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The push for ever increasing levels of government regulation and legislation, the desire of government managers to grow their programs, the dependence of congressional funding of a problem on the existence of a “problem” to begin with, and the U.N.’s desire to find reasons to move toward global governance, all lead to inherent bias in climate research. ~Dr. Roy Spencer
Sit back in a bath, and blow bubbles. Much physics and finance, there.
===============
“When I saw how the IPCC was responding and began investigating the broader allegations against the IPCC, I became critical of the IPCC and tried to make suggestions for improving the IPCC. As glaring errors were uncovered (especially the Himalayan glaciers) and the IPCC failed to respond, I started to question whether it was possible to salvage the IPCC and whether it should be salvaged. In the meantime, the establishment institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere were mostly silent on the topic.” ~Judith Curry
Pachauri’s company enriched by Glaciergate. IPCC’s false melt claim made by Pachauri’s employee.
My cynical prediction of superficial cleanup was too optimistic..
Can anyone point me to research that evaluates the probability a legally binding international agreement to control and cut GHG emissions can be agreed, implemented and maintained (ramped up across all 195 countries in unison) for 100 years or until GHG emissions are reduced to a sustainable level?
Activism? What activism?
Normative statements related to climate change? What normative statements related to climate change?
Double-standards? What double-standards?
Same ol’ same ol’? What same ol’ same ol’?
The oly real fight is to keep the growth of government down. So where it ends is clear. Next stop: Greece.
“The oly real fight is to keep the growth of government down”
At one time the fight was for democratic government, over autocratic or authoritarian rule. If you want smaller government, argue your case and win an election on that platform.
If you want smaller government, argue your case and win an election on that platform.
===============
The ballot process is inherently flawed at the point where people discover they can vote themselves more money. Anyone that wants to spend $100 million to win a public office that pays $100 thousand should be barred from holding office, because they are either a crook or an idiot.
Pick 1000 people at random to form a government, they will do at least as good a job as the professional politicians. Would you trust professional jurors to sit in judgement at your trial? No, because you would suspect that anyone that wanted to sit on a jury had an agenda to promote their interests over those of justice. The same holds for government.
fredberple,
It doesn’t have to be like that. Neither the current PM of Australia , Julia Gillard, nor her main challenger Tony Abbott are from wealthy backgrounds.
There are legal limits on what type of election funding is allowable. Its not a free-for-all like in America where , I do agree, elections can be bought.
http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/australia.php
The point here is that 90+% of what drives the the global warming issue, is that is it is the perfect excuse for even more government; the (government-funded) science itself is a side-issue, a mere means to the end of more government.
As such, alarmists are by and large just totalitarians/socialists who keep their real agenda hidden. And skeptics are mostly people who have recognized this deception.
I posted this on WUWT. Maybe someone here will give an opinion.
Four approximate observations.
1. The satellite global temperature data rose between December 2012 and January 2013 by about 0.3 C.
2. The NOAA/NCDC data for the same period rose less than 0.2 C.
3. The daily temperature at 600 mbar started falling around Feb 7, and is now around the middle temperature for the 21st century.
4. A SSW event started at the beginning of January.
Is it possible that the SSW caused a transient elevation of temperatures at 600 mbar during January 2013?
“Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were an average of 7 °C to 9 °C (13°F to 16 °F) warmer than surrounding rural areas over a three year period, the new research shows. The complex phenomenon that drives up temperatures is called the urban heat island effect.” NASA (‘Satellites Pinpoint Drivers of Urban Heat Islands in the Northeast,’ 13-Dec-2010)
Naw, it is the humans live in warm places effect, or HLWPE.
…or due to the effects of the global Hot World Syndrome, ‘HWS,’ pandemic
Follow the water. Higher population densities and impervious land cover funnel rain off into deep narrow channels or underground sewer mains with little opportunity for the water to evaporatively cool the surface. The warming effect from that can be huge and extend well beyond the borders of impervious cover by depriving the atmosphere of clouds that have a net cooling effect. Instead of forming clouds in the local region the artificially funneled rainfall makes it way into rivers and then into the ocean.
The notion that clouds have a net cooling effect should go without saying due to the long established fact that tropical deserts have the highest mean annual temperature of any climate type. If clouds had a net warming effect then tropical rainforests would have the higher mean annual temperature. But they don’t. Denial is rampant and warmists are projecting when they accuse me of it.
One data point and he asks a question. Unfool yourself.
David Springer | February 25, 2013 at 5:42 am |
If clouds had a net warming effect then tropical rainforests would have the higher mean annual temperature. But they don’t.
==========
Exactly correct. GHG including water radiates heat to space that otherwise could not escape from the atmosphere and would need to be radiated from the surface.
Without GHG there would be no lapse rate and very little convection. This reduction in convection from reduced GHG would heat the surface, similar to how real greenhouses work. As the surface temperature increased this would increase radiation to space from the surface, until it equaled that radiation to space lost by removing the GHG from the atmosphere.
Instead of a percentage of radiation from the surface, without GHG 100% of the radiation to space would come from from the surface, which would require the surface to heat up considerably as compared to the current situation.
I can see that, Jim, among the rising vapours and shimmers on the surface.
=================
one data point and he sees a signal. some skeptic.
Steven, you write “one data point and he sees a signal. some skeptic`.
`
I suggest that misrepresents what I wrote. I asked a question as to whether there might be a signal. I have no idea whether SSW events have any effect on the troposphere.
one datapoint and he suggests a signal. some skeptic.
there are 30 years of monthly figures he could check before speculating.
duh.
Hints:
1. there are often differences between UHA and the land record.
2. The science explains why one might be higher than the other.
The Skeptical Warmist | March 2, 2013 at 9:53 am confirms Jim’s insight.
Jim Cripwell, “Is it possible that the SSW caused a transient elevation of temperatures at 600 mbar during January 2013?”
R. Gates can probably do a better job, but I think it is the other way around. With the PDO in a cold phase, there is a higher pressure region in the north Pacific. Most of the warming prior to the SSW was over India which would create a wicked low pressure region, The high over the north Pacific and low over Asia combined to create a wave that “blew out” the polar vortex.
Just some of that minor weather stuff that has longer term cycles not included in climate models.
