therefore we can say there is a gravitationally induced adiabat but no gravitationally induced warming. Loschmidt’s Gravito-Thermal Effect does not and cannot account for greenhouse warming.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 7:33 pm |

        We at Principia Scientific International are not saying there is gravitationally induced warming. Gravity never adds energy: it redistributes it.

        An isothermal atmosphere in a gravitational field can never be in thermodynamic equilibrium, and is thus never the thermodynamic equilibrium state of maximum available entropy which is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics

        In adiabatic conditions, or in a perfectly sealed and insulated vertical cylinder containing pure nitrogen gas a thermal gradient of -g/Cp is the maximum accessible entropy state of thermodynamic equilibrium, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which, in its modern form, reads …

        “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system”

        If you can prove this wrong, go and claim your Nobel Prize.

      • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 3:17 am |

        “We at Principia Scientific International are not saying there is gravitationally induced warming. Gravity never adds energy: it redistributes it.”

        So the body over there is not saying this.
        I suppose that is good then.
        It seems somewhat reasonable to say gravity doesn’t
        add energy, but does more gravity redistributes it faster?

        “An isothermal atmosphere in a gravitational field can never be in thermodynamic equilibrium, and is thus never the thermodynamic equilibrium state of maximum available entropy which is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics”

        Yes, well it would seem that an atmosphere would never actually be exactly in thermodynamic equilibrium or that an atmosphere could be
        isothermal.
        It’s all a about what ifs.

        “In adiabatic conditions, or in a perfectly sealed and insulated vertical cylinder containing pure nitrogen gas a thermal gradient of -g/Cp is the maximum accessible entropy state of thermodynamic equilibrium, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which, in its modern form, reads …

        “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. ”

        So it always trying, but never gets there.

      • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 4:31 am |

        “Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy amongst a number of molecules large enough to negate the possibility of measuring too many outliers in the Boltzmann distribution curve.”

        Yes. Applies to any atmosphere comprised of gas.

        “Thermal energy is a measure of average kinetic and gravitational potential energy in a similar number of molecules.”

        Which basically a repeat of first.

        “In an isothermal (non-convecting) atmosphere we observe a temperature lapse rate (dry adiabat) but not a thermal adiabat. Gravitational potential energy displaces kinetic energy in one-to-one correspondence as altitude increases.”

        Ah. Don’t like it.
        Convection in terms of packet of air rising or falling does not create the lapse rate. Lapse rate is created by ideal gases [is affected by non-ideal gases {H20 vapor}] in gravity.
        Wiki:
        “Convective heat and mass transfer take place through both diffusion – the random Brownian motion of individual particles in the fluid – and by advection, in which matter or heat is transported by the larger-scale motion of currents in the fluid. ”

        Lapse rate requires convection by diffusion. And when has more vacuum like conditions one significantly reduces diffusion. Such as at boundary of troposphere [this boundary also marks significant inhibition of convection in terms of packets of air].
        And what about this part: “but not a thermal adiabat”. What does that mean?
        wiki:
        “For example, an adiabatic boundary is a boundary that is impermeable to heat transfer and the system is said to be adiabatically (or thermally) insulated; an insulated wall approximates an adiabatic boundary.”

        Something to do with this??

        “Where the so-called slayer hypothesis goes off the rail is imagining that the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect (which is what the above actually is) can raise the temperature at the base of the column where gravitational potential energy falls to zero above the point it would be at if there were no gravity acting on the column. If there were no gravity acting on the column the entire column temperature would be the same as the temperature at the base of the column. ”

        Sort of agree. But if you have no gravity, you don’t have atmosphere.
        Unless one got some roof of some kind.
        And you are talking about pressure vessel.
        And without gravity and a pressure vessel- you talking about something like the international space station. And to make uniform “atmospheric” temperature in the space station, you need blow air around with fans- one has no convection of heat.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 3:40 am |

        No Doug gravity doesn’t redistribute energy. Total internal energy of a mole of gas at 10,000 feet is the same as a mole of gas at 10 feet. Whatever it takes for you to understand that, do it, because you’re wrong until you do. Gravity causes a mass gradient proportional to the compressibility of the matter.

        That gravity produces an adiabat is trivially true. The formula for the dry adiabatic lapse rate is DALR = g/Cp where g is gravity and Cp is specific heat at constant pressure. Set gravity equal to zero and DALR is zero regardless of Cp. That’s such a no brainer anyone who argues that lapse rate isn’t induced by gravity is either still counting with their fingers or isn’t aware of the formula for the adiabat. It’s just that simple.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 3:55 am |

        So Doug, we’ve shown it’s trivially true by the formula

        DALR = g/Cp

        that with zero gravity we have zero lapse rate. The more gravity the higher the lapse rate. Where you go off the rail is failing to account for the fact that as gravity increases the column height decreases because the gas compresses so we have a growing lapse rate and a decreasing distance over which to apply it. To get a higher temperature we have to add mass to the atmosphere. Add enough gas and it’ll get so hot it fuses and a star is born. But absent mass to energy conversion that keeps a star hot once we stop adding mass the temperature stops rising and begins to fall. We need an external energy source to maintain the temperature once pressure stops rising. You Principia boys seem to believe that temperature somehow remains elevated once pressure stops rising and that is simply impossible without violating conservation.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 4:31 am |

        And as I’ve pointed out to you more than once Doug, Saturn’s moon Titan shatters your theory. You boys like to point out that in several planetary atmospheres where the pressure at depth is 1 bar the temperature is approximately equal to the earth’s surface. Titan has a surface pressure 60% greater than the earth and a surface temperature of -178C. Oops. How the f*ck did that happen?

        Hell your cockamaimie theory doesn’t even hold true on the earth because atmospheric pressure at the south pole is approximately 1 bar but the temperature is closer to that of Titan than to that of the tropics. What’s up with that, Doug? DALR is the same at the pole as it is in the tropics. Gravity is the same. The specific heat at constant pressure of
        air doesn’t change at the pole. What happens is the depth of the atmosphere is reduced so there’s less distance over which to apply the lapse rate. It’s bloody cold because dense air takes up less space than warm air at the same pressure. Hence same lapse rate but lower surface temperature. And the temperature is colder there because there’s less bloody sunlight to keep it warm. Duh. You and the people who swallow your crap astound me, perplex me, and mortify me at the thought being members of the same species. Correct application of first principles makes perfect sense in all places. Your harebrained narrative on the other hand is only coincidentally true in enough places to make an uncritical, uninformed, desperate-to-believe audience find it credible.

    • Myrrh | January 28, 2013 at 5:42 am |

      Doug Cotton | January 27, 2013 at 6:58 am | If it wasn’t gravity causing the dry adiabatic lapse rate, then it would have to have been carbon dioxide, methane and trace gases doing all of about 50 degrees of warming, because we know water vapour then reduces the gradient, bringing surface temperature back down about a third of the amount it increased.

      So either sensitivity to carbon dioxide is about 50 degrees or it’s nothing.

      Climate scientists, CAGW/AGW both, have no sense of scale.. Their God SuperMoleculeCarbonDioxide can raise global temperatures 800 years before deciding to increase Himself so that He can raise global temps 50°C all by Himself is easy peasy. He can do impossible things because for Him all things are possible, He only requires His devotees to imagine them through the looking glass with Al.

      Standard traditional science gives -18°C for the Earth without any atmosphere at all, this is not the figure for Earth minus only the AGWScienceFiction “ir imbibing greenhouse gases”.

      AGWSF has changed the base line.

      The Earth without the AGWSF “ir imbibing greenhouse gases” of which water is practically 100% would be 67°C.

      Not the -18°C claimed by AGWSF’s Greenhouse Effect.

      The real greenhouse gases are the practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen, the real thermal blanket of real gases with volume and attraction and weight subject to gravity so denser closer to the surface.

      It is this which raises the temperature of the Earth from the -18°C it would be without them to the 67°C the Earth would be with them, but without the “ir imbibing greenhouse gases primarily water”.

      That is the traditional greenhouse thermal blanket of the real gases nitrogen and oxygen raising the temperature of the Earth 100°C from the -18°C it would be without them.

      Including water brings that down 52°C to the 15°C.

      That is the Water Cycle cooling the atmosphere.

      There is no direct connection from -18°C to 15°C, the 33°C is an illusion.

      If AGW/CAGW climate scientists had any rational sense of scale they would already have questioned the claimed Supermolecule Powers of the trace gas Carbon Dioxide to act as the AGWSF’s “thermal blanket around the Earth” – since they can’t see how ludicrous the idea that practically 100% holes of Carbon Dioxide can act as a thermal blanket, it becomes difficult to discuss this with them..

      AGWSF’s The Greenhouse Effect is created by taking excising the whole atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen and by excising the Water Cycle.

      In other words, created by sleight of hand trickery, i.e. science fraud.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 7:52 pm |

        It is the Sun which raises the overall level of the thermal profile in the atmosphere to the level where there is radiative balance. The thermal profile in the troposphere is maintained at the gradient which is the net thermodynamic equilibrium state of maximum entropy (as per Second Law of Thermodynamics) between gravitationally induced gradient (-g/Cp) and the opposing propensity for isothermal conditions resulting from intra-atmospheric radiation mainly between water molecules. The base of the atmosphere thus autonomously warms to the pre-determined temperature based on the pre-determined thermal profile, and that higher temperature then “supports” the surface temperature with a non-radiative blanket effect slowing about two-thirds of the cooling, and a radiative blanket effect slowing radiative cooling. The latter is primarily due to all the water vapour, which is at least 100 times as effective at slowing radiative cooling than is all the carbon dioxide.

  69. Jim Cripwell | January 27, 2013 at 9:04 am |

    I have had an interesting and informative discussion with Pekka and Steven on the subject of IPCC statements of certainty and climate sensitivity. Let me try and summarize my position, which I feel is not complex; it is straightforward Physics 101.

    The IPCC has no basis to claim any degree of certainty about (C)AGW until two things have been established.

    1. A CO2 signal is detected and measured above the background of the noise of natural variations. Inherent in this process is the ability to show that the signal was, indeed, caused by additonal CO2 in the atmosphere.

    2. From the measurement of the CO2 signal, the value of climate sensitivity can be measured. Inherent in the process is establishing the accuracy with which the measurement is made. When this accuracy is known, then and only then, can anyone state on any scientific basis, something about (C)AGW having some sort of probability of being correct.

    That is what I was taught in basics physics over 65 years ago, and nothing anyone says will make me change my mind.

    • manacker | January 27, 2013 at 9:17 am |

      Jim Cripwell

      I agree, too.

      (Physics 101)

      Max

    • Rob Starkey | January 27, 2013 at 2:20 pm |

      Jim

      Except warming in and of itself is not a significant problem. It is what MAY occur as a result of warming in a particular location that changes conditions there that determine whether a location benefits or is harmed. We are still a long way from understanding what areas will benefit vs. being harmed.

    • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 9:41 pm |

      There is no scientific basis for point 2) because the IPCC assume incorrectly that isothermal conditions would have prevailed in the absence of WV and GHG. Such an isothermal state would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics for reasons explained here because an isothermal state is not a state of thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum entropy.
      .

    • Jim D | January 28, 2013 at 10:08 pm |

      An expected CO2 signal is seen in the IR spectrum, whether viewed from space or the ground, and the implications of a change in that spectrum is just physics. Block heat escaping and what happens?

  70. lolwot | January 27, 2013 at 1:06 pm |

    Preliminary annual increase in CO2 in 2012 comes in at 2.56ppm, just making the second largest annual rise on record
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo_anngr.png

  71. willard (@nevaudit) | January 27, 2013 at 1:24 pm |

    Darriel Burrus unplugged and found certainties in an uncertain world:

    Spend an hour a week unplugging from the present. Yeah, why? Because it’s more related to your past than your future. You know there’s a reason your windshield is bigger than your rearview mirror. Hey, let’s start looking ahead a little bit. The more you look, the more you see. The future is more visible than you might expect. Make a list, not of the things you’re uncertain about, but the things you are certain about. First of all, the cycles. What are the cycles that we know? What are the cycles, the sales cycles, the business cycles.

    http://bigthink.com/ideas/49117

  72. Rob Starkey | January 27, 2013 at 2:15 pm |

    Perhaps the most telling data to watch over the next 24 months will be the rate of sea level rise. If the short term trend continues for a couple of years some positions on policy will change.

  73. A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 27, 2013 at 2:44 pm |

    BREAKING NEWS:  WUWT publishing suspended – major announcement coming

    Oh wait … that’s old news. Say … any articles/research ever come from that WUWT press release? Or did WUWT/Anthony/Willis et al. just move-on to further cherry-picked froth?

    More broadly, is climate-change public discourse still vulnerable to astro-turfed disinformation campaigns?

    A serious follow-up query  Can any Climate Etc reader summarize what content (if any) emerged from that “major WUWT announcement” in the way of serious peer-reviewed science?

    Alternatively, are we going to see in 2013, more of the same content-free ideology-driven press-release froth that we saw in 2012?

    That would be bad, eh? … `cuz an all-froth diet doesn’t nourish the body politic, does it?

    A big thanks goes out to all of Climate Etc’s thoughtful readers, who help to sustain strong and vigorous public discourse! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

  74. omanuel | January 27, 2013 at 4:01 pm |

    Thank you, Professor Curry, for encouraging the scientific community to consider the connection between Earth’s climate and Earth’s heat source – the Sun:

    _ 1. Science magazine reports hot, hot heat from the magnetic Sun:
    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/01/magnetic-sun-produces-hot-hot-he.html?ref=em

    _ 2. Magnetic fields arise from the Sun’s superconducting iron-rich mantle or its pulsar core:
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1026250731672

    _ 3. Retired NASA scientists and engineers see no evidence of AGW:
    http://www.therightclimatestuff.com/SummaryPrelimReport.html

    _ 4. UV radiation varies by orders-of-magnitude over a single solar cycle:
    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

    _ 5. Cosmic rays from the Sun’s pulsar core may trigger cloud formation:
    https://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/

  75. J Martin | January 27, 2013 at 5:26 pm |

    Steven Mosher said “We have no evidence that it (co2) causes cooling.”

    Yes there is. The Pacific hot spot that turned out to be a cold spot. That is evidence that co2 causes cooling.

    Perhaps the role of co2 in the atmosphere is complicated and can be warming and can be cooling under different conditions, heights, temperatures, humidity etc etc.

    • J Martin | January 27, 2013 at 5:30 pm |

      Tag typo above. Please delete above comment.

      Steven Mosher said “We have no evidence that it (co2) causes cooling.”

      Yes there is. The Pacific hot spot that turned out to be a cold spot. That is evidence that co2 causes cooling.

      Perhaps the role of co2 in the atmosphere is complicated and can be warming and can be cooling under different conditions, heights, temperatures, humidity etc etc.

  76. mosomoso | January 27, 2013 at 6:50 pm |

    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/44159099?zoomLevel=5
    A Fahrenheit temp of 109 at midnight? Hard to believe. But in January 1896 there were a lot of thermometers being monitored in the colonies soon to be joined as Australia. What with people dropping dead and being evacuated to the coast on trains, it was certainly an “event”.

    This January’s heat was the first real heatwave in my part of NSW since 2004. Now the heat’s gone and the rain is bucketing. Last summer was the coolest I have ever experienced in my 63 years, and this back-to-the-seventies weather we’re having now is pretty typical of the last five or six years. Since actual climate change in 2007 – which I’m told is related to a vaguely understood set of observations called PDO – the oceanic influence on Australia’s weather, regardless of the odd inland wind or dry spell, is hard to miss. (Where Australian weather is concerned, “vaguely understood” is actually pretty sensational.)

    This fundamental climate change is hard to miss if you are a common type of fellow standing around in paddocks, or even if you are just an aphid sucking on a citrus tree. If you are a clever fellow, however, you may have missed it all together. Many clever fellows believe in climate change…but miss it totally when it happens! How can that be?

  77. Beth Cooper | January 27, 2013 at 10:05 pm |

    There is a crack …a crack in evurythin’,
    That’s how the light gets in.

    H/t Leonard Cohen

  78. Beth Cooper | January 27, 2013 at 10:11 pm |

    Captain Kangaroo,
    I hesitate ter use them words, lol
    Say, how is Shibboleth handlin’ them Qld floods?
    Yew take care of that blue pony, now
    Beth..

  79. Girma | January 27, 2013 at 10:33 pm |

    My prediction of global mean surface temperature until 2045.

    http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/GmstPredictionSecular.gif

    Conclusion:
    Slight cooling to 0.3 deg C by 2030 followed by warming to 0.7 deg C by 2045.

  80. Girma | January 27, 2013 at 10:47 pm |

    Statistically there has been no change in the average annual temperature of the globe since 1997 meaning that the standstill is now 16 years. The latest five-year average of Hadcrut3 and Hadcrut4 data shows a decline for the first time. Can anyone now have any doubt that the recent warming standstill is a real event of crucial climatic importance? –David Whitehouse

    http://www.thegwpf.org/temperature-standstill-continues-2012-scrapes-top-ten/

  81. Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 12:44 am |

    Some of the incorrect physics written on this thread is a complete travesty of the science. Stefan for example, doesn’t even seem to realise that energy gets transferred during molecular collisions between any molecules. He seems to think that CO2 molecules only pass on kinetic energy when they happen to collide with another CO2 molecule. He thinks we can ignore such important concepts as entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which goes out the window in his books, never having been understood. So much for his physics. I would bet just about anything that he has not done a degree course with a major in physics.

    Go and tell the medicos how to practice medicine, unless of course you’ve actually done a degree in such. /sarc

    • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 8:17 am |

      Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 12:44 am | Reply

      “Some of the incorrect physics written on this thread is a complete travesty of the science. Stefan for example”

      What a fine example of the pot calling the kettle black.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 7:57 pm |

         

        Prove your point, David Springer!.

        I am only applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is not correctly applied by those advising the IPCC that there is a radiative greenhouse effect. Let me see you apply it correctly, and I’ll show where you go wrong if you don’t deduce that a thermal gradient evolves because of the Second Law maximum entropy requirements for thermodynamic equilibrium.

         

      • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 4:29 pm |

        Doug Cotton,

        Applying or misapplying the second law?

        I noticed you didn’t have an answer to my post explaining why I thought you were wrong with your theory of gravity inducing a lapse rate in a metal object.

        You might have a think about that and come back with a reasoned response instead of your usual bluster.

        That’s the thing about scientific discussion. Its quite possible to get things wrong, and everyone should recognise the possibility of their own fallibility. You yourself would disagree with much of the contents of all Uni Physics courses and yet you say ” it is now obvious to me that you have no tertiary education” . You’d almost certainly exasperate most uni lecturers and tutors if you were a student. What would they put on their report card? Maybe something like: “you obviously have a predisposition not to believe anything I explain to you” ?

      • Doug Cotton | January 31, 2013 at 3:25 am |

        There really is no need to answer because the thermal gradient is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which describes thermodynamic equilibrium having maximum entropy. What is it that you don’t understand in the application of this law?

        My answer is already written in my November 2012 paper where I mention wires outside the cylinder..

        There’s more in a new article awaiting peer-review … it reads …
        .
        * Rebuttal of counter arguments:

        Sometimes it is assumed that a wire outside the cylinder running from the warmer base of the cylinder to the top would conduct heat back up. However, gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid, and we need to calculate the weighted mean specific heat of the contents of the cylinder, the wire and, to some extent, the walls. All these comprise the total system and the overall equilibrium state, which will not lead to any endless loop of energy flow.

        Another “argument” starts by introducing the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics which pertains to three systems all in equilibrium with each other. However, in the form used, the Zeroth law suffers from the same approximation as does the original Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in that it ignores the effect of an external force field, usually gravity. As the initial assumption is false, so too is the conclusion.

  82. Beth Cooper | January 28, 2013 at 12:48 am |

    I agree with above, Chief, on rule of law and its extension
    to encompass what the market can’t provide, eg medical
    treatments and assistance in times of disaster

    Speaking of which, the Qld Premier has now broadcast an
    emergency announcement on TV advising people in Nth
    Bundaberg t o evacuate if possible as flood waters are rising
    to critical levels as in 1942. Three other towns are also under
    threat, Gympie, Maryborough and Rockhampton. As well as
    floodlevels, a corncern is water velocity powerful enough to
    sweep away houses. There have already been fatalities.

    Hope all our Qld ,NSW, denizens are safe and keep safe.

    • Faustino | January 28, 2013 at 2:12 am |

      Beth, while I am in favour of small government, this is an excellent example of where government has a critical role, and Campbell Newman showed his capacity in such situations in the 2011 floods, one reason he is now Premier. I think, however, that Robert is arguing for limited reach of law and government, subject to cases where government provision is clearly necessary and/or superior.

    • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 4:52 pm |

      This seems to be a wimpy sort of “Libertarian” view. A true zealot would say it isn’t the government’s business to rescue anyone who chooses to live in a flood prone area.

      Not me though. I’d say that governments should do everything electors require them to do.

      • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 5:47 pm |

        “This seems to be a wimpy sort of “Libertarian” view. A true zealot would say it isn’t the government’s business to rescue anyone who chooses to live in a flood prone area.”
        In US, such zealot would say it isn’t the Federal
        government’s business.
        But I am Libertarian and I think it’s part the federal government job to ensure that flood prone areas are less likely be flooded. This doesn’t mean the federal government is necessarily in charge of doing this, but rather it would be the highest government authority in this matter and so if it couldn’t get the States to handle this matter, it should step in to address this. Such decision processes involved is measure of level federal government competency in terms of governing.
        If federal government is in charge, it indicates a failure of governing- but may be necessary, due to it’s incompetency in terms of governing.

        But probably most true libertarian zealots, realize that people are the government: A government by and for the people. And therefore government is not just the Federal government. And such things as rescuing people in flood plain, should mostly a matter of local government, or people in the area helping rescuing people in their area.
        Which is what mostly actually happens. Or when it “works” this is what happens. And if it’s matter of *just* the federal government, it most certainly will fail in this regard.

      • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 6:12 pm |

        tempterrain

        There are not too many times that you and I agree, but you just commented:

        I’d say that governments should do everything electors require them to do

        and I’d add this phrase:

        and not a bit more.

        Are we still in agreement?

        Max

      • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 6:20 pm |

        gbaikie

        Every representative democracy operates slightly differently.

        In Switzerland (the oldest democracy in the world) the communities receive the largest share of income taxes.

        The cantons (like states or provinces) receive the next largest share.

        And the federal government receives by far the smallest share.

        Some things need to be done on a federal level, but anything that can be done more locally should be done so.

        Keeps the populace closer to being in charge.

        Max

      • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 6:53 pm |

        “Every representative democracy operates slightly differently.

        In Switzerland (the oldest democracy in the world) the communities receive the largest share of income taxes.

        The cantons (like states or provinces) receive the next largest share.

        And the federal government receives by far the smallest share.”

        Well US was and is some extent is the same.
        The difference is that after WWII, a vast majority of Americans
        did not want Europe to get us into another war.
        So America took over the task governing global securities- a
        task Europeans were mostly doing before WWII- and American
        thought they could do a better job.

        A problem of Europe has always been Russian. And some idiot
        gave the Russians the technology of how to make nuclear
        weapons- hence the Cold War. Really it was continue of the problem
        of Russia and Europe. And really, Russia was continuing the idiocy
        of the French Revolution- which is a plan roughly similar to burn everything to the ground and then beautiful flowers will grow. And of course the normal power crazies idiots being involved in any totalitarian
        type government.
        So, US federal government job is national defense. And this task was greatly increase. But this matter of funding the military was politicized.
        And as predictable the federal government grew in size.
        And major issue was thinking government should run pension funds
        and large welfare programs [and now we think it should be in charge of healthcare] so that is the difference.

      • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 10:48 pm |

        ??

        Well I wouldn’t quibble about that. Especially as they often try to get away with delivering less than promised. Or, they go off and spend the money on something else entirely. Like getting involved in an unwinnable foreign war just to try to please the Americans!

      • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 10:49 pm |

        PS Above reply should have been addressed to Max.

      • tempterrain | January 29, 2013 at 11:09 pm |

        gbaikie,

        “Russia was continuing the idiocy of the French Revolution”

        If you’re attacking the French revolution of 1789 then you’re also attacking the American revolution of 1775 too.

        Both were the products of Enlightenment ideals, as articulated by such authors as Thomas Paine, that emphasized the idea of natural rights and equality. Both in France and the USA people felt the need to be free from oppressive or tyrannical rule of absolute monarchs, monarchy and its associated elite and aristocrats, and have the ability to live independently

        There does from time to time have to be these type of revolutions as society moves from one social order to another.

      • gbaikie | January 30, 2013 at 2:42 am |

        “gbaikie,

        “Russia was continuing the idiocy of the French Revolution”

        If you’re attacking the French revolution of 1789 then you’re also attacking the American revolution of 1775 too. ”

        The French revolution was obviously influenced and was an attempt to copy the America revolution- and no doubt there were many who thought they could do much better job of it.

        But there were many differences.

        Of course there was the possibility that the American revolution could have went in the similar direction of the French revolution.

        Most thought it would.

        The idea that America would have some degree of unrest but that eventually it would return to being ruled by the King England was considered as one possibility.
        The idea that George Washington would become a dictator/monarch
        was also considered possibility.

        And French revolution met all these kinds of expectations- plus had a level social madness few would have predicted.

        But once this happened, thenceforth few should be surprised when it re-occurred over and over again all around the world.

        And it’s not as though humans have not had various kinds of witch-hunt or inquisitional type stuff in it’s long history.

        or this is not merely regicide and/or overthrowing a regime- that is as common as dirt. [One could say a purpose of forming any monarchy was an attempt to try to reduce or mitigate this ancient problem].

        I suppose few could have been “brave enough” have had the audacity to imagine a mob *should* rule.
        That mob may rule for a short period of time is different than a mob *should* rule.
        So nothing new about a riot, nothing new about deliberately causing a riot, but to seriously imagine that a mob should or could “make decisions” and that this is actually somehow intellectually reasonable- that is unique form of idiocy found in the French revolution.

        I don’t want to be killjoy- no doubt there is some fun in chopping people up and putting their heads on pike.
        But it’s not really a course of action which has beneficial social consequences.

  83. Faustino | January 28, 2013 at 2:06 am |

    Hayek’s quote was published in 1944, when most people even in industrialised countries had a low standard of living and little financial capacity to cope with adversity. The UK’s 1942 Beveridge Report which led to the Welfare State was written in the same environment, and was in part, I think, intended to encourage a war-ravaged population.

    The question of “the state’s rendering assistance” is, however, surely an empirical one, and subject to specific circumstances. What balance between state, private and personal provision leads to the best outcomes for individuals and society? This encompasses issues such as the importance to well-being of a degree of self-sufficiency, of taking responsibility for oneself and one’s actions. To my mind there is in many countries a self-reinforcing tendency to growth of government reach which has gone far beyond the optimum point. It’s one thing, for example, to have strong laws protecting workers when they have little choice or power, quite another in an affluent society with wide-ranging opportunities, where employers need to offer attractive opportunities to attract and retain an increasingly mobile work-force. As a manager, I wanted my staff to feel that not only did they have a great and fulfilling job, but that they were enhancing their future employability by working with me. For example, I encouraged them to take as much responsibility as they could, and fostered professional study, conference attendance, etc. No need for protective legislation.

    In short, Robert, I share your views on the danger of over-government. Years ago, I read many and varied studies which showed that the optimum share of government for economic growth was about 22%. Economic growth is not, of course, the be-all and end-all, but it is strongly positively correlated with many indicators of well-being.

    Your final paragraph is a welcome rallying call.

    • Faustino | January 28, 2013 at 2:07 am |

      I thought that this would appear as a reply to Robert Ellison’s post on Hayek rather than separately.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 28, 2013 at 4:21 am |

        I read somewhere that both Keynes and Hayek agreed on about 25%. My final paragraph was a little tongue in cheek – but perhaps that is the secret.

        I think that for very maximising economic growth is still the prime imperative. Every percentage point below optimal growth is a price paid in human misery.

        As for ‘invasion day’ – it is perhaps best seen as the beginning of an inclusive multi-ethnic society based on the very fine values of the Scottish enlightenment. As you are English – we will have to forgive and forget.

        Akmal for instance is 1st generation and quintessentially Australian. It is something remarkable about the culture – just how bloody insidious it is. I include the following only for the multiple references to Rockhampton.

      • Faustino | January 28, 2013 at 4:39 am |

        English? My grandparents were from southern Ireland, northern Ireland and Scotland (all Celts) and Northumberland (almost certainly with Viking ancestry). British, I say, British. Not to mention Geordie, having grown up on Tyneside.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 3:27 am |

        Well that’s all right then.

  84. Faustino | January 28, 2013 at 2:37 am |

    Robert E, Beth and I have made some references to Hayek above. I’m posting below the jacket notes written by Hayek for the first edition of The Road to Serfdom (1944), because they crystallise an issue which is at the heart of many disagreements on policy on Climate Etc:

    Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?

    The contention that only the peculiar wickedness of the Germans has produced the Nazi system is likely to become the excuse for forcing on us the very institutions which have produced that wickedness.

    Totalitarianism is the new word we have adopted to describe the unexpected but nevertheless inseparable manifestations of what in theory we call socialism
    .
    In a planned system we cannot confine collective action to the tasks on which we agree, but are forced to produce agreement on everything in order that any action can be taken at all.

    The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
    The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice: it must be the freedom of economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right.

    What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

    We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.

    We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.

    The first need is to free ourselves of that worst form of contemporary obscurantism which tries to persuade us that what we have done in the recent past was all either wise or unavoidable. We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.

    • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 5:49 am |

      Faustino

      Thanks for your words and the thoughts by Hayek.

      1944 was a long time ago, as the horrible results of totalitarianism were still being felt across a good part of the world.

      Today we who live in a good part of the developed world, at least, do not have to worry about military conquest or extermination by brutal all-powerful dictators, as was the case then.

      But an even greater danger today is creeping totalitarianism, the gradual takeover of individual freedom to choose by a new ruling class supposedly hiding behind good intentions.

      As Hayek notes, totalitarianism is a threat not only for individuals, but also for small states, as Switzerland is feeling from the constant pressure being exerted on it today by the EU.

      Hayek’s worlds ring just as true today as then.

      Leaving the scientific weaknesses of the politically-led CAGW fear-mongering campaign to the side, the movement is clearly an attempted power-grab by the ruling class by taxing and controlling energy, arguably the life blood of our industrially developed society, and it must be recognized as such.

      “Conspiracy” fetishists will pooh-pooh these remarks as “paranoid”, but there is nothing paranoid in Hayek’s observations.

      Max

    • Peter Lang | January 28, 2013 at 6:48 am |

      +100

    • omanuel | January 29, 2013 at 1:04 pm |

      I agree with you, Faustino.

      Fred Hoyle, Kazuo Kuroda and George Orwell apparently realized this new threat to the integrity of science and the foundations of formerly democratic “Allied” governments approaching as WWII ended.

      http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-2199

  85. Beth Cooper | January 28, 2013 at 3:57 am |

    Faustino and Robert Ellison, I have just come in and read yr in
    depth comments on ‘liberty’ and ‘planning’. This dichotomy,
    I surmise, is an important ‘problem’ of 21st century politics, as
    ‘What can we ‘know?’ ‘ was a key philosophical problem, post
    David Hume and ‘The Black Swan.’ Say, don’t ‘know’ anything
    meself, I’m grateful fer yr thoughtful comments on Hayek and
    fer Judith and denizens’ exloration of the science of climate
    change at Climate Etc…
    his is jest a preamble ter “Thought fer Today.”
    Hat tip ter Faustino.

    ‘ Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that in our endeavours
    to consciously shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we
    should in fact, unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we
    have been striving for?’

    ( Think Utopia/ Distopia.)

  86. David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 8:27 am |

    Rob Starkey | January 27, 2013 at 6:51 pm |

    Fan
    What you have written is fundamentally incorrect.

    Fan wrote- “we know (from archaeological evidence) that the seas haven’t risen that much, eh?”
    My response- Actually we know quite the opposite. If you look at the historical record, sea level is near to its historic low levels and has been rising at very close to the current rate for several thousand years.

    ————————————————————————

    The fundamentally incorrect in this case is Rob Starkey.

    In 6000BC, an eyeblink into the past in geological time and thousands of years past the beginning of the current interglacial period, Britain wasn’t an island.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 9:07 am |

      You and I are *both* correct Dave Springer (and Rob Starky is wrong, of course). Historically there was:

      • An era of rapid sea-level rise (that flooded paleolithic Doggerland), then

      • an era of (essentially) zero sea-level rise (since Roman times), then

      ª a modern era of (as Hansen-predicted) sea-level rise-rates that already are sufficiently rapid to yield Doggerland-scale land-drowning in the long run.

      Thank you Dave Springer! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Rob Starkey | January 28, 2013 at 9:18 am |

      Springer
      I am unfamiliar with any of the details regarding changes in the local land height of Britain but what you have cited seems quite inconsistent with what I have read on the overall record of sea level. You will note the 1st link depicting that sea level has been rising for several thousand years at what would seem to be very near the same rate as it is today.
      http://www.fws.gov/slamm/Changes%20in%20Sea%20Level_expanded%20version_template.pdf

      The longer term history of sea level also seems to completely disagree with your conclusion.
      http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter10/Ency_Oceans/Sea_Level_Variations.pdf

      http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.12.050184.001225

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Sea_Level.png
      I am skeptical that Britain was connected to the mainland only 8000 years ago.

      • andrew adams | January 28, 2013 at 11:11 am |

        Rob,

        Your links all seem to point to studies of sea levels over many thousands, or even millions, of years. And yes, if you look back that far you will sea level rise far more drastic than we are seeing now. But your links also support Fan’s argument that sea levels have been pretty stable for the last few thousand years or so but we are now seeing an increase in the rate of SLR – you just can’t see the current trend in the charts in your links because of the timescales involved. However, Bart Verheggen plotted the current trend on top of the long term record here

        http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/past-current-future-sea-level-rise-graphs/

        What’s more your first link specifically states in the conclusions

        Today the rate of sea-level rise is increasing due to climate change

      • Rob Starkey | January 28, 2013 at 11:48 am |

        Andrew

        I have read several of the studies on sea level rise over the last several thousand years and the margin of error for the estimates used seem to indicate that we can’t say with any confidence that the current rate of rise is inconsistent with what occurred over that period. The current rate of rise may be slightly higher than it was during some parts of the last several thousand years and lower than at other times during this period, but it isn’t dramatically different.

        Can anyone argue that sea level is currently on a path to rise by 1 meter between 2000 and 2100? I appreciate the exchange.

      • andrew adams | January 28, 2013 at 5:27 pm |

        Rob,

        If sea levels had risen at the current rate over the last 5,000 years we would have seen SLR of 15m. The best estimates are that we have had around 2m. There is no reasonable margin of error which puts slr over that peiod on a comparable level to what we are seeing at the moment.

        There is a good summary of current projections here

        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/01/sea-level-rise-where-we-stand-at-the-start-of-2013/#more-14028

        1 meter is certainly not out of the question.

      • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 7:45 pm |

        Andrew, land bridge from England to Europe and Siberia to Alaska 8000 years ago now about 50 meters underwater. 80 centuries for 50 meters works out to 625 millimeters per century or 6.25 millimeters per year.

        Current measured rate is 2-3 millimeters per year which is below the average required to flood those bridges to the depth they are today.

        Thanks for playing.

        Next!

      • stefanthedenier | January 28, 2013 at 9:58 pm |

        David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 7:45 pm said: ”land bridge from England to Europe and Siberia to Alaska 8000 years ago now about 50 meters underwater. 80 centuries for 50 meters works out to 625 millimeters per century or 6.25 millimeters per year”

        Davo, you are again stumbling in a dark….

        the seawater didn’t rise that much; to flood those bridges!!!listen now, from the best expert:
        #1: because north sea is shallow off Holland = when you put 150m of thick ice in a 50-60m deep water -> ice is to the bottom, instead of floating — next step – river Rheine was building water in Holland, because of that mountain of ice in the sea, instead of that water going north, as it is the case now was accumulating in Holland PLUS with the river water coming from Paris – that freshwater bulldozed the Chanel west / a bit – then the tides started going from Cornwall to Denmark every 6h and dug much more; and are still doing it. Similar with Asia / america bridge – same with Tasmanian bridge to the mainland.- Gibraltar also (Morocco / Spain)

        So: 1: it proves that my theory is correct / during the ice age, the sea-level was higher, NOT lower!!! 2: no matter if is a creek, river, or straights – ”on the narrow point the water digs!!! especially, where is tidal every day. 3: if you dig in the mud, you can bury yourself in water / it doesn’t need the water level to go up! can you dig it? canalize it and memorize it! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/sea-rising-or-not/

    • Rob Starkey | January 28, 2013 at 10:33 am |

      Tony

      Do you believe that there is a better long term summary of sea level worldwide than Exxon/Hallam? From what I read it seemed widely accepted.

      • climatereason | January 28, 2013 at 11:04 am |

        Rob

        You say you are sceptical that Britain was connnected to the mainland only 8000 years ago. There is masses of evidence to support this which I cited in my link above. Go to the ‘longer document’ mentioned in the first paragraph. We have tools, stones and all sorts of artefacts.

        Here is more information with a good map

        http://theheritagetrust.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/doggerland-and-drowned-landscapes/

        As for your question, the best article on the subject are ‘historic variations in sea levels Part1, 2 and 3!! Unfortunately only Part 1 is written although the data has been collected for the remaining parts. :)

        As for ‘worldwide’ that presents problems as averaging something that is so hugely variable tends to be meaningless.
        tonyb

      • Rob Starkey | January 28, 2013 at 11:38 am |

        Tony

        Skeptical does not mean that I believe you are wrong, it just means that I am ignorant on the local landscape. As you obviously know, local sea level is much more heavily impacted by changes in land height than changes in actual sea level. I am not sure how a discussion of the sea level in a specific location has much relevance on the topic of climate change globally.
        When looking at global sea level I thought a highly accepted long term record was summarized in the Exxon/Hallam studies. The two are in agreement and would seem to indicate that there have been vast changes in sea level and that we are currently fairly near historic low levels. The nearer term records show that there seems to have been a rising of the seas over the last several thousand years at very near to the current rate. The current rate is not alarming, but if it were to actually triple than it would be a concern. There is no reliable evidence of it tripling however.
        My original point was that it does seem to have established a short term near doubling but that is not yet a meaningful trend. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years to see if the short term trend continues. Do you not have a long term record that you believe is best described as reliable for long term sea level?

      • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 6:10 pm |

        Asia and North America were connected by a land bridge across the Bering Strait 8000 years ago too. There’s a trail of settlements all along the west coast of the Americas to the tip of South America. Took 3,000 years. Hugged the coast as much as possible and new settlements located southwards.

        It’s not just Doggerland. Land bridge between Asia and America believed to have been in place as recently as 9000 years ago.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia#Geography

        “The Beringian land bridge is believed to have existed both in the glaciation that occurred before 35,000 Before Pr1esent (BP) and during the more recent period 22,000-7,000 years BP. ”

        Starkey may be working from what he learned in school decades ago.

      • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 6:26 pm |

        Maximum depth of Bering strait 160 feet.

        The maximum depth of the southern part of the North Sea to connect England to Europe is shallower than the Bering Strait by 10 meters or so, so it should have persisted longer. A thousand years is a reasonable number for the longer persistence.

        http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/abt/w3-w/folien/magdeb030901/112.jpg

  87. A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 8:46 am |

    Manacker, “Plan A” of the skeptical scenario that you describe depends upon a tissue of cherry-picked data=sets, unpublished manuscripts, outlying models, vague theories (cosmic rays?), and short-term projections. That “Plan A” variety of skepticism is flimsy, lame, and weak, eh?

    Whereas a robustly rational skepticism requires a “Plan B” that (1) accommodates the — very plausible! — eventuality that the Earth’s present energy imbalance and recent acceleration of sea-level rise are robustly sustained through the coming decade (precisely as Hansen foresaw), and (2)  responsibly addresses the long-term moral implications of this degrading planetary commons (precisely as Hansen advocates).

    And by they way, strong science is much more than heuristics, yah know!

    The Fabric Of Reality

    To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. Passing experimental tests is only one of the many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.

    Even in purely practical applications, the explanatory power of a theory is paramount and its predictive power only supplementary. A scientific theory stripped of its explanatory content would be or strictly limited utility. Let us be thankful that real scientific theories do not resemble that ideal, and that scientists in reality do not work toward that ideal.

    Knowledge does not come into existence fully formed. It exists only as the result of creative processes, which are step-by-step, evolutionary processes, always starting with a problem and proceeding with tentative new theories, criticism and the elimination of errors to a new and preferable problem-situation.

    This is how Shakespeare wrote his plays. It is how Einstein discovered his field equations. It is how all of us succeed in solving any problem, large or small, in our lives, or in creating anything of value.

    In the future, all explanations will be understood against the backdrop of universality, and every new idea will automatically tend to illuminate not just a particular subject, but, to varying degrees, all subjects.

    Now, doesn’t Hansen-compatible “Plan B” skepticism — which based upon a deeper-than-heuristic more-than-statistical scientific understanding of climate change — amount to simple plain, robust, morally responsible, common-sense, Manacker?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 9:19 am |

      Fan

      Thanks for your latest thoughts.

      As you know, I am rationally skeptical of the “Hansen predictions”, so simply repeating them over and over again or telling me that they represent (in your opinion) “simple plain, robust, morally responsible, common-sense” is pointless.

      Once you can cited some specific empirical data that conclusively support the Hansen predictions, let me know.

      Max

      • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 28, 2013 at 9:32 am |

        Manacker requests “Cite some specific empirical data that conclusively support the Hansen predictions.”

        LOL … empirical data that is conclusive? You got it, Manacker!.

        But seriously, Manacker, isn’t “empirical data that is conclusive” an oxymoron? Because the former can never be the latter, eh?

        That’s the simple reason why strictly empirical skepticism is irretrievably self-contradictory, and thus amounts to self-fooling denialism! \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • manacker | January 28, 2013 at 9:38 am |

        Fan

        Do yourself a favor.

        Check out Feynman’s thoughts on the importance of empirical data to validate or falsify a hypothesis.

        And, while you’re at it, read what Popper has to say.

        It’s all about the “scientific method” and good stuff.

        Max

    • pokerguy | January 28, 2013 at 12:14 pm |

      Yuck.

  88. Wagathon | January 28, 2013 at 11:27 am |

    In Der Spiegel Dr. Hans von Storch labeled the UN-IPCC’s ‘hockey stick’ [i.e., the graphs of the hysterical Michael Mann and his merry band of histrionic sychopants] as ‘quatsch.’ Quatsch is German for BS, farcical, nonsensical, daft, craziness, bull, bilge, bunk, wack, balderdash, baloney, hooey, loony, nutty, malarkey, rubbish, hogwash, trivial nonsense, hot air, folly, a load of shite.

  89. Wagathon | January 28, 2013 at 11:56 am |

    In Der Spiegel Dr. Hans von Storch labeled the UN-IPCC’s ‘hockey stick’ [i.e., the graphs of the hysterical Michael Mann and his merry band of histrionic sychopants] as ‘quatsch.’ Quatsch is German for BS, farcical, nonsensical, daft, craziness, bull, bilge, bunk, wack, balderdash, baloney, hooey, loony, nutty, malarkey, rubbish, hogwash, trivial nonsense, hot air, folly, a load of…

  90. Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 4:30 pm |

     
    OPEN LETTER TO Dr ROY SPENCER

    Roy, the following proves that (6) is incorrect in assuming isothermal conditions could exist in a gravitational field.

    It is well known that the “Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate” is -g/Cp where g is acceleration due to gravity and Cp is weighted mean Specific Heat of the gases involved.

    The -g/Cp result can be derived from first principles based solely on the assumption that, in the absence of any other process adding or removing energy, potential energy (PE) interchanges with kinetic energy (KE) in every molecular free flight path between impacts with other molecules. We know this must happen from basic Newtonian physics.

    So, if a few picograms of mass M move with net mean downward motion represented by a mean height distance H (which could be negative if the net motion were upward – thus covering all possibilities) and thus gain (or lose) KE which is equivalent to the loss (or gain) of PE, then that KE is the energy required to raise the mass M by a temperature difference, T. If we use specific heat, Cp (rather than heat capacity) so that M cancels, then that KE gain is the product M.Cp.T whilst the PE loss is of course the normal Newtonian product M.g.H and hence

    M.Cp.T = – M.g.H
    and so the thermal gradient is
    T/H = -g/Cp

    Now we also need to consider the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which has not been considered in your post as far as I can see.
    I will use the modern statement (because the Clausius statement, I say, only applies in a horizontal plane where PE = constant.) Quoting from Wiki “Laws of Thermodynamics” item, the Second Law of Thermodynamics reads …

    “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.”

    Note also the definition of thermodynamic equilibrium

    “A thermodynamic system is in thermodynamic equilibrium when it is in thermal equilibrium, mechanical equilibrium, radiative equilibrium, and chemical equilibrium. Equilibrium means a state of balance. In a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, there are no net flows of matter or of energy, no phase changes, and no unbalanced potentials (or driving forces), within the system. A system that is in thermodynamic equilibrium experiences no changes when it is isolated from its surroundings.”

    So we also need mechanical equilibrium which involves no net mass transfer still happening.

    We will assume we have a perfectly insulated cylinder of pure nitrogen gas, so phase change, chemical reactions and radiation don’t play a part in disturbing the equilibrium.

    Now, when you turn the cylinder to a vertical position you have a situation which is not thermodynamic equilibrium. The “build up of pressure” is not instantaneous, as it requires physical movement of molecules with more ending up at the bottom.

    Hence, we immediately see that the original isothermal state in a horizontal position is no longer a state of thermodynamic equilibrium the instant it is in a vertical position. This in fact is obvious, because the mean of (PE+KE) for all the molecules in the top half is more than the mean of (PE+KE) for those in the bottom half. This is the very reason that the molecules move, and the fact that that movement amounts to work being done, demonstrates that the isothermal state in a vertical column was not a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.

    Hence an isothermal state IN A VERTICAL PLANE does not represent the required equilibrium conditions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    So we need to consider what then would be the thermodynamic equilibrium state representing greatest entropy, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
    .
    The very reason that the isothermal state was not in thermodynamic equilibrium is that the mean (PE+KE) was different in the top half and the bottom half, because then there was a propensity for some molecules to “fall” to lower heights, in order to create the extra pressure we do in fact observe.

    Hence, only when the mean (PE+KE) is homogeneous throughout the vertical column do we then have thermodynamic equilibrium which is also that of maximum entropy, wherein no extra work can be done by the system.

    Hence, only the state with homogeneous (PE+KE) per molecule satisfies the equilibrium requirements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    As a corollary, we then deduce that the mean KE is less where the mean PE is greater, and vice versa.

    Then, since temperature is a measure of mean KE and is independent of PE, we have a warmer temperature at the bottom (where PE is least) and a cooler temperature at the top where PE is greatest. QED

    • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 5:52 pm |

      I wish there was a way to not have to scroll past your posts, Doug. Could you maybe save that crap somewhere and just link to it to make it easier on the rest of us?

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 8:04 pm |

        I am waiting for you to prove me wrong, David Springer, with valid physics – see my comment to that effect. Let’s have your personal explanation and derivation of all that is required. Let’s see what you yourself know.

        I challenge you to open debate and I will show you up with valid physics based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and its maximum entropy requirements for thermodynamic equilibrium, these requirements necessitating a thermal gradient due to gravity.

        .

      • stefanthedenier | January 28, 2013 at 9:33 pm |

        Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 8:04 pm said: ” Second Law of Thermodynamics and its maximum entropy requirements for thermodynamic equilibrium, these requirements necessitating a thermal gradient due to gravity”

        Doug, what you keep repeating; that’s the Warmist gospel: thermodynamics, equilibrium, entropy, wow, wow, and WOW!!!

        They want you to keep repeating their crap; ” INAPPROPRIATE / physics, wrong direction, barking up their wrong tree.

        Same as debating: if more mama storks, or more papa storks will increase / decrease human overpopulation….

        Dough, talk to people with hang-gliders, you will learn a lot about the ”vertical winds” when and why they speed up and how strong they can get; why they stop – that would be an eye opener for you, to learn for yourself, what really regulates the heat in the atmosphere. Not your second law and the rest of the conmen’s gospel

        2] in the desert goes from 10C, to 45C and down to 10C next night, cooling of 35C, in 12h!!!! In the same time, in Fiji, cools only by 4-5C in those same 12h.

        The more warming equals MORE cooling Doug. because can cool by 30C more, in 12h, how the hell cannot cool miserable 0,5C, in a decade…?!
        Can you see what they have done to you, Doug… you better open your brains, if you still have it. You can’t even remember what I told you few weeks ago: there are only three different cycles -/ day / night cycles – winter summer cycle, AND Paris Hilton’s menstrual cycles. All the other cycles are crap – not even El Nino / la Nina are ”cycles” because they don’t start / stop at same intervals… use your brains / or lose it; rules of nature.

        The: ” Second Law of Thermodynamics / entropy requirements for thermodynamic equilibrium, thermal gradient due to gravity”
        Hallelujah! you are really suffering from inferiority complex…

        .

    • Wagathon | January 29, 2013 at 10:47 am |

      Let me help you out since Dr. Roy apparently is not around. What is happening has been happening for a long time so we for sure know exactly what’s going on. It’s a phase change–e.g., when the surface of oceans and lakes evaporate forming water vapor, leaving a cooler Earth behind as the vapor rises, forming clouds (which reflect solar energy). And, then the vapor condenses (another phase change which gives off energy to the limitless emptiness of space) and returns to Earth as cooling rain, hail, sleet and snow.

  91. David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 5:37 pm |

    Norway paper on smaller than thought climate sensitivity.

    Drudge Report picked it up.

    Revkin was right about “aggressive” but it’s not just lefty blogs now.

    http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=berntsen+climate&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4LENN_enUS461US461&q=berntsen+climate+sensitivity&gs_l=hp..0.41.0.0.0.1490………..0.4_dY4bTpEcg

    Get used to papers with lowered sensitivity estimates with each passing year of La Nada and especially La Nina. The two back to back La Ninas in the past 3 years coincided with a global average temperature drop of 0.374C according to RSS satellite MSU record. If it drops another 0.1C we’ll have an exactly average year.

    Check dat chit out below!

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2010/plot/rss/from:2010/trend/detrend:-0.374

    • David Springer | January 28, 2013 at 5:48 pm |

      Grand total global warming in RSS satellite record now:

      http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/every/plot/rss/every/trend/detrend:0.446

      0.46C over 34 years which works out to

      [drum roll please]

      0.135C/decade

      If it keeps up at this pace it’ll take 150 years for temperature to rise 2C from today.

      Fuggedabout hitting that limit in the year 2050 now. Try 2160 instead. Of course that’s just according to best instruments we have to bring to bear on global average temperature are telling us. Nattering nabobs of negativity disguised as concerned scientists and so forth may choose less than the best data.

      • Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 8:12 pm |

        You cannot get realistic temperature gradients from anything less than at least 100 years. The rate of increase was about 0.06C/decade a hundred years ago, and it has now reduced to about 0.05C/decade. Stop your cherry picking, David Springer, which ignores the 60 year cycle, which is very evident in the Appendix here. You’d better get your facts right in future, or I will pull your statements apart with valid physics and trend analysis, exposing you to all the silent readers.

      • stefanthedenier | January 28, 2013 at 8:58 pm |

        Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 8:12 pm said: ”The rate of increase was about 0.06C/decade a hundred years ago, and it has now reduced to about 0.05C/decade”

        Don’t worry Doug, i will not send you to the doctor; because medicos are not so precise in temp, to one hundredth of a degree… Actually, you know even the difference between . 0.05C and ,.0.06C…. for the WHOLE planet… WOW,

        (normal people don’t know that’s the global temp today, in +/- 3-4C; but you know exact global temp for 100y ago…?) …beyond help

  92. gbaikie | January 28, 2013 at 6:33 pm |

    Suppose Earth were to be completely covered with glacial ice.
    Make minimum depth [excluding mountain peaks] 2 miles thick.
    So fill in lower regions so get nice nearly perfect sphere of snow and
    ice.
    This would mean that it would long time before the skin surface could
    get above freezing. This also means Earth would have a very high bond albedo. And we talking about a snowball earth [something I think has never occurred on planet Earth].
    The question is, if one using Greenhouse effect theory, could temperature
    get back or approach our current average temperatures- within say 10,000 years. If one extend it to millions of years, it seems geological process and other process [including life] would eventually darken the top layer snow
    snow. And/or without geological or life processes it seems the snow darken
    due to space environment [everything micrometer dust to 1 km diameter rocks falling from the sky. Or the problem with having more than 2 miles of ice and snow is it doesn’t snow much- you get very old snow at the surface.

    So for this obvious reason we going limit the time to 10,000 years- but this doesn’t mean we stop Earth’s geology and life process, and stop stuff from falling from the sky. All we do is add 2 miles of glacier to earth globally and ask what happens within 10,000 years.
    So at moment we have volcanic eruptions occurring all over the world- and 2 miles of glacier ice isn’t going to change this. The most significant geological activity is Mid-Atlantic Ridge which spreading at 2.5 cm per year and some ice isn’t going to change this. So the spreading at 2.5 cm
    for 10,000 year is 250 meter wide. Though more significant is all spewing lava, which tends to melt ice. With Ocean of liquid water above it could evaporate this much energy without much trouble, but ice doesn’t evaporate much, and so doesn’t have capability to transfer vast amounts of heat.
    But we focus on what the sun is doing. As I said the skin surface can not get above 0 C, until the ice has melted- and there is 2 miles of it.
    So skin temperature has to be 0 C or cooler at least for such time periods of months of time, if not decades, centuries or millenniums.

    So what is the air temperature? Well if you go skiing you know the air temperature can get pretty warm when there is still snow on the ground- people can ski in bathing suits [if they aren’t always falling down]. But this
    isn’t in entire world covered with ice [the air is being heated elsewhere, and ski slopes can have manmade snow on trails leaving plenty trees bare of snow, so the region itself there plenty surfaces which can be warmed above 0 C.
    So to find better example of air conditions, you want vast regions covered by ice and having cloudless sky with the sun high in the sky.
    I can’t say I had any experience with this.
    But one thing which seem obvious- if it’s windy it will be cold. But also if it’s windy and in the sunlight it seems one will evaporate a fair amount of snow- given months of this. Why it’s guarantee to be cold if windy is one will have a lot of evaporation occurring.
    Getting sidetrack:
    “The original Amundsen-Scott station was largely abandoned in 1974 for a newer station nearby, constructed under a dome. That station, in turn, was recently abandoned for a brand new Amundsen-Scott facility, dedicated in 2008 — a gleaming construction perched atop 36 stilts that can be ratcheted higher when the snow begins to encroach.”
    And dirty glaciers:
    “Why does snow in a glacier or iceberg look dirty from a cruise ship? ”
    Answer:
    “First, snow crystals usually form on a tiny nucleus of soil, pollutant particle, or salt.

    Second, when snow falls from the cloud to the ground it “scavenges” soil, pollutants, salt, etc. from the air , although not as efficiently as rain does.

    Third, soil pollutants, salt, etc. naturally falls from the air onto a glacier.

    The accumulation of all of this “dirt” on the glacier over many years makes it look dirty. Also, the more the glacier melts or evaporates, the more concentrated the dirt layer on top becomes, making it look even dirtier. ”

    “The glacier, fed by a 500-square-mile ice field just over the mountains from Juneau, is littered with dirt, marring the view for tourists like herself, the woman complained.
    …
    In an article in the recent international journal, Nature, the scientists reveal evidence that glaciers don’t owe all their growth to snowfall. They also grow from the bottom up in a process that geologist Grahame Larson of Michigan State compares to opening a can of soda pop that has been in a freezer a bit too long.

    Suddenly released from the pressure of the can, the super-cooled liquid soda forms ice on the rim of the can. A similar process occurs in glaciers, the scientists say, and they have given it a name, “glaciohydraulic supercooling.”
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97550&page=1

    Hmm. If had 2 miles global high ice, would result be world flatter or is going make more mountainous. Certainly seems it would possible to be world with more erosion- even though watery world has a lot of erosion.

    Hmm so you at the equator on top of “ocean” of ice. What would the air temperature be at noon clear skies and if not windy?
    If the skin temperature has to be 0 C, does the air temperature have to be 0 C.
    What is average velocity of H20 gas evaporated from snow/Ice?
    What variation in the velocity of H2O gas evaporated from snow/Ice?

    How about isolating it. What if put snow in greenhouse. If air isn’t being warmed then greenhouse will not prevent air convection, so should not have a warming effect. So if had a greenhouse with 2 feet of snow on the floor, the air should be around 0 C [the outside air should slightly warming it]
    Is that true?

  93. Beth Cooper | January 28, 2013 at 8:32 pm |

    ‘Thought fer Today.’

    ‘In my course I have known and, according to my measure,
    have cooperated with great men, and I have never yet seen
    any plan which has not been mended by the observations of
    those who were much inferior in understanding to the person
    who took the lead in the business.’

    H/t Edmund Burke.

    Say, those great men leaders make mistakes and if a civilization
    is to survive and adapt to change, uncritical deference to the
    great man or to the almost infallible expert must be open to
    challenge.Ter repeat meself, ‘it’s still about Plato up on the hill
    and Socrates down in the agora.’
    Beth the serf.

  94. RiHo08 | January 28, 2013 at 10:10 pm |

    Capt’nDallas

    Here I am again:

    Also breaking fixed sea ice free allows it to move away from the pole and melt more quickly.I got it.

    That releases a good bit of stored energy. I got it.

    Higher tidal flooding also increases evaporation which in turn increases precipitation relocating glacial mass if you have a place to park it.. I don’t gpt it.

    Slow as molasses in January.

    • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 28, 2013 at 10:24 pm |

      Yep slow as ‘lasses in winter time :). The average frequency of the Bond events are 1470 years. It has been about 1470 year since we had one. Then there are shorter term impacts, 18.6, 37.2, 55.8 and 74.4 to list a few. Those may influence the PDO, and AMO. I did a post a while back on geomagnetic reversals and climate change that got me started on the ACC and the roaring forties. Muller has a ice age theory about the reversals but relies on impact events. Losing the Antarctic ice sheet every million years or so would fill that void pretty well.

      I think the solar/lunar thing might have legs :) CO2 dang sure doesn’t.

    • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 28, 2013 at 10:34 pm |

      RiH008, by the way, Mongolia had a little cold snap last week that dropped a meter or two of snow over 80% of the country. If there weren’t a crap load of people with mechanized equipment to clear that snow at that altitude, it might stick around a while. You might be amaze how rapid things could change if people weren’t around.

      • RiHo08 | January 28, 2013 at 11:24 pm |

        Capt’nDallas

        Am I readin’ you right, that the man (not Mann) thing is as important as the deep layered oceans truckin’ along in slo’ mo’?

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | January 29, 2013 at 7:32 am |

        RiH008, “Am I readin’ you right, that the man (not Mann) thing is as important as the deep layered oceans truckin’ along in slo’ mo’?”

        Has an impact. I don’t know if it is important or not, but there is an impact.

  95. Doug Cotton | January 28, 2013 at 10:56 pm |

    Those who wish to hang their hats on the original Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (as it pertains to a horizontal plane) and on the wishy-washy dismissal by Maxwell of the brilliant hypothesis of Loschmidt, will continue to live in the dream world physics of that century, oblivious to the subsequent research of physicists in the 20th and 21st centuries. But then, if you believe in a greenhouse effect, you do indeed believe in 19th century concepts, and you do indeed ignore subsequent scientific findings and, in particular, the modern form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which rules out any greenhouse effect due to its requirement for thermodynamic equilibrium in a state of maximum entropy.

    • Jim D | January 29, 2013 at 12:06 am |

      The convective lapse rate of the troposphere is a state of maximum entropy, and its maintenance is central to the AGW response to increased CO2.

      • Doug Cotton | January 29, 2013 at 2:45 am |

        The greenhouse effect depends totally and utterly on Roy Spencer’s Point (6) in his “misunderstandings” post – namely that the surface and atmosphere would have been 255K (all isothermal) without WV and GHG. This would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

        So, yes, the adiabatic lapse rate (caused by diffusion of KE even in still air) is maximum entropy, so I take it that you agree that the greenhouse conjecture is an absolute travesty of physics, totally ignoring the maximum entropy thermodynamic equilibrium which could never be a state of isothermal (zero lapse rate) such as they naively assumed could be the case.

        Furthermore, it is well known that WV reduces the lapse rate, so how could it have increased it jacking up the surface by the best part of 30 degrees as they claimed?

        The greenhouse bluff is the biggest fraudulent hoax the world has ever known, taking advantage of those who are gullible because they do not understand the Second law of Thermodynamics.

        If anyone wants to challenge me on this you had better demonstrate that you do understand the physics I am talking about.

      • Pekka Pirilä | January 29, 2013 at 1:14 pm |

        JimD,

        The state of the Earth atmosphere is not a thermodynamic equilibrium and it’s not a maximum entropy state. It’s (approximately) a stationary state maintained by the constant flow of energy through it. GHE raises the temperature level of both the surface and the troposphere but no significant GHE is needed for the presence of the adiabatic lapse rate.

        Without any emission from the top of the atmosphere the atmosphere would be very different, but I haven’t seen any convincing description of the nature of an atmosphere that’s totally transparent to radiation.

  96. Eli Rabett | January 28, 2013 at 11:19 pm |

    What is this, Lewandowsky’s Lab?

    • Howard | January 28, 2013 at 11:58 pm |

      You are just now fingering that out? Dr. Curry has been collecting field data on denier delusions and conspiracy theories with a grant from the Bland Corporation

      • WebHubTelescope | January 29, 2013 at 1:31 am |

        Cannibalism is starting to take place here, ha ha.
        The climate clowns have multiplied and essentially taken over Climate Etc.
        So what else can they do when they crowd each other out but start to eat their own.

        StefanTheDenier going after Doug Cotton.
        Myrrh going after OManuel.
        Doug Cotton going after Myrrh.
        Robert I Ellison going sock-puppet schizoid.

        Lord of The Flies was bound to happen. Interesting to watch from a distance.

    • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 1:02 pm |

      More like lord of the rings – with webby’s great eye seeing all. Except for the contributions of natural variability and the workings of dynamical complexity. His great contributions to climate science include – it’s all random with reversion to the mean, that energy is smeared across the spectrum in a classic Planck blackbody distribution by CO2 thus preserving the great hole in the emission sprectra, that average global wind speed is constant, that ocean warming is caused by the sky – although this somewhat evolved into the sky causing the oceans to warm by allowing SW preserving diffusional heat transfer from the atmosphere to the oceans and a spiffiing little two compartment carbon ‘model’. He has a talent for making the super complex simple enough for morons to understand – and yet somehow they don’t – and for science as a ‘contact sport’. He lives in his mother’s – Wilma – basement in northern Minnesota and wears leicra in the few days of summer while riding his carbon composite bicycle. He believes that all carbon should be managed by the government to ensure future supplies of cheap carbon composite materials. His heroes are Lance Amstrong and Winnie the Pooh.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 1:06 pm |

        Can it be a coincidence that Howard is an Ork and that Eli bears an uncanny resemblance to Gollum – my precious?

  97. pokerguy | January 29, 2013 at 12:07 am |

    Joshua,

    You’re so deeply over your head with the Chief I feel embarrassed for you. You as ever confuse your trivial truth mongering, and relentless tautology making, and monumentally tedious writing style… with meaningful dialogue. YOu’re all about showing how clever you are, and you only succeed in boring people half to death.

    • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 1:50 pm |

      PG –

      I don’t think I’m particularly clever at all, so I see no reason to try to show people my level of cleverness. I do, however, feel free to express my opinions.

      Thank you for voicing your opinion about me, personally.

      Now my question to you is why you feel compelled to do so as often as you do – particularly since you do it so frequently, and particularly since I have made it quite clear that your doing so has no effect, zero, nada, zilch, niente, bupkis, on my commenting behavior.

      Perhaps the explanation might be that you have such a low opinion of me, that you think that I am incapable of having understood your comments expressing your opinions about me, personally, and the value (lack thereof) of my comments in the past. In case that is the explanation, let me assure you that I fully understand that you don’t value my comments in the least, and further, that you have gone on to draw (negative) conclusions about me, personally, on the basis of my comments.

      I can assure you that further exploration of your obsession about me through posting comments will have no more beneficial effect (from your perspective) than your past exploration of your obsession about me. You can stop now. But if you do choose to continue, know two things: (1) I will appreciate the continuing amusement I get from your comments and (2) you will quite possibly see at least one more of my comments if you focus your comments on me (either directly or indirectly) – as I am likely to respond in one fashion or another. I’d like to suggest that you reflect on the lack of logic inherently imbedded in your behavior. Since (I’m guessing) you admire skepticism – you might find that dampening down your obsession with me might result in more skeptical behavior on your part.

      all the best,

      j.

  98. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 1:44 am |

    So what’s Plan B?

    Well it ain’t …
    ‘wipe the slate clean,’
    or ‘go back ter square one,’
    (the ”golden age’ scenario.)

    Say, pragmatic problem solving
    Might be the way ter go..
    And less all or nothing
    goddam Irrevocable.

  99. Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 1:47 am |

    Hey FOMBS,

    I think your latest comment was moderated before I could answer – but I don’t really mind answering. Do you imagine that I looked at a freakin’ list and demanded the most expensive antibiotic. No – it was prescribed by my attending doctor and the drips commenced before being substituted for something else by administrative fiat. Frankly – if I am paying for it through my private health insurance I expect to get what my doctor prescribes.

    As for your medical tragedy of the commons – hey that looks like my freakin’ big toe.

    As I say I am a great supporter of universal health care – as was Hayek – but I think I will go fully private should there be a next time. I am very relieved to have that choice – aye FOMBS?

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 29, 2013 at 2:13 am |

      LOL … perhaps the economic implications of a medical commons still elude your mind, Robert I Ellison?

      Fortunately your physicians seem to understand well enough!

      Say … try reading the links, why don’cha?

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 7:14 am |

      Odder still – why would my rather mild comments disappear without trace?

      Microbe resistance to antibiotics is an old story. But did you not get the bit where something was prescribed by my doctor? Is this the inevitable face of rationed public medicine? Much as I endorse universal health care – it is something I pay to avoid.

  100. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 1:53 am |

    Say Web HT, thought yer said yer weren’t coming back?
    But welcome back. Good ter have the sort of view only
    possible by means of a telescope, relatively objective and
    free of pesky human prejudice or invective.

    • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 2:51 am |

      Oh Beth – the view is via colonoscope. It’s all dark, murky and icky. Plan B is to actually get his head out of his arse but this will require major surgery. I would suggest that FOMBS (Fan of More BS) perform the operation – but he has his head up his arse as well and the risk is that they would collectively collapse into a climate black hole and destabilise the universe. It is something to do with p-branes in string theory and Bruce – at the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo – has the details.

      BTW – I have been accused of ontological scatology by Joshua. Do you think on serious reflection that I should refrain from saying that his prose reminds me of a monkey’s fart – and that he looks like one too?

      I am rather pleased with my flash rat couplet – what do you reckon?

      I am mad as a cut snake and flash as a dunny rat with a gold tooth.
      All it really takes is a soupcon of equanimity and a modicum of couth.

      All i need is a storyline to turn it into a ballad. Something where the Flash Rat has a misadventure and ultimately saves the day. Actually I have a profound song cycle called ‘The Nutters and Beggars Ball’ – I’ll scan and send it to you.

      Do you find when reading Doug – that you are reminded of Fred Dagg? ‘Le magnifique, sene par leguer.’ It is magnificent, but it is not the railway station. Le magnifique. Ce nes’t pas le 2nd law. It is magnificent – but it is not the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

      I’ll get out of your way now.

      Robert I Ellison
      Chief Hydrologist

  101. Doug Cotton | January 29, 2013 at 3:12 am |

    Manaker’s comment is worth reading.

    But you don’t need to be in doubt. Standard Physics can easily be invoked to prove that the whole concept of WV and GHG supposedly jacking up the thermal gradient is false, because the thermal gradient would have been there anyway as a corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as explained in just 10 minutes here.

  102. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 3:14 am |

    “Ce n’est pas le 2nd law “LOL
    I luv that, RIE.

    Beth the Serf.

  103. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 3:22 am |

    tonyb
    Welcome back to Climate etc. Do hope u enjoyed yer
    ski-ing holiday in Austria, compliments of oil money
    funding. )

    Beth the serf.

  104. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 4:01 am |

    Toney, oh noes, money from Big Wind!
    It’s – a – trav – est- y … ( sounds of echo chamber waiiiling.)

  105. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 4:04 am |

    Er Tony, don’t know where the ‘e’ came from. How many names
    have i mis-typed on this site …a travesty!

  106. Girma | January 29, 2013 at 7:27 am |

    The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) sand castle was built by smoothing all the oscillations in Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) before 1970s, leaving the warming phase of this oscillation since then untouched and calling it man-made, as shown in the chart below:

    IPCC Chart => http://bit.ly/OaemsT

    As shown in the IPCC chart above, the climate models don’t represent the observed global cooling from 1880s to 1910s and the global warming from 1910s to 1940s. As IPCC models fail to properly represent the known climate of the past, they have zero chance of predicting the unknown climate of the future.

  107. willard (@nevaudit) | January 29, 2013 at 8:02 am |

    A recent article on agriculture conservation released under Open Access, **Watershed Sediment Losses to Lakes Accelerating Despite Agricultural Soil Conservation Efforts**, by Adam J. Heathcote, Christopher T. Filstrup, and John A. Downing.

    Agricultural soil loss and deposition in aquatic ecosystems is a problem that impairs water quality worldwide and is costly to agriculture and food supplies. In the US, for example, billions of dollars have subsidized soil and water conservation practices in agricultural landscapes over the past decades. We used paleolimnological methods to reconstruct trends in sedimentation related to human-induced landscape change in 32 lakes in the intensively agricultural region of the Midwestern United States. Despite erosion control efforts, we found accelerating increases in sediment deposition from erosion; median erosion loss since 1800 has been 15.4 tons ha−1. Sediment deposition from erosion increased >6-fold, from 149 g m−2 yr−1 in 1850 to 986 g m−2 yr−1 by 2010. Average time to accumulate one mm of sediment decreased from 631 days before European settlement (ca. 1850) to 59 days mm−1 at present. Most of this sediment was deposited in the last 50 years and is related to agricultural intensification rather than land clearance or predominance of agricultural lands. In the face of these intensive agricultural practices, traditional soil conservation programs have not decelerated downstream losses. Despite large erosion control subsidies, erosion and declining water quality continue, thus new approaches are needed to mitigate erosion and water degradation.

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053554

    Here’s where I got the study:

    According to a new Iowa State University study, before the first European settlers reached what is now Iowa, it took 631 days for a single millimeter of sediment (that’s four-hundredths of an inch, less than the diameter of a regular pencil lead) to accumulate on the bottom of Iowa lakes. It now takes just 59 days.

    Researchers found that while sedimentation rates began to rise as soon as western agriculture arrived, “the largest increases in sediment deposition occurred after 1950, concurrent with agricultural intensification.”

    http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/01/sediment-study-shows-more-soil-conservation-needed/

    Seems that the word “mitigation” could have some positive connotations.

    • timg56 | January 30, 2013 at 1:01 pm |

      willard,

      If tasked with allocating resources, I’d have addressing soil loss well above addressing CO2 emissions on the the priority list.

      But then I’m subject to possible bias, as I was more of a soils and water quality guy in grad school, than atmos guy.

  108. David Springer | January 29, 2013 at 8:26 am |

    I see we have another fest going on. To avoid the risk of moderation I shall refrain from labeling it a c*nt but you know who you are so if the shoe fits, wear it.

    That is all and, as usual, write it down.

  109. Jim Cripwell | January 29, 2013 at 9:41 am |

    Let me bring this out as a new thread. JimD writes “An expected CO2 signal is seen in the IR spectrum, whether viewed from space or the ground, and the implications of a change in that spectrum is just physics. Block heat escaping and what happens?”

    What Jim writes is absolutely correct, and completely irrelevant. If I have seen this sort of statement once on CE, I have seen it a hundred times. I wonder whether Jim bothered to read what I wrote.

    The issue I am trying to address is the QUANTITATIVE statements of certainty and probability that the IPCC makes in the SPMs of the WG1 in the AR4. These are quantitative statements, and need to be addressed qantitatively, not qualitiatively as Jim has done.
    What I am looking for is the scientific basis for the IPCC’s claims of “extremely likely” and “very likely”, and no-one seems to want to address this issue.

  110. manacker | January 29, 2013 at 11:10 am |

    This is old news to many here, but it apparently getting media attention in the USA:

    IPCC models overestimated warming
    http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/

    Max

  111. manacker | January 29, 2013 at 11:51 am |

    Willard

    The NASA site you cite presents the standard “pablum”.

    – Solar impact limited to changes in solar irradiance.

    – No mention of the galactic cosmic ray / cloud nucleation hypothesis being tested experimentally at CERN or of clouds as a separate forcing mechanism (rather than simply a feedback).

    – No mention of the large uncertainty on natural forcing mechanisms / natural variability

    It’s simply “IPCC for dummies”.

    Max

  112. Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 11:57 am |

    willard –

    Indeed, even a pissant such as myself can see the value of conservation agriculture (assuming that the Chief will allow any convergence into his closed mind – Willis has to shower and re-evaluate his fundamental assumptions after doing so).

  113. R. Gates | January 29, 2013 at 2:06 pm |

    Seems Antarctic waters warming more than some have thought:

    http://phys.org/news/2013-01-toll-antarctic-shellfish.html

  114. Tom | January 29, 2013 at 2:33 pm |

    You now owe the US, 53K. Have a nice day.

  115. Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 2:53 pm |

    jim2 –

    Sorry for my confusion. I now understand: The rule of law is what you say it is, no matter what laws may or may not be on the books, and enforced, perhaps under the penalty of death (for those who helped slaves to escape).

    Any laws you don’t like are not laws, whether they are laws or not. Any disobedience w/r/t what you determine to being the rule of law = a violation irrespective of any laws there may actually be in place.

    And thus, a “free market” is what you determine it to be, and “individual freedom” is what you interpret it to be, and anyone who interprets those concepts differently is simply not applying the definitions as you deem appropriate.

    The answer was so simple, yet eluded my intellectual grasp. Imagine my embarrassment.

    • Tom | January 29, 2013 at 3:13 pm |

      Sounds like the same kind of stuff my dad was doing while he was in the Army, 1944-1945. How about yours?

    • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 4:05 pm |

      Josh

      You are revealing that your “intellectual grasp” is, indeed, limited (as you concede).

      Best to simply stop commenting – it will keep you from looking even sillier than you already do.

      Max

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 3:42 pm |

        manacker –

        Best to simply stop commenting – it will keep you from looking even sillier than you already do.

        There are two advantages of not being very bright. The first is that I don’t have to worry about people concluding that I’m not very bright – it is obvious. So there is no reason for me to feel I need to hide something.

        The second is that it only adds to my ability to expose the flaws in someone’s thinking If someone with intellectual abilities as limited as mine can point out the flaws in the argument of someone obviously superior, intellectually – it helps to show that their thinking is being influence by bias.

        Take, as examples, just two of the times that I have shown obvious flaws in your thinking: when you completely mischaracterized the views of Muller and when you completely mischaracterized the views of Judith. How could someone as smart as you make such obvious mistakes, mistakes that even someone as limited in intelligence as myself could see so easily? Obviously, the only explanation must be bias, right?

        At any rate, thank you for you advice. Coming from someone so superior in intellectual ability such as yourself, I suppose I should follow what you suggest. But I’m a stubborn fellow, now aren’t I?

      • John Carpenter | January 30, 2013 at 4:40 pm |

        “There are two advantages of not being very bright.”

        Ah yes Joshua, the self depreciating offensive… how very passive aggressive. I employ that same tactic myself at times… dumb like a fox some people say :^)

    • jim2 | January 29, 2013 at 7:27 pm |

      @Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 2:53 pm
      Sorry, but you seem very dense on this topic. The Rule of Law is a set of principles. The fact that some founders practices slavery and some laws enabled that is completely separate from the Rule of Law.