Satellites do not measure temperature they measure outgoing IR radiation; heat efflux from the planet.
That’s very naive and quite wrong, “doc”. IR doesn’t propagate well enough to measure temperatures through any substantial obstructions like clouds in the stratosphere or water vapor in the troposphere. Satellites measure temperature by microwave emission from oxygen atoms which varies according to temperature. These sensors are referred to as MSU’s or Microwave Sounding Units and are the basis for UAH and RSS satellite temperature data since 1979.
Do you people EVER freaking check what you think you know before you blurt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Indeed David
http://icoads.noaa.gov/advances/emery.pdf
Doc, you reference a paper on the measurement of sea surface temperatures. These can be measured by satellite, because the emissivity of the sea surface is roughly constant, and the height rough equal. You cannot use the same technology for land surface temperatures
Nice try but the question was about temperature at 600 mbar.
Here’s a clue. Ocean surface is nominally 1000 mbar.
See if you can figure out the rest on your own.
Jim, you wrote [my bold and comments]
1. The satellite global temperature data rose between December 2012 and January 2013 by about 0.3 C. [this is MSU data not IR data]
2. The NOAA/NCDC data for the same period rose less than 0.2 C. [this is land based i.e. Stevenson Screens with thermometers ]
3. The daily temperature at 600 mbar started falling around Feb 7, and is now around the middle temperature for the 21st century. [this is about 4000 meters altitude]
4. A SSW event started at the beginning of January.[this is short for Sudden Stratospheric Warming i.e. >20000 meters altitude]
There were four separate clues that IR measurements of sea surface temperature had nothing to do with this. DocMartyn displayed a deep and abiding ignorance of the subject matter saying satellites measure IR when it was abundantly clear it’s satellite MSU measurements. He then tries to cover his ignorance with a link (without comment) to SST measurement by IR.
I’m trying real hard to think up a charitable explanation for the mistake but I don’t think even Moshpit can come up with one in this instance.
Now finish the story david.
What physics is used to calculate tmperature from microwave emissions?
@mosher
Your question doesn’t make sense. It’s like asking what physics is used to display a voltage measurement.
If you want to know theory of operation of microwave radiometers go here:
http://www.iki.rssi.ru/asp/pub_sha1/Sharch03.pdf
David. Looks like you are the one who needs to read. I’ve written those types of documents. You don’t even understand them.
Oh cool. You blew your cover on another thread Mosh. If Curry doesn’t snip my reply.
Dave Springer | March 2, 2013 at 5:47 pm |
I was waiting for you to stick your foot in your mouth. Thanks for finally doing it. I don’t know that the hell you’re describing with pixel brightness but it isn’t a microwave sounding unit carried aboard the birds used to collect and generate data comprising the RSS/UAH temperature records. The AMSU-A isn’t a frickin’ CCD dopey. It uses an antenna. Do you know the difference between an optics and antennas?
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/documentation/amsu_instrument_guide.shtml
@DS: IR doesn’t propagate well enough to measure temperatures through any substantial obstructions like clouds in the stratosphere or water vapor in the troposphere.
Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Radiation tells us that anything that can absorb IR can also radiate it. If you put an IR-absorbing material in the path of IR, the IR will heat it and the resulting heated object will then radiate that heat out the other side.
In the case of atmosphere this effect is modulated by lapse rate. Clouds and greenhouse gases that absorb upwelling longwave radiation are warmed, but the side from which that warmth is reradiated further upwards is colder on account of lapse rate. Hence less IR comes out the top than goes into the bottom. Without that the surface would be at 254 C and the oceans might just as well have been made of ice-nine.
This effect is more pronounced for weak absorbers like GHGs than strong ones like clouds because a strong absorber can be thinner whence lapse rate plays less of a role for clouds than GHGs.
That in a nutshell is the greenhouse effect taking clouds into additional account.
“That in a nutshell is the greenhouse effect taking clouds into additional account.”
Unfortunately the argument is anthropocentric as we cannot extrapolate extraterrestrial say to mars without significant paradoxes such as CO2 clouds and that damn sun problem,eg Kasting
http://www3.geosc.psu.edu/~jfk4/PersonalPage/Pdf/Icarus_91.pdf
Jim asks:
“Is it possible that the SSW caused a transient elevation of temperatures at 600 mbar during January 2013?”
——
Jim, your intuition is good in this point. We see the warming extending downward from the stratosphere over the course of early January into February into the upper troposphere:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_JFM_NH_2013.gif
Most interesting if course is that the earliest precursor warming of this years SSW event (and many past years as well) begins high up in the stratosphere and moves downward, though the actual initial trigger is in the troposphere.
Skeptical you write “Jim, your intuition is good in this point.”
Thank you for this. It will be interesting to see what the satellite temperature data is for Feb 2013. We should know on Monday.
We have this huge crisis coming: we know of climate changes over the years having nothing to do with human CO2 and many smaller changes–some fairly recently–e.g., Napoleon lost 90% of his army to the cold after invading Russia; Hitler too. And, the Earth is now in a cooling trend. The crisis is that the country is being run by into the ground by idealogues who have too easy a time taking advantage of too many voters who don’t have the common sense to realize that nature happens and that more government is more likely to put you in harms way than it is to lead us all to more safety.
And then, just as AGW True Believers had begun to grow more comfortable and emboldened in their denial of the role of the Sun, along comes reality. For the AGW True Believers who are so fond of their doomsday scenarios of human-caused Thermageddon, on some level they had to know the Sun can not be completely ignored forever, right? As for causes of global warming and cooling, there is this one hugely significant role played by this ginormously important independent variable. “As if the sun wasn’t big enough already….”: nominally … it’s literally … ‘da Bomb!
See–e.g., this from NASA–>
Global Eruption Rocks the Sun:
Dec. 13, 2010: On August 1, 2010, an entire hemisphere of the sun erupted. Filaments of magnetism snapped and exploded, shock waves raced across the stellar surface, billion-ton clouds of hot gas billowed into space. Astronomers knew they had witnessed something big.
It was so big, it may have shattered old ideas about solar activity.
“The August 1st event really opened our eyes,” says Karel Schrijver of Lockheed Martin’s Solar and Astrophysics Lab in Palo Alto, CA. “We see that solar storms can be global events, playing out on scales we scarcely imagined before.”
… In a paper they prepared for the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), Schrijver and Title broke down the Great Eruption into more than a dozen significant shock waves, flares, filament eruptions, and CMEs spanning 180 degrees of solar longitude and 28 hours of time. At first it seemed to be a cacophony of disorder until they plotted the events on a map of the sun’s magnetic field.
Title describes the Eureka! moment: “We saw that all the events of substantial coronal activity were connected by a wide-ranging system of separatrices, separators, and quasi-separatrix layers.” A “separatrix” is a magnetic fault zone where small changes in surrounding plasma currents can set off big electromagnetic storms…
Further analysis may yet reveal the underlying trigger; for now, the team is still wrapping their minds around the global character of solar activity. One commentator recalled the old adage of three blind men describing an elephant–one by feeling the trunk, one by holding the tail, and another by sniffing a toenail. Studying the sun one sunspot at a time may be just as limiting.
“Not all eruptions are going to be global,” notes Guhathakurta. “But the global character of solar activity can no longer be ignored.”
As if the sun wasn’t big enough already….
(NASA Science News)
UN propaganda successfully manipulated the physics community for ~ 64 years after 1945-46, before finally surfacing as Climategate e-mails in late Nov 2009:
1. 06 Aug 1945: Hiroshima was vaporized
2. 09 Aug 1945: Nagasaki was destroyed
3. 24 Oct 1945: The UN was established
4. 1946: Fred Hoyle [1] laid the foundation for
_ a.) The SSM (standard solar model) of H-filled stars, and
_ b.) The Big Bang Model of initial H-creation from nothing
5. 1946: George Orwell moved to the Scottish island of Jura
_ a.) To write a warning: Tyranny would arrive by “1984” [2]
_ b.) Although Orwell himself was dying of tuberculosis at the time.
6. 1994: Fred Hoyle revealed absence of scientific rigor in 1946 [3]
7. 2008: Hilton Ratcliffe confirmed unscientific basis of astronomy [4]
8. 2009: Thirty-years of deception was exposed by Climategate [5]
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-2204
References:
[1] Fred Hoyle, “The chemical composition of the stars,” Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society 106, 255-259 (1946); “The synthesis of elements from hydrogen,” ibid., 343-383 (1946)
[2] George Owrell (Eric Arthur Blair), “Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)” Secker and Warburg, 1949: http://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Eighty-Four-Centennial-Edition-George/dp/0452284236
[3] Fred Hoyle, Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist’s Life, (University Science Books, 441 pages, 1994). See pp. 153-154
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Where-Wind-Blows-Cosmologists/dp/093570227X
[4] Hilton Ratcliffe The Virtue of Heresy: Confessions of a Dissident Astronomer (2008)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Heresy-Confessions-Astronomer/dp/1419695568/ref=dp_
[5] JoNova ClimateGate: 30 years in the making (2010)
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming-2/climategate-30-year-timeline/
Correction:
Thirty-years of deception exposed by Climategate in 2009 led to the discovery of another thirty-four years from 1945 to 1979.
Here’s an updated summary of events that gave hope for democracy in 1776 and then started to destroy those hopes in 1945:
http://tinyurl.com/ac2h396
Tomorrow I will try to find how to make hyperlinks work on the pdf file.
I just discovered the historical MEI dataset at NOAA (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/index.html) and did a plot of the cumsum of the series: [IMG]http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i371/WayneAnom/CumsumMEI_zps91ae1fb5.png[/IMG]. Notice the run from about 1978 to about 1998, in which it goes from around -150 back up to zero (which it had not been close to since it started).
Obviously the MEI’s numerical value is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that the cumsum at least sketches the cumulative effect of El Nino and El Nina phases of ENSO. To the extent that ENSO is a driver rather than an effect, the graph is very interesting.
Will someone please explain to me why we don’t build thorium reactors to supply electrical power?
Atomkraft, ja danke.
========
In the past it apparently has been more important to weaponize nuclear energy than to look for peaceful uses that won’t go Fukushima on us.
Wagathon
Best way to avoid nukes going Fukishima on us is not to build them in locations known for major tsunamis.
Fukushima death toll:
Tsunami: 15,880 (plus 6,135 injured and 2,694 missing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
Nuclear: 0 (“might eventually cause 130 deaths”)
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/study-estimates-fukushima-radiation-caused-deaths-cancers/13066
Max
Human CO2 caused the Tsunami… we cannot discount that possibility. More government research is required.
Will someone please explain to me why we don’t build thorium reactors to supply electrical power?
The high temperature / neutron bombarded materials life cycle science hasn’t been completed yet.
The ‘desired’ life expectancy of next generation nuclear plants as expressed by US Electric Utilities is at least 60 years.
In addition any new nuclear technology will require a fuel fabrication infrastructure.
One of the things that killed the Ft St Vrain Nuclear Plant was the fact that it was the ‘only’ reactor using that fuel. Hence…the fuel manufacturer couldn’t reach economy of scale and the fuel ended up being more expensive then fossil.
IMHO Any ‘new’ nuclear fuel technology is going to need a ‘pre commercial’ commitment of at least 100GW of capacity to justify the fuel infrastructure.
The only places that have a requirement for 100’s of GW of new capacity (no technology will get 100% market share) in the next decade are China and India.
China and India both have thorium R&D efforts.
Harry,
My understanding that another reason was maintenance costs. They put everything inside containment.
IPMeng,
This report by the UK National Nuclear Laboratories for the UK government explains clearly why Thorium is nowhere near ready to be pushed forward https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65504/6300-comparison-fuel-cycles.pdf.
Thorium reactors are at the early stages of the R&D, nowhere near ready for RD&D and in the very early stages of the technology life cycle. It’s decades away from being a commercial reality.
Sounds about right for the UK. We have a lot of plutonium and huge amounts of uranium; MOX makes sense as we already have the ability to reprocess plutonium from fuel rods. Separating U323 is a lot tougher, UF6 centrifuge cascades and laser isotope separation can do it, but we don’t have that infrastructure made.