      This has nothing to do with whether someone likes this or that law or if they subscribe to the Rule of Law. Humans frequently hold contradictory views. Again, none of this means the Rule of Law is somehow stained by slavery.

      That idea is just plain nutty.

  116. Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 3:16 pm |

    The libertarian challenge is as I say to frame a positive narrative for the future of the world. The essence of this future is free markets, free peoples, economic development, sustainable environments, democracy and the rule of law as defined in the best contemporary practice. Times change and the Whig ideal with it. I am not mad but it is that challenge and how it may be expressed that engages my attention from time to time.

    Your distinction between pissant and libertarian is purely arbitrary, unscientifically selective, an indicator of your outsized sense of self-worth, a by-product of your lack of introspection, and an unfortunate outgrowth of your fear of imaginary “enemies.”

    Amartya Sen, pissant progressive or libertarian?: You make the call:

    http://www.amazon.com/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya-Sen/dp/0385720270#reader_0385720270

    • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 3:18 pm |

      Dagnabit. I keep forgetting:

      all the best,

      J.

      • timg56 | January 30, 2013 at 1:23 pm |

        Josh,

        Regarding your discussion with Chief on Progressives:

        I would refrain from the tag pissant. In my opinion there are positive and negative aspects to what I see as a Progressive belief structure. And I would place in the negative column the belief, clearly held by people for whom Progressive would be an apt descriptor, that human beings are a plague on this planet and the world would be a much better place with far fewer of us.

        ”My three goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
        David Foreman,
        co-founder of Earth First!

        ”A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
        Ted Turner,
        Founder of CNN and major UN donor

        ”The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
        Jeremy Rifkin,
        Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

        ”Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
        Paul Ehrlich,
        Professor of Population Studies,
        Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”

        ”The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
        Sir James Lovelock,

        ”Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
        David Brower,
        First Executive Director of the Sierra Club

        ”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
        Maurice Strong,
        Founder of the UN Environmental Program

        ”A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
        Paul Ehrlich,
        Professor of Population Studies,
        Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”

        ”If I were reincarnated I would wish to return to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
        Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh,
        husband of Queen Elizabeth II,
        Patron of the Patron of the World Wildlife Foundation

        ”The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization we have in the US. We have to stop these third World countries right where they are.”
        Michael Oppenheimer
        Environmental Defense Fund

        ”Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
        Professor Maurice King

        ”Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
        Maurice Strong,
        Rio Earth Summit

        ”Complex technology of any sort is an assault on the human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
        Amory Lovins,
        Rocky Mountain Institute

        ”I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. it played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
        John Davis,
        Editor of Earth First! Journal

        While it may be true that the majority of people considering themselves to be Progressive do not hold with such views, a large number do. My personal opinion is that when discussing crimes against humanity, the individuals quoted above should be included in the discussion. Too bad they lack conviction in their belief system. If they did, it would be a self-correcting problem.

      • Rob Starkey | January 30, 2013 at 1:33 pm |

        timg56- +1- there are many forms of prejudice.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 2:48 pm |

        tim –

        While it may be true that the majority of people considering themselves to be Progressive do not hold with such views, a large number do.

        What is a “large number?”

        I know many people who self-identify as progressives, and no doubt, quite a few of them believe that over-population represents a potential problem. I would say, however, that nary a one would agree with the statement that humans are “a plague on this planet.”

        I tend to doubt that the sample of people I know who self-identify as “progressives” is a particularly un-representative sample, and indeed I do not see in (at least some of) those quotes you offered, support for the contention that all those quoted see humans as “a plague on this planet.”

        I mean, seriously, you go from this:

        ”Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”

        …to “humans are a plague on this planet?”

        Really?

        And let’s look at this statement of yours…

        …the belief, clearly held by people for whom Progressive would be an apt descriptor, that human beings are a plague on this planet and the world would be a much better place with far fewer of us.

        I don’t agree that the first belief (that you assume) is a prerequisite for the second belief. I.e., I might think that the world is better off with fewer people without thinking that humans are a “plague on this planet.”

        Further, many of those statements of belief seem to be w/r/t “far fewer” than there may potentially be with uncontrolled growth, as opposed to “far fewer” than currently exist.

        Finally, even if I did think that “humans are a plague on the planet,” it is simply a belief. It does not necessarily mean that I would advocate any particular policy. I.e., it might mean that I would advocate for greater access to birth control, or more efforts to education poor woman (because that drives down rates of population growth).

        My personal opinion is that when discussing crimes against humanity, the individuals quoted above should be included in the discussion.

        Really? So let’s look at that for a second. Let’s take one of the more extreme statements (that of Ted Turner). Now I’d say that follow-on clarification he offered is relevant – in that what he said he was advocating was a voluntary pledge to limit their families to one or two children. Now independently of how we judge the wisdom of that advocacy, I’d say that it is a bit of a stretch to view advocating such a belief as being on the same level as committing crimes against humanity. I mean, really, you are saying that expressing a belief that there should be a voluntary effort to limit family sizes is the equivalent of:

        atrocity (as extermination or enslavement) that is directed especially against an entire population or part of a population on specious grounds and without regard to individual guilt or responsibility even on such grounds </blockquote

        Dude!

      • timg56 | January 30, 2013 at 3:57 pm |

        Josh,

        1) I am well aware of your ability to pick out snippets of a comment and diassect on semantics. No need to demostrate it at every turn.

        2) I don’t claim that your experiences are the same as mine. Do you have any other basis to dispute my experiences regarding opinions and believes which people who are willing to self describe as progressive have expressed or may agree with?

        3) You are attributing statements to me I did not make. They are quotes of others (all identified as to whom).

        4) I would point out that your being intelligent and educated enough to engage in parlor debate simply for the enjoyment of it should not be confused with the ability of the average person to reach reasonable conclusions when presented with a body of evidence. In other words, most people who read the quotes I offered up would have no problem with the idea that the people quoted believe it is mankind itself representing the planet’s biggest problem. It is not the great stretch you portray to call it a plague.

        So Josh, do you really want to argue that those quoted do not believe humans are this planet’s biggest problem? Or that they believe global population needs to be radically reduced?

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 4:28 pm |

        tim –

        3) You are attributing statements to me I did not make. They are quotes of others (all identified as to whom).

        Huh?

        I don’t think I did so. Could you elaborate?

        2) I don’t claim that your experiences are the same as mine. Do you have any other basis to dispute my experiences regarding opinions and believes which people who are willing to self describe as progressive have expressed or may agree with?

        I didn’t think that you had made any such claim that my experiences are the same as yours, and I never intended to imply such. I am not disputing your experiences. I am simply stating that in my experience, which I don’t consider likely to be an outlier, there are very few progressives who would ever say that “humans are a plague on this planet,” or that “mankind itself is the planet’s biggest problem.” This is in direct contrast to the statements you made.

        4) I would point out that your being intelligent and educated enough to engage in parlor debate simply for the enjoyment of it should not be confused with the ability of the average person to reach reasonable conclusions when presented with a body of evidence.

        I have not made any assumptions in w/r/t my debating with you and what “the average person” might conclude. Seems like a complete non-sequitur, IMO.

        In other words, most people who read the quotes I offered up would have no problem with the idea that the people quoted believe it is mankind itself representing the planet’s biggest problem. It is not the great stretch you portray to call it a plague.

        I would think that people less invested than you, would conclude that at least some of those people believe that over-population represents a significant problem, and that our current use of resources – particularly given a growing population – is not sustainable. Again, I argue that is certainly not the same as humans being a “plague on the planet” – or even that “mankind itself represent[s] the planet’s biggest problem.”

        I’m not sure where else we can go with this. I am saying that you are hyperbolizing, and stretching the intended meaning of (at least some of) those quotes far beyond that which the quotee intended. If you disagree, so be it. And obviously, anyone else reading will draw their own conclusions. Most likely, their conclusions will be in accord with the ideological framework. I have no problem that that, and I’m not particularly concerned with the “ability of the average person to reach reasonable conclusions” w/r/t our exchange. I make my argument and I’m content with that as my primary end goal.

        It is not the great stretch you portray to call it a plague.

        Again, I don’t agree. I think it is entirely possible to believe that a growing population, and our present management of resources, presents a real danger in the future and is basically not sustainable, without thinking that “mankind itself” represents “the planet’s biggest problem,” or that humans are a “plague.” Over population and current resource management ≠ “mankind itself.” Concerns about overpopulation ≠ considering humans to be a “plague.”

        In point of fact, while I don’t know that being a “progressive” means a particular focus on those problems, I do know many self-identified “progressives” who are concerned with those problems but who don’t believe that “mankind itself is the planet’s biggest problem,” and they don’t consider humans to be a “plague.” I know this for a fact.

        Seems like we’re inclined to repeat ourselves here…. so maybe this should just be one of those “agree to disagree” points?

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 12:03 pm |

        tim –

        W/r/t the validity of the stereotypes and boogeymen being bandied about:

        http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/04/03/1

      • JCH | January 31, 2013 at 12:37 pm |

        Joshua – that’s a good read. They own land next to my Dad’s farm. They wanted to buy some of Dad’s land to build a parking lot for visitors to their land. I told Dad not to do it because I don’t want any more “parasites” near/on his land.

    • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 4:21 pm |

      The pissant progressive I have defined as typiclly inner city, green voting, latte sipping enclaves pontificating on limits to growth, the human race as a pestilence, ‘economic degrowth’, the failure of democracy, the abolishment of capitalism and industry – all the while peddling a climate of catastrophe and plotting a transformational moment for societies and economies. Please – it is the contemporary version of socialist revolution and all that implies. Pissant progressive or not Joshua – you make the call. But these are all tendencies that are quite evident in contemporary western societies. I am quite sure I have not imagined it.

      From what little I have read of Sen – the thrust seems the complete opposite to just those freedoms most possible in modern, stable, democratic and capitalist systems. Else how would I be sitting up in bed sipping long blacks and blogging when I should be up and about. It is what the sane amongst us want for everyone. Freedom and development is the key to peace and progress this century. Development is the great challenge of our time or risk even greater horrors than seen last century. This century there is an opportunity to mature as a race or there is an opportunity lost.

      Although I am small voice I have – like Walt Whitrman – commenced and hope to cease not until death.

      Robert I Ellison
      Chief Hydrologist

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 4:38 pm |

        The pissant progressive I have defined as typiclly inner city, green voting, latte sipping enclaves pontificating on limits to growth, the human race as a pestilence, ‘economic degrowth’, the failure of democracy, the abolishment of capitalism and industry – all the while peddling a climate of catastrophe and plotting a transformational moment for societies and economies.

        Yes. And there are so many people who fit that description. Everywhere I look, people “pontificating” about “the human race as pestilence,” the “abolishment of capitalism and industry.” Yes, yes indeed, there are so many of them about. And they have so much influence, even beyond a mere reflection of their enormity in number – as hard as that is to believe. And yes, drinking lattes each and every one of them. It is uncanny – isn’t it? I mean it’s not like you’re just hyberbolizing in conspiratorial and about basically non-existent entities.

        From what little I have read of Sen – the thrust seems the complete opposite to just those freedoms most possible in modern, stable, democratic and capitalist systems.

        And please do, elaborate. Explain in a bit more detail how the thrust of Sen’s work is “the complete opposite of just those freedoms most possible in modern, democratic and capitalist systems.” I look forward to something a tad more substantial than argument by assertion. (Or perhaps you could just admit that you actually haven’t read him or that you can’t come up with a substantial counterargument?)

        Although I am small voice I have – like Walt Whitrman – commenced and hope to cease not until death.

        Yes, indeedy. Like two peas in a pod, you and Walt. A world renown poet, and someone who posts fantasize conspiracies in blog comments, and fancies himself a poet despite spending significant chunks of his time writing about farts, arses, and cleaning his keyboard.

        Like two peas in a pod. No delusions of grandeur there. Nosireebub.

        all the best,

        j.

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 4:48 pm |

        I can’t help but think…such a tragedy that Walt didn’t live long enough to be honored by the association with you…

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 5:06 pm |

        Stop hyperventilating Joshua.

        Perhaps I was not clear – Sen asserts that freedom is the essence of development. I quite agree.

        …the thrust seems the complete opposite (going) to just those freedoms most possible in modern, stable, democratic and capitalist systems…

        What a difference a word makes.

        “We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” http://www.mercatornet.com/demography/view/11725

        Really you are a pompous idjit Joshua – content to lie, dissimulate and insult in some strange game of pissant progressive politics.

        Let me quote from someone much more civilised.

        ‘I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
        And what I assume you shall assume,
        For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
        I loafe and invite my soul,
        I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
        My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
        air,
        Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
        parents the same,
        I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
        Hoping to cease not till death. ‘

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 5:10 pm |

        And really – I make no mention of the enormity of their numbers. Indeed – I have clearly they are 5 percenters and hardly likely to grow beyond that. Their only power is in the confusion they sow in the public spaces. Sound like you Joshua?

      • Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 5:50 pm |

        Sen asserts that freedom is the essence of development. I quite agree.

        So then, you, and I, and Sen, agree (do you wonder if Sen drinks lattes?), yet I’m a pissant and you are a libertarian warrior struggling to protect those noble ideals from assault?

        So do you now, chief, after our little exercise, that just a brief scratch on the surface, and we find that your taxonomy has no foundation? It is as I said, a conspiratorial rant, a self-serving confirmation of bias, no more substantial than your comparison of your endeavor (by posting comments on a blog) to the life work of a great literary figure. You steer your little taxonomy as like a little ship, tilting at windmills as you and it float around in space — with no tether to reality.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 6:21 pm |

        ‘The five segments of what may be termed Australia’s demographic plate tectonics include the following:

        The inner-city elite: a fast-rising population, living within a 5km radius of the centre of all capital cities. This “hipster” community contains 1.3 million residents, about 5 per cent of the nation’s total and up 24 per cent across the past decade.

        This segment includes the residents of Sydney’s Paddington, Melbourne’s Carlton and Brisbane’s New Farm. The inner-city elite tends to be better educated, more global, as in born overseas, and likelier to earn higher incomes than other tribes. They are less likely to be married with children and, based on the most recent federal election results, likelier to vote for the Greens or ALP. About half the nation’s inner-city elite lives in Sydney and Melbourne. You can tell if you live in a hipster household because there’s goat’s cheese in the fridge.’

        http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/the-five-tribes-that-shape-our-modern-nation/story-e6frg9jx-1226405893376

        I have actually lived in Paddington many years ago – with it’s then eclectic collection of artists, musicians and bohemians in the tradition of Marcus Clarke – dancing with empty pockets.

        ‘Bohemians – as a reference to artists and intellectuals living on the edge and pushing the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour – is a concept which was born in Paris in the 1830s. The idea of artists living like gypsies was popularised throughout Europe through people like Arthur Rimbaud and his lover Paul Verlaine in France, Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley in Britain and subsequently by Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman in America.’

        Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/true-blue-bohemians-20121102-28nlq.html#ixzz2JPPQejLl

        I have lived in New Farm much more recently and quite like goats milk cheese, cafe society, art galleries and concerts. Perhaps I am a closet pissant progressive. But you my not so fond friend are all sorts of a fool.

    • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 7:31 pm |

      You object to the identification of a social movements central to which are a core of ideas instantly reognisable – and which are completely at odds with ideas of economic growth. Something which is critical for human development this century. Surely there is a social divide there and one that should be exposed to the light of day.

      Be a man and say what you stand for and not what it is that you – or your friends – might not possibly agree or disagree with if in this forum or that.

  117. gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 4:02 pm |

    ” Myrrh | January 26, 2013 at 7:58 am |

    lolwot | January 26, 2013 at 5:18 am | Temperature of Earth without any atmosphere = -18°C
    Temperature of Earth with atmosphere but without water = 67°C

    So the second one which has CO2 in the atmosphere is 85C warmer than the case without CO2.

    And you think that’s arguing against the greenhouse effect….

    Good grief, you can’t even show how your AGW “greenhouse gases” are able to raise the temperature of anything the fictional 33°C and now you want to claim that the trace gas carbon dioxide can raise the temperature 100°C!

    How can any of you claiming this possible think you’re capable of scientific reasoning when you have no sense of scale or any understanding of the power to do work?

    None of you has anything of value to say about climate when you claim that visible light from the Sun has the power to heat land and water at the equator to the intensity it is heated which gives us our huge winds and weather systems so hardly surprising that you’d claim supermolecule powers for carbon dioxide – pathetic.”

    I just noticed how opposite Myrrh’s view is from Greenhouse theory.
    The lack water vapor [and lack ocean] is suppose to cause HUGE increase in global temperature. And Greenhouse theory according the CAGWers one gets a massive increase in water vapor can cause Venus like condition [HUGE increase in global average temperature].
    I don’t agree with either, but CAGWers do in an indirect way say that an ocean of water makes a planet unstable in terms of ever increasing global temperature. CAGWer think one also need a bit of CO2, but is the H2O which doing all the massive amount of heating.

    In a sense my views are in the middle [not that I have ever tried to be a moderate]. I think if one were to put an ocean of water in Venus, one would see HUGE *decrease* in global temperature. And I think if you put an ocean on Mars one would get a HUGE *increase* in average temperature.
    By HUGE I mean lowering Venus average temperature by more than 200 C, and HUGE with Mars it might more than 50 C increase in average temperature. At present Mars: Average temperature: ~210 K (-63 C).

    But in some sense I agree with both views.
    I would say the water moderates the average global temperature.
    Water not only is needed for life to exist as we know it, but also water increases a solar system’s habitable zone- planet which can have life
    can closer and further from the star if it has oceans of water.
    In terms the allowable habitable zone due to presence of oceans, it seems that Myrrh and the CAGWer sort of agree. The presence of oceans of water decrease the possible extent of the habitable zone.
    So in this sense I don’t agree with either of them.

    Now problem with Myrrh is he refuses to quantify and at same time wants people to disprove his ideas. Not scientific.
    And he seems to place much faith authority. Old authority figures.
    Say any authority which is 50 years in the past must correct. And all authority figures of the present have plots to deceive everyone.
    Of course, the CAGWers should not consider this as too funny, as their totalitarian views are prehistoric, and in general they have tendency to want everyone in the present to disappear somehow [the biggest problem for them is there are too many people- quite a murderous ideology].

    But I think I can skirt the issue of Myrrh refusal to quantify by addressing
    quantity in very broad terms. So we have not quantified longwave IR
    coming from the Sun and this warms planet Earth. But likewise warms
    Venus and warms Mars. Neither Mars or Venus have oceans of water.
    Both have more CO2 in their atmosphere than Earth. And they have the follow average distance from the Sun:
    Earth: 149.6 million km
    Venus: 108.2 million km
    Mars: 227.9 million km
    Now Myrrh may or may agree with the estimates of amount solar energy
    reaching each of these planets [though probably fairly old estimates which somewhat correct- he could find if he wanted to]. But present estimate is Venus gets about 2700 watts per square meter, Earth gets
    1363 watts per square meter, and Mars 600 watts per square meter.
    So we suppose the unquantified longwave IR has similar affects due to distance as the measured solar energy.

    So Mars is generally little understood by most people. It’s probably colder and warmer [at same time] than most imagine. Very cold air temperature [particularly average air temperature] and the surface in sunlight can warm up to as much as 80 F [26 C]- I bet some people on Earth are at this moment wishing they had surface temperature of 80 F.
    Of course another aspect is Venus and Earth have close to circular
    orbital path around the Sun. And Mars orbit doesn’t have such
    perfection. Shortest distance: 206.6 and longest is 249.2 million km.

    So with that said, why does Myrrh think Mars is so cold. There is no clouds to speak of and no oceans of water, nor much water vapor in the atmosphere?

    Another thing not realized is amount solar energy that reaches Earth compared to Mars surface isn’t much different. Most people fail to understand how much our clear skies block solar energy.
    This could help Myrrh a bit, but he would have to admit that his longwave
    IR is *also* blocked by our atmosphere- which may or my not be problematic.
    But basic fact, Mars is waterless, and why is it not warmer?

  118. GaryM | January 29, 2013 at 4:13 pm |

    Obama save us!

    The kitties are coming!!

    THE KITTIES ARE COMING!!!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21236690

  119. BBD | January 29, 2013 at 4:16 pm |

    Oh dear.

  120. Doug Cotton | January 29, 2013 at 4:17 pm |

    Jim Gases still cannot radiate spontaneously with more intensity (at any particular frequency) than is indicated by the Planck curve. Carbon dioxide radiates most at 15 microns when it is up in the mesosphere at about -80C, but it still radiates about half as much in that band at mid-troposphere temperatures as indicated by its Planck curve. Its effect on slowing radiative cooling is minimal when it is up against a full Planck spectrum from the Earth’s surface. Water vapour has a greater effect per molecule because it radiates in more frequencies. However, water vapour reduces the thermal gradient to the “wet adiabatic lapse rate” and so, to maintain outward radiation levels, the plot of temperature against altitude swivels around some point between its ends.. This means a lower surface temperature and thus negative feedback – which totally destroys the IPCC sensitivity calculations because they assume positive feedback.

    • Jim D | January 29, 2013 at 11:00 pm |

      You can learn a lot about quantitative spectral effects by looking at the U. Chicago MODTRAN calculator by David Archer. CO2 shows up well in the spectra being quite separate from water vapor.

    • Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 3:41 am |

      You can learn a lot about Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics by looking at my paper of that title. Then maybe you’ll understand where some others have been mistaken, especially regarding the radiation from gases. You’ll learn, for example, why each molecule of water vapour slows the rate of radiative cooling far more effectively than does each molecule of carbon dioxide, despite what you may have been brainwashed to believe in climatology circles.

  121. GaryM | January 29, 2013 at 4:17 pm |

    Who’s controlling the threading today? Professor Irwin Corey?

  122. Modern Science Ideas | January 29, 2013 at 5:27 pm |

    It turns out the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is about 14 degrees C, and as such humans face a severe impending existential threat.

    It all starts with Arctic Sea Ice decline. The decline in arctic sea ice extent is now resembling a series of catastrophic step collapses rather than the slow and steady decline that was forecast. These step collapses will continue until the Arctic enters a final collapse into a new regime of ice free summers. This will result in a surge in Arctic and Global surface temperature which in turn will accelerate the complete year round loss of sea ice in the arctic.

    As a result the arctic Climate State will flip from a Frozen Climate to a Tropical Climate State. Temperatures as high as 20 degrees C will become common in WINTER and Summer will see blistering temperatures of 40C. The knock on effect of this change will be to push sub-arctic Northern Hemisphere temperatures up 10 degrees C on average. The Greenland ice sheet will rapidly destabilize as a result prompting further warming and the beginning of catastrophic Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse.

    This will all occur on timescales very much faster than the IPCC or any scientists have foretasted because they have underestimated the sensitivity of the Arctic Climate in the current holocene state.

    They have also underestimated the sensitivity of the climate to rapid CO2 changes. The climate in it’s natural state can buffer against natural CO2 rises on the order of 0.02ppm per year. But humans emissions are causing CO2 changes 10x this amount which nature is unable to buffer as efficiently and so is more sensitive the the radiative warming power of the CO2. This effect has not yet been put into climate models.

    • gbaikie | January 29, 2013 at 6:23 pm |

      “It turns out the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is about 14 degrees C, and as such humans face a severe impending existential threat.”

      CO2 levels are fairly close to 400 ppm.
      How many doubling of CO2 is 400 ppm?

      Same question how warming much does a level of 12.5 ppm or
      12500 ppb of CO2 have?
      Is there any warming compared to lower level of 6250 ppb of average global CO2?

      Remember, what is claimed as the most potent greenhouse
      gas are measured in ppb- such as, global Methane levels.
      Such as in 1982 global methane is about 1600 ppb and
      in 2012 it’s measured as 1800 ppb.
      http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
      Obviously not a doubling but such increase is considered
      by many to have caused a small amount global warming.
      Now doubling of global Methane is suppose to cause more
      warming as it’s more potent than CO2 [some say about 16 times
      more potent]. So doubt anyone would claim increase of CO2
      from 1600 ppb to 1800 ppb would cause much warming, but
      I am asking about from 6250 ppb to 12500 ppb of CO2.

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm |

        Only the upcoming doubling of CO2 will trigger 14C warming, because it is this doubling that takes the climate to an Arctic state free of sea ice.

        The presence of Arctic Sea Ice in Summer and Winter greatly suppresses climate sensitivity, but once that is lost temperatures will rocket upwards leading to mass catastrophic extinctions around the world.

      • gbaikie | January 30, 2013 at 2:09 pm |

        I am using multiple disciplines, including Engineering, Physics and “Geology in order to determine how our climate works. I find expected warming caused primarily by human CO2 emissions will approach 20 degrees C and threaten the extinction of most of life on Earth. ”

        Mars has many time more CO2 in it’s atmosphere than Earth does.
        Mars has very thin atmosphere but 95% CO2. Earth has 100 times more
        atmosphere but has .04 % CO2.
        Earth atmosphere has couple trillion tonnes of CO2
        Mars atmosphere is about 2.5 x 10^16 kg
        http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
        Or 25 trillion tonnes of 95% CO2 atmosphere on a much smaller
        planet.
        So Mars has about 4 doublings of CO2 as compared to Earth.
        No one imagines Mars has 20 C of warming from a Greenhouse Effect- instead it’s thought to be some single digit number.

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 3:57 pm |

        This is because Mars’s atmosphere is too thin. On Earth (and indeed Venus) the atmosphere is much thicker and so the CO2 has a larger effect.

      • gbaikie | January 31, 2013 at 1:34 am |

        Modern Science Ideas
        “This is because Mars’s atmosphere is too thin. On Earth (and indeed Venus) the atmosphere is much thicker and so the CO2 has a larger effect.”

        Yes, Mars atmosphere is thin. But it has many times more CO2 than earth’s atmosphere has.
        So are you saying that the Nitrogen and Oxygen which the vast majority of Earth’s atmosphere is responsible in helping cause the Greenhouse Effect?
        Cause that is not part of greenhouse effect theory.
        I happen to think the vast majority of Earth’s gases is causing the “Greenhouse Effect”.
        But I am considered [rightly] to be a skeptic of this theory.

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 31, 2013 at 6:24 pm |

        The primary greenhouse gas on Earth is CO2. Water vapor is actually negated as a greenhouse gas by the evapotranspiration effect.

        On Mars the atmosphere is too thin for the greenhouse effect to take hold.

    • manacker | January 29, 2013 at 6:29 pm |

      Modern Science Ideas

      Thanks for your sci-fi description of what is going to happen.

      What kind of a crystal ball are you using?

      Max

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 1:37 pm |

        I am using multiple disciplines, including Engineering, Physics and Geology in order to determine how our climate works. I find expected warming caused primarily by human CO2 emissions will approach 20 degrees C and threaten the extinction of most of life on Earth.

        This is because it is delta CO2, not abs CO2 that determines the sensitivity of temperature changes, plus the sensitivity of the Arctic in current holocene climate has Earth on a knife-edge. Scientists have been far too conservative with their models and haven’t factored these aspects into account.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 2:02 pm |

        Modern Science Ideas

        Nice that you are using several “disciplines” to tell you what the future will look like.

        Are you making any wagers?

        Your 20C warming from human CO2 is so far off the wall that you should be able to get a lot of people to bet against it, and thereby make a fortune when it happens.

        What’s going to happen in the next two years as this runaway warming gets rolling?

        0.2C warming per year? (To get to 20C by 2100 you’ll need things to warm up pretty soon.)

        Sounds frightening.

        Max

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 4:02 pm |

        The temperature response in a non-linear Climate is non-linear. > 20 C warming will occur suddenly and catastrophically in bursts as the Arctic Sea Ice threshold that has held our Earth cool for millenia is breached. There is nothing linear about this, anymore than the transition from solid ice to liquid water over the range -5C to 5C is linear.

        This in conjunction with rapidly increasing CO2 levels is a perfect storm of conditions that will present an “annihilation event” (rather than merely a mass extinction event which would be less severe) for life on Earth.

    • stefanthedenier | January 29, 2013 at 9:28 pm |

      Modern Science Ideas | January 29, 2013 at 5:27 pm lied: ”It turns out the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is about 14 degrees C, and as such humans face a severe impending existential threat”.

      ANOTHER LIE: ”The decline in arctic sea ice extent is now resembling a series of catastrophic step collapses rather than the slow and steady decline that was forecast” He forgot to say: ”’BOOO!” on the end of the sentence

      EVEN BIGGER LIE: ”Arctic enters a final collapse into a new regime of ice free summers. This will result in a surge in Arctic and Global surface temperature As a result the arctic Climate State will flip from a Frozen Climate to a Tropical Climate State.” WOW, this is ” old sorcerer’s science”

      Where to start listen con: for a start, less ice on Arctic means ”COLDER”, not warmer! Without ice as insulator from the cold air – water becomes much colder and spreads by the currents that EXTRA coldness south to the gulf – then to the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic sea.

      http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/midi-ice-age-can-be-avoided/

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 1:38 pm |

        Less arctic sea ice means a far hotter Arctic.

        As I predicted the Arctic has warmed substantially in recent decades in the face of a huge loss in sea ice.

        This relationship will accelerate once sea ice is completely lost in summer.

  123. John S. | January 29, 2013 at 6:17 pm |

    There’s a curious development at GISS that bears watching: in the aftermath of a trumpeted “record hot year” in the contiguous 48 states, none of the station records are available online “due to technical problems with the webserver.” On the basis of raw small-town data records I’ve been keeping since the 1970’s, there’s quite another problem: the records set in 1934 and 1921 have not been exceeded widely anywhere. It is only NOAA’s panoply of adjustments and the inclusion of UHI-corrupted records in the aggregate averages that provides the foundation for the specious claim that 2012 was the hottest year on record. How GISS/NOAA finally resolve that scramble should be very interesting.

    • Steven Mosher | January 29, 2013 at 7:49 pm |

      “On the basis of raw small-town data records I’ve been keeping since the 1970′s, there’s quite another problem: the records set in 1934 and 1921 have not been exceeded widely anywhere. ”

      of course the records in 1934 and 1921 have no UHI in them. I trust you are aware of roy spencers claim that UHI is greater in moving from no people to a small town, than in moving from a small town to a larger town.

    • John S. | January 29, 2013 at 8:09 pm |

      The key element in avoiding systematic bias due to changing UHI effects is to use stations that experienced the least change in physical environment during the entire course of measurements . That is what I have have done with my set of small-town stations, which may or may not manifest a nearly constant level of UHI. Contrary to your understanding, Spencer does not address that issue.

      • Steven Mosher | January 29, 2013 at 11:26 pm |

        Interesting It would be nice to audit the claim of no change and see the criteria for small town. A list of stations would be great.

      • John S. | January 30, 2013 at 9:04 pm |

        Nowhere do I claim “no change!” As long as such blatant misrepresentations are made and NOAA continues its current practice of concealing and/or diddling the actual data, only my professional clients will be made privy to the validated station list. They truly have the scientific wherewithal to perform their own “audit.”

    • John S. | March 22, 2013 at 8:26 pm |

      Now that the GISS website has resumed providing access to station data, it’s apparent that scores of small-town records whose available data ended in 2005 have been brought current, but with wholesale revisions of historical data that increase their trend and make reconciliation of present data with the past virtually impossible. Such legendermain affects their national average, which jumped in 2012 to a level 4 sigmas above its twntienth-century mean in GISS calculation.

      Yet record hot years were consistently recorded in non-urban areas only in the upper Midwest and New England. Everywhere else the yearly records set in 1934 or 1921 or 1998 remained unsurpassed. Based on the relatively sparse small-town sample that can be properly updated, the national average was roughly on par with 1934 at ~3.25 sigmas above the 20th-century mean. This great value was due to a wider area of very warm temperatures last year than in 1934, which was confined to the Western mountain and Central plains.

      • Peter Lang | March 22, 2013 at 8:42 pm |

        The previously reported reading were wrong. They had to be. It is obvious. They didn’t agree with the modellers’ projections.

  124. Joshua | January 29, 2013 at 7:07 pm |

    Ultimately – the US paid a heavy price for the abolition of slavery. .

    Fascinating. The notion that the US “paid a heavy price” for the abolition of slavery must be viewed in a context, and not in isolation.

    The necessary context is an examination of the relative cost of not abolishing slavery. It is meaningless to estimate the cost without considering likely outcomes had that action not been taken. I would argue that your “heavy price” was actually an enormous benefit ultimately, benefits which absolutely dwarf your conceptualization of “cost” – at many different levels.

    You guys continue to amaze.

    • Tom | January 29, 2013 at 7:25 pm |

      Perhaps you are a Bewilderbeast?

    • Robert I Ellison | January 29, 2013 at 7:29 pm |

      ‘The approximately 10,455 military engagements, some devastating to human life and some nearly bloodless, plus naval clashes, accidents, suicides, sicknesses, murders, and executions resulted in total casualties of 1,094,453 during the Civil War. The Federals lost 110,100 killed in action and mortally wounded, and another 224,580 to disease. The Confederates lost approximately 94,000 as a result of battle and another 164,000 to disease. Even if one survived a wound, any projectile that hit bone in either an arm or a leg almost invariably necessitated amputation. The best estimate of Federal army personnel wounded is 275,175; naval personnel wounded, 2,226. Surviving Confederate records indicate 194,026 wounded.

      In dollars and cents, the U.S. government estimated Jan. 1863 that the war was costing $2.5 million daily. A final official estimate in 1879 totaled $6,190,000,000. The Confederacy spent perhaps $2,099,808,707. By 1906 another $3.3 billion already had been spent by the U.S. government on Northerners’ pensions and other veterans’ benefits for former Federal soldiers. Southern states and private philanthropy provided benefits to the Confederate veterans. The amount spent on benefits eventually well exceeded the war’s original cost.

      Inflation affected both Northern and Southern assets but hit those of the Confederacy harder. Northern currency fluctuated in value, and at its lowest point $2.59 in Federal paper money equaled $1 in gold. The Confederate currency so declined in purchasing power that eventually $60-$70 equaled a gold dollar.

      The physical devastation, almost all of it in the South, was enormous: burned or plundered homes, pillaged countryside, untold losses in crops and farm animals, ruined buildings and bridges, devastated college campuses, and neglected roads all left the South in ruins.

      Source: “Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War” Edited by Patricial L. Faust

      A price that was paid in blood and treasure.

      You quote one line and say that there was a net benefit? You fail to acknowledge the gist of the comment – the enlightenment influence on the founding generation – the paradox of slavery – the formation of the Republican Party and the struggle for abolition? Ring a bell tinker bell?

  125. Beth Cooper | January 29, 2013 at 7:23 pm |

    There is an excellent book, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment,’ by
    Arthur Herman, who was professor of history at George Mason
    and Georgetown University.Herman, not of Scottish descent himself, argues that Scotland’s turbulent history from William Wallace to the Presbyterian Lordsof the Covenant, set the foundations for the
    Scottish Enlightenment.

    Herman describes how, in less than a century the nation moved
    from the harsh and repressive domination of the Scottish Kirk to
    become Europes most literate society producing the modern
    thinking of David Hume,Adam Smith,writers, architects, Robert
    and James Adam, whose design became popular in America,
    Lord Kames and many more, scientists, inventors, technicians
    Edinburgh and Glascow Universities as cenres of learning
    became famous throughout Europe, Edinburgh became
    the pre-eminent place in Europe for the study of anatomy.

    The influence and involvement of Scots helped shape the American Constitution, (Ch 14,) from Hume, Smith and Kames evolved the view
    of ‘Common Sense Man as a necessary adjunct to the federal
    system Hume and Thomas Reid inspired and Maddison helped create.
    The influence of other immigrant Scots,such as James Wilson also
    worked to promote the views of Scottish moral philosopher, Thomas
    Reid on Common Sense man, which underpin the Us Constitution.
    Herman claims that:
    ‘The only way such a complicated architecture of counter-balancing
    powers and counter-vailing interests could avoid permanent gridlock
    and getting stuck in the same rut would be if the people who made it
    up were able to agree on certain fundamental truths, ‘self evident
    truths’ as Reid would say. In that way they could trust their own
    judgement and that of others to arrive at a xcompromise solution
    to the crises that would inevitably arise.’ (P254.)

    Walt Whitman’s poems in Leaves of Grass are a testiment to this
    respect for the common man, and woman.)

    ‘I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals .
    The American compact is altogether with individuals,
    The only government is that which makes minute of
    individuals.’

    (By Blue Ontario’s Shore.’)

  126. mosomoso | January 29, 2013 at 7:48 pm |

    Samuel Johnson was notorious for wanting to be the most conservative guy in the room: a believer in subordination and small government. He also scandalised good company by toasting slave revolts. He entertained the fond notion that people should be paid and not owned.

    Jefferson aspired…but it’s pretty clear that he was not willing to pay the price of his aspiration. To be a liberator, It’s no good being squeamish or changing overseers. There was a heavy price to pay and he did not pay it. Jefferson and his revolutionary comrades ultimately widened the scope of choice for all to come, just as, in my country, a flawed authoritarian called Macquarie sacrificed health and good name to make Australia a nation, not a plantation.

    I don’t care if they pull Monticello to the ground, though it’s a pretty enough lump. But there were some very interesting notions on freedom floating around in the late 18th century, some of them advanced by Thomas Jefferson. I don’t want them pulled to the ground.

  127. Michael | January 29, 2013 at 11:34 pm |

    Interesting report on a heatwave in Melbourne Aus, in 2009.

    Over a 2 day period in the peak of the heatwave, there were 126 deaths vs an expected 44 for that period.

    Makes you wonder about the limitations of adaptation.

    • mosomoso | January 30, 2013 at 12:23 am |

      The big tolls of 2009 and 1939, especially, can make one forget that in 1908 Melbourne had six consecutive days of century heat. It was the third most lethal heatwave of the century, and one wonders how many would have died if population had been higher. Of course, comparing modern conditions with old, and estimating deaths, are matters of much guesswork.

      We can only guess at the conditions that produced the world’s biggest known inferno, in Victoria in 1851.We know that the fires of 1875 were accompanied by heat of over 110 degrees in Melbourne. Of course, the second most lethal disaster in Australian history, just behind the Big Heat of 1938-1939, was the heatwave of 1895-1896.