Thorium reactors have been around for a long time. Never heard of CANDU? It uses heavy water and I believe is less economically efficient than standard light-water reactors, but thorium is hardly an exotic fuel.
Stevepostrel,
Yes, I think I have heard of CANDUs. Do you happen to know what fuel they run on?
CANDU reactors run on natural uranium at present. There are hopes (hypes?) of running on alternative fuels in the future in a design they call AFCR for Advanced Fuel Candu Reactor.
The US built a thorium reactor 50 years ago. The chemistry of the molten salt is exceedingly difficult to manage at just the right point for fission and requires lots of plumbing to move it around for processing. The high neutron flux eminating from the molten salt embrittles stainless steel and the corrosive properties of molten salt at 1000C quickly destroys most other materials. The end result is a maintenance nightmare of shutdowns, teardowns, inspection, and replacement of an intricate plumbing system. The maintenance overhead makes it impossible to operate at a profit. There are some exotic new materials composed of layered copper and carbon fibers that may have the strength and resistance to corrosion of stainless steel without being embrittled by high neutron flux. So far the material is not quite good enough and is too costly to produce on top of that so it must first be improved and then manufacturing cost of the improved material somehow driven way down. Don’t hold your breath. It isn’t an engineering problem it’s a discovery problem. Engineering problems can be reduced to time and money. In other words a plan with costs and timetables can be developed when no discovery is required. Discovery can’t be guaranteed to happen at any price over any period of time.
This is why I favor a long term, less expensive replacement for fossil fuel coming from third generation biofuel. Genetic engineering is exactly that – engineering – engineering. There is no discovery required only refinement of what we already know into commercial practice. Scaleable commercial third generation biofuel plants are already under construction. The industry is very well funded and will almost certainly make any new nuclear power plants obsolete before the plant has been in operation long enough to recoup the gigantic up-front capital investment it takes to build one. Gen3 biofuel plants do not require large capital investment beyond the R&D phase. Gen3 uses no arable land and no potable water requiring only sunlight, CO2, and enough saltwater (which is recycled) to fill hermetically sealed bio-reactors. The genetically engineered organisms producing the fuel are not harvested. They exude the hydrocarbon molecules they are designed to produce much like a person produces sweat. In the case of volatile molecules like bio-ethanol it simply evaporates out of the solution and is collected in runnels in the roof of the bioreactors. In the case of non-volatiles like bio-diesel it doesn’t mix with water and is collected by simple filtration. There are no secondary products (dead biomass) to worry about selling off as animal feed or whatever in third generation biofuel. That’s the beauty of it and is what makes it so low cost. Algenol is building a commercial scale plant as we speak in New Mexico and their pilot plant already acheived $70/bbl (unsubsidized, crude oil equivalent) bio-diesel and $2/gallon ethanol also unsubsidized. Target for commercial production is $50/bbl diesel and $1.30/gallon ethanol in the next two years. It will only get cheaper going forward because the base technology, synthetic biology, is an infant science and there’s tremendous for improvement by engineering more efficient, more robust artificial photosynthetic bacteria. The possibilities beyond just cheap liquid fuels are staggering. Imagine a programmable self-reproducing workforce of microscopic robots able to build anything at any scale out of any available materials. This is the promise of synthetic biology and it’s an engineering problem not a discovery problem.
David, what is their averaged annual energetic yield, in terms of time and area (i.e. watts/square-metre over the course of a whole year)?
In a sunny uninhabited desert where land is cheap it may be attractive, but I doubt if any significant parts of Europe will be able to match New Mexico.
Also, I wouldn’t rule out EU green-shirts wanting to torpedo such technology and products for being GM. Yes, they are that foolish.
(The Honey-I-shrunk-the-kids nano-gunge is still macro-BS in my opinion.)
Algenol. scaleable??. Already behind in a plan that aims at 20B gallons per year at the end of 20 years. That’s less than 10 percent of current US demand. Band aid?? dunno. Source of C02 is also a limiting factor.
I actually favor Joule Unlimited and Joule Fuels over Algenol. Joule is doing better with yield but hasn’t started on a scaleable commercial plant yet. Joule’s team, especially in the genetic engineering dept is world class with George Church at the top. Audi just put $70M into Joule in private VC to build a commercial plant. Source of CO2 will eventually be the atmosphere like any other photosynthetic organism on the planet. Yield per acre will go down but there’s no minimum size for a bioreactor and a great deal of non-arable land available for them so that’s not a problem. Fuel yield per acre using atmospheric CO2 would never go lower than fuel yield from corn, cane, beets, and similar natural carbon fixers it’s just ridiculously higher using concentrated CO2 which is readily available in smaller quanties. The advantage over natural carbon fixers is these 1) use no arable land, 2) use no potable water, and 3) excrete fuel without the need for harvest and post-processing of the biomass.
Joule is targeting 20,000 gallons/acre. Algenol has a more modest goal of 10,000. This is probably due to Joule having a superior GM photosynthetic bacteria. The GM part is the key. There is huge potential for improvement as the state of the art in genetic engineering advances.
michael hart | February 25, 2013 at 11:27 am |
“David, what is their averaged annual energetic yield, in terms of time and area (i.e. watts/square-metre over the course of a whole year)?”
76,000 btu/gal ethanol * 20,000 gal/acre/year = 1.5 billion btu/acre/year
13,000,000 btu/year/m2 solar power * 4000 m2/acre = 52 billion btu/acre/year
1.5 / 52 = 2.8% efficiency converting sunlight to chemical energy in fuel
This seems about the same as you can get with any other method from photovoltaics using the electricity to hydrolize water or growing sugar cane and fermenting then distilling the juice. The difference is bioreactors are dirt cheap per square meter compared to photovoltaics and hydrolysis and doesn’t use arable land and potable water like sugar cane.
I believe the cost/efficiency can be vastly improved as state of the art in genetic engineering advances. Surface has barely been scratched in that regard.
In a sunny uninhabited desert where land is cheap it may be attractive, but I doubt if any significant parts of Europe will be able to match New Mexico.
Also, I wouldn’t rule out EU green-shirts wanting to torpedo such technology and products for being GM. Yes, they are that foolish.
(The Honey-I-shrunk-the-kids nano-gunge is still macro-BS in my opinion.)
michael hart | February 25, 2013 at 11:27 am |
Sorry, forgot there was more to answer.
“In a sunny uninhabited desert where land is cheap it may be attractive, but I doubt if any significant parts of Europe will be able to match New Mexico.”
Doesn’t need to be desert just sunny and warm. Lots of land that is sunny & warm but for one reason or another isn’t farmed. Besides, when they run out of oil in Saudi Arabia they can produce just as much biofuel in the same otherwise useless terrain. Europe imports most of its fuel from middle eastern deserts already. Tanker ships won’t even have to change ports.
“Also, I wouldn’t rule out EU green-shirts wanting to torpedo such technology and products for being GM. Yes, they are that foolish.”
Then let them eat cake.
@Michael Hart
I take that back about same efficiency as sugar cane. That’s 20x (Joule) more btu/acre than sugar cane and 10x (Algenol) vs. cane. Wasn’t aware yield was 1000 gal/acre/year for cane.
Photovoltaic I think was a good comparison though. Price of the panels and then gear to convert electricity to directly usable fuel or fuel oil is simply prohibitive. Bioreactors on the other hand are just clear plastic and cheap plumbing filled with saltwater and self-reproducing photosynthetic bacteria. Essentially cost-free in comparison. The artificial leaf is a promising area but again manufacturing cost is thus far prohibitive but breakthrus are rumored to be on the horizon:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120509123900.htm
Secrets of the First Practical Artificial Leaf
May 9, 2012 — A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf — a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy — appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes.
Jeffrey Brown has posted a very important paper
Commentary: The Export Capacity Index
That is a VERY serious rapid decline in global available exports and cumulative net exports.
What is the most compelling evidence presented to date that AGW actually exists?
Discuss.
Andrew
It may not be happening quickly enough for an impatient observer but — for example, before the Obama government — coastal residents were slowly drowning from rising seas, right?
Astute observation, Wagathon, but what if it was just Al Gore taking a dip? ;)
Andrew
@Bad Andrew “What is the most compelling evidence presented to date that AGW actually exists?”
The fact that the letters AGW have in recent years repeatedly appeared.
I have seen them and I can vouch for their existence.
Moreover the fact that many commentators apparently interpret AGW as shorthand for “Anthropogenic Global Warming” is further compelling evidence that not only does AGW exist but that there is also a high probability that Anthropogenic Global Warming does also. You will find confirming instances throughout the literature.
“The fact that the letters AGW have in recent years repeatedly appeared.”
So have
DARTH VADER
UNICORNS
LENNAY KEKUA
MULTIVERSE
etc…
Andrew
@Bad Andrew
+1
I admire the cut of your jib.
I recently published my Taxonomy of Confusions that some may find useful:
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/02/05/a-taxonomy-of-confusions/
The climate debate is a cornucopia of confusions. Happy to answer questions as time permits.
This morning on his blog, Steve Goddard mocked Jim Hansen’s prediction of a 75 metre sea level rise.
This reminded me of Jeremy Grantham’s November 2012 comment:
“The damaging effects of climate change are accelerating. James Hansen of NASA has screamed warnings for 30 years. Although at first he was dismissed as a madman, almost all his early predictions, disturbingly, have proved conservative in relation to what has actually happened.”
Serious question: Have any of Hansen’s alarmist predictions been correct?
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
Goddard’s piece:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/hansen-250-feet-of-sea-level-rise/
Grantham’s article:
http://www.nature.com/news/be-persuasive-be-brave-be-arrested-if-necessary-1.11796
Looks like we’ve got #13
False Attributions made by Climate Skeptics
False claim 1) The UK Met Office issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 years. [1] [2] [3] [4]
False claim 2) The NOAA issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 years. [1]
False claim 3) The IPCC predicted 0.4-0.5C warming from 2000 to 2012. [1]
False claim 4) Phil Jones says rising CO2 has falsified climate models. [1]
False claim 5) James Hansen and two collegues acknowledge a 15 year pause in warming. [1]
False claim 6) Hansen used to say that natural variability wasn’t capable of stopping warming. [1]
False claim 7) IPCC AR5 admits ‘the jig is up’ with regard to man made global warming [1]
False claim 8) The IPCC AR5 admits that the Sun is responsible for global warming [1] [2]
False claim 9) IPCC AR4 claims the only solar effect is a change in TSI. [1]
False claim 10) The IPCC is unequivocal that 20th century warming is solely due to the increase in the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. [1]
False claim 11) NASA admits bias on role of the Sun. [1]
False claim 12) NASA admits all previous warming trends caused by sun. [1]
False claim 13) James Hansen predicts 250 feet sea level rise by 2100. [1]
Heh, lolwot, you find enough ‘false claims’ you’ll end up a skeptic yet.
=============
I was gonna say, Where is the list of True Claims?
Andrew
lolwot, could you name some Hansen predictions which have been shown to be understatements? What is Grantham refering to?
As expected lolwot is batting 0 / 13. The significant allegedly false claims in the list are actually true, and the others are isolated ones or strawmen.
You ask for one, I’ll give you one, the rest you can research yourself.
He mentioned something about the opening of the “fabled northwest passage” once.
You mean like it opened for Roald Amundsen in 1903? Hansen predicted that history would repeat itself. Wow. Impressive. Too bad he didn’t make the prediction that the 1930’s climate would repeat in the 1990’s and the warming would end in 2000 just as it did in 1940. Oops. Almost as impressive as me predicting that the drought of record in central Texas that occured in the 1950’s would repeat itself in 2010’s. So far I’m bang on correct and unless we get some god-awful torrential rains between now and August the drought of record will be matched this coming fall.
If climate scientists would cease their obsession with inadequate toy models of coupled ocean-atmosphere physics and get back to good old fashioned climatology they might then be as good at predicting future climate as I’ve proven to be.
History repeats itself even more often than I repeat myself. You can learn from either or ignore it at your peril.
There is a difference between sailing through gaps in the sea ice and the passages being actually free of ice which is what Hansen predicted and wasn’t the case when Amundsen or any of the other explorers made it across the Arctic.
@ bob droege
So Hansen was predicting it would be absolutely free of ice? You didn’t actually give the prediction you had in mind, you know.