      I take three lessons from all this. 1) There are certainly limits to adaptation. 2) Gaia is not your mummy. 3) Gaia never was your mummy.

      • Michael | January 30, 2013 at 3:41 am |

        “2) Gaia is not your mummy. 3) Gaia never was your mummy.”

        True….so beating her with a stick isn’t the smartest move.

      • mosomoso | January 30, 2013 at 4:24 am |

        Oh, she’s tough. Mind you, her priesthood will go on accepting our compulsory temple offerings. We common punters, on the other hand, need good infrastructure and power supply.

        Mind you, I hate that Australia gouges carbon to pay for all those whirlygigs and solar panels. I’ve even heard that those Asians are burning our coal! That could be their sole motive in buying it. Better not be combusting it in our atmosphere!

        And I hate that we burn our heavily taxed coal in aging clunkers, and will go on doing so (because the whirlies and panels are just there for fetish value, of course). It’s a bit like driving around in a forty year old Falcon with a Save the Planet sticker, isn’t it?

  128. Doug Cotton | January 30, 2013 at 12:32 am |

     
    Tempterrain

    Your question about the thermal gradient in a metal was already answered before you asked it in the footnote of my next article copied below (and on a previous comment) –

    * Rebuttal of counter arguments:

    Sometimes it is assumed that a wire outside the cylinder running from the warmer base of the cylinder to the top would conduct heat back up. However, gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid, and we need to calculate the weighted mean specific heat of the contents of the cylinder, the wire and, to some extent, the walls. All these comprise the total system and the overall equilibrium state, which will not lead to any endless loop of energy flow.

    Another “argument” starts by introducing the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics which pertains to three systems all in equilibrium with each other. However, in the form used, the Zeroth law suffers from the same approximation as does the original Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in that it ignores the effect of an external force field, usually gravity. As the initial assumption is false, so too is the conclusion.

    • tempterrain | January 30, 2013 at 12:57 am |

      Doug Cotton,

      This is just repetition.

      You are sticking your fingers, metaphorically, in your ears and saying “la-la-la”.

      So, if ” gravity also induces a thermal gradient in a solid” , how does the solid know whether its sitting in water and doesn’t need to set up a thermal gradient, or if its standing in air and it does?

      • tempterrain | January 30, 2013 at 5:07 pm |

        Doug Cotton,

        You’ve gone quiet about this, so I hope it means you’ve decided to think about it and at least consider the possibility that others may have it right instead of yourself for a change.

        Here’s another situation you may want to think about. We build a tall metal cylinder and fill it with water. Outside the cylinder is air. A gravitational field is present to keep the water from spilling out. The system is in thermal isolation.

        If everything ends up being isothermal there’s not much to further to say about it. But if you start saying the gas has a gravity induced lapse rate, and the metal in the tube also has the same gravity induced lapse rate but the water in the tube doesn’t have a lapse rate then there’s a bit of a problem. See what I mean?

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 3:21 am |

        re; lapse rate in water

        water is practically incompressible so its lapse rate under standard gravity is practically indetectable

        no matter how you slice it or dice you can’t remove gravity as a factor in any given adiabat – without gravity there is no adiabat. period. it disappears.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 3:26 am |

        recall the formula for the adiabat

        g/Cp

        Set g equal to zero and the result is zero no matter what the value of Cp.

    • tempterrain | January 30, 2013 at 2:22 am |

      Just to add a word of explanation to what I have written above: it should be noted that there is no lapse rate in the ocean. Except that there is a negative lapse rate caused by the solar warming of the surface layers. If a column of water were in thermal isolation that too would be isothermal.

      So Doug needs to ask himself if it makes any sense for gases and solids to have a gravity induced thermal gradient but not a liquid. And furthermore for the thermal gradient of a solid, such as a metal wire, to have a gravity induced lapse rate which is identical to its surroundings. Otherwise there would be an endless flow of heat which would enable the second law of thermodynamics to be violated and thereby a perpetual motion machine could be made by harnessing this flow.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 4:45 am |

        Except I think probably the warm is maintained not just by surface warming but by convection taking warm water to the surface. Deep ocean heat content may be more related to the rate of deep water formation.

      • tempterrain | January 30, 2013 at 5:31 pm |

        Robert,

        I can’t find where just now, but I do remember reading that the Arctic ocean is pretty close to isothemal (in terms of temperature at depth) in areas where it is covered by ice the year round. The ice acts as an insulator.

        So this would mean that the reason for the oceans temperature profile is almost entirely caused by solar absorption in the upper layers.

        It is quite possible to construct a machine to use the temperature difference between layers, both in the atmosphere and in the ocean, to extract energy. But this does not violate any law of thermodynamics as ultimately that energy does come from the sun.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 2:21 am |

        If someone figures out a way to build a heat engine that can operate on the difference between ocean temperature at depth and ocean temperature on the surface (about 25K in the tropics, best case) it would solve all the world’s energy problems in one fell swoop. The problem is that parasitic losses in any working device to date, at any price, chews up about 250K so an order of magnitude improvement is required over state of the art today just to get an engine that stalls immediately when a load is placed on it.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 3:38 am |

        Most of the heat – if you don’t count it from absolute zero – is at the surface and in the tropics. At the poles we have surface water that is cold anough to freeze. But warms water rises and cold water sinks.

        I think you need to take Mrs Harvey’s class.

      • tempterrain | January 31, 2013 at 4:04 am |

        Dave Springer,

        Loschmidt was right, insofar as he did appreciate that the existence of a ‘Gravito Thermal Effect’ (GTE) meant that the second law of thermodynamics which does prohibit the free conversion of heat energy into work is invalid. There is a a parallel in the discussion of whether neutrinos can achieve superluminal velocities. The claimed amount is tiny and of no practical significance whatsoever but if Einsteins laws aren’t right what are the wider ramifications?

        The wider ramifications for the second law of of thermodynamics not being right means that free energy is, in principle, available from any warm object. In other words we can get energy from the ground just by cooling it.

        I don’t think so. I’ve got to stay with the idea of entropy, the 2nd law of TD, and the impossibilty of any type of perpetual motion machine whether its PM1K or PM2K.

        I’m not sure why climate skeptics have taken such an interest in this. If the GTE doesn’t exist does that mean that the obvious existence of a lapse rate proves the GHE effect does exist? I’m not sure that mainstream scientists are actually saying that but maybe they should be.

      • tempterrain | February 1, 2013 at 6:10 am |

        Robert,

        And so does warm air rise, and cold air sink, but if you take that argument too far you’d wonder why it wasn’t warmer at increased elevation.

    • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 2:04 am |

      tempterrain

      Cotton is a fruitloop for various reasons but his description of Loschmidt’s Gravito-Thermal Effect isn’t one of those reasons. He goes beyond it before he gets in trouble. Specifically by claiming the effect can produce a temperature at the bottom of the well that is greater than the temperature would be absent the gravitational confinement. Gravity causes the top of the well to be cooler. It doesn’t cause the bottom to be warmer. The top is cooler because gravitational potential energy (which a thermometer does not measure) replaces kinetic energy joule for joule as altitude increases in the well.

      Experimental testing of the effect is barely possible even in the 21st century and only one person has actually put any effort into trying and his results after several years and a great many individual experiments favor Loschmidt not Boltzmann/Maxwell. The experimental challenges are twofold. The first is effecitively halting convection in gases or liquids under test. The successful experimenter achieved the level of convectional squelching in a gas by filling the volume with an ultrafine powder. The second challenge is thermal isolation. The successful experimenter achieved this through several nested vessels each separated by different types of insulation and waiting about two weeks for equalization with the entire apparatus in a constant temperature laboratory. No amount of temperature control in the laboratory can stop a temperature gradient from forming and this gradient worms its way into everything inside the lab unless heroic measures are taken to prevent it.

      I don’t believe the effect exists in solids or if does it’s too small to measure. What I believe is happening is gravity effectively acts like Maxwell’s demon in fluids where molecules are free to migrate under force of gravity. A Boltzmann distribution of kinetic energies assures us that some molecules at the bottom of the well have an excess of kinetic energy in the upward direction and as they travel upwards the excess kinetic energy is replaced gravitational potential energy. At equilibrium is then a sorted stack where at each point of local equilibrium there exists a predictable average ratio of kinetic to potential energy where kinetic declines with altitude and potential increases.

      The key is knowing that thermal energy by definition is the sum of kinetic and gravitational potential energy. Outside a gravity well potential energy is always zero and also at the base of a well potential energy is also zero. The formula for dry adiabatic lapse rate is

      DALR = g/Cp

      where g is the force of gravity and Cp is the specific heat of the gas at constant pressure.

      You can read more about it here:

      http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&dq=challenges+to+the+second+law&ots=51qfMD1RWJ&q=loschmidt

      I don’t believe a practical perpetuum mobile of the second kind can be constructed to exploit the GTE. It should be noted that the PM2K is not prohibited by first principles. Only perpetuum mobiles of the first kind are prohibited. The difference is the PM1K violates the law of conservation of energy by producing an infinite supply of it. The PM1K violates Carnot’s Law which limits the efficiency of producing work from a thermal gradient. Theoretically a heat engine can continue running until the hot side reaches absolute zero. In the Gravito Thermal Effect this in essence would be producing work from the heat of an atmosphere until the atmosphere temperature reaches absolute zero at which point it winks out of existence because mass and energy are equivalent and convertable one to other by E=MC2. As a practical matter Carnot efficiency of a heat engine is so low at 288K dT as to be useless. The minimum is about 500K which is the approximate exhaust outlet temperature of modern steam turbines. After that no more work can be practically extracted from it but you might still heat your jacuzzi with it.

  129. Doug Cotton | January 30, 2013 at 12:42 am |

    gbaikie continues to display a lack of knowledge of such well known physics as the Equipartition Theorem. He wrote above “Let’s say you have cubic meter of CO2 gas at 100 psi and 20 C. How much percentage of the energy of CO2 is not just translational energy?” Answer is zero.”

    Go and look up the number of degrees of freedom of carbon dioxide. Even then, you’ll only be able to answer in terms of KE shared equally between three translational and also quite a few vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. You don’t have data to calculate the extra PE. I don’t know why I waste my time with you. I normally charge for physics tuition.

    • gbaikie | January 30, 2013 at 1:01 pm |

      “gbaikie continues to display a lack of knowledge of such well known physics as the Equipartition Theorem. He wrote above “Let’s say you have cubic meter of CO2 gas at 100 psi and 20 C. How much percentage of the energy of CO2 is not just translational energy?” Answer is zero.”

      Go and look up the number of degrees of freedom of carbon dioxide. Even then, you’ll only be able to answer in terms of KE shared equally between three translational and also quite a few vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. You don’t have data to calculate the extra PE. I don’t know why I waste my time with you. I normally charge for physics tuition.”

      So you give me reasons why you can’t give an answer.

      One thing which is obvious. If gas molecules have no translational energy,
      then you do not have molecules which are in a gas state.

      It does not matter how much they are rotating or vibrating. To exist as a gas there is only one aspect which determines this- without translational motion they are on the floor.
      .
      If the CO2 molecules which would be at 100 psi and 20 C in one cubic meter were without translational energy would at the bottom of the container and be in a vacuum.
      .

  130. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 1:53 am |

    Appropos earlier duscission on liberty and the individual.
    Open Society recognition of the individual is not about
    rampant egotism but faith in human reason while avoiding
    dogmatism, From Democritus, ‘Virtue is based, most of all
    upon respecting the other man … The wise man belongs to
    all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.’
    Read extracts of Pericles ‘Funeral Oration’ below to hear
    values evolving of open society in Athens.
    .
    Compare this to the taboos of tribal societies,like Sparta,
    unquestionning rigid obedience to the tribe, regulation of
    all action to magical tribal institutions Cf fascist doctrines of
    20th Century movements.(E Weber ‘Varieties of Fascism.’)

    http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~sander/mensa/popper1.html

    I’ll leave off now.
    Beth the serf.

    • Peter Davies | January 30, 2013 at 2:23 am |

      Hi Beth

      Interesting that you have been reading Sander Rubin. He made a big impression on me back in my Uni days with his length and breadth of vision for Mensa. It is a source of regret for me that conservatives have kept the organisation from ever achieving its full potential.

  131. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 2:40 am |

    That’s all I’ve read Peter,( @2.23am,)
    I was looking for a link to Pericles’ Oration relating to Popper’s
    Open Society,and this was nicely edited. I – jest – cain’t keep – up
    – with – the – readin’ – and – the – ropin’. Lol.
    Beth the cow girl.

  132. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 3:48 am |

    Hokey stick, Michael?

  133. manacker | January 30, 2013 at 5:36 am |

    Chief and Willard

    It doesn’t take a genius to see what Stern is doing here.

    When Nature is working against your doomsday predictions by interjecting a “standstill” in global warming as measured by thermometers all over the globe, and general public confidence in catastrophic climate change science is beginning to wane, the best thing to do is go on the offensive and ratchet up the fear factor with the old “it’s worse than we thought” ruse.

    It’s so obvious it hurts.

    Max

  134. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 8:32 am |

    Say, Max, as a certain cold stern gentleman says…The time
    fer denial is ovah.

    http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/tag/funny-cartoon/

  135. willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 9:07 am |

    Twelve artists tackle climate change at DePaul Museum of Art:

    > Curated by DPAM associate director Laura Fatemi, “Climate of Uncertainty” is dominated by photographs and videos documenting the ruinous effects of human activities on the natural environment […]

    https://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/art-design/16013691/climate-of-uncertainty-at-depaul-art-museum-art-review

    • tonybclimatereason | January 30, 2013 at 9:20 am |

      Willard

      Interesting link.

      The first image of a glacier was especially arresting.

      There was an excellent BBC programme on a few weeks ago looking at the arctic.

      The thing that struck me most was how dirty the ice/snow was and particles of soot could be seen even in the melt pools of the deepest glacial abyss.

      There was a similar report on the effects of soot (and ice melt) in reports from the 1820’s, in that case the newly indusrialising US was considered to blame. It will be interesting to see in the future as to what degree soot will eventually be blamed for arctic ice melt, rather than co2.

      tonyb

  136. oneuniverse | January 30, 2013 at 10:11 am |

    Reply to Brandon Shollenberger’s comment on the Blogging Commenting Etiquette thread:

    You said only selecting positively oriented hockey sticks was deceptive.

    I actually said “misleading or deceptive”, trying to accomodate your use of the word “deceptive”. I should’ve phrased myself better so there was no chance of misunderstanding, even by the most determined. My view is that it was misleading.

    You now say flipping negatively oriented hockey sticks so they’re positively oriented would be fair.

    I said flipping the negatively-oriented hockey sticks in a randomly selected sample would be informative and fair as long as the fact of the symmetrical distribution of the HSI around 0 was also presented. Do you disagree?

    If anything, allowing negatively oriented hockey sticks to be flipped would have increased the visual impact over only selecting positively oriented ones as it would double the population to pick the top 12 from.

    I wrote of flipping the negative-HSI series in a random sample, not a sample picked as a ‘top 12’.

    The very process of “select[ing] positive hockey sticks” requires not flipping them.

    It also requires not reversing them, or setting them to some arbitrary constant, for example. It requires not doing an infinite number of things also not done by Wegman.

    MM’s method restricted values to a positive range. The fact it did so implicitly rather than explicitly doesn’t change the fact it did it. It doesn’t change the fact Nick Stokes allowed negative values when MM didn’t. Stokes changed the methodology.

    What are you referring to by “MM’s method”, and what values were restricted to a positive range?

    MM’s method (the centered PCA) creates PC1s with both positive and negative HSI, as can be seen from MM05’s fig. 2 histogram (and the Wegman report’s fig. 4.2 histogram).

    • Brandon Shollenberger | January 30, 2013 at 11:43 am |

      oneuniverse:

      I actually said “misleading or deceptive”, trying to accomodate your use of the word “deceptive”. I should’ve phrased myself better so there was no chance of misunderstanding, even by the most determined. My view is that it was misleading.

      I have no idea what difference you think there is between the two in this case so I don’t know what I’m supposedly misunderstanding. As far as I’m concerned, you could replace every use of “deceptive” in my comment with “misleading” and it wouldn’t change my meaning.

      I said flipping the negatively-oriented hockey sticks in a randomly selected sample would be informative and fair as long as the fact of the symmetrical distribution of the HSI around 0 was also presented.

      Of course I agree. That’s why I explicitly said, “I agree it would be fair.”

      I wrote of flipping the negative-HSI series in a random sample, not a sample picked as a ‘top 12′.

      So? Are you saying it’s okay to flip them in one case but not the other? That seems silly. The process is the same no matter what sample we apply it to.

      It also requires not reversing them, or setting them to some arbitrary constant, for example. It requires not doing an infinite number of things also not done by Wegman.

      What is your point?

      What are you referring to by “MM’s method”, and what values were restricted to a positive range?

      Wegman used MM’s code which included a selection criteria. That’s what I’m referring to. That selection criteria was based on a “hockey stick index.” That is what was limited to a positive range.

      • oneuniverse | January 30, 2013 at 2:22 pm |

        I have no idea what difference you think there is between the two

        For me, “to deceive” is more negative and more strongly implies an intent to do wrong than “to mislead”. The adjectives “deceptive” and “misleading” are perhaps closer in meaning. I admit this is a subjective view.

        What is your point?

        My point was that Wegman didn’t flip, so it’s not correct to say that Nick has changed methodology by not flipping.

        Wegman used MM’s code which included a selection criteria. That’s what I’m referring to. That selection criteria was based on a “hockey stick index.” That is what was limited to a positive range.

        The only use of selection by sorted HSI in MM05 is to choose a hockeystick to plot alongside the MBH PC1 in MM05’s fig.1. No such selection is used in their analysis of the biased nature of MBH’s decentered PCA compared to centered PCA.

        As I said, I do see your point about flipping, but prefer the unflipped random samples as providing a truer representation of the algorithm’s behaviour : the algorithm does create both negative and positive hockey sticks (depending on the course of the random data).

      • Nick Stokes | January 30, 2013 at 3:36 pm |

        I think the question of sign-independence of P0 illustrates a much larger deception in the Wegman and associated argument – the fact that most people don’t know what you’re talking about. They think that “getting hockey sticks from red noise” means getting HS results. That’s the impact of Wegman’s graphs and captions. But it’s just the first component.

        Now PCA gives an basis realignment. By itself, that does nothing. The HS behaviour is emphasised in one axis, but the anti-HS is transferred to the other axes, and the end result is unaffected.

        The point of PCA, of course, is that you settle for a reduced set – dropping most, but not all, of the other components. So the non-deceptive argument is about the effect of that elimination. It’s true that the elimination may somewhat reduce the ability to represent anti-HS behaviour. But how much? That’s the key question – not the shape of the first PC. And Wegman doesn’t discuss this at all.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 30, 2013 at 6:26 pm |

        oneuniverse:

        I admit this is a subjective view.

        I don’t think the distinction is an issue in this case, but I’m happy to stick with “misleading” so we don’t have to worry about it.

        My point was that Wegman didn’t flip, so it’s not correct to say that Nick has changed methodology by not flipping.

        Sure. Which is why I didn’t say that. Nick Stokes changed the methodology. The original methodology generated results that were, implicitly, restricted to positive values. When Stokes changed the methodology, he lifted that restriction. That change in restriction is what produced the primary visual discrepancy he highlighted.

        Not only does his decision have a clear visual impact, it also has a direct statistical effect. Given the HSI results are an evenly distributed curve, this effect is easily calculated. A sorting function that takes the top x results will discard the bottom half of the curve so long as x is less than half the total population. This means it effectively cuts the population size in half. If one first takes the absolute value (equivalent to flipping upside down hockey sticks), the population size will remain constant.

        What that means is the sample used in the Wegman Report was drawn from a population of half the size the sample Nick Stokes used was drawn from. That directly impacts the HSI results by increasing the hockey stick shape (regardless of its orientation). Both of these effects served to enhance the visual impact of the figures provided by Nick Stokes, and neither has any connection to legitimate differences in methodology.

        So no, the Wegman Report did not flip anything. However, if Nick Stokes had flipped negatively oriented graphs, he would have had results directly comparable to those of the Wegman Report because that flipping would account for the difference in sample size and restrictions on results. Because he did not, his results were not directly comparable. What this means is, as I said before, “he effectively left out the ‘flip’ step.”

        The only use of selection by sorted HSI in MM05 is to choose a hockeystick to plot alongside the MBH PC1 in MM05′s fig.1. No such selection is used in their analysis of the biased nature of MBH’s decentered PCA compared to centered PCA.

        The fact code wasn’t used for MM05 doesn’t mean the code wasn’t written by McIntyre. As mentioned by both Nick Stokes and DeepClimate, the code used for Figure 4.4 was taken from McIntyre.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 30, 2013 at 6:36 pm |

        Correction to my above comment. I said:

        That directly impacts the HSI results by increasing the hockey stick shape (regardless of its orientation).

        This should instead should say something to the effect that halving the population size decreases the apparent strength of hockey sticks generated in the “selected” figures relative to the “not selected” figures. In other words, it makes the distinction between the two groups less apparent.

        Nick Stokes, the point that matters for methodology is MBH’s methodology was biased in a way that would artificially inflate hockey stick shapes while artificially deflating variance in the past. For MBH in general, this effect creates a hockey stick shape by given enormous weight to a small amount of data while unjustly “flattening” past temperatures.

        Anyone who won’t admit that is either unaware or deceptive.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 30, 2013 at 6:41 pm |

        Sorry for the triple post, but I should point out halving the population size wouldn’t matter for a random sample as a random sample taken from a population of 5,000 would be equivalent to one taken from a population of 10,000. The reason it matters is Nick Stokes discussed the use of a population of 10,000 in relation to the “selected” graphs. Once you start using a sorting function, the population size becomes very important.

        Besides, it’s just weird to change effective sample sizes for no reason.

      • Nick Stokes | January 30, 2013 at 7:21 pm |

        No, you’ve criticized me for presenting randomly generated PC1 shapes as they are, rather than reorienting them to match Wegman’s illegitimate selection. But the question is, why should I reorient them in that artificial way.

        Wegman was pulling out all stops to give the impression that the HS shape that he contrived in the PC1 shapes could be identified with the HS in the MBH recon. Here he is on p 30, for example, starting with caption to Fig 4.1:
        Top panel is PC1 simulated using MBH 98 methodology from stationary trendless red noise. Bottom panel is the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere temperature index reconstruction.
        Discussion: The similarity in shapes is obvious. As mentioned earlier, red noise exhibits a correlation structure, which, although it is a stationary process, to will depart from the zero mean for minor sojourns. However, the top panel clearly exhibits the hockey stick behavior induced by the MBH98 methodology.”

        “The similarity in shapes is obvious”. Only if you select so they are always the same way up. Otnerwise you’d have to explain why PC1 is not the same as the recon. And maybe they’d even ask – well, what does the recalculated recon (with centering, the real equivalent of MBH recon) actually look like? A very obvious qn, why Wegman avoided. The answer, per Wahl and Ammann, is, not very different at all.

        I see no reason why I should butcher the actual PC1 calcs to perpetuate this subterfuge.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 31, 2013 at 12:25 am |

        Nick Stokes:

        “The similarity in shapes is obvious”. Only if you select so they are always the same way up. Otnerwise you’d have to explain why PC1 is not the same as the recon…. I see no reason why I should butcher the actual PC1 calcs to perpetuate this subterfuge.

        *snickers*

        *snorts*

        PC1, from which the hockey stick originates, is an upside-down hockey stick, a fact demonstrated in the archived data for MBH. It was “flipped” whenever displayed or used because the orientation doesn’t matter, and it was associated with temperature that way. That means both Michael Mann and Edward Wegman flipped series for visual alignment purposes. Heck, even the IPCC displayed a flipped version of PC1. You’re the only one who has a problem with it, and you do it yourself.

        Bravo Nick Stokes. You flipped Mann’s PC1 then claimed it is subterfuge to flip PCs. It’s hilarious you’d ask “why should [you] reorient” PCs in an artificial way while reorienting a PC in an artificial way. The ignorance and/or hypocrisy is overwhelming.

        The answer, per Wahl and Ammann, is, not very different at all.

        Even if one believed this point, it would be a meaningless victory. Wahl and Ammann admitted MBH is non-meaningful without bristlecones, a type of proxy the NAS specifically says should be avoided. Moreover, Wahl and Ammann published (after being pressured) the verification scores for MBH which show MBH fails statistical verification, making it meaningless.

        And that’s if one believed that point. I’m not going to argue it with Nick Stokes though. I mean, he refuses “to perpetuate [a] subterfuge” in which Wegman flipped series to match a series Mann himself flips, but he promotes this nonsense? Puh-leez. The Wahl and Ammann saga is about as big on subterfuge as you can get.

      • Nick Stokes | January 31, 2013 at 12:57 am |

        Brandon,
        I didn’t flip anything. Nor did Mann. In fact, you have to calculate a hockey stick index (HSI, McIntyre’s invention) to even have a criterion for flipping.

        I used McIntyre’s code and plotted the output. As Fig 4.2 of Wegman shows, this produces HSI’s equally positive and negative. Wegman didn’t flip any – he selected from the top 100 (by signed HSI) of 10000, all then positive naturally. I selected at random.

        The point of W&A is that they did what Wegman didn’t do. If you’re going to have a Congressional hearing about an alleged wrong methodology, the very least you’d expect is some indication of what difference it made to the recon. What happens if you do it the “right” way? The Mann critics never answered that. Instead there’s just a smokescreen of criticism of anyone who tries to answer it.

        Actually the nearest W came was to intone
        “Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.”
        “Answer Correct”? So what was Congress inquiring into? Mann losing marks for faulty centering?

      • oneuniverse | January 31, 2013 at 8:36 am |

        Nick:

        The point of W&A is that they did what Wegman didn’t do. If you’re going to have a Congressional hearing about an alleged wrong methodology, the very least you’d expect is some indication of what difference it made to the recon. What happens if you do it the “right” way? The Mann critics never answered that

        Yet neither did W&A answer the question – what does the full recon, with confidence intervals (as per MBH98/99), look like when done the “right” way? W&D didn’t replicate MBH’s confidence intervals, or even discuss them.

        MM asked this question about the confidence intervals in their presentation to the NAS panel :
        “Is the use of calibration period residuals an appropriate method of calculating confidence intervals in a “new” multivariate method with serious risk of overfitting? What is the impact on MBH98-99
        confidence intervals of using verification period residuals?”

        If any statistically-adept person is reading – what is the best procedure, how are MBH’s CIs to be interpreted, and what would they represent if verification period residuals were used instead?

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 31, 2013 at 12:10 pm |

        Nick Stokes:

        I didn’t flip anything. Nor did Mann. In fact, you have to calculate a hockey stick index (HSI, McIntyre’s invention) to even have a criterion for flipping.

        Right… Nobody flipped anything. I mean, it’s not like PC1 is a negative hockey stick that Mann uses to create a positive hockey stick. It’s not like even the IPCC publishes it with a positive orientation (it’s series W USA). It’s not like you accepted Wegman’s display of Mann’s PC1 with a positive orientation.

        Nope. Nobody is flipping anything. Why? Perhaps it’s because “you have to calculate a hockey stick index… to even havea criterion for flipping.” Because clearly, Mann and the IPCC had to have McIntyre’s method of calculation to do exactly what they did. It’s not like they could just realize the orientation of the PCs is arbitrary and could thus be inverted to match temperatures. Nope. That would never work.

        *snickers*

        The point of W&A is that they did what Wegman didn’t do. If you’re going to have a Congressional hearing about an alleged wrong methodology, the very least you’d expect is some indication of what difference it made to the recon. What happens if you do it the “right” way? The Mann critics never answered that. Instead there’s just a smokescreen of criticism of anyone who tries to answer it.

        I’ve discussed what happens if you do things “the ‘right’ way” multiple times. I’ve had an open offer to discuss it with anyone for years. Why would you tell lies about me to my face? Do you actually believe this meme even though the most basic examination of it would show it false?

        I mean, even if no other critic of Mann had ever discussed it (which is untrue), I have. Why would you tell me I haven’t? Why would you tell me I won’t? What kind of insanity is this?

      • Nick Stokes | January 31, 2013 at 1:12 pm |

        OU,
        “Is the use of calibration period residuals an appropriate method of calculating confidence intervals in a “new” multivariate method with serious risk of overfitting? What is the impact on MBH98-99 confidence intervals of using verification period residuals?”
        Yes, there’s always one more question, and another, that people can think to raise. But somehow that doesn’t sound like what Congress was inquiring into.

        My point is that skeptics raise these endless queries, and nitpick those who try to respond, but never do the obvious thing – if you’ve got a way you think it should be done, do it yourself, so you can tell us what the answer should have been.

      • Tonyb | January 31, 2013 at 1:37 pm |

        Nick

        You suggest that instead of sceptics nitpicking they should actively look at alternatives to mbh98 etc.

        I did. As far as historical climatology goes Mann doesn’t stack up in the last 500 years of his reconstruction

        http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
        Tonyb

      • oneuniverse | January 31, 2013 at 2:49 pm |

        Nick, I’m curious what the MBH recon looks like with the stats done the using cantered PCA, with MBH-style CI’s. MM couldn’t reproduce the MBH CI’s, as I understand it. W&A redid the recon using MM’s centered PCA, but didn’t reproduce the CI’s, and were silent on the subject.

        Without the CI’s, it’s not possible to evaluate whether MBH’s conclusion of unprecedented 20th C. warmth still holds for the corrected reconstruction.

        Is the algorithm (or the code) for generating MBH’s CI’s available?

      • Brandon Shollenberger | January 31, 2013 at 4:04 pm |

        oneuniverse, you should be careful when you say things like:

        W&A redid the recon using MM’s centered PCA

        The primary reason debates over PCA matter is where bristlecone series show up. In the decentered calculation, they show up in PC1. In the centered calculation, they show up in PC4. In either case, as long as you include the bristlecones, you get a hockey stick. If you exclude PC1/PC4, you don’t get one.

        MBH kept only PC1 and PC2 in the early steps, and if you make the same decision with centered PCA, you don’t get a hockeystick. The response to this was that they used Preisendorfer’s Rule N, and it requires you keep five PCs if you switch to centered PCA. However, this supposed rule was not claimed as justification in the original papers or subsequent commentary until after PC retention rates were made an issue. That is suspicious, especially since it’s been shown using that rule doesn’t give the same PC retention rates as MBH uses in other steps of the reconstruction.

        What that means is nobody knows how the authors of MBH choose how many PCs to keep. That means Wahl and Ammann couldn’t possibly have redone MBH’s reconstruction. In fact, they used a totally different reasoning to justify including PC4, a reasoning not present in MBH. That means they arbitrarily changed methodology to get a result they liked.

        I don’t think it’s appropriate to call that redoing MBH’s work with MM’s centered PCA.

    • willard (@nevaudit) | January 31, 2013 at 1:15 pm |

      > What kind of insanity is this?

      Chewbacca strikes back!

  137. David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:32 am |

    Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 10:23 am | Reply

    “Say – willard, if you’re reading, what would you call David’s attempt to transition the discussion of Jefferson’s slave ownership to his feelings about violence in 21rst century in black communities in Chicago?”

    If Wee Willie is even half as astute as he thinks he is he’ll call it “getting to the root of the problem”. Keep in mind those at the base of the slave trade where free black Africans capturing other free black Africans and selling those captured into the slave trade. Southern slave owners were opportunists purchasing products made by others and delivered by others to local markets.

    Jefferson was a hypocrite at best, by the way, and I have no respect for the man. Anything complimentary I wrote about his person was sarcasm. Too subtle for you, obviously, which is not surprising. His writing is separate from his person. Think of it like a heroin addict writing about the dangers of heroin. Jefferson was addicted to slavery even though he knew it was evil. It’ s not all that complicated. What Jefferson also knew was you couldn’t solve the problem by just freeing the slaves. Hence little black girls getting gunned down by little black boys in Chicago and every other urban cesspool throughout the land. Plantation violence was replaced by gang violence and now it’s all over the nation instead of confined to a handful of southern states. Why? Why did abolition only serve to foment even more violence across a larger expanse of territory?

    • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 11:53 am |

      It just goes on and on…

      His writing is separate from his person. Think of it like a heroin addict writing about the dangers of heroin.

      So the fact that someone is a heroin addict is irrelevant to their writing about the dangers of heroin? They are separate?

      What Jefferson also knew was you couldn’t solve the problem by just freeing the slaves.

      So much hilarity in just one short sentence. First, what is “THE” problem? Is slavery “THE” problem? If so, then “just freeing the slaves,” in fact, solves the problem. Imagine that – referring to freeing slaves as “just” freeing the slaves. Such trivial development, eh? Just freeing the slaves. Wow! Or perhaps slavery was not “THE” problem. Do you not understand, David, that the very fact of being a slave inflicted violence on every person held in the bondage of the institution? Do you actually not understand that? Tell the truth.

      And do you think that the slaves were “just” freed? Does decades of Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and myriad forms of discrimination not even register in the depths of your soul? Are you ignorant of those subsequent developments? Have you read nothing of Supreme Court rulings – related to race – during the reconstruction period?

      Plantation violence was replaced by gang violence and now it’s all over the nation instead of confined to a handful of southern states.

      Once again, an absolutely astounding statement. As bad as inner city violence is, are you equating the current state of inner city life in African American ghettos to the life of slaves held in bondage? Do you think that gang violence has “replaced” the institution of slavery in terms of detrimental impact on African Americans? Do you think that intra-racial violence among poor black people was spontaneously generated only after slavery was abolished?

      Why did abolition only serve to foment even more violence across a larger expanse of territory?

      Did I actually read you stating that abolition “foment[ed] even more violence?” Is it actually your argument that freeing slaves fomented violence? Are you actually so motivated in your reasoning as to: (1) stick to your argument that there is more violence inflicting upon American blacks now than there was during slavery and, (2) dismiss the long line of relevant variables that are influences on the trajectory of violence in black communities from the days that they lived in slave quarters to today? You actually think that the freeing of the slaves was the causal factor that explains today’s violence in black communities?

      There. You’ve done it. You’ve moved me from pointing to your inane comments about Jefferson to your inane comments about violence in black communities today. Congratulations.

      But dude. Just stop. You dug yourself a hole. Do yourself a favor and just stop. Making inane statements about violence in black communities today does not rectify inane comments about Jefferson.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 4:06 pm |

        What I understand is violence in urban black communities is a horrific problem and there are more pointless deaths due to it today than there was in all the plantations of the south. Approximately 1200 slaves were executed in the United States in all the time between founding and abolition. Over five times that number of blacks are homicide victims EVERY SINGLE YEAR today. Between 2000 and 2010 there were 78,000 black homicide victims and, where there was an arrest, 68,000 black homicide perpetrators. It’s largely gang violence. Black on black. It would seem no one hates blacks more than other blacks. This would not come as any surprise to Thomas Jefferson.

        We can talk until we’re blue in the face why this situation exists today but what we can’t do, or at least what I can’t do, is pretend the problem doesn’t exist and instead drone on like a drooling idiot about slavery 200 years ago.

        http://projects.wsj.com/murderdata/

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 4:40 pm |

        Wow!

        This is what we get from a “skeptic,” eh?

        Approximately 1200 slaves were executed in the United States in all the time between founding and abolition. Over five times that number of blacks are homicide victims EVERY SINGLE YEAR today.

        Let’s unpack that just a tad, shall we? No examination of the respective population numbers? No examination of unjustified deaths that were not tallied as “executions?” No consideration of other forms of violence other than executions, such as whippings, rapes, deaths from malnutrition or exposure to elements or overwork or lack of healthcare? No consideration of the fundamental violence of being enslaved? No mention of having families torn apart? No mention of the basic denial of any form of human right? No consideration of black on black violence prior to abolition?

        This is the type of comparison that a “skeptic” makes? Really?

        We can talk until we’re blue in the face why this situation exists today but what we can’t do, or at least what I can’t do, is pretend the problem doesn’t exist and instead drone on like a drooling idiot about slavery 200 years ago.

        Who, outside of your fantasies, is “pretend[ing] the problem doesn’t exist?” Just because I point out that you are making a huge jump in your logic in attributing abolition as the cause of gang violence, implies not a smidgeon that I am “pretend[ing]” that black on black violence doesn’t exist.

        And so discussing the issue of slavery as a relevant concern when discussing founding values now equals “dron[ing] like a drooling idiot about slavery 200 years ago?”

        You know, as a fan of skepticism I like to extent “skeptics” the benefit of the doubt – but when people not only write such silly comments as you have written, but then further double-down by laughably writing even more comments in response, it gets very difficult to do that.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 4:42 pm |

        “Once again, an absolutely astounding statement. As bad as inner city violence is, are you equating the current state of inner city life in African American ghettos to the life of slaves held in bondage?”

        It was certainly safer living on plantations. Ask me if I rather be the free black girl who was an honor student until she was gunned down at 15 years of age in Chicago this week or Jefferson’s slave/mistress Sally Hemings who had a bunch of kids, led a comfortable life, and died an old woman.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 4:55 pm |

        It was certainly safer living on plantations.

        Really? You’re arguing that blacks as slaves felt safer than blacks living in inner-city neighborhoods? I think a lol! will suffice in response to that.

        Ask me if I rather be the free black girl who was an honor student until she was gunned down at 15 years of age in Chicago this week or Jefferson’s slave/mistress Sally Hemings who had a bunch of kids, led a comfortable life, and died an old woman.

        I care not a bit whether you’d rather be a dead black girl or a dead black woman. Most rational people would consider the fact of being dead the most prominent factor there – and I tend to suspect that dead people wouldn’t “rather” be anyone else who is similarly dead.

        Here’s a question I will ask you. Go out into the street in any inner-city black neighborhood, and ask one of the residents whether they would consider, for even one second, trading their current life for that of a slave – even a slave who was treated better than the average slave.

        The point is, David, it matters not a bit that you think that blacks were better off as slaves. You may very well, in fact, rather be a slave who fathers the children of someone whom they never had the right to choose to have intercourse with, who never had the right to choose whether you would father his children. I’ve seen you express some rather odd beliefs in the past, and I wouldn’t hope to predict what you might or might not prefer. So a preference to have Jefferson’s children may very well be your true opinion (although I will point out that despite your preference, it would be physically impossible).