The Northwest passage isn’t free of ice yet. I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed if you think it is. Only a few vessels have made the passage in recent years and all were aided by satellite imagery and GPS to pick their way through the ice. Amundsen, in case it didn’t occur to you, didn’t have satellite imagery or GPS.
Actually I coudn’t find jack diddly squat in the way of predictions Hansen made about Arctic Sea Ice.
Steve Goddard compiled a list of failed or about-to-fail predictions here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
Wading thru back issues of Chemical and Engineering News (American Chemical Society): The Dec. 17 2012, issue, page 26-27 has a story of a Geo-Engineering incident where “100 metric tons of iron laden dust was dumped off the coast of British Columbia” by the Haida Salmon Restoration Co. Russ George of defunct Planktos was invovled. 10x larger than any other ocean iron fertilization attempt.
Article also has a diagram of proposed geo-engineering methods, including “reflective aerosols”, which some call “Chemtrails” and believe is being done now on a wide spread basis. I have a hard time understanding why some exhaust plumes formed at 33,000-38,000 feet should expand and persist for hours in that very dry, very cold environment, why others just last a few minutes before evaporating.
Admiral Richard Byrd’s “Little America III” station, built in Antarctic in 1940, was spotted by a Navy icebreaker sticking out of the side of this floating iceberg in the Antarctic’s Ross Sea, on March 13, 1963. The old outpost was buried beneath 25 feet of snow, 300 miles away from its original location. A helicopter pilot flew in close and reported cans and supplies still stacked neatly on shelves. (AP Photo/Official U.S. Navy Photo)
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/1963021513/s_f13_03131343.jpg
Does high atmospheric pressure maintain high temperatures?
Billiard balls give a good idea of molecular motion. Imagine two players each shooting a ball at the same time and same speed from the centre of each end of the table, such that the balls are aimed at each other and meet in the centre of the table. The balls will each cancel the other ball’s momentum. But then slope the table with props under one end, and repeat the process. This time gravity causes one to accelerate and the other to slow down more, so that there will be net downward momentum when they collide. So, if you had a horizontal cylinder of air and then rotated it to a vertical position, more molecules would immediately “fall” to the lower half, thus increasing the pressure quite quickly. However, it then takes much longer for diffusion of kinetic energy to establish the temperature gradient.
Many people think increasing pressure causes and maintains increased temperature, and vice versa, that expansion causes and maintains a cooler temperature. This is not what physics says will happen. The reason is seen in the above example. The pressure comes first (as fast as a marble would fall in the cylinder) and the temperature gradient comes later due to diffusion. The reason is that temperature depends only upon the mean kinetic energy of the molecules, whereas pressure depends on both the mean KE and the density of molecules. (See Wikipedia “Kinetic Theory”) Hence it can be very hot in the thermosphere, but the pressure is very low. And likewise, pressure is not the reason why the surface of Venus is so hot.
So pressure is not proportional to temperature as some seem to think. It would be easy to find a region high up in the Venus atmosphere where the pressure is only 1% of that at the surface. But you won’t find that the temperature there is only 1% of 730K, that is 7.3K. The gas would be solid and would have collapsed towards the surface.
There is a very detailed discussion of the gravitationally induced thermal gradient from Section 4 to Section 7 in my paper.
For a start your billiard ball explanation isn’t quite right. Momentum isn’t lost when two molecules collide. Momentum is conserved. Google the term”conservation of momentum”. If the system is lossless energy is conserved also. Its basic Physics.
If a thermally isolated column of air were rotated in the way you suggest the air at the bottom would be compressed and by using the basic gas law P*V/T = constant you can see it will lead to an initial warming. Conversely the air at the top would be cooled.
If your argument that total energy (PE + KE) were conserved is true, that is the way things would stay. And its tempting to think that is the case. But is it true? Isn’t is possible that the more energetic molecules , the ones with higher temperature will rise? Because they rise they lose KE. Warm air does rise don’t forget. Conversely less energetic molecules fall and gain KE. So what ends up being equalised is KE rather than total energy and this means the column ends up being isothermal.
Scientists had this discussion in the 19th century. Maxwell and Boltzmann offering this same explanation but using the concept of minimum entropy. Of course our atmosphere is far from thermally isolated so it doesn’t end up being isothermal.
Yes tempterrain I’m aware of conservation of momentum of course, but billiard balls are not as elastic as molecules and won’t bounce back with the same speed. What I suppose I should have said, to be precise, is that the upward and downward components of momentum would be equal and opposite for each ball after the collision. But when the table is sloping, there would be more net downward momentum which was gained before the collision, and that is the obvious point I was making.
But no, tempterrain, pressure does not maintain temperature. Temperature depends only on mean KE, whereas pressure depends on both mean KE and the density of the gas.
I suggest you study carefully what is explained in my paper. Despite what you think, warm air can rise or fall, depending on whether the source of extra energy is mostly below or mostly above. Warm air falls in the stratosphere, for example, where solar radiation is absorbed and warms the air from above, but warm air rises from the surface which absorbs solar radiation and warms the air from below. But without any source of new energy input, such as in an adiabatic process, you have pure diffusion without any convection, and that diffusion of KE redistributes the energy slowly without any net air movement, long after the pressure gradient has been established.
A thermally isolated atmosphere would still develop the thermal gradient which Loschmidt correctly postulated. Please read my paper (if you wish to discuss these matter further) as I don’t have time to write it all again here, nor can I incorporate the necessary graphics which are in the paper. Then, if and when you understand the paper, and how the mechanism of “heat creep” functions as a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then, by all means, start discussing real physics in the real world, not your crazy ideas that involve high pressure supposedly maintaining high temperatures and warm air only ever rising..
Doug Cotton,
“But no, tempterrain, pressure does not maintain temperature.”
I think you must be confusing me with someone else. I didn’t say that.
so it’s Cotton and Loschmidt vs Martin, Boltzmann, and Maxwell eh?
I think you need to think again. Please don’t keep referring me to your “paper”. Its isn’t a paper. If you care to submit it to a proper Physics journal they’ll tell you where you’ve gone wrong. If I’m wrong in saying that and it does get accepted I’ll be the first to acknowledge it.