        The question of importance is whether black people would feel that way. That you seem to think that they should is positively absurd. I can assure you that no matter how far and wide you searched, you would not find (non-incarcerated) black people who would prefer being a slave to their current life circumstance.

        This is the kind of condescension that will guarantee into the future that the Republican Party will continue to collect < 10% of the black vote.

        You are a gift to the Democratic Party, David. I'm sure that they appreciate your efforts.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 4:56 pm |

        re; pretending the problem doesn’t exist

        I would loosely define that as anyone who diverts time and attention away from talking about 30 million blacks in America today killing each other at the rate of nearly 10,000 per year and 2 million blacks held in slavery 200 years ago when they weren’t killing each other. Talking about slavery is a red herring. There’s a grossly larger problem today by absolute numbers of victimized blacks. That’s what I call pretending the problem doesn’t exist but in reality it’s just the old “Look, squirrel” tactic to shift focus away from today’s problem.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 5:09 pm |

        You talk awfully confidently about life as a slave considering you’ve never been one and never knew one. If my owner was benevolent and didn’t mistreat me and I could expect to live a long but unremarkable life, and the alternative choice was a bullet in my back before I was old enough to shave I’d go for live long and not prosper. As an example I own dogs. They’re myt property in the eyes of the law but I treat them like family and if were to be reborn as a dog I’d rather be David Springer’s captive dog than a free wild dog. I’ve seen what happens to dogs without someone to care for them and it’s a pretty short, brutal, parasite infested life in most cases. I’ve also seen dogs that have compassionate owners and I know which one I’d want to be. On the other hand I’d rather take my chances on the street than be one of Michael Vick’s dogs so it’s really not a matter of being owned but rather a matter of who owns you. The United States Marine Corps owned my ass for four years and could have me executed for disobeying orders. It wasn’t as bad as you might think.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 5:31 pm |

        “This is the kind of condescension that will guarantee into the future that the Republican Party will continue to collect < 10% of the black vote."

        I'm not a registered member of any political party and I've never given any money to any political party. You confuse pragmatism with partisanism. They have lots of the same letters so maybe that's confusing to you.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 5:43 pm |

        David –

        I would loosely define that as anyone who diverts time and attention away from talking about 30 million blacks in America today killing each other at the rate of nearly 10,000 per year and 2 million blacks held in slavery 200 years ago when they weren’t killing each other.

        I think that a review of the chronology might be in order. I was here, merrily discussion whether Thomas Jefferson owning slaves was relevant to his views on individual freedom (because manacker hilariously argued that it wasn’t relevant), when you weighed in to laughably argue that African Americans were better off as slaves, and the reason why was because of abolition. You see, David, just because you want to reconstruct a chronology to fit your bizarre narrative, does not make your chronology fit with reality. Feel free to review the discussion and the relevant time stamps.

        You, in fact, were the one who “diverted attention” away from the one discussion to the other – and the sequence is in direct opposition to what you just described.

        I am more than happy to discuss the causes of inner-city violence any time you’d like. It is time for you to break out of your fantasy world, David.

        Talking about slavery is a red herring.

        Once again, I was discussion the relevance of slavery to the “founding ideals,” and you weighed in. Again, you are fantasizing, and twisting reality to conform to your unhinged concept of what did and didn’t happen.

        There’s a grossly larger problem today by absolute numbers of victimized blacks.

        Well, it is nice to see that you are at least capable of understanding the importance of examining the relative numbers. Good job. That is an improvement. Now please continue along that path. Allow me to refer back to a few more pointers to help you with that endeavor:

        http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290424

        If my owner was benevolent and didn’t mistreat me and I could expect to live a long but unremarkable life, and the alternative choice was a bullet in my back before I was old enough to shave I’d go for live long and not prosper.

        This comparison is as openly flawed (and selective) as your previous comparison of executions to homicides. You are taking a best-case scenario on one end and comparing it to a worst-case scenario on the other. The flaws are so obvious, that I can only conclude that you actually have no intent of making a well-reasoned argument.

        They’re myt property in the eyes of the law but I treat them like family and if were to be reborn as a dog I’d rather be David Springer’s captive dog than a free wild dog. I’ve seen what happens to dogs without someone to care for them and it’s a pretty short, brutal, parasite infested life in most cases

        Again, I suggest that you get out a bit, and ask some black folks if they’d rather live their current life, with all the accompanying problems, or be a well-treated slave. And I must say, that comparing enslaving African Americans to caring for dogs, and considering whether or not African Americans would rather be free than cared for as a dog might be, is very telling. That you would rather be a well-treated slave than a free man is a very curious artifact of your ideology, I must say. That you think that African Americans would have similar preferences as that of dogs, is, yet another curious artifact of your fascinating mind.

        all the best,

        j.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 5:50 pm |

        I’m not a registered member of any political party and I’ve never given any money to any political party.

        And I never said that you were such, or that you had done such. However, your rhetoric is very similar to what we see often offered by Republicans. As such, whenever such a viewpoint is expressed, it reinforces the relative advantage of Democratic Party rhetoric w/r/t appealing to African American voters – by virtue as standing out as different. If you see pragmatic advantage in doing your little part in ensuring that African Americans continue to vote Democratic, have at it. I’m sure that the Democratic Party is more than appreciative of your efforts and those of your Republican rhetorical brethren.

        all the best,

        J.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 5:50 pm |

        “Go out into the street in any inner-city black neighborhood, and ask one of the residents whether they would consider, for even one second, trading their current life for that of a slave – even a slave who was treated better than the average slave.”

        I’d like to ask the thousands of innocent black children gunned down every year by violent black thugs what they’d prefer. Unfortunately I cannot. I suspect principles don’t count for so much as you lie bleeding to death on the street. But that’s just a guess and my guess is as good as yours.

      • Michael | January 30, 2013 at 6:03 pm |

        I knew Springer was a bit ‘off’, but Sweet Jeebus……

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 6:12 pm |

        Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 5:50 pm |

        “If you see pragmatic advantage in doing your little part in ensuring that African Americans continue to vote Democratic, have at it.”

        I can’t possibly make it worse. The 5% of blacks who didn’t vote for Obama aren’t voting that way because of how they feel about Thomas Jefferson and slavery. The 5%’ers would be black folks like Alan Keyes, Herman Caine, Condoleesa Rice, Thomas Sowell, Michael Steele, and Clarence Thomas. You might want to ask yourself what’s different about them other than the fact they’re educated, successful, and eschew more far more popular black role models in sports, music, and film industries.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 6:28 pm |

        The 5%’ers would be black folks like Alan Keyes, Herman Caine, Condoleesa Rice, Thomas Sowell, Michael Steele, and Clarence Thomas. You might want to ask yourself what’s different about them other than the fact they’re educated, successful, and eschew more far more popular black role models in sports, music, and film industries.

        My god, man, do you never learn from your experiences? Why do you repeat the same facile reasoning in post after post?

        What is your point? Do you have any clue of what % of “educated, successful” African Americans vote for Republican candidates? Do you have any idea whether it is higher or lower relative to less educated or less “successful” African Americans? Are you really so poorly conversant with basic logic as to think that you can pick from a select group, for which you have no idea whether they are a representative sample, and extrapolate to create a larger phenomenon?

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 6:52 pm |

        Call me crazy but I happen to agree with the only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus who says:

        You have this 21st-century plantation that has been out there. Where the Democrat Party has forever taken the black vote for granted and you have established certain black leaders who are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation. And now the people on that plantation are upset because they’ve been disregarded, disrespected and their concerns are not cared about.

        Today in the black community, we see individuals who are either wedded to a subsistence check or an employment check. Democrat physical enslavement has now become liberal economic enslavement, which is just as horrible.

        I suppose he’s just an Uncle Tom, right?

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 6:59 pm |

        Speaking of not learning from experience, Joshua, will you ever learn that your unilateral declarations of my illogic, stupidity, or whatever don’t faze me in the slightest degree? But be my guest if it makes you somehow feel you won a point that way. It’s like water off a duck’s back here.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 7:34 pm |

        Joshua asks if I have any idea what characteristics of black voters is predictive of the few who vote Republican.

        Yes, in fact I do and it’s the bit in the link below that most resembles a hockey stick.

        http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/national_1.png

        Isn’t that just precious?

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 7:51 pm |

        And so we see, that like all the demographic groups examined, higher income predicts voting Republican. And we also see that unlike the other demographic groups(with arguably the exception of Asians) the vast majority of upper-income blacks vote Democratic. And so, the point stands, you picked a select group of individuals to try to make a general point, when in fact, that group was an outlier from the norm. If you had picked a more representative group of “educated and successful” African Americans, you would have found that a majority vote Democratic.

        And of course, the data don’t control for education, and we know that higher educational levels predict voting Democratic, not Republican.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 8:10 pm |

        Pay attention Joshua. I asked you what’s different about them OTHER THAN educated, successful, and eschew popular black role models.

        “You might want to ask yourself what’s different about them other than the fact they’re educated, successful, and eschew more far more popular black role models in sports, music, and film industries.”

        What’s different about them is they recognize that Democrats buy votes with unearned entitlements and they want no part of that because it leads to what Florida freshman Rep. Alan West calls the modern plantation where enslavement is economic rather than physical.

        Goes right over your head, doesn’t it?

        The modern plantation can’t be sustained. There’s a limited supply of other people’s money and once that’s gone you’re worse off than when you started. Unlike Greece, there’s no nation or group of nations that can bail out the United States when it becomes insolvent.

        “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
        Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler “Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic”

        I fear our Republic began living on borrowed time in 1976 when it celebrated its bicentenial birthday.

        “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 8:14 pm |

        A fascinating study:

        Blacks who believed that the economic conditions of blacks and of the nation were improving were many times more likely than other African Americans to vote Republican.

        Not surprising, since Republicans advocate for tax cuts for the rich, eh?

        And so, (turning their finding around a bit), contrary to what Republicans hope, those blacks who saw the economy as getting worse, and as getting worse for blacks in particular, were less likely to vote Republican. So we might well speculate that poor blacks think that the Republicans are more responsible for their economic problems than Democrats. Probably holds for poor people in general.

        Imagine that, all that “moocher class” and “blacks don’t know what’s in their own best interests” stuff doesn’t encourage blacks to vote Republican. Shocking, isn’t it?

        No wonder they were better off as slaves, eh David?

        http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/448772?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101608547641

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 8:25 pm |

        George Santayana had a lot of lasting memes to his credit. Such as this one:

        “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

        This speaks precisely to my point that I cannot ask those who would know whether they’d rather be a free but dead child gunned down in their teens or an old slave who lived comfortably and long. They’re the only ones who’ve seen the end of that particular war. Only those who’ve seen the end of war can judge whether the war was worth the cost.

        This is getting way too deep for you, I fear. If you were a business venture your name would be “Platitudes R Us”,

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 8:48 pm |

        I didn’t say they were better off as slaves. I said they were safer. Please pay attention. I’ll presume you’re not purposely putting words in my mouth. Always blame incompetence before malice.

        To plantation owners slaves were an essential part of their business. They’d no more kill a productive slave than they would destory a plowshare. The democratic party on the other hand doesn’t appear to give damn about black people other than what it takes to get them motivated to vote in the 12th hour before elections. It’s just a numbers game to them. There are 30 million black people in the US. If 10,000 per year die before they’re old enough to vote it’s not going to effect the election. Even if those kids were old enough to vote they’d only be 0.03% of the potential vote. So they don’t care if their policies are causing an entire race to be economic slaves with no self respect. They don’t care that when you don’t respect your own life you don’t respect anyone else’s life either. They only care about winning elections.

        Republicans have their own set of problems but creating an economic slave class dependent on the government tit for their survival isn’t one of them.

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 8:52 pm |

        David –

        This speaks precisely to my point that I cannot ask those who would know whether they’d rather be a free but dead child gunned down in their teens or an old slave who lived comfortably and long.

        And you continue to ignore the bias-confirming nature of your question – even though I have pointed it out more than once.

        You also can’t ask a dead slave child whether they’d rather be an old free person who lived comfortably and long.

        But you can go out into any ghetto and ask any black person you see whether they’d rather be a slave or lead their current life with the inherent dangers of living in the inner city.

        Now if you were in a similar circumstance and were asked that question, perhaps you would pick living in slavery, as someone who was “well taken care of,” like one of your dogs. You have certainly shown that you are quite capable of having some wacky beliefs.

        But I can guarantee, however, that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone other than yourself who would pick the option of being a slave.

        Make of that what you will, and have a nice night.

        all the best,

        j.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 9:00 pm |

        Once again your instincts betray you Joshua.

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/income-inequality-obama-bush_n_1419008.html

        President Obama may talk a big game about economic fairness, but his record on the issue doesn’t quite match up.

        There are lots of reasons to think so — and we’ll touch on several in just a minute — but the most recent comes from Matt Stoller, blogging at Naked Capitalism, who points us toward a recent bit of number-crunching from Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

        Saez, who’s known for his work on the income gap, has highlighted a surprising and discouraging fact: during the post-recession period of 2009 and 2010, the rich snagged a greater share of total income growth than they did during the boom years of 2002 to 2007.

        In other words, inequality has been even more pronounced under Obama than it was under George W. Bush.

        Income inequality among blacks declined during the Obama administration. Yet Obama received another record percentage of the black vote in 2012.

        So are they stupid and don’t know which side their bread is buttered on, naive in that they just uncritically believed the demoncratic rhetoric, or do they just want a half-black face in the White House even if he’s making their economic situation worse?

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 9:10 pm |

        Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 8:52 pm |

        “But you can go out into any ghetto and ask any black person you see whether they’d rather be a slave or lead their current life with the inherent dangers of living in the inner city.”

        The living aren’t the ones who paid the full freight of living in a ghetto. You don’t seem to grasp the point that the winners aren’t the ones to ask if they like the game. Of course they do. It’s the losers who have something to bitch about.

        Maybe try asking the mother of a dead child if she’d rather be a slave with her child still alive or a free woman with a dead child.

        Now if you were in a similar circumstance and were asked that question, perhaps you would pick living in slavery, as someone who was “well taken care of,” like one of your dogs. You have certainly shown that you are quite capable of having some wacky beliefs.

        But I can guarantee, however, that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone other than yourself who would pick the option of being a slave.

        Make of that what you will, and have a nice night.

        all the best,

        j.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 10:43 pm |

        Come to think of it wouldn’t someone have to experience life as both slave and free man in order to make a decision as to which they preferred?

        Here is a huge collection of narratives from just such persons.

        I encourage everyone with an honest interest in this to read at least a few of them. If I’m surprised at all it’s by less vitriol and resentment than I expected and I expected a lot less than most of you to begin with.

        http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

        Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress and includes more than 200 photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division that are now made available to the public for the first time. Born in Slavery was made possible by a major gift from the Citigroup Foundation.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 31, 2013 at 1:19 pm |

        Joshua,

        Perhaps you should inquire into the overall business model:

        > In order to achieve profit, the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy led to a high mortality rate, on average 15% and up to a third of captives. Often the ships, also known as Guineamen, transported hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. For example, the slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage. They were confined to cargo holds with each slave chained with little room to move.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_ship

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 31, 2013 at 1:30 pm |

        There also seems to be this interesting **Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery** by Robert William Fogel, in which we learn that slave imports, from 1790 to 1810, were higher than in any other 20 years period:

        http://www.jstor.org/stable/4232867?seq=3

        This contradicts the idea that slavery declined with the American Revolution.

        ***

        The concept of “slave imports” is interesting.

        If someone wastes his own imports, to whom does he make violence?

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 1:50 pm |

        willard –

        The problem is that it’s “subjective.”

        You see, there’s no one around who traveled on one of those slave ships. So we have no way of asking them whether they’d rather be chained in the hold of a ship or live in center city Chicago. It is possible that they’d prefer the former over the later.

        Oh. My sides.

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 1:53 pm |

        So – first we have this:

        Ask me if I rather be the free black girl who was an honor student until she was gunned down at 15 years of age in Chicago this week or Jefferson’s slave/mistress Sally Hemings who had a bunch of kids, led a comfortable life, and died an old woman.

        And then we have this:

        I didn’t say they were better off as slaves.

        The accountability is so refreshing.

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 1:57 pm |

        A question for the general reader:

        Riffing a bit off of David’s hilarity:

        Pay attention Joshua. I asked you what’s different about them OTHER THAN educated, successful, and eschew popular black role models.

        What do you think is different about me OTHER THAN the fact that I am handsome, charming, brilliant, articulate, wise, kind, insightful, witty, understanding, hard-working, and eminently reasonable?

  138. Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 1:48 pm |

    Another catastrophic side effect of human greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2, will be that the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the world, will rapidly die back in the coming century. This will be one of the larger teleconnection impacts of Arctic Sea Ice annihilation. Unfortunately scientists modelling the Amazon have failed to take into account such teleconnections and so have underestimated the sensitivity of the rainforest to human emissions and global temperatures.

    • Rob Starkey | January 30, 2013 at 3:13 pm |

      You know that how?

      • stefanthedenier | February 1, 2013 at 12:56 am |

        Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 4:31 pm said: ”The Sun has no impact on any of this, it is merely a bystander. Sadly some scientists and a lot of people have looked up in the sky and worshiped the Sun”

        The sun – not guilty! BUT, Arctic’s ice is NOT melting because of increased global temp! there average temp is minus – 30C. That’s twice as cold than in your deep freezer. b] water freezes on zero C!

        2] the ice seats on the salty seawater – ice sacrifices some off itself, to produce some freshwater below, as buffer – therefore: the amount of ice depends on the speed / strength of the currents. 2] 80% of the Russian rivers are drying into arctic – that freshwater spreads on the top of the salty water, and protects the ice = less of that water drains -> more warm / salty water from north pacific ends up into arctic via Bering, as substitute

        3] the bigger dry heat from Sahara ”gulf-stream” speeds up, that siphons more water from Arctic, via the Mexican gulf – to Mediterranean = stronger currents under the ice on Arctic. b] more dry heat from Sahara = destroys the ”raw material” for renewal of the ice on arctic. Modern crap; can you repeat and memorize what i said?! face the truth, instead of the truth laughing at you. and your lies…

    • climatereason | January 30, 2013 at 3:32 pm |

      Modern science

      Did the amazon die back in the mwp, roman or Minoan warm periods? If not, why should it die back now?

      Tonyb

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 4:05 pm |

        During the MWP and Roman and Minoan warm periods delta CO2 was < 0.1ppm/year. Today delta CO2 is much higher at about 2ppm/year. This is the key difference as far as the physics is concerned and is why nothing like this has happened before.

        At the same time the Arctic is to flip into a transition to a Sea Ice Free State, which will cause a surge in NH warming. It is through teleconnections with this phenomenon that catastrophic obliteration of the Amazon Rainforest is inevitable.

      • Rob Starkey | January 30, 2013 at 4:19 pm |

        Modern

        You are entitled to whatever system of “beliefs” that you wish. You seem however to have very little scientific evidence to support you beliefs conclusions.

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 4:31 pm |

        I have a lot of scientific evidence to back up my claims. Note for example what has happened to Arctic Temperature in recent decades. Do you know how much it has increased?

        Now, consider the sea ice decline. The large drop in 2007 and in 2012. This is a sign of the system entering a different state. The Sun has no impact on any of this, it is merely a bystander. Sadly some scientists and a lot of people have looked up in the sky and worshiped the Sun as the driver of climate when it really is less than a bit player.

      • Modern Science Ideas | January 30, 2013 at 4:36 pm |

        Here is Arctic Temperature taking off as sea ice declines
        http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/arctic.jpg

        Note this is an underestimate of the recent warming in recent years due to poor station coverage in the predictably fastest warming areas.

      • tonybclimatereason | January 30, 2013 at 4:49 pm |

        modern
        what were the two warmest consecutive decades in the arctic on record?
        tonyb

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 5:03 pm |

        Modern

        The sun generates ALL the energy we enjoy on our planet (except for a very small amount of geothermal energy).

        Describing it as a “bit player” is absurd.

        The real uncertainty lies in whether trace GH gases like CO2 can cause a significant change in our climate at higher concentrations or whether the change will be very small.

        Past IPCC reports always suggested a high 2xCO2 climate sensitivity with significant warming based on model simulations, but more recent studies (as well as the temperature record itself) are showing that these estimates were too high by a factor of around two.

        As a result, the projected global warming by 2100 will most likely need to be reduced accordingly.

        Past IPCC reports put this at somewhere between 1.8C and 6.4C, so I would expect the next IPCC report to reduce the upper end of the range considerably.

        I’d like to see your reasoning for a 20C rise caused by human CO2 emissions.

        Quite frankly, it sounds screwy to me.

        A second REAL uncertainty (which is connected) relates to the role of clouds and how these may be affected by the sun; experimental work is going on to clear up some of this uncertainty.

        And finally, there is a lot of uncertainty in how and why different ocean circulation oscillations work; these are known to impact our climate, but their causes and future impacts are still largely unknown.

        So there is still a large amount of uncertainty – and it is highly likely that the greenhouse impact has been overestimated by a large amount, rather than underestimated as your projections would show.

        Max

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 5:24 pm |

        Modern

        Trees LOVE CO2.

        This goes for those in the Amazon forests, just like those growing in the alpine foothills.

        Why do you think more CO2 in the atmosphere will kill the Amazon forest?

        Sounds counterintuitive to me.

        Max

  139. willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 2:00 pm |

    > Ever thought about that while you contemplate your navel and ponder “uncertainty”?

    After playing CAGW and CS, now MiniMax plays AdHominem, or perhaps in this case AbdHominem.

    As if searching for resources and sharing them amounted to navel gazing.

    Readers should wonder what pontificating around a few pet cards sounds like, then.

    • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 2:06 pm |

      Willard

      “Readers” have observed that you wilt when it comes to discussing specifics, but enjoy general waffles and navel-gazing.

      So be it.

      But, hey, what do you think about all those studies, which show much lower ECS than previously estimated by the models?

      Interesting, huh?

      Max

      • JCH | January 30, 2013 at 3:07 pm |

        From a comment on the work of Tsonis and Swanson:

        …I think the interesting question raised (though not definitively answered) by this line of work is the extent to which some of the pause in warming mid-century might have been more due to decadal ocean variability rather than aerosols than is commonly thought. If that is the case, then a pause or temporary reduction in warming rate could recur even if aerosols are unchanged. Learning how to detect and interpret such things is important, lest a temporary pause be confused with evidence for low climate sensitivity. – Raymond T. Pierrehumbert

      • steven | January 30, 2013 at 3:20 pm |

        It is important to keep this in mind lest the warming of the past few decades be confused with evidence for a high climate sensitivity. There, I fixed it for him.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 4:35 pm |

        JCH’s quote was taken from a comment on a guest post by Kyle Swanson on, should I say it, Real Climate:

        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/

        It’s quite rare that I have a reason to read RC. Thanks, JCH.

        ***

        There are mentions to some “Keenlyside paper”, e.g. by Chris Colose.
        Note Raypierre’s Voice of God response to tharanga’s comment:

        > [F]or me personally the take-away message from Keenlyside is that ocean dynamics is capable of producing a temporary warming interruption, even in the face of growing radiative forcing.

        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/comment-page-1/#comment-130910

        There’s also this comment that deserves to be repeated:

        > Tasos is a good scientist and quite reasonable person. I won’t speak for him, but I sense from conversations I’ve had with him that he feels that many of his comments were taken out of context, or otherwise misrepresented. And perhaps he might have phrased things differently in hindsight. Tasos: if you happy to be reading this, we’d love to hear from you.

        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/comment-page-3/#comment-131121

        So much the worse for the idea that all we have in climate science are showdowns like the one between Steve and Mike.

        ***

        My favorite bit so far is this exchange between Jacob Mack and raypierre:

        So, Mr. Swanson, in short natural systems work in synergy and will in fact effectively reduce and pause warming; ocean/atmospheric dynamics convert energy continually, seems elementary to believe as you pointed out astutely that such digressions are reactions/responses in/on the system. General Chem and environmental science tells us this is so; this is a good review–educationaly post! People please re-read and the mod responses.

        [Response: This is not at all what the article says. The “pause,” if it indeed exists, is temporary and has little if any effect on long-term climate sensitivity. You are just bringing your own preconceptions and misconceptions into it, and you don’t seem to know either your General Chem or environmental science very well. Systems do tend toward a new equilibrium when conditions change, but the displacement of that equilibrium from the old one can be either amplified or damped by feedbacks. And sometimes, the equilibrium represents a transition to a new state altogether and in essence destroys the old state — as in what happens when you pass the transition temperature for initiating combustion. There, that make you feel better? –raypierre]

        http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/comment-page-4/#comment-131186

        MiniMax has invented very little, it seems.

        Perhaps he could contact raypierre by email to tell him about Lewis.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 4:37 pm |

        I think I’ll insert an italic end, just in case.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 5:41 pm |

        Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703

        If you check Swanson’s rationale for determining the residual trend for greenhouse gas warming – you get this – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1970/plot/gistemp/from:1979/to:1997/trend

        This excludes the ENSO dragon-kings in 1996/97 and 1998/2001 – these being exceptional flucuations at points of climate shifts. These are phenomenologically extreme ENSO events the significance of which is lost unless the nature of the findings of Tsonis and colleagues is understood. So we have a theory in which climate shifts abruptly at identifiable points signalling a change in PDO modes and in the frequency and intensity of La Nina and El Nino – along with a change in the trajectory of surface temperature. These as well in both Pacific surface observations of cloud (Clements et al 2009, Burroughs et al 2008) and satellite observations (Wong et al 2006, Zhang et al 2007) show cloud changes in the period. The satellite power flux data show cloud effects causing most of the warming in the period.

        The residual trend is quite modest – but the chaotic shifts have other implications for sensitivty. The potential is for abrupt and nonlinear change at either far end of the warming/cooling spectrum.

        There are as well documented changes in ENSO over centuries to millennia (Moys, 2002, Vance et al 2012) that suggest a centennial increase in the frequency of La Nina over the next few hundred years perhaps consistent with the start of Bond Event Zero. There seems little chance for much warming for a decade or three more at least.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 6:43 pm |

        > The potential is for abrupt and nonlinear change at either far end of the warming/cooling spectrum.

        Therefore let’s throw a linear fit, the only plausible thing to do.

        ***

        > There seems little chance for much warming for a decade or three more at least.

        Is that a prediction? Here’s NG’s forecast:

        My GISTEMP forecast for 2013 is +0.70 +/- .09 C. This would be the warmest global anomaly in this data set, breaking the record set in 2010 by +0.04 C. Given the uncertainty range, I rate the odds of breaking the record as 2 in 3. The forecast is 0.06 C above my September forecast for 2013; half of the difference is due to the update in the GISTEMP values. My forecast for 2013 is 0.14 C warmer than the observed value for 2012.

        http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2013/01/global-temperature-anomaly-forecasts-january-2013/

        Not that this means anything. It’s all chaotic anyway.

        ***

        Incidentally, weather and climate forecasting was the topic of McWilliams’ book:

        A revolution in weather and climate forecasting is in progress, made possible by theoretical advances in our understanding of the predictability of weather and climate on the one hand, and by the extraordinary developments in supercomputer technology on the other.

        http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780511223006&ss=exc

        Only 188 bucks for your e-reader. A bargain.

        Readers should beware that the IPCC distinguishes forecasts from projections.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 7:00 pm |

        Willard

        N-G wisely adds this caveat to his 2013 warming prediction:

        Note that this approach should fail miserably if there is no underlying warming trend, so it constitutes a test of whether the long-term warming trend is still there. According to linear regression, this ongoing warming trend is 0.12-0.18 C per decade.

        Seems pretty clear to me.

        If his projection “fails miserably” that means that “there is no underlying warming trend”.

        Good.

        That means we’ll know whether or not CO2 is the “climate control knob” as early as next year.

        Right?

        Max

      • JCH | January 30, 2013 at 7:28 pm |

        I do not think J-NG is too worried about there being no underlying trend as if there weren’t, the 2011 and 2012 La Ninas would have drilled the SAT into the basement. That didn’t happen.

      • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 7:32 pm |

        Willard

        Read the N-G quotation again (bold type by me to help you understand).

        Note that this approach should fail miserably if there is no underlying warming trend, so it constitutes a test of whether the long-term warming trend is still there.

        Got it now?

        Really not so tough if you read things carefully.

        Max

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 7:44 pm |

        NG says:

        > Note that this approach should fail miserably if there is no underlying warming trend, so it constitutes a test of whether the long-term warming trend is still there.

        MiniMax:

        > That means we’ll know whether or not CO2 is the “climate control knob” as early as next year.

        Notice the difference.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 8:07 pm |

        Why not quote all of NG’s remarks, with our emphasis:

        If indeed this year holds true to the ONI predictions with near-normal tropical temperatures, and if there are no major volcanic eruptions, this year will be an excellent test of the idea that global warming has stopped in a fundamental sense. If one extrapolates recent temperatures, one obtains a forecast that is similar to last year’s temperature rather than being warmer by about 0.14 C. These two numbers are so far apart that the actual global temperature anomaly is likely to be consistent with only one of the two hypotheses. We shall wait and see.

        http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2013/01/global-temperature-anomaly-forecasts-january-2013/

        The next forecast update will be in late May, 2013.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 9:10 pm |

        Wee willie,

        It is a little difficult to predict temperature given the unpredictability of ENSO – especially at this time of year. So this really seems more wishful thinking as we are used to from the space cadets than anything with a rational scientific basis.

        ‘Stay tuned for the next update by 9 February (hopefully sooner) to see where the MEI will be heading next. El Niño came and went this summer, not unlike 1953. We are currently going through our first ENSO-neutral winter since 2003-04 (2005-06 was an ENSO-neutral winter, but much closer to La Niña, and dipped into La Niña rankings during March-April). Until this winter, every ‘double-dip’ La Niña of the last century was followed by either one more La Niña winter or a switch to El Niño, so this is quite unusual. It will be a few months before a return to either El Niño or La Niña is possible.’ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

        On the whole though a cool Pacific mode sees increases in the frequency and intensity of Niña over 20 to 40 years – so the probabilities are heavily stacked in favour of cooler temperatures if not this year than one year soon and for many years as more clouds reflect more sunlight and the energy content of the atmosphere and oceans declines.

        You should remember that chaos is a metatheory – one that creates expectations about how the system will behave. To quote McWilliams again – a new paragraph this time.

        AOS models are members of the broader class of deterministic chaotic dynamical systems, which provides several expectations about their properties (Fig. 1). In the context of weather prediction, the generic property of sensitive dependence is well understood (4, 5). For a particular model, small differences in initial state (indistinguishable within the sampling uncertainty for atmospheric measurements) amplify with time at an exponential rate until saturating at a magnitude comparable to the range of intrinsic variability. Model differences are another source of sensitive dependence. Thus, a deterministic weather forecast cannot be accurate after a period of a few weeks, and the time interval for skillful modern forecasts is only somewhat shorter than the estimate for this theoretical limit. In the context of equilibrium climate dynamics, there is another generic property that is also relevant for AOS, namely structural instability (6). Small changes in model formulation, either its equation set or parameter values, induce significant differences in the long-time distribution functions for the dependent variables (i.e., the phase-space attractor). The character of the changes can be either metrical (e.g., different means or variances) or topological (different attractor shapes). Structural instability is the norm for broad classes of chaotic dynamical systems that can be so assessed (e.g., see ref. 7). Obviously, among the options for discrete algorithms and parameterization schemes, and perhaps especially for coupling to nonfluid processes, there are many ways that AOS model equation sets can and will change and hence will be vulnerable to structurally unstable behavior.

        I suppose it is really too much to expect you to read any of this? But understanding emerges from diligence, broad study and questioning. But I don’t suppose that any of this is aimed at you – but at someone with an open mind and a questing intelligence.

        So the system behaves chaotically but the mechanisms are ocean and atmosphere circulations that are completely deterministic but about which we have an incomplete knowledge. These circulations resolve into standing patterns such as the PDO, PNA, ENSO, AMO, etc, which are correlated with rainfalls and temperature. These patterns persist for a while and then change – they are emergent properties of the global climate system.

        An El Niño this year would make no difference to the pattern of the cool Pacific mode. It would be minor and short lived and the likelihood is for a large and long lived La Niña to emerge – if not this year then the next and the next.

        ‘A revolution in weather and climate forecasting is in progress, made possible by theoretical advances in our understanding of the predictability of weather and climate on the one hand, and by the extraordinary developments in supercomputer technology on the other.’ Emphasis mine. This project is far from complete. I doubt very much that you have actually Predictability of Weather and Climate – but simply glossed over reality in your zeal.

        Let’s quote something else from Predictability of Weather and Climate.

        ‘Prediction of weather and climate are necessarily uncertain: our observations of weather and climate are uncertain, the models into which we assimilate this data and predict the future are uncertain, and external effects such as volcanoes and anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are also uncertain. Fundamentally, therefore, therefore we should think of weather and climate predictions in terms of equations whose basic prognostic variables are probability densities ρ(X,t) where X denotes some climatic variable and t denoted time. In this way, ρ(X,t)dV represents the probability that, at time t, the true value of X lies in some small volume dV of state space.’

        This comes back to the necessity of predicting climate in terms of probabilities – something that may indeed challenge the limits of what is theoretically possible according to both Palmer and McWilliams.

        ‘Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Gödel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation.’ McWilliams

    • steven | January 30, 2013 at 4:56 pm |

      Actually I was pointing out what he himself pointed out. If it can dampen it can amplify. Some seem to forget the it can amplify part. I doubt it really matters that much. More is natural variability than just the warming phase of the 60 year cycle I am coming to believe. There has been a long term trend in OHT and that probably accounts for some portion of the warming also. If that is the case even my previous thoughts that climate sensitivity amounted to 1.2 C is probably too high.

  140. DCA | January 30, 2013 at 2:15 pm |

    There’s an excellant discussion over at WUWT about Robert Carter’s book.
    http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_1a_CTCC.htm

  141. Jim Cripwell | January 30, 2013 at 2:27 pm |

    Total global sea ice anomaly is almost zero. From http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

    Arctic sea ice anomaly on 29 Jan 2013 0.755
    Antarctic sea ice anomaly on 29 Jan 2013 0.719

  142. verytallguy | January 30, 2013 at 3:08 pm |

    David Springer:

    The point you seem unable or unwilling to grasp is that violence against blacks didn’t diminish with abolition. Instead of a black overseer’s whip in southern slave states it’s a black gang banger’s gun now in every state and the problem is arguably worse…

    (my emphasis)

    The reality of slavery:

    Derby’s dose was a form of torture used in Jamaica to punish slaves who attempted to escape or committed other offenses like stealing food. According to Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers, “The runaway would be beaten, and salt pickle, lime juice, and bird pepper would be rubbed into his or her open wounds. Another slave would defecate into the mouth of the miscreant, who would then be gagged for four to five hours.”[1] The punishment was invented by Thomas Thistlewood

    (my emphasis)
    David, I’d beg you to reconsider what you wrote and withdraw it. Once you have, I’d beg everyone else to leave the subject alone.

    • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 3:40 pm |

      I was talking about Georgia not Jamaica. What you describe is medieval style torture and that’s pretty non-racial. I could mention crucifixion in Roman Times, burning at the stake for “witches” in Spain and even Salem, Mass., and Mayan human sacrifice, NA indians tying people down on anthills, and that’s less than the tip of the iceberg. I didn’t even mention tarring and feathering. I could go on all day. So I’m not retracting jack diddly squat. The horrible things some people will do to other people regardless of race is plethora.

      • verytallguy | January 30, 2013 at 4:35 pm |

        David,

        you sadden me.

        If you think slavery was somehow benign in Georgia, there are many resources to disabuse you of your notions, should you choose to avail yourself of them.

        As, even after time for reflection, you still appear to think that “violence against blacks didn’t diminish with abolition”, then I have no wish to bother you any further.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:01 pm |

        Then you can stop bothering me right now, VTG. I went to the source and read a random dozen narratives from former slaves. They’re what I expected which probably means they won’t be what you expect. It’s always best to go straight to the source. I think I probably read some of these when I was a child 50 years ago which is the only thing I can think of to explain why I’m not surprised. This is not what you’ve been conditioned to expect by decades of progressive revionist history.

        Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:16 pm |

        I probably should have bookmarked it but in one of the accounts (I think it was Tom or Sarah Douglas) actually said it was the northern carpet baggers teaching black folks to disrespect white folks which started all the lynchings. These former slaves are all in their 80’s in the interviews and largely say the younger blacks of the time were not taught to respect their elders, not taught good manners, not taught to respect others, and that’s what made things go bad. That was my intuition as well. Lack of mutual respect continues downhill with each generation regardless of race.

      • verytallguy | January 31, 2013 at 9:14 am |

        David Springer

        I’ve had a look at the very interesting archive, and read a small number of entries, thank you.

        I must confess that my gut reaction is to regard your position as merely confirming how folk who dispute climate science are also likely to hold other odd, or even offensive beliefs.

        However, I feel the need to ask for clarification, I’m sure I must somehow have misinterpreted your statements.

        You still appear to be saying that the situation for black people now is worse than under slavery, is that correct?

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 10:15 am |

        VTG

        It’s subjective. I can speak to numbers but not about individual feelings. Given that not a single soul alive today in the US was ever a slave on US plantation and only the very oldest might have known a former plantation slave no one can speak to what it was like. All we have for that is the narrative accounts of 2300 of them and they’re surprisingly lacking in vitriol or resentment about the institution but rather many of them had good working mutually respectful relationships with owners, had friends, family, and all the usual things we associate with a good life. The highest testament is that many of them simply switched over to voluntary employment with former owners after being freed. This was known as “the contented slave”. Most people feel that must simply be untrue propaganda. I however wonder in what percentage of cases it might be true because out of a population of 2 million slaves at least a tiny number must be like family with their owners and the legal situation simply out of everyone’s control if they were to remain together. So the relationship was benevolent. In the case of slave women the number of ersatz marriages like Sally Hemings and Tom Jefferson is likely not a tiny number like Jefferson did with his children that were legally his slaves it was not an antagonistic relationship. After reading a random dozen personal accounts I’m even more curious about the actual numbers of benevolent relationships where the legal situation was not really an issue because the relationships endured after abolition. Jefferson freed all his children after they reached the age of majority for instance and back in those days before child protective services made beating your own children when they misbehave a crime there’s little difference in the relationship until age of majority which Jefferson remedied by freeing them at that point.

        So, to the numbers. Approximately 1 million black men are currently in prison. That’s half the slave population. Is a federal prison inmate better or worse than being a slave? I dunno. You tell me. I would guess it’s a case by case basis but one thing’s for sure, no prison inmate gets to live with his wife and children and the escape option easier from slavery than from a federal prison.

        Another number to look at is the number of people who died as direct consequence of slavery. Reputedly this number is very low and it makes sense as being very low. An owner killing a slave is not good business. Slaves were not inexpensive and one that’s happy and in good health is going to be far more productive than one that’s unhappy or in poor health. So just on a pure business basis alone it makes no sense to kill a slave. But slaves weren’t animals and neither were their owners so there’s more to it than that. Old slaves weren’t sent to the glue factory like a horse. Accomodations were made just as accomodations were made for those too young to work.

        So lets say for the sake of argument that the reputed 1200 slaves that were killed as an ultimate punishment for some transgression between the years 1775 and 1865 is low by a factor of ten. Lets call it 12,000 who were purposely put to death. Each and every single year today approximately 8000 black people are homicide victims and in practically all cases the killer was also black. Over a period of 90 years that’s almost 720,000 black people purposely killed (or accidently in a drive-by shooting or collateral damage in a gang war) is far, far more than even the most liberal number of slave-related fataliites.

        This brings us to my point about it being impossible to ask a dead black child if their brief life as a black child in an inner city was better or worse than living a long life as a slave. I’d ask the mother of the dead child whether she’d exchange a life of being some rich white woman’s domestic servant for the restoration of her child’s life. I gotta believe many if not most would make that trade.

        I’m sure most abolitionists didn’t envision that emancipation would result in a million black men enslaved in prisons today and a million black people, mostly teenagers, dead by gunfire from a million other black teenagers with guns but this in fact what happened and what continues to happen as we speak. I can’t personally imagine growing accustomed to hostile gunfire in the neighborhood where I live. It’s simply intolerable. Yet many millions of blacks today are trapped in exactly that situation with no real way out. You think most of them are happy about it? I find that hard to believe. Maybe grudgingly accepting of the situation at best. People can learn to make the best of some very bad situations and even find some measure of happiness in the midst of it. But so did a lot of slaves. Slavery is evil to be sure so don’t get me wrong but the best of intentions do not guarantee improvement. It’s possible to go from the frying pan into the fire is all I’m saying and many inner cities today look like a fire. I don’t know how to fix it but the first step in finding any solution is first acknowledging there’s something that needs fixing.

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 11:34 am |

        David Springer-

        I would add that Jefferson’s mixed children were 7/8 European. They were well educated even by today’s standards and with Jefferson’s financial backing would have been well equipped to succeed. However, with one exception, Jefferson only freed his sons. And he did not free Sally, whom I regard as his common-law wife.

        Jefferson is diminished by his nepotistic behaviour because as a self-proclaimed meritocracist, he violently opposing the right of kings to rule by reason of superior birth. If not a racist, then Jefferson was what, narcissist?

        In any event, I agree that Jefferson was addicted to slavery.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 12:04 pm |

        VTG

        On the flip side, no doubt there’s an even bigger success story by absolute number. I’m not sure what percentage of the black population today live in high crime areas. I’d be surprised if it’s much over 10%. Austin, Texas for instance has a mix of 48% white, 35% hispanic, 8% black, and 6% Asian. The remainder are mostly a mixture of the above. The murder/manslaughter rate is less than 40 per year for nearly a million residents. Other types of crime are average for a city of a million. So cars get stolen and homes robbed and rapes happening but homicide is so rare each one makes the local news in detail. With fewer than one per week each one is remarkable. Chicago on the other hand has a population three times the size of Austin and a murder/manslaughter rate 20 times greater at some 720 cases per year. The racial mix in Chicago is about equally spread among black white and hispanic near 30% each, 6% Asian, and 3% mixed.

        Contrary to what you probably presume I think I don’t think the disparity has a damn thing to do with the racial mix. There are three explanations:

        Bad government
        Bad government
        and
        Bad government

        If Chicago was in Texas it wouldn’t be the same city. Houston, with a population of 2 million and racial mix of 25% white, 25% black, and 45% hispanic has only 100 homicide/manslaughters per million. Not as low as Austin but in the same ballpark and close to 10x fewer per capita than Chicago. You might get your car boosted as often as anywhere else but you won’t get your head blown off over it.

        And Texas is a concealed carry state so everyone and anyone who wants can be packing heat 24/7 unless workplace or other public or private place that specifically bars it. And it’s got one of the strongest castle doctrines anywhere. You may stand your ground in your home, in your car, and at your workplace and use deadly force to defend it against criminal acts including vandalism, theft, and destruction of property.

        I hate to sound like an echo chamber for Rick Perry but he was not kidding one little bit about Texas being a well oiled machine. Imagine our reaction when Washington wants to force us along the path of northern states when we’re doing so much better in almost every way you can imagine.

        There are a great many middle class neighborhoods with more or less equal representation among race, religion, and ethnicity as it exists across the entire population more less. Desegretation doesn’t totally not work.

        n’t what the numbers are now. In the neighborhood where I live now in high tech Austin of the twenty surrounding homes it’s overrepresented in5% black, 10% arab, 10% asian, 15% Hispanic, hispanic,

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 12:26 pm |

        A white plantation owner in an ersatz marriage with a black woman and mixed children whom he freed when they came of majority age. I think he’s pretty much disqualified from membership in any white supremecy groups by that. He might not have freed Sally because he didn’t want her free to marry another man. I think he pretty much tried to make the best of a f*cked up situation and fell in love outside of societal boundaries. It could be worse. Sally could have been a man, for instance. Some of the founders seemed overly fond of French society too, moreso than strictly needed to woo her support against England if you get my drift.

      • verytallguy | January 31, 2013 at 12:52 pm |

        David Springer,

        I have no expectation of your opinions on race. If you feel I implied you were racist in any way, please accept my apologies, it was wholly unintended.
        Your opinions on slavery, however I find genuinely shocking. Your continued defence of those views is, to me, incomprehensible.
        Whatever the rights and wrongs of today’s society, it is in no way whatsoever comparable to slavery. Really.

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 1:31 pm |

        David Springer –

        I do not believe Jefferson provided for Sally to be freed, even upon his death. Whereas, as I vaguely recall reading that George Washington’s will provided freedom for all of his slaves. Even after the U.S. had legislated the death penalty for the crime of importing slaves, Jefferson still held on to his ‘grandfathered’ slaves and their children. Either old habits die really hard or Jefferson is not agood example of a libertarian.

        BTW, the word libertarian was coined as a pejorative by Joseph Priestly “Necessarians”, who ridiculed the incompatibilty of Free-Will co-existing with scientific hard determinism and an omniscient Creator. Since slavery and violence pays lip service at best to respect for Free-Will, it’s too bad more people don’t look more to Pennsylvanians such as Ben Franklin for an example of a libertarian – rather than violent revolutionaries such as Thomas Payne and Thomas Jefferson.

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 2:01 pm |

        More on why the philosophy of colonial Pennsylvanians is more likely what ‘libertarian’ was coined to refer to.

        Pennsylvania was by far the most wealthy and influential of the colonies. (And after London, Philadelphia was the second most populous city in the British Empire.) That the philosophy of Philadelphians is scrupulously ignored by Progressives when they are discussing colonist libertarians is a good reason alone to pay it more attention.

        Pennsylvania Quakers were adamantly anti-slavery since 1600’s. They tended to be “Brits” yet would not remove hats or bow to royalty. Philadelphians were heavily influenced by “Pennsylvania Dutch” pacifism. The main problem was more with parliament than with King George. (Lest it be forgotten, it was parliament in the 1600’s that inundated the world with Irish chattel slaves.) Franklin advocated negotiation as he claimed that King George – as contrasted with parliament – was reasonable, except during the King’s bouts of insanity, of course.

        OTOH, Jefferson was part of the dirty politics which defrauded Pennsylvanian’s intentions. It resulted in a possibly avoidable war with England (and later civil war) and a continuation of legal slavery in the new republic. First, the verbiage to ban slavery was removed from the Declaration of Independence. This was necessary because South Carolina was adamantly pro-slavery. The vote found only Pennsylvania opposing. Then a re-vote was called – I believe the next day. Because no change in verbiage had occurred, the main Pennsylvania delegation did not show up. However, one lone Pennsylvanian turncoat did show up to vote.

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 2:09 pm |

        That the philosophy of Philadelphians is scrupulously ignored by Progressives when they are discussing colonist libertarians is a good reason alone to pay it more attention.

        I’m not entirely sure what that references (or means, for that matter), so I’m not entirely sure that my comment will be on point – but I happen to live in Philly, and I have quite a bit of interaction with Quakers (taught at a Quaker college, do community work with Quaker activists, lived in a house – and farm on land – on an old Quaker estate adjacent to an arboretum)… Just about every Quaker I know most probably self-identifies as a “progressive.” (There is one notable exception I can think of – a fellow I worked for – splitting wood – when I was in high school. He made it a point to show up at Quaker meetings in his community in his army uniform – which didn’t go over too well).

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 3:05 pm |

        Hi Joshua –

        U.S. Progressives supported Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, eugenics, etc. If modern Philadelphia Quakers can be counted among the afficonados of Totalitarianism, then of course they can’t be viewed as colonialist libertarians. And I didn’t do that. My suggestion was to study Quakers of the 1600’s , Pennsylvania Dutch Germans and the like.

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 3:15 pm |

        U.S. Progressives supported Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, eugenics, etc. If modern Philadelphia Quakers can be counted among the afficonados of Totalitarianism, then of course they can’t be viewed as colonialist libertarians.

        I love you guys!

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 3:30 pm |

        Joshua –

        My intemperate jab at progressives was not aimed at you personally. The overwhelming majority of my friends and family are progressives, as I once was myself. My contrarian libertarian position results from progressivism becoming so dominant. Since all idealogies (and personalty types) are deficient in some respect one danger in the U.S. is from progressives who are unaware of the defects. i.e. Totalitariansm was once meant to be a good thing, as in all inclusive, no member of society deprived of the benefits of the state. Simlar to how “awful” once meant “awesome”, as in awesome church service.

        Finally, I note that Benjamin Franklin, who was not a Quaker, owned two man-servant slaves (King & George) whom he brought with him to London while serving as an envoy. He did not free them until he would have had to move from Philadelphia or lose King & George to manumission.

        To his later credit, Franklin became president of the Philadelphia abolitionist society. Further, he was elected as President of Pennsylvania, where he helped to promote education as a means to assist slaves in their transition to freedom.

        “Their [Africans’s] apprehension seems as quick, their memory as strong, and their docility in every respect equal to that of white children.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1763

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 3:50 pm |

        BI2HS –

        Rest assured, I didn’t take it personally – intended so or not.

        If you think that there is any possibility that modern day Quakers (who I would say largely self-identify as progressives) support totalitarianism in any way, shape, of fashion, then I’d suggest you do some research.

        And to respond in a bit more detail: I agree about the defects of all ideologies (and personality types), and I understand the complexity of questions about to what degree the American left supported communist totalitarianism. Indeed, I have known some old-time, hard-line leftists who only let go of their support for Stalin, maybe in the 1970s? But your statement above is too simplistic to be of any much value. For example, I also have known American progressives who fought in the Abe Lincoln Brigade. I have known American progressives who were on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement. You seem well-informed, but to simplify these issues and assert that those folks (who were very much representative of “progressives”) were, in any way, totalitarian or supportive of forced sterilization or similar ideologies reveals a odd gap in your knowledge. And to further assert that there is some direct line between progressives’ historical support for totalitarian communism and support for totalitarianism among today’s progressives (in any significant degree) is likewise, oddly uninformed, IMO.

      • blueice2hotsea | January 31, 2013 at 4:15 pm |

        Hi Joshua –

        If I am a fool, then let Socrates speak. And where there are odd gaps in my knowledge, I will thankfully accept correction. However, in this case, if you look the comments, it seems clear to me that I did not link modern Quakers to 1600’s Quakers. Further I make no claim that modern Quaker Progressives hold views similar to that of progressives of the early to mid-1900’s. Your responses mildly confirm my theories about progressives and motivated reading. haha

        BTW, the 1912 U.S. presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Eugene Debs were all “Progressives”. Republican, Democrat and Socialist – that covers most of the bases.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 4:15 pm |

        We know what you are Joshua – the transparent attempts to white wash the totalitarian progressive agenda will not remain unchallenged.

        ‘As previously transmitted to the masses, the team of People’s Cube operatives consisting of Comrade Red Square and Mrs. Red Square embedded themselves into the hotbed of the paleo-conservative movement – the “Future of Conservatism” Summit organized by the National Review Institute in Washington, D.C. (Jan 25-27, 2013).

        Their mission was three-fold:

        1. Deplete their conservative budget by eating free conservative food and drinking free conservative spirits.

        2. Uncover the schemes that the conservative conspiratorial cabal is plotting for our future, by eavesdropping on sources who spoke under the impression they were among “their kind.”

        3. Most importantly, implant transmitters into the heads of conservative thought-masters for future monitoring.

        Below is their After Action Report.

        1. A fair share of free conservative food and spirits have been collectivized and redistributed to each according to our needs (in fact, way beyond our physical abilities).

        2. The paleo-conservatives are in consensus that the future must be grim and hopeless – if you’re a progressive. A full report to be filed in a few days.

        3. Implanting the chips proved difficult: conservatives must have been trained not to let down their guard even when sufficiently imbibed. We had to resort to Plan B: slip them innocently-looking, easy-to-solve People’s Cubes with pre-installed listening and tracking instrumentation.

        As of this reporting, the data collected from them is being transmitted directly to Laika the Space Dog who has been orbiting Earth since 1957 for just this kind of data mining. The highlights are then live-streamed to our tinfoil hats and communicated to the collective on a need-to-know basis.

        http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/infiltrating-national-review-summit-mission-accomplished-t10628.html

      • Joshua | January 31, 2013 at 4:42 pm |

        BI2HS –

        Indeed, we all read with motivation. I am certainly no exception.

        Still, I would argue that this statement:

        U.S. Progressives supported Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, eugenics, etc.

        is, as I said, too simplistic to be of much use (even if it might technically be true). The topic is complex, and not well-served by such generalizations, IMO. Perhaps it was meant to be provocative? If so, then might we agree that we write with motivation as well?

        And to defend my motivations (mildly):

        Your responses mildly confirm my theories about progressives and motivated reading. haha

        I will remind you that I said this:

        I’m not entirely sure what that references (or means, for that matter), so I’m not entirely sure that my comment will be on point…

        And one more point:

        Further I make no claim that modern Quaker Progressives hold views similar to that of progressives of the early to mid-1900′s.

        I am glad to read that – but to even keep it open as a possibility suggests an odd gap in your knowledge, IMO.

        I mean to assert that you make no claim that modern Quakers support totalitarianism (while pointing out that earlier progressives did support totalitarianism) would be rather like me saying that, I never claimed that you hadn’t stopped beating your wife.

      • David Springer | February 1, 2013 at 6:09 am |

        verytallguy | January 31, 2013 at 12:52 pm |

        Your opinions on slavery, however I find genuinely shocking. Your continued defence of those views is, to me, incomprehensible.
        Whatever the rights and wrongs of today’s society, it is in no way whatsoever comparable to slavery. Really.

        Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to just say slavery is bad, hip hip hooray Abe Lincoln, and leave it at that. Shocking that I’d actually want to look for nuance beyond that and even more shocking I’d want to talk about it, and most shocking yet that I’d compare the life of a slave to the life in the modern ghetto. Very shocking.

        I’d say I’m sorry to upset your delicate sensitivities but maybe you need a shock. Be thankful you can be shocked. That beautiful innocent 15 year-old honors student gunned down in the crossfire of rampant inner city conflict won’t be shocked by it. You see this is what triggered it. I have two daughters and the protective instinct is pretty strong and that particular story, a girl playing in a band for the president one day and shot dead in senseless inner city violence the next day, was troubling. We’re all slaves to something. Break the law and our masters have us in prison. Don’t pay your taxes, same story. This is just an impersonal form of slavery. Economic and social enslavement by a faceless government.

      • blueice2hotsea | February 1, 2013 at 9:57 am |

        Joshua

        My central claim has been that the word libertarian was most likely coined to label the philosphy of colonial Philadelphians. The second claim was that Progressives (for unknown reasons) scrupulously avoided discussing this possibility.

        Thus far you have have entirely avoided discussion of 17th and 18th century Quakers & Philadelphians as Libertarians. Your motivated avoidance has demonstrated my point. Thank you.

        The last word is yours.

  143. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 7:00 pm |

    Joshua, there it is, despite the practise of slavery, written down,:
    in The Declaration of Independence:
    ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are
    created equal, that athey are endowed by their creator
    with certain inalienable rights,that among these are Life,
    Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.’

    These words created a principle, not implying that all men are created’equal’ in terms of mental or physical endowments but
    ‘equal’ not on the basis of race but by their common humanity.*

    *Say, what was left out was reference ter the rights of women
    ter Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Where was
    John Stuart Mill when yer needed him?
    Beth the ex-serf.

    • manacker | January 30, 2013 at 7:24 pm |

      Beth

      You are right.

      The US Declaration of Independence is still an inspiring document today, although some goofy knuckleheads here try to discredit it because slavery existed in most of the world when it was written and some of the signatories, including the extraordinary man who drafted the text, were slaveholders at the time.

      Tiny Switzerland has been a democracy for over 700 years, but when it came time to modernize their constitution in 1848, they used the US constitution and the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence as a guideline.

      Most Europeans are aware of and thankful for the role played by the USA in liberating Europe during WWII, helping bail it out afterward with the Marshall Plan and keeping it safe from domination by the USSR during the cold war period, even though this all may have happened long before they were born.

      The USA remains the “beacon of freedom” today in the eyes of much of the world, and the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence are still very much a part of that.

      Max

      • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 7:36 pm |

        manacker –

        The US Declaration of Independence is still an inspiring document today, although some goofy knuckleheads here try to discredit it because slavery existed in most of the world when it was written and some of the signatories, including the extraordinary man who drafted the text, were slaveholders at the time.

        Wrong, in every respect possible (except possible the contention that I’m a goofy knucklehead?).

        The document is not discredited by the slave-owning of it’s writers. It is not discredited because its authors violated the very principles it codifies.

        Not in the least. You should try to refrain from projecting your assumption onto others, with no supporting evidence.

        Rational skeptics control for that behavior. “Skeptics” do not.

      • David Springer | January 30, 2013 at 11:25 pm |

        manacker | January 30, 2013 at 7:24 pm | Reply

        “The USA remains the “beacon of freedom” today in the eyes of much of the world, and the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence are still very much a part of that.”

        I’m not feeling much love from across the pond anymore, Max. Been that way for going on 20 years now I reckon’. Last time I was over there was 1991. I could still feel the love then. I’ll take this opportunity once again to apologize for inventing the internet. I had no idea it would turn out like this.

      • manacker | January 31, 2013 at 7:00 am |

        David

        No “love from across the pond”?

        Don’t confuse what you might read in the press with what people really think.

        I can assure you that in many places, like Switzerland for example, there is still great admiration for the American ideals of liberty and freedom.

        And if you ever want to feel good about being an American, go to the Normandy or the Ardennes.

        Go to the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, the first village in Normandy to be liberated by US forces, where they still commemorate John Steele, the US paratrooper that got stuck on the clock tower who later became an honorary citizen of the village and in whose honor a monument was erected.

        Beth

        Yeah. Those mountains probably did help Switzerland maintain its independence over centuries.

        Political pressures to join the EU are a threat today, which can’t be averted by mountains – it appears that many in the “ruling class” here lean in that direction while the general populace is still very much against membership.

        Interestingly, polls taken in several of the adjoining provinces, departments and states of neighbors (France, Germany, Italy and Austria) reveal that a majority of those polled would favor becoming a part of Switzerland (and leaving the EU).

        It appears that the UK may be headed for a popular referendum on EU membership. PM David Cameron’s recent speech at the WEF in Davos has the EU “ruling class” fuming. (Maybe Cameron got overwhelmed by the feeling of independence as a result of his visit in the Swiss mountains.)

        Max

    • Joshua | January 30, 2013 at 7:32 pm |

      Beth –

      These words created a principle, not implying that all men are created’equal’ in terms of mental or physical endowments but
      ‘equal’ not on the basis of race but by their common humanity.*

      To quibble first. Those words didn’t create the principle. Those words codified a principle in an important document, and we are the better for it.

      I don’t fully understand your point. I will speculate: You think that I’m saying that somehow the practice of slavery invalidates the statement in the D of I?

      Well, to some degree that’s true. When we take the “we” literally, it is obviously true. The signatories did not “hold” self evident what they claimed.

      We could move on to question, as Faustino recently did, whether those rights are, in fact, endowed by a creator or by a society. But I suspect that is not the point you are raising for discussion? But that doesn’t relate to the question of whether or not slavery invalidates the principle.

      In fact, (for the moment moving beyond the question of whether a creator endows rights), I don’t think that slavery invalidates the principle. Where this discussion started was in Chief’s contention of ownership of the principle, by virtue of being a libertarian, as well as his contention that America was founded on those ideals. First, I don’t think that those ideals can be constrained by the adjective of “libertarian.” And second, I question that a country that was founded when slavery was prevalent can be said to have been founded on the ideal of “individual freedom,” by people who actively violated the principle that all men are created equal.

      My argument is not a criticism of America, or of the principle of individual freedom. My argument is a criticism of jingoism – jingoism that seeks to exploit the horrors of slavery to make a cheap and selectively-reasoned political point about “pissants.”

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 11:04 pm |

        Your argument Joshua is the one to do with the one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

        My point is that we all recognise the paradox of Montilcello – but there was a more important ‘whig’ tradition emerging from the Scottish enlightenment that culminated in the US in Lincoln and the Republican Party. A tradition that was abolitionist and progressive. To be poetical – there are multiple strands in the skein of history.

        The most coherent modern expression emerges with Hayek especially in The Constitution of Liberty – from the essay ‘Why I am not a conservative’.

        Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be calle such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments. But, though there is a need for a “brake on the vehicle of progress,”[3] I personally cannot be content with simply helping to apply the brake. What the liberal must ask, first of all, is not how fast or how far we should move, but where we should move. In fact, he differs much more from the collectivist radical of today than does the conservative. While the last generally holds merely a mild and moderate version of the prejudices of his time, the liberal today must more positively oppose some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists.’

        Hayek here uses liberal in the European sense but later professes to be a whig. The modern collectivist manifestation – that you object to me identifying – is something that is quite succinctly expressed in the Jacobin article linked to by wee willie recently. It seeks to promote a climate of fear to insinuate a revolutionary moment to overthrow socities and economies. Nothing more nothing less.

        So a battle of values is engaged – that we are all aware of and call the climate war. There are probably three sides – the pissant progressive, the conservative and the few whigs. As Hayek suggests – the need is to reflect on where we go. Like Whitman – I begin to chart the future hoping to cease not until death.

        Wee wilie wants to claim the Breakthrough Institute on the basis of their progressive claims. I would rather he – and you – not play with words sans any real world foundation but adopt the policies and principles of ‘Pragmatic Climate’. Until then you seem merely full of lies and deceit. I would rather you not mouth insufferable and irrelevant conceits about slavery but actually find some rational way forward in the modern world. Either that or admit to peddling fear to advance absurd and dangerous goals.

      • willard (@nevaudit) | January 30, 2013 at 11:12 pm |

        > Wee wilie wants to claim the Breakthrough Institute on the basis of their progressive claims.

        Where did I express such want? Chief can keep the honest brokerage of a techno-pop Third Way all to himself for all I care, as long as he pays for the intellectual commitment, a concept which so far eludes him.

        Chief’s projections might be getting chaotic.

      • Robert I Ellison | January 30, 2013 at 11:58 pm |

        Wee willie quoted only part of the Breakthrough mission statement – the bit where they claimed that they are – ‘progressives who believe in the potential of human development, technology, and evolution to improve human lives and create a beautiful world’. http://thebreakthrough.org/about/mission/

        Indeed truly progressive and inspiring – but not quite as wee willie imagined as now he has realised it involves a pragmatic approach to climate policy – one he now terms a ‘techno-pop third way’. And lies to cover his embarrassment. Truly a pissant progressive worthy of the appellation.

  144. jim2 | January 30, 2013 at 9:52 pm |

    “Experts who have considered the difficulty of powering the world without fossil fuels or nuclear power have come up with mind-blowing numbers. In an article published in Scientific American in 2009, engineer Mark Z. Jacobson and research scientist Mark A. Delucci tallied up what it would take to power the whole planet on renewable energy alone by 2030: billions of rooftop photovoltaic systems, millions of jumbo-size wind turbines, hundreds of thousands of wave devices and tidal turbines, tens of thousands of concentrated solar power plants and photovoltaic plants, thousands of geothermal plants, and hundreds of hydroelectric dams. But the construction work doesn’t end there, because population and living standards are expected to continue rising after 2030. At best, such a plan simply kicks the can down the road.

    Lately it is physicists — better known for their heady talk about time travel and multiple universes — who are providing a reality check on energy. These are the people, after all, who study the physical world.

    Take solar power, for example: It’s appealing because it seems virtually limitless. In only one hour, the sun delivers as much energy to Earth’s surface as humanity consumes in a year. This apparent abundance is deceptive, though. In his “Do the Math” blog, astrophysicist Tom Murphy calculates that, even with an annual energy growth rate of only 2.3 percent, a civilization powered by solar energy would have to cover every square inch of Earth’s land area with 100-percent-efficient solar panels within a few hundred years. Even if we covered the oceans too, and surrounded the sun and other nearby stars with solar panels, eventually there would not be enough energy in the galaxy to meet the growing demand. Yet many energy experts treat growth as a given, focusing only on which technology can best satisfy the insatiable demand.”

    http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/reality-check

    “The primary result is that I only get to use 62% of the energy delivered by my panels. The comparable number for a grid-tied system is something like 87–90% (inverter efficiency). My system suffers an additional 87% efficiency factor due to its full-tummy effect. This is close to the grid-tied inverter efficiency, so we can say that a panel in a small-scale off-grid system will likely deliver only something like 60–65% as much total energy as a grid-tied panel.

    Doesn’t seem so good. On top of this, batteries are costly, as demonstrated before. So why would anybody go this route?”

    http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/09/blow-by-blow-pv-system-efficiency/

    • gbaikie | January 31, 2013 at 1:00 am |

      “astrophysicist Tom Murphy calculates that, even with an annual energy growth rate of only 2.3 percent, a civilization powered by solar energy would have to cover every square inch of Earth’s land area with 100-percent-efficient solar panels within a few hundred years. Even if we covered the oceans too, and surrounded the sun and other nearby stars with solar panels, eventually there would not be enough energy in the galaxy to meet the growing demand. ”

      “Globally, the growth rate of the human population has been declining since peaking in 1962 and 1963 at 2.20% per annum. In 2009, the estimated annual growth rate was 1.1%”
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Human_population_growth_rate

      It’s unlikely we could have annually growth rate of 2.3 percent for energy use for centuries. But say we do have such increase. This doubling energy use every 31 year. [1.1 % would be doubling every 63 years:
      http://www.moneychimp.com/features/rule72.htm ]

      Human energy use. 2008: This is equivalent to an average power use of 15 terawatts

      “September 19, 2011
      EIA projects world energy use to increase 53 percent by 2035; China and India account for half of the total growth ”
      http://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press368.cfm
      So this around 2.3 percent growth per year by is including expectation significant rising wealth [per capita energy use by 2035 will approach Europe and US per capita energy consumption- which is 1/2 of the growth].
      So by 2035 assume it’s 23 terawatts.
      And let’s actually give doubling every 31 year [2.3% increase]. But this high prediction unlikely to be actually this high in future.
      So 2066: 46 terawatts
      2097: 92 terawatts
      2028: 184 terawatts
      2059: 364 terawatts
      2090: 736 terawatts
      And stop at 2121: 1472 terawatts
      Because looking at century in future is foolish and beyond it more foolish.
      So century ahead in future, world population will most likely have peaked
      and global wealth probably increased significantly.
      Anyhow in century we gone from 15 to 100 fold increase in
      energy needs, where could we find over 1000 terawatts.
      It’s foolish to assume we could get this from wind mills and solar panels.

      Unless we have solar panels in space.
      Now article say solar panel around the sun- which a bit silly. Nothing is near the sun. If meant near Mercury orbit, that would make more sense.
      But I will just look at power needs for Earthling, rather than settlements on Mercury or near Mercury.
      So we get an average of 1363 watts per square meter in the space near Earth.
      And one square km gives a million times 1363 watts [1.3 x 10^9 watts].
      So 1000 terawatts is 1.0 x10 ^15 watts.
      And so need say more than 1 million square km. 1000 km by 1000 km.
      Or 100 km wide by 10,000 km.
      So we put the solar panels in Sun/Earth L-1. And/or we put them slightly above Geostationary orbit. Or Both.
      And we going to put them so no one on earth can see them without telescope and not have them reduce the amount solar energy reaching the Earth surface.
      Earth circumference is 40,000 km. So we make ring which say 100,000 km in circumference. Or perhaps 200,000 km in circumference.
      A 100,000 km in circumference is divided by pi for the diameter. So:
      A diameter of 31,847 km. Earth’s diameter is a abit over 12,000 km.
      L-1 is fixed relative to earth position, so if had 100,000 circumference
      Earth could kept in the middle of the ring, and therefore the ring would never shadow earth.
      So have ring 100,000 or 200,000 km in circumference and 100 km wide “band”, and something only 100 km wide would not be visible from Earth.
      If it was closely to 200,000 in circumference it wouldn’t block the Sun’s corona during an eclipse. Let’s make it 200,000 km.
      So that 200,000 times 100 km which total area of 20 million square km.
      Or 20,000 terrawatts. And at 30% efficency, get 6000 terrawatts.
      So much more than needed in 100 years.

      At above Geostationay, say 45,000 km radius from center of Earth, that
      is circumference of 282,600 km, but since closer to Earth one might narrower band, say less 50 km wide. So maybe this would be around 3000 to 4000 terrawatts.

      1 terrawatt in a year makes 8760 terrawatt hours or 8760 million kW hours. And at 1 cent per kW hour. It’s 87.6 million dollars per year.
      And 1000 terrawatt is 87.6 billion dollars a year.
      So it’s in range of hundreds of billions dollar in terms of capital cost.

      In order to do this economically, you need power cost in space to be
      cheap. To make something that makes buckets of cheap power in space, you to start with relatively cheap power in space.
      Or at the moment power costs in space are thousand times more expensive than on Earth. You need power costs/price in space to be around only 10 times more expensive as on Earth. Or for an investor to take large leap, there needs to lower costs, before this leap can be taken.
      Such project would of course drive down electrical cost in space so they cheaper than on Earth. So obviously it’s easier if electrical price was the same price in space as on Earth, but I am saying at minimum it needs to be only about 10 times more expensive.
      Or doing it now is not economically reasonable- and having government throw gobs of money it will not change this [unless government somehow grows brains AND it’s properly focused on lowering the price energy in space].

      But the path you take to lower energy costs in space is to lower the cost of chemical energy in space [chemical energy being rocket fuel].

      Anyways, the guy is completely wrong about there not being enough solar energy in space. There are other L-points which could used later, such as Sun/Earth L-4 and 5. They lead and follow Earth orbital path, they also are stable gravitational points and you don’t worry about shading Earth- disks instead of rings. And one could add further rings at Sun/Earth L-1- say separate them by 100 or 200 km and add them until it more than 100,000 km in diameter. So easily 100 or 1000 times energy than the one ring- and still not effect Earth’s solar energy or be visible from Earth. Though it would affect solar energy for things in Earth’s higher orbits and on the Moon.
      And Mercury also has L-points. As does Venus.
      Though if we in space, our energy costs per capita would lower considerably due to numerous factors. And there would be explosion of new technology which makes it quite impossible to predict.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 5:36 am |

        Seriousy though. Population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion in the year 2050. Birth rate slows with rising per capita GDP. You can afford more kids but you have fewer. Odd that. But whatever. It’s empirically true. The nut is keeping per capita GDP rising through the year 2050. GDP growth and energy consumption are in extricably linked. Another bit of empirical truth. Uness we increase energy consumption by 2.3% per annum through 2050 in order to sustain GDP growth to bring the rest of the world up to western living standards then population won’t stabilize.

        Fortunately synthetic biology WILL save the day. Seriously. Write that down.

      • Michael | January 31, 2013 at 7:34 am |

        GDP is bollocks…….but nevermind that.

      • Peter Davies | January 31, 2013 at 8:25 am |

        Talk of linearly increasing energy needs of future populations concerns me because it assumes that utensils for living will require more and more energy whereas it is reasonable to expect that such machines, plus the ones we already use, will be much more energy efficient in future.

      • gbaikie | January 31, 2013 at 6:23 pm |

        “Seriousy though. Population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion in the year 2050”
        Yeah something like 9-10 billion.
        But I don’t regard that as a good thing or something, and societies may take action to increase populations- promote marriage, and make it easier to raise more children.
        By 2050 global warming and population control and socialists ideas should be long discredited and mostly forgotten- something like Eugenics is these days.

        Anyways, by 2050 the world be have doubled it’s energy use- and hopeful third world countries will not exist or even knowledge of the term will be forgotten.
        Before 2050 will could have already opened the space frontier, but I tend to be optimistic. It seems though that by 2050 it will be broadly seen that “space development” is economically [rather than some hobby].

        Human history has been one of ever increasing energy use and wealth, and tend think this will continue. I tend to it unlikely that there will not human settlements in space by 2100. And course it’s possible before 2050. If look at say the year 2150, I think people will be traveling to the Moon and Mars in same they travel around the world as tourists. And the energy cost at that time of doing this could less than the current energy cost to travel around the world. Though traveling quickly to the Moon [within an hour or two] would still cost a very high costs in terms energy- and some people will want to get there that quickly.
        So going to LEO might be same going to local mall and energy cost be bit more, but the energy cost of going to mall isn’t normally considered important- time is more important. And the time takes could be similar.

      • jim2 | February 1, 2013 at 1:28 pm |

        The first article is from “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.” It appears to be yet another liberal NGO pushing “climate change” as a problem. You can see what kind of BS they push. And the article from the astrophysicist is just one more example of how a PhD does not guarantee good sense.

    • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 5:06 am |

      Let’s check those figures real quick.

      If enough solar energy hits the earth every hour as humans use in a year that’s 24*365 that’s enough support about 10,000 times more people at current per capita use level.

      If energy needs grow by 2.3% per annum that’s a doubling every 30 years or 2^10 more energy needed after 300 years. That’s only 1000 times more energy not 10,000 times.

      So according to this stupid bit of fluff that no one bothered to sanity check except me the scenario that 3 centuries from now 70 trillion humans will each be using 10 times the amount of energy each human uses today.

      Wow. I wonder what they’ll all be using it for. Probably to power their teleportation devices because I’m pretty sure that 70 trillion people with, given that obesity trends continue for 300 years, can’t physically fit side to side on a planet this small so the planet will have to become a time share deal where each person gets to live here about 1 minute each year.

      This goes beyond the pale of uncritical acceptance of lame BS and seems to require some new category of stupid to describe it.

      • David Springer | January 31, 2013 at 5:29 am |

        Oh heck. I got unneccessarily mocking about 70 trillion humans the size of blue whales not being able to fit side by side on the earth at once so they’d neet teleportation devices to flit in and out. Everyone knows teleportation isn’t possible! Hence the mockery.

        The answer is obvious. ” Honey I Shrunk the Kids” technology will save the day. We’ll each be the size of a shrew instead of a blue whale. No problem. Sorry.

      • manacker | January 31, 2013 at 11:44 am |

        David Springer

        The “shrink your kid” (SYK) program will also solve the per capita energy consumption (PCEC) problem, although studies have shown that total body mass (TBM) and energy consumption are logarithmically related (like atmospheric CO2 and global warming) so that a ten-fold reduction of TBM (the goal of SYK by 2100) will only result in halving the PCEC.

        A personal TBM tax will be levied to provide an incentive for would-be parents to shrink their kids in embryo. This tax will be implemented on a global basis, with the populations of certain developing countries temporarily excluded.

        The newly created UN agency IPTBMR (Intergovernmental Panel for Total Body Mass Reduction) will take over the role of collecting and distributing the funds. The tax will initially be set at $500 per year per person per kilogram of “excess TBM” where the TBM standard is set initially at 1kg at birth increasing to 10 kg at adulthood on a graduated scale.

        IPTBMR representatives have estimated that, with 5 billion people initially eligible for taxation, the tax will generate $2.5 trillion annually.

        The tax is stated to be essentially “revenue-neutral”, since those individuals with excessive TBM, who are paying a higher tax rate, will be reimbursed with international “food stamps”, issued by the UN World Food Programme agency (UNWFP), to be financed with TBM tax revenues.

        A true “win-win” situation for the whole world!

        Max

  145. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 10:33 pm |

    Max, Yew mention the Marshall Plan, that is something I want to
    find out more about. I believe Marshall was an example of the
    genuine civil servant serving humanity, not just his country.
    Switzerland, a 700 hundred yr old democracy …some
    achievement. Would yew say, in part. the mountainous
    terrain was a factor in its survival ?

    • manacker | January 31, 2013 at 11:02 am |

      Beth

      The “father” of the Marshall Plan, George Marshall, was a general (head of US forces during WWII) that later became a statesman and, as you wrote, “an example of a genuine civil servant serving humanity , not just his country”.

      He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize (back in the days when these were not being handed out by the millions like “Crackerjack” prizes).

      Quite a guy.

      Max

  146. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 11:19 pm |

    Joshua,

    Grant yr distinction, ‘codify’ not created,

    Point I was making was that the principle of liberty for all men,
    with no sub clause making racial distinctions, was now codified,
    regardless of whether some citizens, even some involved in its
    wording, like Jefferson, failed ter comply

    Beth.