No physicist, including professors thereof, have proved me wrong on this, tempterrain. But it is easy to prove you wrong when you wrote ..
“Warm air does rise don’t forget. Conversely less energetic molecules fall and gain KE. So what ends up being equalised is KE rather than total energy and this means the column ends up being isothermal.”
This very clearly demonstrates to any physicist worth his salt that you don’t understand how maximum entropy evolves, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nor do you understand how you should be applying certain limitations when using the ideal gas equation that you quote, also demonstrating your lack of understanding of the physics involved.
You can bury your head in the sand if you wish. But my paper is being subjected to the most extensive peer-review possible – namely world-wide open review. I challenge you to find a physicist who can successfully rebut it with a formal submission to Principia Scientific International, where two more professors have just signed up as members.
And, yes, my paper explains why Maxwell and Boltzman were wrong on this issue. I quote …
16. Conclusions
When Maxwell and Boltzmann dismissed Loschmidt’s postulate of a gravity gradient they did the world a great disservice, and they contributed to a belief in a non-existent warming by an imaginary
radiative greenhouse effect. The subsequent “calls to authority” should be a lesson for all in the scientific world, for this has resulted in an absolute travesty of physics. The greenhouse conjecture will inevitably take its brief place in history as the biggest and most costly mistake ever in the field of human scientific endeavour. Hopefully that will be soon.
This is where tempterrain demonstrates a lack of understanding of physics
I quote “Isn’t is possible that the more energetic molecules , the ones with higher temperature will rise? Because they rise they lose KE. Warm air does rise don’t forget. “
He wants an autonomous reversal of the very process that created the pressure gradient in the first place!
I’m supposed to “not forget” that warm air rises. How ironic, because this is discussed at great length in my paper where the difference between convection and diffusion of KE is discussed, as well as “heat creep” where warm air falls in order to maintain the thermodynamic equilibrium required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
While ever tempterrain refuses to read and learn from my paper, he will continue to write such travesties of physics. Good luck to him in his endeavours to maintain belief in a greenhouse conjecture that went out the window the day physics was applied to rebut the garbage dished up by climatologists.
This is where tempterrain goes wrong.
Firstly he quotes the ideal gas law but omits n or assumes it is incorporated in the constant. But n is not constant. If we use his equation in this comment then, for a constant volume, say, 1 cubic metre, he is in effect trying to claim that pressure is proportional to temperature.
But, at about 10,600m altitude (near the tropopause) the pressure is only about 25% of what it is at the surface. But, if the surface temperature is 288K then the actual temperature at 10,600m is about 220K. But 25% of 288K would be 72K.
Sorry should be “maximum entropy”.
Doug Cotton,
What’s take on why Physicists promote the GH theory? Do you think they actually know it’s wrong but they need the theory to justify the case for a UN controlled World government? And was that the case with Maxwell and many other 19th century Physicists too? They were all aware that there would be no justification for carbon taxes in the 21st century if they admitted the truth?
The physicists who have actually thought for themselves as to how the laws of physics relating to heat transfer apply to the atmosphere are few and far between, perhaps because they are involved with more significant issues than whether or not one molecule of carbon dioxide in among over 2,500 other air molecules would warm or cool the Earth by perhaps 0.1 degree.
But, among those who do choose to spend time on studying the travesty of physics put forward by climatologists, I generally find that they do indeed see numerous flaws in the application of standard physics in such climate models when brought to their attention. That is the reason why several of the 200 members of our organisation Principia Scientific International include some who are well qualified in physics, applied mathematics and astrophysics, including professors, holders of PhD’s and others who have spent much of their life in continued study and teaching of such subjects.
I always find, for example, that the question as to how enough energy gets into the surface of Venus to warm it by 5 degrees (when night becomes day) leaves all but the most astute physicists floundering – simply because it involves an advanced area of physics not yet widely understood even among the profession.
It’s not that physicists don’t understand the laws of physics – they just haven’t seen a need to apply such laws in assessing the warming or cooling effect of a harmless gas, carbon dioxide, which is so necessary for plant life in particular.
Temp – What’s [your] take on why Physicists promote the GH theory? Do you think they actually know it’s wrong but they need the theory to justify the case for a UN controlled World government?
You’re looking in the wrong place – in the trenches rather than the field-marshall’s office. Instead, follow the money and the high-ups …
Government funds CAGW thinking and stands to massively benefit from a general belief in it. As such it selectively funds those scientists whose predispositions would seem to best serve the interests of government. Those that lack such predispositions, are left either unfunded and underfunded.
More socio/psychoanalysis of some of those involved in the climate debate.
http://oss.sagepub.com/content/33/11/1477.full
“This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions.”
This bit was funny though.
“Climate change profoundly challenges governmental, non-governmental and private organizations (Hoffman & Woody, 2008) by creating pressure for emission reduction goals and adaptation measures. Alongside these actions, the debate continues in some quarters as to the causes and consequences of global climate change – and, more importantly, potential directions of public policies and organizational strategies.”
“…in some quarters the debate continues….” And in some quarters, the IPCC, NASA, NOAA, the Met Office, the consensus community in general, that debate never took place.
Yeah ‘they’ said it was cooling in the 60’s, then ‘they’ said they weren’t sure, then ‘they’ said it was warming later on.
But they never had a debate about it? They just switched opinions as directed by their political masters?
Temp – Yeah ‘they’ said it was cooling in the 60′s, then ‘they’ said they weren’t sure, then ‘they’ said it was arming later on.
But they never had a debate about it? They just switched opinions as directed by their political masters?
Again, no – the funding criteria from high is what switched, as government came to see the new opportunity.
Arthur Rörsch demonstrates that the reductionist approach of computer modeling that relies on manipulated land-based temperatures that have been corrupted by UHI and ‘tarmac’ effects, with adjustments to the raw data, and where the adjustments are adjusted, is a fundamental an error of methodology.
http://www.ourworldtoday.com.au/news/article/coke-opposes-recycling-scheme
“Arrr! but Pepsi!” I hear Cap’n growling and scowling.