  147. Beth Cooper | January 30, 2013 at 11:34 pm |

    Yes ter that, Chief H. Hayek, and Sun-Tzu got the picture.
    Yer jest don’t build the moat and hunker down.

    ‘Defence implies
    Lack;
    Attack implies
    Abundance.

    H/t The Art of War.

  148. GaryM | January 31, 2013 at 1:43 am |

    The latest catastrophe attributable to global warming:

    The horrific number of murders committed in my home town of Chicago.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339263/former-playboy-ceo-blames-climate-change-chicagos-murder-rate-nathaniel-botwinick

    There is no cure for stupid.

  150. Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 4:17 am |

    The world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is conceived in love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

    Much better – it packs another meaning into the sentence by conflating birth and invention – family and the creative soul. The essence of life.

    These postcards from the Climate War have been fun. In the real world the rivers are rising and there is no fresh food, bread or milk in the shops. Amazing how fragile our systems are and how much care and luck it takes to maintain them. Eh – let them eat lasagna. Speaking of which – I can smell it – it’s cooked. Bye.

  151. Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 4:24 am |

    The world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is conceived in love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

    Much better – it packs another meaning into the sentence by conflating birth and invention – family and the creative soul.

    These postcards from the Climate War have been fun. In the real world the rivers are rising and there is no fresh food, bread or milk in the shops. Amazing how fragile our systems are and how much care and luck it takes to maintain them. Eh – let them eat lasagna. Speaking of which – I can smell it – it’s cooked. Bye.

  152. angech | January 31, 2013 at 5:15 am |

    Total sea ice nearly back to average. two large areas still to freeze quickly in the arctic and who knows.Will there be more arctic ice than last year at maximum.Looking forward to reading the arctic sea blog when it does though it will be dreadfully quite if there are no extremes to keep them warm.

  153. Beth Cooper | January 31, 2013 at 7:37 am |

    Max, @ 7.00am,
    Re joining the EU, hmm … guess ‘ruling class’ Platonists welcome
    the opportunity to exercise the innate ‘grand plan’ tendencies
    that joining a larger bureaucracy offers them..One country jest
    ain’t enough.Tomorrow the whole world, well Europe at least!
    Beth.

  154. Doug Cotton | January 31, 2013 at 3:06 pm |

    The laws of physics establish the fact that, as the atmospheres of Earth and Venus absorb incident Solar radiation, a thermal gradient evolves in those atmospheres in order to establish a state of thermodynamic equilibrium with maximum entropy.

    As a direct corollary, using known parameters (solar insolation intensity, acceleration due to gravity and mean specific heat of the gases in the atmosphere) the atmospheric temperature at the surface-atmosphere boundary can be calculated, and is found to conform with a mean of 288K on Earth and about 730K on Venus. The physics of conduction then stipulates that the surface temperatures will have a propensity to be the same as those at the base of the atmosphere. Similar calculations agree with observations on other planets and moons with significant atmospheres.

    Thus it is not any radiative greenhouse effect which is warming these surfaces, but energy from the Sun absorbed by the atmosphere and redistributed (by the molecular processes of diffusion and adiabatic convection of kinetic energy) along an autonomous pre-determined thermal gradient, and thence into the surface, in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    To prove this wrong you would have to revoke the laws of physics and prove that, even in a gravitational field, the Second Law of Thermodynamics leads to thermal equilibrium rather than thermodynamic equilibrium. Such a “breakthrough” in the world of atmospheric physics would surely warrant a Nobel Prize. But you would then be left with no valid physical explanation for the observed temperature data on Earth, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune.

  155. Doug Cotton | February 1, 2013 at 4:52 am |

     

    THE GRAVITY GRADIENT

    Regarding the thermal gradient due to gravity, the paper http://wwwold.nioz.nl/public/fys/staff/theo_gerkema/jas04.pdf
    is correct up to the end of Section b, where it shows that isentropic conditions will prevail, as I show from a simple consideration of molecular free flight.

    However, then realising that the -g/Cp figure of 9.8C/Km (ie the dry rate) is too high, they then fudge a compromise result to get closer to the wet rate. The fudge amounts to saying, let’s also impose an isothermal constraint. This is absurd.

    What they failed to realise is what I have been saying all along, that the wet rate is less steep simply because it involves water vapour which can radiate heat to higher cooler layers. Such radiation has a propensity to equalise temperatures. They were looking for such a constraint, but completely overlooked intra-atmospheric radiation. This radiation is another reason why carbon dioxide also leads to a less steep thermal gradient and thus lower surface temperatures.
     

  156. Myrrh | February 1, 2013 at 5:46 am |

    Gosh, and I thought it was AGW/CAGWs who took themselves way to seriously, believing in fantasies and passing themselves off as scientists.

    • Myrrh | February 1, 2013 at 7:09 am |

      That was in response to :

      Robert I Ellison | January 31, 2013 at 7:48 pm | Reply
      Actually Doug…that was as far as I got because I have added you to the list of those I simply pass over. Your physics are simply a mish mash of nothing much at all. And you take yourself way too seriously as well.

  157. Robert I Ellison | February 1, 2013 at 5:50 am |

    “We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” David Attenborough

    timg56 did some other useful research – ‘http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/25/open-thread-weekend-7/#comment-290381

    There are at least two world views. For one the equation is people and the use of resources and the need is to reduce one or preferably both. The other understands that there are things that can be achieved in population essentially through economic development, health, education and there is much we can do with resources with technological innovation. Indeed that there is much that can be achieved in ecological conservation and restoration and in carbon mitigation. Progress that has eluded us for decades. We believe that sustainable economic growth is not just possible but is the key to a bright future for humanity.

    Let’s call the two world views – in absolutely neutral language – pissant progressives and liberal defenders of freedom, justice and democracy. The world views are of profoundly incompatible. In the method of Marcuse – liberal truths are buried in obfuscation and vilification. There are expressions that are not allowable in the public spaces. Quite literally in some laws proposed for Australia – proposals that are almost universally rejected and that will never see the light of day. It was proposed in a government appointed review of media laws – for instance – to make publication of climate scepticism illegal in the media and on the net. A laughable attempt to curtail free speech. There is however this urge to totalitarianism that is always an undercurrent in the progressive zeitgeist. As Hayek said – from “the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.” We have seen it before.

    One side wants a rich, resilient world building on our technologies. The other side promulgates dire prophecies in the hopes of creating a revolutionary moment in which societies and economies can be radically reshaped. The choice between hope and despair seems a simple one.

    • tempterrain | February 1, 2013 at 9:25 pm |

      “The choice between hope and despair seems a simple one.”

      Why should anything be that simple? There no reason to expect any choice to be quite a clear cut as you suggest. It’s probably not even an ‘either or’ choice. We can have hope for the future and at the same time recognise there will be problems which need to be overcome, like resource depletion, climate change, and environmental pollution, on the way.

  158. tempterrain | February 1, 2013 at 6:53 pm |

    I was interested to recently discover that Dr Roy Spencer had written on his website. “The tropospheric temperature lapse rate would not exist without the greenhouse effect.”

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/01/misunderstood-basic-concepts-and-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-69417

    A couple of years ago when I first started to think about this, I thought that this was likely to be the case too. I did write, at the time, that if anyone wanted to observe the GH effect in action all they needed to do was climb a mountain and measure the temperature. I was later persuaded by some climate scientists, of mainstream opinion, that I was wrong and did withdraw that claim. But now I’ve swung back again to agreeing with Roy Spencer so I’m making it again!

    I’m just wondering if mainstream science does have it right. For instance the University Of California are saying there still would be a lapse rate even without a GH effect.

    http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/02_1.shtml

    A couple of years ago I wrote to Dr Jeff Severinghaus about some contradictory information on their website which was fixed up to remove the contradiction, but unfortunately I feel in the wrong direction.

    So we have the interesting situation that I as a so-called “warmist” am in agreement with Roy Spencer , who’s supposed to be a sceptic, but Doug Cotton who I would describe as a rabid denier is more in agreement with what at least some mainstream scientists are arguing.

    Dr Spencer being right on this point doesn’t, on the face of it, actually help the sceptics cause. However,it must be worth getting everything right to minimise the uncertainties involved with climate models. It would be an interesting test of these models to see what would happen to the lapse rate if they removed all the GH gases from them.

  159. Peter Lang | February 1, 2013 at 11:23 pm |

    Joshua,
    @ http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/01/another-hockey-stick/#comment-290989

    That is true, Peter. You never did say anything about accountability. I brought it up, because you failed to show any accountability for how you formulated your ridiculous conspiracy theory about how WordPress shut down Climate Etc. because of your (run of the mill “skeptical”) comment.

    What was your reasoning, Peter? How did you come up with such a wacky and paranoid belief, laughably inflating the value of your comment to think that some “police” were watching and needed to respond but shutting down Judith’s blog?

    Since you asked how I came up with it, I posted the comment after the site was taken down by WordPress, my comment criticising Lewandowski was removed from Climate Etc. (which Judith almost never does so would not have been moderation at Climate Etc.) and had been removed from ‘The Conversation’ as had many other comments that criticised Lewandowski. WordPress posted a page saying the site had been taken down for breach of hosting agreement.

    Professor Lewandowski and SkepticalScience have been in strife (have a look at the articles listed here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=Lew ). Professor Lewandowski has lawyers defending him against charges of breach of academic standards at University of Western Australia. And he and SkepticalScience have been up to conspiracy theories of their own. And ‘The Conversation has been removing comments that criticise Lewandowski. And web hosts do take sites down for breach of their hosting agreements. And WordPress said ‘Climate Etc.’ was taken down for breach of hosting agreement. And this occurred an hour or so after I posted my comment criticizing ‘The Conversation’ and Lewandowski. And my similar comment had been removed from ‘The Conversation. And Glen Tamblyn one of the SkepticalScience authors who was involved in the email conversation with Lewandowski that is the subject of some of the articles listed below, is a follower and sometimes poster on ‘The Conversation’.

    Given the above (taken together, and considering the sequence of events at the time), I’d suggest my conspiracy theory (which I did admit in response to about your first or second comment was unlikely), was not as stupid as you’d like to make out, nor as ridiculous as yours.

    In fact, this was pointed out to you on previous threads that my comment was not as wacky as you’d like to make out.

    Have a look at these: http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=Lew Some of titles of the articles listed at the above link. Find out for yourself what’s been going on

    ‘…we need a conspiracy to save humanity’

    The Cook-Lewandowsky Social-Internet Link

    Hypocritical psychology professor Lewandowsky: Climate science is, like, super-transparent, only with lots of “confidential” documents; climate science is like gravity

    The OTHER problem with the Lewandowsky paper and similar ‘skeptic’ motivation analysis: Core premise off the rails about fossil fuel industry corruption accusation

    Lewandowsky’s bait and switch

    The Daily Lew – Issue 6

    The Daily Lew – Issue 5

    The Daily Lew – Issue 4

    The Daily Lew – Issue 3

    The Daily Lew – Issue 2

    The Daily Lew

    Lewandowsky thinks failure to get or find email is conspiracy theory

    Quote of the week, the hilarious EPIC FAIL of Dana Nuccitelli

    So Joshua, when are you going to acknowledge you wacky beliefs in the huge conspiracy funding the AGW skeptics? Or do you deny you have been one of those who believe and promote that conspiracy theory?

    • Joshua | February 1, 2013 at 11:50 pm |

      Peter –

      It was a wacky conspiracy theory.

      Should I repost your comment about some ludicrous “orthodoxy police” (I don’t remember the exact term you used)?

      Do you really not realize how absurd it was that you thought that each and every post at “skeptical” sites is being monitored? Do you honestly not realize how completely wacky it is for you to think that your run-of-the-mill comment in the comments section of a blog that gets hundreds of comments a day would cause your fantasized “orthodoxy police” such concern that they would take as drastic a step as getting WordPress to shut down Judith’s blog?

      You took a completely random sequence of events, and formulated a hilariously paranoid linkage – based on your out-of-touch impression of your own importance. What would cause you to jettison any skeptical instinct you might have to develop your hair-brained explanation for a random sequence of events? What would cause someone who at least seems to be knowledgeable and bright to come up with a theory so obviously implausible and impractical?

      Here’s what I suggest: consider how your desire to be a victim of persecution – no doubt derived from a partisan lens with which you view everything climate change or otherwise even remotely political – led you to postulate a causal relationship that anyone with a clear head would realize was ridiculous as soon as they read it.

      Then, I would suggest that youi consider how such a tendency might bias how you view other issues that overlap with any kind of political connections.

      Just a suggestion. I doubt that you will take it – but just bookmark this comment and if you ever might ask yourself in the future, in a moment of clarity, how you might have made such a paranoid, ludicrous, and conspiratorial postulation, go back and consider what I suggested. It might help you to avoid making such a laughable error in the future – and it might help you to better understand how to show accountability if you should again make a similarly hilarious mistake.

      • Peter Lang | February 2, 2013 at 12:16 am |

        Joshua,

        I will of course take on board all you say.

        You might want to check with Lewandowski to see if you can join his team of Loony left psychologists – they provide ‘unbiased’ psychological analyses of people who don’t accept their far-Left ‘doomsayer’ beliefs. They are totally impartial, logical, rational, honest of course (sarc alert). So you’d fit right in with them (no sarc in that). You can practice all your wonderful research and advisory skills.

  160. Tomcat | February 2, 2013 at 1:03 am |

    Its fair enough to have political views but science has to trump them. If they don’t fit in with scientific reality change your politics. It makes more sense than trying to do it the other way around.

    If only. This naively assumes science is never biased by those who fund it. Climate science is funded by government, and government stands to benefit handsomely from what its climate scientists are saying. No coincidence.

  161. Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 1:08 am |

    The question is – despite the vagaries of climate science – what the most effective policy response is. The other question is how much torture syntax can take before it becomes incomprehensible.

  162. Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 1:33 am |

    In response to the point that surface air temps are not significantly higher than they were ~20 years ago, some are saying extra heat is now accumulating in the oceans instead, and that this shows agw is still happening. But this doesn’t seem to add up.

    The driving mechanism of agw is heating of the atmosphere, due to increased CO2 therein. So since the atmosphere isn’t warming anymore, it cannot be what has caused the oceans to warm during this period. (It being understood that a warmer atmosphere doesn’t warm the oceans as such, but, rather, that it slows the rate at which the sun-warmed oceans cool into the atmosphere).

    Which raises the question : with increased CO2 ruled out as of a cause of ocean warming, what other factor/s are to blame ?

    • gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 2:09 am |

      “Which raises the question : with increased CO2 ruled out as of a cause of ocean warming, what other factor/s are to blame ?”

      Why can’t our current interglacial period get as warm as the interglacial period before it?
      wiki:
      “The Eemian was an interglacial period which began about 130,000 years ago and ended about 114,000 years ago. It was the second-to-latest interglacial period of the current Ice Age, the most recent being the Holocene which extends to the present day. ”

      “Sea level at peak was probably 4 to 6m (13 to 20 feet) higher than today (references in Overpeck et al., 2006), with much of this extra water coming from Greenland but some likely to have come from Antarctica. Global mean sea surface temperatures are thought to have been higher than in the Holocene, but not by enough to explain the rise in sea level through thermal expansion alone, and so melting of polar ice caps must also have occurred. ”

      So if gain 1 foot sea level rise per century for 1000 years, we get to something like Eemian, plus say 1 C increase over next 1000 year, or 1/10th C per century.
      That more sea rise and ocean temperature increase than we are getting
      at present. Perhaps instead it take twice as long.
      Many thousands of years we got before we sink back into glacier period?
      Maybe 5000 years? Maybe less. Maybe more.
      And the last 5000 year have had many ups and downs. We recently exited a fairly severe cooling period, and in next 5000 we may enter periods as cool as Little Ice Age or colder. Making possible that we never get sea levels as high as we got in the Eemian interglacial period. A thousand years of constant warming doesn’t really follow the pattern, but we may get it and we may get higher sea levels than during Eemian period.

      • Myrrh | February 2, 2013 at 4:08 am |

        gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 2:09 am | Why can’t our current interglacial period get as warm as the interglacial period before it?

        Set back by the Younger Dryas.

        So if gain 1 foot sea level rise per century for 1000 years, we get to something like Eemian, plus say 1 C increase over next 1000 year, or 1/10th C per century.
        That more sea rise and ocean temperature increase than we are getting
        at present. Perhaps instead it take twice as long.
        Many thousands of years we got before we sink back into glacier period?
        Maybe 5000 years? Maybe less. Maybe more.

        You’ll be waiting longer for it to warm – temperatures have gone down since the beginning of the Holocene, hiccups of ups and downs notwithstanding, inexorably down..

        The Little Ice Age was the coldest period in the last 7000 years in Greenland. I’ve seen estimates of the beginning of the end at 100 years. Changes can and do happen abruptly.

        http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/little-ice-age-coldest-period-in-the-last-7000-years-in-greenland/

        http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227225501.htm and more articles on the subject on this page.

        So how long before sea levels begin to drop? Interesting times for any archeologists surviving abrupt cooling..

    • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:29 am |

      gbaikie you cite my question “with increased CO2 ruled out as of a cause of ocean warming, what other factor/s are to blame ?”, but your reply is non-responsive to it…
      What I’m asking for, are explanations of what might be warming the oceans.

      • gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 6:28 am |

        “gbaikie you cite my question “with increased CO2 ruled out as of a cause of ocean warming, what other factor/s are to blame ?”, but your reply is non-responsive to it…
        What I’m asking for, are explanations of what might be warming the oceans.”

        The sun warms the oceans.
        And it takes a very long time for the Sun to warm the ocean.

        70% of surface of Earth is ocean. To have increase in global temperature, this means one has to at least increase in the skin ocean temperature.
        An Increase of skin or near surface surface could occur over relativity short period of time.
        And of course this skin can cool in short period of time.
        To have long period of warmer global average temperature one will/must warm beneath the skin temperature- 100 meter and thousands of meters.
        So over last century or so we seen about 1 C increase in global temperature. If we merely maintained this higher level of average temperature, the entire ocean should warm.
        Just as if have long enough periods of cooler average global temperature, the entire ocean will cool.

        The reason our ocean average temperature is around 3 C, is because we have had glacial periods lasting around 100,000 years, and the interglacial period has been about 10,000 year. The longer time we in the interglacial period, the more time there is to warm the ocean.

        The Little Ice Age was probably too brief to have much affect upon the average ocean temperature, but it could/should have affected surface ocean temperature- +100 meter- as that can be affected by centuries of a cooler average temperature. And the warming over last couple centuries should have also caused some warming of surface ocean temperatures- plus the deeper ocean.
        It’s possible that during the Little Ice Age the entire ocean warmed slightly, but obviously during a warmer period the entire ocean warms at faster rate.
        I expect that we will continue to be in this warmer period [and even cools a bit in next couple decades] and so entire oceans will continue to warm .

        I expect the oceans to warm- but I we have not actually measured it accurately and long enough to have much confidence in detecting this yet.

    • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 11:04 am |

      gbaikie
      Yes, as I’m sure everyone is aware, the sun warms the oceans.

      But my question, that you still do not address, obviously is : why is ocean warming increasing (given that it cannot be CO2, since the atmosphere is no longer warming) ?
      Are you suggesting this is due to more solar radiation / sunspots ?

      • manacker | February 2, 2013 at 12:01 pm |

        Montalbano and JCH

        How about (just one possibility out of many):

        Fewer clouds => more incoming radiation to warm the ocean.

        But how much warming has there been?

        Upper ocean (0-700m) temperature has been measured comprehensively since ARGO started in 2003. The results, once the original measurements were corrected, show very little warming: 0.0008°C per year.

        Prior to 2003 we had very spotty and inaccurate measurements, which showed more rapid warming: a total of 0.18°C from 1955 (or around 0.0036°C per year). These should be taken with a large grain of salt, because of the lack of good measurements.

        Let’s see what the next 20 years or so of ARGO data tell us before we get too excited about ocean warming.

        Max

      • gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 3:46 pm |

        “gbaikie
        Yes, as I’m sure everyone is aware, the sun warms the oceans. ”

        And I am sure everyone is aware that the oceans hold an enormous amount heat.
        But they might be uncomfortable saying this in different way, that the ocean traps an enormous amount energy.
        They might uncomfortable because they are used to idea that the atmosphere is the only thing which “traps” heat.
        But it very obvious that that the Ocean “traps” far more energy than the atmosphere is capable of doing.
        And it is as obvious that the average temperature of Earth should measured as the average ocean temperature. The ocean may not be a convenient way to measure global average temperature, but it is actually is the average global temperature. The temperature air of the atmosphere is the weather. The temperature of the ocean is the climate.

        Or if “somehow” you were to measure the air of atmosphere and it indicates are long period warming period, but the ocean are not warming, then you don’t actually have global warming.

        So it seems obvious to me that we have had global warming for the last 10,000 years. And it seems as obvious to me that last couple centuries were warmer than couple centuries prior to this. Which the same as saying the oceans warmed over the last 10,000 years and the oceans have warmed a bit more over the last couple centuries.
        And it seems most likely that we will continue with this last couple century type warming period onto the next century- that global warming will continue.
        Which would be not be proven false if global air temperature over next decades were to drop by .5 C.
        If air temperature were to drop by 1 C or more, and stay this cool, that would obviously not be such a warmer period [but still part of the 10,000 year warming period. Though it increases odds we may be at the beginning part of entering a glacial period].

        “Are you suggesting this is due to more solar radiation / sunspots ?”

        If we had centuries of low solar activity [of the kind we had doing the Little Age] that could cause us to enter into a period like the Little Ice Age.
        I suspect the solar activity *could be* a major factor explaining the Little Ice Age.
        But I do not think solar activity explains why we enter or exit glacial periods.

        I believe the major reason for our Ice Age [lasting more ten of million of years] has to do with our arrangement continental and topography of our land masses.
        So geology is causing our world to be balanced between entering
        longer period of Cooling and shorter periods of Warming.
        Overlaying geology is astrophysics- by which I mean the Milankovitch cycles. I s part of reason. Or wiki is generally summarizing it:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#Causes_of_ice_ages

    • JCH | February 2, 2013 at 11:34 am |

      The oceans are warming because of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It has not been ruled out.

      • manacker | February 2, 2013 at 12:09 pm |

        Jim D

        That’s a nice hypothesis, but the ocean warming (assuming there really was ocean warming) could just as well have resulted from a very slight decrease in cloud cover.

        As I pointed out above, the data prior to ARGO in 2003 are so lousy we can essentially forget them.

        And after ARGO started the warming has been so small that it is questionable.

        Let’s wait until we have some data before we draw any conclusions.

        Max

    • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 11:46 am |

      JCH
      The greenhouse effect necessarily warms the atmosphere, by warming the CO2 in it. This then slows the cooling of the oceans into the atmosphere, resulting in warmer oceans.

      But now that the atmosphere is not warming anymore, it (the atmosphere) cannot be the cause of a warming of the oceans. This rules out the greenhouse effect (enhanced or otherwise) as being behind the apparent current warming of the oceans.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 11:58 am |

        Montalbano, that common characterization is wrong. The greenhouse gases keep the surface warm (including oceans) with a blanketing effect. The atmosphere does not have to be warmer for this effect to take place, it just has to have more GHGs.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 12:08 pm |

        Jim D
        So you want to say that the greenhouse effect is not about the the absorption of of IR by GHGs, but about GHGs being better insulators of heat than nitrogen and oxygen are. And furthermore have a marked insulation effect despite being but trace gasses ?

        Well, that some pretty impressive off-piste skiing. Not only does mainstream climate science disagree, virtually all skeptics do too. Respect!

      • Memphis | February 2, 2013 at 12:26 pm |

        Jim D, Is this ENHANCED greenhouse effect somehow divorced from the ordinary one, or does it also relate to heating of CO2 in the atmosphere?

      • JCH | February 2, 2013 at 1:13 pm |

        You have a theory for what regulates ocean cooling. Your theory does not match observations. I accept a theory for what regulates ocean cooling. Observations are perfectly congruent with it.

        What proves the atmosphere is not warming?

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 1:35 pm |

        Montalbano, what are you talking about? These trace gases keep us 33 K warmer than we would be without them. If you imagine how cold the clearest of clear nights gets (in dry areas at least), removing all the GHGs is that but multiplied.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 1:39 pm |

        Memphis, I believe what JCH meant by enhanced greenhouse effect is that it is now 2 W/m2 more than the preindustrial level. There is a natural greenhouse effect and an enhanced (anthropogenic) one.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 1:50 pm |

        JCH
        You have a theory for what regulates ocean cooling Your theory does not match observations.

        Since the oceans are warmer than than the atmosphere (or do you dispute that?), then the oceans will cool into the atmosphere (or do you think heat is conducted from cool bodies to warm ones?). And the rate at which the oceans will cool into the atmosphere, will depend on the temperature difference between the two.

        So which observations do you maintain are at odds with any of this?

        What proves the atmosphere is not warming?

        Observations; showing there has been a temperature plateau for close to 20 years now.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 1:59 pm |

        Jim D
        Montalbano, what are you talking about? These trace gases keep us 33 K warmer than we would be without them.

        You confusion stems from missing the point – which is not about whether or not these trace GHGs keep us 33K warmer, but about how they do it.
        It’s actually because they absorb IR, not because they are good insulators.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 2:03 pm |

        Montalbano, you are drawing a distinction where none exists. Insulating only occurs because of the absorption. A blanket only works by absorbing heat.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 2:09 pm |

        Another way the blanket analogy works is that the blanket doesn’t have to get warmer to make us warmer, it just has to get thicker.

      • JCH | February 2, 2013 at 2:12 pm |

        I am going to assume you are referring to the various temperature series.

        They do not prove the globe is not warming.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:16 pm |

        Jim D
        An an insulator is precisely something that does notabsorb heat well.
        From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_insulation
        Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer (the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature) between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:22 pm |

        Jim D
        The various temperature series show exactly that the atmosphere is not warming, for at least 16 years we recently learned.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:39 pm |

        Jim D

        The facts are
        – the oceans cool into the atmosphere
        – the rate at which this happens, is proportional to the temp difference between the two
        – for the oceans to cool less than before into the atmosphere (thereby becoming warmer than before), the atmosphere needs to be warmer than before; and for the oceans to continually get warmer, the atmosphere must continually get warmer
        – the temperature series show that for some two decades now, the atmosphere has not been getting warmer.

        Therefore, IF the oceans are warming, it cannot be because of what is happening to atmospheric temperatures.

      • Pekka Pirilä | February 2, 2013 at 2:59 pm |

        Moltalbano,

        That oceans are warming may very well be mainly due to what has happened and continues to happen to atmospheric temperatures.

        The atmospheric temperatures have risen from earlier levels. That’s what has happened when we consider history over several decades.

        What has happened more recently is that the atmosphere has not lost that warming but remains warmer than a few decades ago.

        The oceans have not warmed nearly as much over the same period. Thus the atmosphere remains warm enough to continue to warm the ocean.

        (We might go further into semantics of what “warming” means, and we might go on to discuss, what’s cause and what effect when phenomena are causally interlinked in both ways ans also linked to third factors, but lets leave that out of this comment.)

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 3:19 pm |

        Pekka
        So if I understand you correctly, you’re saying ocean warming in the presence of a non-warming atmosphere, could conceivably be because of previous increases in atmospheric temperature ? Ocean temperatures taking time to catch up, as it were.

        Such catch-up ocean warming would presumably only be temporary; ie, if atmospheric temperatures continued non-rising, ocean temperatures must sooner or later follow suit.

      • Pekka Pirilä | February 2, 2013 at 3:27 pm |

        Montalbano,

        That’s correct but as long as we discuss only this principle that could occur very much later. It the ocean warms uniformly to depths like 1 km or more that point could come only after several decades. With stronger assumptions the delay could be hundred years.

        Not that i would expect further delays of several decades, but I just want to tell that logic alone cannot provide strong limits.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 3:51 pm |

        Montalbano, you seem to be stuck on the idea of absorbers and conduction of heat. The earth radiates much of its heat, and it is that part that is absorbed by the CO2. The CO2 also emits according to its amount, so more CO2 has more greenhouse effect even at the same temperature. It is because the earth’s radiative heat cannot get to space through the atmosphere with GHGs present, that the atmosphere is keeping the heat in, which is described as insulation. From your own definition, an insulator prevents or reduces heat transfer. It can do this by absorption or reflection. The atmosphere does it by absorption. Likewise if a blanket didn’t absorb heat and just let it through, it wouldn’t be much of a blanket.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 4:18 pm |

        Jim D
        I’m afraid you are utterly confused about the nature of conductive insulation. However, that is beside the point here – which set forth eg in my posting of February 2, 2013 at 2:39 pm.
        If you have comments that do have a bearing on that, I would be pleased to hear them.

      • Memphis | February 2, 2013 at 4:28 pm |

        Yes a “conductive insulator” is something that does NOT absorb heat – iow exactly the opposite of what JimD claims.
        (And reflection is about radiative heat transfer, not conduction).

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 4:28 pm |

        Montalbano, in your 2:39 post you thought that the ocean cooling rate only depends on the temperature difference between the ocean and atmosphere. This is exactly the point that is wrong. Add CO2 or any GHGs at the same air temperature and the ocean would cool less. This is comparable with adding clouds to prevent radiative cooling. The clouds are not warmer than the clear air they replace, yet cloud cover has an enormous effect at the surface, keeping it warmer.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 4:39 pm |

        Montalbano, in your 2:39 post you thought that the ocean cooling rate only depends on the temperature difference between the ocean and atmosphere.

        I did not. You inserted the “only” and corrupted my meaning.

        Add CO2 or any GHGs at the same air temperature and the ocean would cool less.

        Only if the additional GHGs then cause the air temperature to rise by absorbing IR. (GHGs are no better conductive insulators than nitrogen.and oxygen are).

      • JCH | February 2, 2013 at 4:49 pm |

        Do you have a cite for the contention that oceans can only warm if the atmosphere also gets warmer, or however you want to phrase your contention?

        It makes no sense.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 4:50 pm |

        Memphis, an insulator works by not conducting well which allows it to maintain a large temperature gradient across it. Similarly, the GHGs resist the transfer of surface heat to space by radiation maintaining a temperature gradient across it.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 4:56 pm |

        Pekka Pirilä

        Yes I take your point that logic alone cannot put a number to how long it will take the oceans to stop warming in the face of no atmospheric warming.

        (However what logic alone can do, is tell us it is pointless to try and limit CO2 output if the atmosphere continues to show no sign of warming).

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 5:00 pm |

        Montalbano, you are playing with words now. When you say A is proportional to B, you imply that is the only variable. It is not in the case of ocean cooling. It depends on the temperature difference and the atmospheric composition. Adding CO2 doesn’t warm the air directly because that comes after the surface has warmed first. However even adding CO2 (or just clouds) increases the downwards IR radiation, decreasing the net radiative IR cooling effect, all without the air or clouds warming first. I am trying to tell you that the downward IR flux depends on other things than temperature, and if those other things change, it can increase.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 5:00 pm |

        JCH – I did not say “only” – Jim misquoted me. See above.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 5:10 pm |

        The oceans are warmed by the Sun and are in a constant state of cooling. The warming of the atmosphere causes a slow down of the cooling until a new equilibrium is reached in the ocean and heat gains again equal losses. So if the atmosphere is not warming – the oceans will stop warming at some time.

        What little data there is suggests that the period to equilibrium is not remotely 15 years – more a matter of weeks – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view&current=Wong2006figure7.gif

        The figure is from Wong et al 2006 – Reexamination of the Observed Decadal Variability of the Earth Radiation Budget. Using Altitude-Corrected ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Data

        The positive net in ERBS data is all SW and cloud change. The change in CERES is all SW. So the story of clouds is the untold story in the satellite era.

      • Pekka Pirilä | February 2, 2013 at 5:13 pm |

        We continue to learn more all the time. New observations influence best estimates making them probably more accurate (although there may be periods which lead scientists to widen the uncertainty limits). If the new observations on temperature fall below expectations without a good temporary reason, then the best estimate gets gradually lower and in the opposite case higher.

        The latest decade or 1.5 decades have fallen below expectations. There are good reasons for part of that, but the other part gives evidence that at least the highest estimates were probably too high. On the other hand the temperature has not dropped as it did in the 1940’s after the maximum. That adds evidence on the reality of persistent warming. Thus we have stronger reasons than ever before to expect further warming but we have also some more evidence that the warming is not very strong.

        The surface temperature alone cannot provide accurate limits for what to expect but what it tells goes as I write above. That’s true at least when the evidence is considered in light of what else we know about climate.

      • gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 5:21 pm |

        “Pekka
        So if I understand you correctly, you’re saying ocean warming in the presence of a non-warming atmosphere, could conceivably be because of previous increases in atmospheric temperature ? Ocean temperatures taking time to catch up, as it were.”

        I will take it even further, I think it’s quite possible to have a cold atmosphere at same time one having *massive* global warming.
        Or warmer air can inhibit global warming.

        Say it this way, ocean traps the most heat.
        IF you had globally clear skies, the ocean would heat up the fastest.
        And it to be remotely possible to have clear skies globally, you need cooler air.

        Or start the world with a *uniform* temperature of 5 C and this position
        is warmer [and potentially warmer] than world with an *average* temperature of 15 C.
        So a *uniform* temperature of 5 C, could see “explosive” rate of “global warming”. How much it surges in terms increasing global temperature is related to how quickly the air warms and clouds form as result of warmer air.

        Or what causes global warming is the increased warmth under the skin surface of the ocean.
        But skin surface ocean temperature gives us in average global air temperature of 15 C.

        So by starting with *uniform* temperature of 5 C, this is actually a higher global average temperature than the 15 C we call global average air temperature. Because we measuring the wrong thing to determine average global temperature- a 5 C ocean has higher average temperature as compared to our 3 C ocean.
        It’s 2 C warmer.

        So let’s start from a level playing field. Let’s start from *uniform* temperature of 3 C as compared to our average global air temperature
        of 15 C. This would mean an even greater surge in global warming due colder sky and longer to warm up the air and longer one has less clouds.
        So 3 C uniform temperature gets more global warming in say the first year or two as compared to 5 C uniform average temperature.

        Analogy say you having 1000 year race to global warming equal to uniform temperature of 6 C.
        From 5 C uniform temperature you starting the race “miles ahead” of the 3 C uniform temperature, but the 3 C uniform begins running faster.
        Who wins the race is unclear- though odds should favor the 5 C uniform temperature cause it’s much closer to the finish line.
        And our 15 C average air temperature can’t win this race- it could run the wrong direction and be wandering in circles.
        So our 15 C average air temperature can’t win this race, even if gave it 1000 ppm of CO2 more than other guys. But it’s possible that neither of other guys may also not also reach average global equal to uniform 6 C temperature in thousand year.
        You need an actual climate model which worked, to give you a clue of who may win. Or if any would reach the finish line.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 5:26 pm |

        Jim D

        I think I see where you are coming from. You are bringing in the secondary-downwelling radiation argument, which as far I can tell is now dismissed in the mainstream as a significant factor in the cooling of oceans into the atmosphere, now thought to be largely by conduction/convection, not (net) radiation.

        Perhaps others more qualified would care to comment on that ?

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 5:31 pm |

        Montalbano, yes, downwelling radiation is the key. It is not secondary in any sense. It is the primary direct effect of GHGs that keeps the surface warm, and its increase makes the surface that much warmer.

      • Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 5:34 pm |

        And Jim – you seem quite confused. Adding CO2 immediately adds to the energy content of the atmosphere – and heat by definition – by decreasing the mean free photon path. There is lots of energy available and more of it stays in the atmosphere for longer until the oceans and atmosphere warms – and more photons are emitted restoring conditional equilibrium at TOA.

        Land gains and looses energy daily. The question is the response times of oceans and this is not something that can be easily calculated. You can treat it as a heat diffusion problem as Hansen did – but that is both physically unrealistic and circular reasoning as the result depends on the assumption of the rate of diffusion. It can’t be treated in any rigouress way.

        As I said – the data shows quite close correlation between changes in TOA radiant flux and inflection points in ocean heat content.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 5:43 pm |

        Robert Ellison, no, adding CO2 doesn’t lead to atmospheric warming. The dominant effect is that it radiates to space more easily and cools, and this overcomes any warming it might get from absorbing surface photons. It is not obvious, but radiative transfer models tell you how these two opposing effects of adding GHGs (all else kept fixed) resolve into net cooling.

      • Pekka Pirilä | February 2, 2013 at 5:46 pm |

        Jim,

        It’s essential that there’s enough downwelling radiation for making significant convection and evaporation necessary at surface, but beyond that changes in the downwelling radiation are not really significant as convection fills easily the gap whatever its size is.

        Where changes in the GHG concentration have more important direct effects is in the upper troposphere. When they limit the outgoing radiation they force the Earth as whole to warm and that extra heat goes mostly in oceans because they have by far the largest heat capacity.

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 5:53 pm |

        I think you will find that even over at Realclimate they dismiss the downwellng idea now.

        Be that as it may, however significant or otherwise it is, for it to be steadily warming the globe, there needs to be steadily more of it than before. And if there is steadily more of it than before, the atmosphere will need to be steadily warmer than before, since before there can be increased downwelling radiation, there needs to be increased IR absorption, which must necessarily steadily warm the CO2 and hence the air as a whole more than before.

        But of course the atmosphere has not been steadily warming of late. So ocean warming by reduced conduction, and by alleged downwelling radiation, are in the same boat in this regard.

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 5:57 pm |

        Pekka, yes, that is the energy balance argument, and I agree with it that the main global effect is at the top of the atmosphere. The argument at the surface is more about the mechanism of how the warming occurs. Adding GHGs doesn’t warm the atmosphere except via warming the surface. Yes, it is subtle, but it is a persistent change in surface forcing that adds up over time, and is more noticeable in drier areas like colder regions and continents than over the tropical oceans where water vapor dominates the GHG effect.

      • gbaikie | February 2, 2013 at 6:06 pm |

        “Or start the world with a *uniform* temperature of 5 C and this
        position is warmer [and potentially warmer] than world with an *average* temperature of 15 C.”

        I Meant to say ….is warmer [and has the potential become more
        warmer] as compared with…..

      • Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 6:13 pm |

        At the surface there is 1.5-2 W/m2 more than pre-industrial due to the added CO2 to date alone. This can heat 100 meters of water by 0.1 degrees per decade or 1000 meters by 0.1 degrees per century. This alone contributes significantly to the ocean heat content change which is opposed by the extra fluxes from the ocean as it warms up to try to get to equilibrium with the increasing forcing.

      • stefanthedenier | February 2, 2013 at 10:13 pm |

        Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:39 pm said: ” for the oceans to cool less than before into the atmosphere (thereby becoming warmer than before), the atmosphere needs to be warmer than before; and for the oceans to continually get warmer, the atmosphere must continually get warmer”

        Mate, let me give you a hand: extra warmth in the oceans get from submarine volcanoes &hot vents. b] faulty line is mostly on the bottom of the oceans / AND closer to the molten lava by 2-5km than on land. For ”any reason’ the seawater gets warmer -> evaporation increases / which is cooling process c] more evaporation = more clouds / clouds are the sun umbrellas to the sea &land = less warming on the ground – called ”self adjusting mechanism. (p.s. it’s not only the difference in temp between troposphere and sea regarding cooling / humid air decreases evaporation / cooling)

        you say: ”the temperature series show that for some two decades now, the atmosphere has not been getting warmer”

        .Montalbano, overall GLOBAL temp hasn’t being getting warmer, or colder; warmings / coolings are localized, NEVER global. Selectively picking places, one can make argument for warming, or coolings. Because: when one place gets warmer than normal, by the laws of physics, another place MUST get colder.

        3 ARGUING AGAINST JIM D, IS SAME AS ARGUING AGAINST A FENCE POST. you want real proofs: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/

      • BatedBreath | February 3, 2013 at 1:38 am |

        Jim D | February 2, 2013 at 5:43 pm |
        … adding CO2 doesn’t lead to atmospheric warming. The dominant effect is that it radiates to space more easily and cools, and this overcomes any warming it might get from absorbing surface photons.

        So a greenhouse gas cools rather than warms the atmosphere, emitting more energy than it absorbs? Constantly driving the atmosphere towards absolute zero.

        Well that’s certainly a new one. Perhaps we should start calling them icehouse gasses instead.

      • BatedBreath | February 3, 2013 at 2:01 am |

        Pekka
        …changes in the GHG concentration have more important direct effects is in the upper troposphere. When they limit the outgoing radiation they force the Earth as whole to warm

        But to reach the upper troposphere, radiation has to first get past the lower troposphere, where GHG concentration is also higher, thus limiting what reaches the upper troposphere in the first place.

      • Tomcat | February 3, 2013 at 2:27 am |

        Jim D
        … adding CO2 doesn’t lead to atmospheric warming….. dominant effect is that it radiates to space more easily

        This says the radiation to space from the TOA is actually INCREASED by the presence of added CO2. Which means the net result of adding GHGs to the atmosphere is …. a general COOLING of the planet.

        Jim D summary : GHGs do not warm the atmosphere, and overall they cool the planet.

        It’s climate science Jim, but not as we know it.

      • Greybeard | February 3, 2013 at 3:06 am |

        Stefan “overall GLOBAL temp hasn’t being getting warmer, or colder; warmings / coolings are localized, NEVER global … when one place gets warmer than normal, by the laws of physics, another place MUST get colder. ”

        This is just gibberish.

        1. Global. You need to familiarise yourself with the concept of global average temperature trends.
        2. The laws of physics. They do not state that the total heat in the globe are a constant.

      • stefanthedenier | February 4, 2013 at 5:08 am |

        Greybeard | February 3, 2013 at 3:06 am said: ”Stefan 1. You need to familiarize yourself with the concept of global average temperature trends.2. The laws of physics. They do not state that the total heat in the globe are a constant”

        One graybeard to another graybeard: I’m familiar with all the confusion created about average temp, it’s wrong – I have all the solid proofs how it is, and why; otherwise I wouldn’t be commenting with my limited English.

        YES, the laws of physics state precisely that: ”when troposphere warms up, for any reason – oxygen & nitrogen expand, INSTANTLY -> release that extra heat – then shrink INSTANTLY, not to create extra cooling” 2: if part of the atmosphere warms up extra -> that part expands -> releases extra heat / I prefer to call it the old fashion way: intercepts extra coldness -> that extra coldness, because of the spinning planet; fall some other place / places and creates COLDER than normal = overall stay the same.

        Here everybody repeats the same thing; only, some are for it / others against. Graybeard, be a good sport; I’m challenging you, to read the post / tread that i gave in the comment you commented on + and the 3 posts on my homepage – then we can have real things to debate. The young only know what comes from IPCC. BEFORE, people did know that water improves / deteriorates the climate. Before people did know that: as in deserts gets hotter during the day, BUT gets colder during the night, than in wet climate on same latitude. Hotter days / colder nights cancel each other. please read this, and the 3 posts on my homepage, extra knowledge never hearths ”Total heat in the globe are a ALWAYS constant, even in an ice age” please don’t chicken out! : :: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/hello-world/

    • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 12:21 pm |

      Max
      Yes I realise ocean temperature is not well understood, and am not citing the warming of the oceans as a fact. I am merely giving it as an assumption for the sake for the sake of the argument.

      So, given
      – the oceans cool into the atmosphere
      – the oceans are warming
      – the atmosphere is not warming
      then the atmosphere cannot be a cause of the ocean warming.

      • manacker | February 2, 2013 at 2:03 pm |

        Montalbano

        Your logic is excellent.

        I would guess that relatively small changes in cloud cover (tough to measure) could well be the reason for changes in ocean warming rates.

        No need to attribute it to GHGs with questionable logic, as Jim D and JCH are trying to do.

        But, as you know, the data prior to 2003 on ocean warming are next to worthless and the ARGO data since then show practically no warming at all.

        So this may well be a case of “much ado about nothing”.

        Max

      • Montalbano | February 2, 2013 at 2:19 pm |

        Max
        Yes it may well be that the oceans are not warming. The point is we don’t know – so it may well be the case. My point is that even of they are warming, it cannot be a consequence of the additional greenhouse effect from additional CO2.

  163. Doug Cotton | February 2, 2013 at 1:33 am |

     
    tempterrain

    An isothermal atmosphere in a gravitational field would be an outright violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says thermodynamic equilibrium evolves with the state of maximum entropy. Such a state is isentropic, and therefore of absolute necessity, cannot be isothermal.

    Hans Jelbring wrote his Climatology PhD thesis in 1998 mentioning this, and then had a peer-reviewed paper published in 2003 which you could have read from a link in my November paper in the PROM menu at PSI.

    Here’s the link to Dr Hans Jelbring’s paper
    http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/FunctionOfMass.pdf
    which was in Energy & Environment · Vol. 14, Nos. 2 & 3, 2003

    If you think you have a valid rebuttal of Hans Jelbring’s paper, just post it here and I’ll draw it to his attention.
     

    • tempterrain | February 10, 2013 at 8:04 pm |

      Doug Cotton,

      “An isothermal atmosphere in a gravitational field would be an outright violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”

      No. On the contrary. It needs to be isothermal to comply with the law but only when it is in thermal isolation, which is not the case with the real atmosphere.

      Energy and Environment isn’t a proper journal. If Jelbring thinks he’s correct he needs to publish in the mainstream scientific press. If he’s right then there should be no problem in doing that. But if he’s wrong, his paper won’t be accepted – which is why he’s turned to E&E. It’s a journal of last resort.

  164. tempterrain | February 2, 2013 at 2:39 am |

    Doug Cotton,

    Unlike you I’m not claiming to be the world’s expert on both the atmospheres of Venus and Earth but for a start I’d just question this figure of 10W/m^2

    The energy incident on the Venusian atmosphere is, according to my figures 661W/m^2. The figure for Earth is 343W/m^2. Venus is 0.72 of the distance earth from the Sun so applying the inverse square law this seems about right.

    The abedo of Venus is given as 0.8 so this would mean 0.8 x 661W would be reflected (mainly from the the clouds in the atmosphere? ) and 0.2 x 661W = 132W/m^2 would be absorbed on the surface. Or are you saying that 122W is absorbed in the clouds?

  165. Vassily | February 2, 2013 at 5:58 pm |

    jim d seems to be telling that adding Co2 COOLS the globe now. so we should be burning MORE fossil fuel, not less… wtf ??

  166. Robert I Ellison | February 2, 2013 at 11:38 pm |

    What I said was that the world belongs to the builders and architects – the future is conceived in love and joy – hope is the last human attribute to perish – freedom is the unquenchable fire within.

    What I didn’t do was make any sort of dimwitted allusion to social Darwinism or make a weird little argument by analogy to gazelles, lions and kiwis.

    As has been said repeatedly – the most effective policy response is the one that works.

    ‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.

    The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’

    http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation

    The people standing in the way of progress in many needs of society and the environment is not us. TT – I suggest you stop playing games and deal in goodfaith for a change – you may as well because the game is moving on without you.

  167. Beth Cooper | February 3, 2013 at 12:18 am |

    Dealing with complexity:
    http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1223
    So we’re on the verge of energy and environmental disaster?

    Thought fer Today:
    “Do not be afraid of the future.”

    We do not need the platonist elite ter *save* us through
    centralist decision making and high taxation. We’ve got
    individual innovation coming from the market place and
    from democratic communities responding and adapting
    ter local problem sutuations. Elinor Ostram arguess that
    polycenrtic systems are not chaotic. Me small tribute ter
    Elinor Ostram via the flight of birds:

    Against an ivory sky
    Birds flying in a flock,
    Patterning of wings, on, off,
    From dark to light, then dark again,
    Positive to negative
    In effortless fluidity.
    Chiaroscuro landscape,
    Even the beat of wings
    Is muted as the flock
    Turns and turns about
    In subdued and lovely unison.

    BC

  168. Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 12:33 am |

    tempterrain

    Of course I’m aware of the Venus temperatures and thermal gradient in its atmosphere, and how that determines the surface temperature. All that information is in each of two cited references in my paper on Planetary Surface Temperatures in the Principia Scientific International PROM menu. See, for example, this which is a peer-reviewed journal paper.. If you read my comment you’ll see that the 10W/m^2 is based on actual measurements, so you can’t argue about it being significantly different.

    You have not answered the implied question: How does some of the thermal energy absorbed from incident solar radiation at various levels in the Venus atmosphere get to its much hotter surface? .

    No one can fully understand the mechanism which maintains Earth’s surface temperature until they can also answer the above question, because the same mechanism functions in Earth’s atmosphere. And you won’t find it in climatology textbooks.

    You’ll require knowledge of the thermodynamic equilibrium requirements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and an understanding of how maximum entropy states evolve.

    • tempterrain | February 3, 2013 at 2:00 am |

      Doug Cotton,

      I’m not sure why the issue of back radiation always seems to cause such a problem, but it seems to.

      The figure you have for 10W per sq metre seems unreasonably low, but you obviously like that figure because you think it supports your argument that the GH effect doesn’t exist. What about the other 120W/m^2? Don’t you care about them?

      But leaving that aside I’d just ask three questions:

      1) Do you accept that the blackbody temperature of Venus, as measured from afar, is about -60degC?

      2) Do you accept that , because of the opaque nature of the Venusian atmosphere, this is a measurement of the temperature uppers layers of the Venusian troposphere?

      3) Do you accept that if the Venusian atmosphere was completely transparent to IR you’d measure a similar temperature but this time it would be the actual surface temperature?

      If you’ve answered yes to all three then you just convinced yourself that the GH effect does indeed exist. I’ll leave you to work out how to fit back radiation into the picture at your own pace.

      • Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 2:30 am |

        Emphatically NO to (3)) because no atmosphere can be transparent to UV and visible spectrum radiation from the Sun, and every significant atmosphere in a gravitational field has to have a thermal gradient based on gravity, specific heat and the amount of intra-atmospheric radiation.

        Now it’s back to your turn tempterrain to explain how the necessary energy got to the surface of Venus to heat it to (and maintain it at) over 730K.

        Only when you can explain this with valid physics will I know that you understand the valid physics in my paper. If you think you know some other “physics” which might rebut what I and Dr Hans Jelbring have said, then provide details and I’ll look into it and show you where it’s wrong, so that may help you and other silent readers to understand the huge mistake made by those who advocate that a greenhouse effect warms Earth’s surface 33 degrees and the Venus surface about 500 degrees.

      • gbaikie | February 3, 2013 at 4:11 am |

        “But leaving that aside I’d just ask three questions:

        1) Do you accept that the blackbody temperature of Venus, as measured from afar, is about -60degC?”
        Nope.

        “2) Do you accept that , because of the opaque nature of the Venusian atmosphere, this is a measurement of the temperature uppers layers of the Venusian troposphere?”

        I believe you can be able measure the temperature of Venus atmosphere at any elevation you want to measure.
        But this will not have a blackbody curve- or blackbody temperature because gases don’t have a blackbody temperature curve.
        But can determine the temperature of a gas via radiant energy emitted by these gases.

        Also the thick Venus atmosphere is opaque to a wide range of electromagnetic radiation- but microwave radiation has used to penetrate Venus atmosphere and bounce the signal back thereby measuring the topography of the Venusian surface.
        Also fairly recently, Venus Express used other atmospheric window to see the surface:
        “The surface-temperature measurements are performed using the atmospheric windows located in the near infrared at 1.02microm, 1.10microm, and 1.18 microm, respectively. In these spectral windows thermal emission from the surface can escape the atmosphere. The radiation is still affect by the thick clouds and especially their variation. Therefore a “declouding” algorithm is applied in the data-processing chain, which allows removing these effects. The results are maps of the surface temperature.”
        http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hot_stuff_on_Venus_999.html

        “3) Do you accept that if the Venusian atmosphere was completely transparent to IR you’d measure a similar temperature but this time it would be the actual surface temperature?”

        Not sure I understand question. Though as above- the atmosphere is somewhat transparent to certain near infrared wavelengths and this can
        detect a blackbody temperature of the planet surface.

      • tempterrain | February 3, 2013 at 4:27 am |

        Doug Cotton,

        Maybe you’d think me a bit odd, but if I thought X about the world’s climate and the rest of the world’s experts on climate thought Y, and had done so for 150 years or more, then I wouldn’t just necessarily give up and take up fishing or whatever, but I would at least be open to the possibility that I might be wrong while arguing my case as rationally as I could.

        But I just don’t get the feeling that your being at all rational, and I don’t get the feeling that you are in any way open to the possibility you might be wrong.

        Saying that “no atmosphere can be transparent to UV (sic)” is a bit worrying. I think you mean IR. Yes we know that, in practice, that’s true, strictly speaking, but for the purposes of trying to understand what’s going on we can imagine what would happen if the transparency of the Venusian atmosphere to IR was perfect, or at least nearly perfect. Well any rational scientist can do that, I’d say. How about you?

        So, if the atmosphere of Venus were perfectly transparent to IR, and making no assumptions about whether Venus did, or didn’t, have a lapse rate in its atmosphere, would we be able to measure the surface temperature directly?

      • tempterrain | February 3, 2013 at 5:27 am |

        Gbaikie.

        I’ve just looked up NASA’s figure for the Venusian blackbody temperature and they actually put it lower than my -60 degC , they have 184K which is more like -90 degC. I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy . Is that what you mean by “nope”?

        I’ll have to have another look at my calculation but the difference is not central to my argument.

        http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html

      • gbaikie | February 3, 2013 at 7:53 am |

        “Gbaikie.

        I’ve just looked up NASA’s figure for the Venusian blackbody temperature and they actually put it lower than my -60 degC , they have 184K which is more like -90 degC. I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy . Is that what you mean by “nope”? ”

        Nope.
        A blackbody temperature given by NASA is estimate based upon distance from Sun, so in case Venus distance- with amount sunlight being reflected and “as if” Venus were a ideal blackbody.

        It’s not a measurement.

        A measurement of lunar surface in daylight would indicate a surface of about 120 C [400 K] and on night side it’s about 100 K

        And NASA says the Moon’s blackbody is 270.7 K
        http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html
        Which likewise is not an actual measurement- instead it’s
        a calculation- based imagining that the Moon were blackbody
        which reflected same sunlight the Moon reflects.
        So the lunar blackbody of 270.7 K is not a measurement-
        it’s estimation.
        It may or may not be a perfect estimation, that is not the issue, but rather that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a measurement.

        And measurement of Earth of “the electromagnetic spectrum reaching the satellite’s detector on the cloudless early afternoon of May 5, 1970, when the satellite was over the Niger valley in northern Africa.”
        Can fitted to a blackbody temperature curve of 320 K:
        http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=835&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=c0fe8831-903f-441d-8654-1fb4fd9e56e2
        That would be a measurement.

        Btw, it doesn’t mean to me the Niger valley in northern Africa had blackbody temperature of 320 K, it means to me, as it was measured from a satellite the measurement indicated this temperature.
        Or In other words if were flying over Niger valley in a plane at say 5000′ you would obviously get different reading of the surface blackbody temperature.

      • gbaikie | February 4, 2013 at 4:05 am |

        “Or In other words if were flying over Niger valley in a plane at say 5000′ you would obviously get different reading of the surface blackbody temperature.”

        As the blackbody temperature measurement is diminished by an atmosphere, what does this mean?

        Our sun’s blackbody measurement is also reduced by traveling thru Earth’s atmosphere.
        The solar spectrum of Earth from earth surface show this.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
        The graph shows the measurement of incoming sunlight and draws line of where it’s Planck curve would be if measured at TOA [which loosely fits the yellow of measured sunlight at TOA].
        If you just looking at the measurement taken at the surface of
        Earth, it would indicates a lower blackbody temperature of the sun.

        The blackbody measurement of the Sun or Earth is diminished
        by passing thru Earth’s atmosphere.

        And also if measuring the sunlight from the surface of Venus, the Sun’s blackbody measurement would be drastically reduced, and as the Venus blackbody surface temperature as measured from orbit also appear drastically reduced- if not entirely blocked, except some wavelengths.

        So if you wanted to measure the blackbody spectrum of the sun from Earth surface, you could look at sun in wavelength least blocked by Earth’s atmosphere, then adjusted the measurements. And looking
        at Solar_Spectrum.png one can see that some portions of Near infrared which are not much affected from passing thru the atmosphere [as compared to visible spectrum of light]

        One could also measure blackbody of sunlight TOA then measure it from surface. One could then get adjustments needed so look from Earth surface- adjust so as to allow for for spectrum blocked by the atmosphere.

        One also do the same thing looking down from space at the reflected sunlight- and use similar adjustment for the atmospheric loss.

        Also do same thing with wavelengths used to measure the blackbody temperature of Earth. The sun emits these wavelengths. Measure them from Earth orbit and measure them from Earth surface to determine the adjustments needed.
        So with such adjustments one can get an approximate of Earth blackbody measured from space.
        One could do same thing with Venus- and one could then measure [and use adjustments] the blackbody temperature of Venus surface from orbit. Which what Venus Express is doing.

        One could say, I am missing the point- which is that Venus atmosphere absorbs this energy- that this is the empirical proof of a greenhouse effect.

        The problem with such empirical proof, no one thinks Earth atmosphere is absorbing visible light from the Sun, rather this sunlight is mostly blocked in ways other than absorbing the energy.

        And apply same rule in regard to all spectrum of electromagnetic
        radiation. Some of it is absorbed and re-emitted by gas, but most of it
        isn’t.

        So the blackbody spectrum of the Sun or of the planetary surface is being blocked when it goes thru an atmosphere.
        Also, distance “blocks” a blackbody spectrum. It’s diminished due to distance. [And it can be red or blue shifted due to velocity.]

        So our atmosphere blocks in some fashion a large amount sunlight before it hits the earth surface [and a portion of reflected sunlight is blocked in some fashion from leaving the Earth surface].

        How much of the sunlight coming in is blocked as compared to being absorbed and re-emitted?
        Clear skies, sun at zenith, one gets about 1000 watts per square meter at the surface, compared to 1363 watts per square meter at TOA. So .75 times 1363 is 1022.
        25% of it doesn’t get thru the atmosphere.
        [[If the sun is not near zenith, than the sunlight has to go thru more atmosphere. This only becomes really significant at angle starting 45 degrees or less. So zenith being 90 degree and noon [and summer at say Tropic of Cancer]. And 45 degree either way [9 am or 3 pm] doesn’t increase the amount atmosphere the sunlight has to go thru
        by very much. Or it’s only when sun is less than 45 degree above the horizon when getting significant amount atmosphere it has to go thru.
        Though most area of the sunlit hemisphere is below 45 degree angle of sunlight- it’s geometry.]]
        So with clear skies and zenith 25% of it doesn’t reach surface [at least directly, so that one can measure it as coming from the direction of sun].

        A question is how much of this 360 watts per square meter is being adsorbed and remitted?
        Broadly:
        Looking the “Solar_Spectrum.png”, as labeled the O3, O2, H2O, and CO2 is blocking the sunlight in some fashion from reaching the surface. But *most* of the energy of the sunlight isn’t labeled as having some gas blocking or absorbing it.

        No blame is given for most of the visible light part of spectrum being blocked and that there “general” loss throughout the entire spectrum with some dips assigned to the above gases.
        So somewhere around half of the energy isn’t suggested
        to be absorbed in some way.
        So we have such things reflected, diffused/scatter type ways of blocking it from reaching a detector measuring the sunlight at the surface.
        I would say at least 1/2 of the sunlight at zenith on clear day is not being absorbed. Some might claim it’s less than 10% is, but it’s easy to claim at least 1/2.

        And I would say one could assume as general rule that less than half of reflected sunlight which the atmosphere would block some way from leaving Earth is absorbed when leaving Earth.

        Or also I would say in general terms in regard to electromagnetic energy of all kinds- sunlight, warmed pavement, volcano, or any broad blackbody type spectrum that most of energy is not being absorbed by atmosphere but a large amount may be blocked in some fashion.

        And an addition point is the weakness of the signal and the inability to detect the weakest signals *affects our perception* of how much is blocked.

        Or if the sunlight was 10 times dimmer it could appear that more sunlight was blocked by our atmosphere. Or if our atmosphere was 10 times more massive, more sunlight could appear to be blocked [more *would be* blocked, but just saying also more could appear to be blocked, due to difficulty of detecting/measuring it.]

        Is the lack of ability to measure a big problem?
        Not really because we should be mostly interested in the big picture- and we will get better at it.
        I am just saying what is obvious, that one should be aware of this inherent limitation.
        We are making great strides in the area of improving this measurement and 30 or 40 year old measurements could be done better now [and will probably be done better in 30 or 40 year in the future].

  169. Greybeard | February 3, 2013 at 2:45 am |

    The attempt by some to resuscitate the old “backradiation” argument – discarded even by the climate establishment some time back – seems to be motivated by a desire to save the CAGW idea by finding some way around the “problem” of the stalled atmospheric temperatures.

    • Erica | February 3, 2013 at 3:40 am |

      But backradiation does *not* get around the “problem” of the stalled atmospheric temperatures.

      For backradiation to be effective, there must first be a warming of the atmosphere as the CO2 absorbs the IR. To deny this is to deny
      – the notion of a mean free path for radiation
      – the notion that GHGs limit the radiative cooling of the planet into space from the TOA.

      But as we know, the atmosphere is not warming anymore. Which means backradiation is not effective (if it ever was).

      Which brings us back to where this seems to have started – that the major factor that determines ocean temperatures, is the rate at which heat is conducted/convected from the oceans to the atmosphere (the oceans being warmer than the atmosphere). Which is largely determined by the temperature difference between the two. And since the atmosphere is not warming now, any ongoing ocean warming can only be a temporary, delayed effect of earlier atmospheric warming.

      This of course leads to the question of *why* the atmosphere is not warming anymore – and indicates that greenhouse effect of added CO2 is of little consequence.

    • tempterrain | February 3, 2013 at 4:57 am |

      “discarded even by the climate establishment some time back” ?
      I don’t think so. But….

      …you can understand the GH effect without bothering about “backradiation”. All you need to understand is that if the Earth’s or Venus’s temperature is being measured from a distance by analysing its IR emission then you aren’t measuring the surface directly. You’re measuring the temperature at the top of the troposphere because their lower atmospheres are opaque to IR.

      Multiply that height by the atmospheric the lapse rate, around 6K/km on Earth, 10K/km on Venus, and you have the amount of warming caused by the GH effect. 5km X 6 gives about 30 degrees on Earth (33K to be exact) and 60km x 10 gives about 600 degrees on Venus.

      Simple eh?

  170. Peter Lang | February 3, 2013 at 5:10 am |

    World Economic Forum has released its annual Global Risks report, ‘Global Risks 2013‘

    The risks are worse than we thought!. Nearly all the major risks are much worse than the experts thought last year.

    I went to Figure 6 to see how the ranking had changed since last year. I note:

    2011 was the peak of CAGW alarmism. On ‘Likelihood‘ it ranked first, second, fourth and fifth highest risk category out of five. On ‘Impact‘ is was the second highest of five.

    2012 & 2013 – ‘Rising greenhouse gas emissions’ are ranked 3rd of the top five risks on ‘Likelihood‘ but not even ranked in the top five risk categories on ‘Impact‘. But what is the risk. ‘Rising GHG emissions’ is not a risk. It is the effect of ‘rising GHG emissions’ that is the concern. Therefore, I see this as scaremongering.

    ‘Major systemic financial failure’ is the risk with the greatest impact. I’d agree.

    My interpretation of the ‘Cause’ for risks being much higher in 2013 than 2012, is as follows:

    1. The Global Risks report is becoming better known world wide and, therefore, is gaining influence on policy and political decision.

    2. Therefore, people who want to influence policy and political decisions need to get involved and influence the WEC Global Risk reports

    3. So more young academics and environmental NGOs (Greenpeace, WWF, FOE, etc) are finding ways to influence it

    But it is still a very good report.

    What a pity they don’t have a risk category called “Failure of global GHG emissions control policy Protocols/Treaties”. That is the category we need for ‘Policy Decisions Analysis’. They have a risk category for ‘Failure of climate change adaptation’, but that is no help – and, anyway, what the hell does it mean?

  171. Peter Lang | February 3, 2013 at 5:29 am |

    World Economic Forum has released its annual Global Risks report, ‘Global Risks 2013‘

    The risks are worse than we thought!. Nearly all the major risks are much worse than the experts thought last year (See Figure 1).

    I went to Figure 6 to see how the ranking had changed since last year. I note:

    2011 was the peak of CAGW alarmism. On ‘Likelihood‘ ‘Rising GHG emissions’ ranked first, second, fourth and fifth highest risk category out of five. On ‘Impact‘ is was the second highest of five.

    2012 & 2013 – ‘Rising greenhouse gas emissions’ are ranked 3rd of the top five risks on ‘Likelihood‘ but is not even ranked in the top five risk categories on ‘Impact‘. But what does this risk mean. ‘Rising GHG emissions’ is not a risk. It is the effect of ‘rising GHG emissions’ that is the concern.

    ‘Major systemic financial failure’ is the risk with the greatest impact. I’d agree.

    My interpretation of the cause of risks being much higher in 2013 than 2012, is as follows:

    1. The WEF’s annual ‘Global Risks’ report is becoming better known world wide and, therefore, is gaining influence on policy and political decisions.

    2. Therefore, people who want to influence policy and political decisions want to get involved and influence the WEC Global Risk reports

    3. So more young (i.e. less conservative) academics and environmental NGOs (Greenpeace, WWF, FOE, etc) are finding ways to influence the report.

    But despite these criticisms it is still a good report.

    What a pity they don’t have a risk category called “Failure of global GHG emissions control policy Protocols/Treaties”. That is the category we need for ‘Policy Decisions Analysis’. They have a risk category for ‘Failure of climate change adaptation’, but that is no help – and, anyway, what the hell does it mean?

  172. Doug Cotton | February 3, 2013 at 6:30 pm |

    Some time back I asked people if they could explain how the required thermal energy gets into the surface of Venus. At least 98% of all incident Solar radiation is absorbed by the thick atmosphere there, so the Sun does not heat the surface significantly with direct radiation.

    No one on any climate blog has provided the correct answer, so I guess it’s time to explain what does happen.

    The thermal gradient in an atmosphere evolves even in still air. We have proof that it does in over 800 experiments by Roderich Graeff, and it is logical that it would if you consider my thought experiment about a cylinder divided into three sections. If the top and bottom sections are a vacuum and then gas is released from the middle section by removing the dividers, then, at thermodynamic equilibrium, there has to be a cooler temperature at the top and warmer at the bottom. If KE were homogeneous, then the extra PE in the molecules at the top would cause a general propensity for some gas to move downwards gaining KE as it does so. After all, each individual molecule has mass, and thus has KE (as we know) and also PE. So it must obey Newton’s laws in free flight between impacts.

    The Venus surface would not be as hot if all convection moved away from the surface. If that happened we have no explanation as to how the required energy gets into the Venus surface. Because IPCC and cohorts could not conceive this heat transfer by convection, they postulated that back radiation could do the job of raising Earth’s surface 33 degrees, and the surface of Venus by about 500 degrees. But 10W/m^2 of direct solar radiation reaching the Venus surface could hardly produce much back radiation anyway! Surface bound heat transfer by convection is the missing link which we have all been looking for, and no one it seems has previously described this as being the only explanation.

    We must understand that diffusion of KE (even in still air) sets the gradient of the thermal plane in an atmosphere. Then any additional heat absorbed from the Sun (such as when night becomes day) will spread out over that thermal plane (moving away from the source in all 3D directions) just as if it were the level surface of a lake receiving rain (extra water) in some section of the lake. This is the only way we can explain how energy moves up the thermal gradient and into the surface of Venus. Radiation cannot transfer heat from the cooler atmosphere, but non-radiative convection can flow towards the surface over the thermal plane whose gradient is set by diffusion of KE in a gravitational field.

  173. Doug Cotton | February 4, 2013 at 4:02 am |

    Well there may actually be a minuscule warming effect due to removal of carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide has a minuscule net cooling effect as it radiates heat towards space (and higher, cooler layers of the troposphere – and thus reduces the atmospheric thermal gradient (and thus surface temperature at radiative equilibrium) as does water vapour to a far greater extent.

    But that’s no problem, because within 50 to 200 years the world will start 500 years of long-term natural cooling.

  174. Robert I Ellison | February 4, 2013 at 4:38 am |

    Of course it is not new Doug – http://yourorganicgardeningblog.com/rock-dust-for-bigger-better-tasting-veggies-showier-flowers/ – the importance is in soil processes. Healthy soils mean healthy foods.

    http://us-rem.com/articles/soil-sustainability/

    You don’t really pay attention do you?

  175. Beth Cooper | February 4, 2013 at 7:36 am |

    A response ter Steven Mosher from the Condensation-winds thread.

    I suppose that most of us here consider philosophy ter be
    concerned with real world problems and not sophistry fer
    winning debates, tho’ doubtless there were clever people
    excited by the power that Logical Positivism gave them:
    ‘How do yer verify that statement?’ Trouble was, this new logic
    tool became a kind of scholasticism. While claiming above all to
    be a scientific view of the world, by its central tenet, its Verification Principle, it was harming the patient

    From Newton to Logical Positivism, the main task of science was
    the search for natural laws, eg Newton’s Inverse Square Law.
    When the question was raised of how these laws were known to
    be true, the answer was,’by practical observation and experiment.’

    As Karl Popper argued in the Logic of Scientific Discovery, as per
    Hume, no number of observations can make an observation
    empirically verifiable (though one counter example may falsify it.) Therefore, by its central tenet.) Logical Positivism rules out all
    scientific laws. Popper further argued that the search for a
    criterion of meaningfulness is a mistake, that defining terms
    and discussion of word meanings is not what scientists do and
    can only lead, in philosophy, to an infinite regress.

    Popper asserted that in fact and logic, for a philosopher to be
    centrally concerned with the meaning of words precluded him or
    her from getting down to discussion of real substance, bogged
    down in an endless process of word spinning, logic chopping and
    sterile scholasticism. He argues that If you look at the history of philosophy you will see that science emerged in gradual steps out
    of non-science and that it was credible neither logically or
    historically that scientific theories should have evolved from predecessor theories that were meaningless.

    A comment by Bryan Magee in ‘Confessions of a Philosopher.’
    Popper never thought of astrology, alchemy, myth, religion’
    or metaphysical beliefs as such, as meaningless but saw them
    as being like science itself, attempts by humans to understand
    their world and gain some measure of control over it, like, say,
    predicting or managing weather

  176. Michael | February 5, 2013 at 7:11 pm |

    New paper;
    “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation”

    You gotta laugh.

  177. Doug Cotton | February 6, 2013 at 1:29 am |

     

    How the Sun supports the Earth’s Core Temperature

    The thermal gradient (AKA lapse rate) in the Earth’s atmosphere and the incident insolation level together set the base thermal plot which then determines the surface temperature. This thermal plot then continues through the crust and mantle, initially at a steeper rate (because specific heat of rock etc is lower) but eventually at a very low rate approaching zero in the deep inner mantle because specific heat increases as the cube of temperature. This “supports” the core temperature, which effectively receives its energy from the Sun!

    Then daily input of solar energy forms a “mound” of extra energy which is dispersed partly into the outer crust, and partly into the lowest 100m or so of the atmosphere. Hence the steep thermal gradient there. However, this mound of energy is released during the night, having been mostly temporary. In summer in any particular location, it may build up from one day to the next, but the reverse happens in winter.

    The very fact that the initial steep thermal gradient then settles down to the normal effective gradient demonstrates the base thermal profile in the atmosphere, as does the fact that the surface does not keep cooling at a fast rate later at night.

    Before too many “laugh” at the concept of the Sun supporting the core temperature, let me explain that this is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Exactly the same process which supplies the necessary thermal energy to the surface of Venus (even though it is hotter than the atmosphere which absorbs the incident Solar radiation) also functions in Earth’s atmosphere and, wait for it, in the crust and mantle. Some of that extra energy from the Sun which penetrates the surface, or moves down by warm currents to the floor of the ocean and thence into the crust beneath, actually ends up on its way up the thermal plane towards the core.

    The Second Law says thermodynamic equilibrium (not thermal equilibrium) will evolve, and this means we must also consider gravitational potential energy. The Second Law requires thermodynamic equilibrium in a state of maximum accessible entropy. When such equilibrium evolves, we then have a kind of thermal plane which is sloping, but is in an isentropic state, not an isothermal state.

    Now, if we add extra thermal energy (kinetic energy) at any level, we upset the equilibrium. This is then resolved by that extra energy spreading out in all directions, some of it going up the thermal plane towards hotter regions. This is how it gets to the surface of Venus, and it must also be the way it gets to the Earth’s core, using energy originally from the Sun. Hence the long-standing unanswered question about core heat has an answer in this mechanism, as does the temperature of the Venus surface which could never have been due to any “runaway greenhouse effect” as is so often claimed. 

    How the Sun supports the Earth’s Core Temperature.

    The thermal gradient (AKA lapse rate) in the Earth’s atmosphere and the incident insolation level together set the base thermal plot which then determines the surface temperature. This thermal plot then continues through the crust and mantle, initially at a steeper rate (because specific heat of rock etc is lower) but eventually at a very low rate approaching zero in the deep inner mantle because specific heat increases as the cube of temperature. This “supports” the core temperature, which effectively receives its energy from the Sun!

    Then daily input of solar energy forms a “mound” of extra energy which is dispersed partly into the outer crust, and partly into the lowest 100m or so of the atmosphere. Hence the steep thermal gradient there. However, this mound of energy is released during the night, having been mostly temporary. In summer in any particular location, it may build up from one day to the next, but the reverse happens in winter.

    The very fact that the initial steep thermal gradient then settles down to the normal effective gradient demonstrates the base thermal profile in the atmosphere, as does the fact that the surface does not keep cooling at a fast rate later at night.

    Before too many “laugh” at the concept of the Sun supporting the core temperature, let me explain that this is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Exactly the same process which supplies the necessary thermal energy to the surface of Venus (even though it is hotter than the atmosphere which absorbs the incident Solar radiation) also functions in Earth’s atmosphere and, wait for it, in the crust and mantle. Some of that extra energy from the Sun which penetrates the surface, or moves down by warm currents to the floor of the ocean and thence into the crust beneath, actually ends up on its way up the thermal plane towards the core.

    The Second Law says thermodynamic equilibrium (not thermal equilibrium) will evolve, and this means we must also consider gravitational potential energy. The Second Law requires thermodynamic equilibrium in a state of maximum accessible entropy. When such equilibrium evolves, we then have a kind of thermal plane which is sloping, but is in an isentropic state, not an isothermal state.

    Now, if we add extra thermal energy (kinetic energy) at any level, we upset the equilibrium. This is then resolved by that extra energy spreading out in all directions, some of it going up the thermal plane towards hotter regions. This is how it gets to the surface of Venus, and it must also be the way it gets to the Earth’s core, using energy originally from the Sun. Hence the long-standing unanswered question about core heat has an answer in this mechanism, as does the temperature of the Venus surface which could never have been due to any “runaway greenhouse effect” as is so often claimed.

     

  178. Doug Cotton | February 6, 2013 at 5:14 am |

    Well, one way or another, the selenium is not reaching the bulk of the population in sufficient quantities, so perhaps it’s not in those rocks.

    (My background includes a high distinction in nutrition and also post graduate university studies in Natural Medicine, and over 30 years private study of supplementation research.).

  179. Doug Cotton | February 6, 2013 at 10:55 pm |

    Well, rocks or not, people aren’t getting enough selenium, nor enough vitamins from modern food, especially processed “white” stuff. “White at night is not right.”

    http://www.lef.org/abstracts/codex/selenium_citations.htm?source=search&key=selenium

    http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/dec2004_report_selenium_01.htm?source=search&key=selenium

    We have to add folic acid for example …

    http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag98/jan-research98.html?source=search&key=deficiency%20vitamins%20food

  180. tempterrain | February 9, 2013 at 2:50 am |

    Can anyone explain why John Kerry needs to ” play down his language proficiency”?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21392034

    Would this apply to a politician who happened to know a bit about climate science too? Or is it just a general thing? Is it better for US politicians to claim, rather like Manuel in Fawlty towers, “I know nothing”.

  181. kartick Scott | June 25, 2013 at 5:07 am |

    Can anyone tell me the reason why $ dollar increase