Willard, yeah, coke is making a big deal out of nothing. 10 cents a can is fine. Coke’s wholesale on a can is about 30 cent giving them a net profit of about 10 cents per can. The 10 cents increases their expenses by 50%, so kick the wholesale price up to 45 cents per can and put the local prime minister’s name and phone number on the cans. Simple.
Hey, Willard — That Coke article is dated as follows:
Coke opposes recycling scheme
20 December 2011. 08:30 AM by Anna Gordon
My Social Studies teacher in Junior High would not have accepted this as a Current Event.
Thanks. I should have checked.
Sum of Us considers this a current event:
http://action.sumofus.org/a/coke-recycling/?sub=taf
If you have more information about the litigation, please share.
willard –> I suppose Coke has the right to oppose government regulations it feels will adversely effect its business. I can’t say that the link yoiu provide is what I would call an independent source of bias-free information on the subject though. Fortunately, this is an issue I don’t care about at all, so I am not compelled to chase down the facts.
I don’t support them in that silliness — it is really in the public interest to recycle aluminum cans and glass bottles. If, however, the local government rules don’t include beer cans and bottles in the same legislation, especially in Oz, then something smells bad there…..there are a lot more beer cans and bottles to be recycled than soda bottles, at least from from my experience in Sydney where beer drinking is, let’s say, excessively popular.
Kip,
I acknowledge your lack of interest in that question.
Having the right to do something does not entail it’s the right thing to do, but thanks anyway for reminding me that Coke is not committing an illegal act by suing a government to prevent it from creating a Cash for Can program.
Arrg. why dont they just do it like we do in CA. 10 cents per container is charged at retail to the customer. That 10 cents goes into a fund. 60% of all containers are turned in ( some of my homeless friends in SF, live off collecting empties ) and the excess funds are used for other recycling programs..
So, I know that I can basically litter whereever I want to , cause somebody will pick up after me. What’s not to like!
Like CA? Wouldn’t much matter. It would be like using CA container laws in the Sahel. The Northern Territory according to wiki has about 1 person for ever five kilometers squared. You would have about a 200km commute to collection centers. As usual, big city ideas don’t cut it in the outback or possibly up top.
Same recycling system works in Michigan. The street people do the cleaning up on all drinks containers.
Capt Dallas –> the idea is that purchasers save the empties and bring them back to the store when they are buying more Cokes. Many store sin the US have recycling machines one feeds the cans into, it gives ya a credit to use in the store (or one can get cash to buy something else).
My kids used the system to save up for stuff like a new bike, they’d hunt up a hundred dollars worth of cans over a month or so.
My Cub Scout pack used can returns as a fund raiser. Drag a kids wagon around the neighborhood, ask if there are any cans the household would like to Scouts to return for them (saving them the trouble), the Scout Pack gets the nickle (or dime, in this case).
A good workable system. Helps clean up litter of aluminum cans, recycles the metal, my Scouts bought new tents.
Kip, having a deposit on containers is fine. The problem is the Northern Territory is a TERRITORY. Don’t expect the container manufacturers to run around the whole territory trying to round up cans or set up collection centers in BF Egypt. South Australia which they, the Willards of the world are comparing to has a population density ten times greater that the northern territory. Population wise the northern territory just edges out Australia’s Antarctic territory.
> A CASH for containers recycling business will close its doors awaiting the outcome of a court case bought by major drink manufacturers against the NT Government.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/02/14/317605_ntnews.html
Williard, so? The North Territory has one percent of the population of Australia spread out in a density 0.17 people per kilometer squared. The Northern Territory tends to recycle at about half the rate of the rest of Australia. Beverage companies, including Coca-Cola, think the “State’s” recycling plan is not appropriate for the situation. Beverage companies started beverage container deposits long before the “State” had this grand ideal to collect 0.35% of the beverage containers in Australia.
The beverage companies are not going to lose money one way or another, they just think the plan in the Northern Territory is dumb.
http://www.just-drinks.com/news/coca-cola-amatil-schweppes-lion-fight-cash-for-cans-scheme-report_id109574.aspx
The Beverage industry even has environmental scientists, imagine that?
BTW Willard, since the Northern Territory already had curb or “Kerb” side recycling, sometimes carrots work better than sticks getting people involved.
http://recycle-bowl.org/
Taxes are not solutions.
> Beverage companies, including Coca-Cola, think the “State’s” recycling plan is not appropriate for the situation.
So?
So? Contemplate why glass and aluminum are among the most successfully recyclable materials, when the sources, aluminum ore and silica are among the most available on earth.
====================
Willard, >So?
It is a battle between the warm and fuzzy dihydrogen oxide “if it saves just one can it is worth the expense.” white eyes and colored reality. Cost versus benefit. Do we really need to tax the aboriginal residents in order to force them into our warm and fuzzy hive? “Damn the economics! Full warm and fuzzy ahead!” :)
Cap’N,
I have no idea what you mean by “necessary”, but it seems that it works. Around here, going from 5 cents to 10 would help the homeless.
If this kind of program should be extended to any producer of such container, particularly water bottles, we’d create a market for something that otherwise creates pollution.
You just can’t beat this with your libertarian crap.
Sorry.
Heh, let ’em eat the nickels.
===============
The effect may have been entirely psychosomatic, but as a teenager I was convinced that the Coca-Cola bought in French stores tasted superior because it was usually sold in glass bottles that had clearly been recycled many times.
Beer aficionados often refuse products packaged in plastic or aluminium. I don’t see why Coke should be different in that respect.
Hart — in the US, we sell “Mexican” Coca-Cola. In six oz bottles. It is highly prized because it does taste different, being based on the OLD Coke recipe. Not only available on bodegas, but some supermarkets carry it in the ‘imported foods’ section.
So I don’t know about the recycled glass changing the flavor (we hope that the bottles are so clean that it doesn’t make a difference) but the formula may have been different.
Personally, I believe that Coke is differently formulated for bottles and cans.
Willard, it is not Libertarian crap, there is just no one size fits all solution. The beverage companies know their business and part of that is recycling and container deposits. You make every successful business out to be a bad guy because they have a business opinion that disagrees with yours.
Adding a 10 cent container deposit in an area that is likely to never recycle 50% of their containers is just a tax and as always a tax on the poor schmucks. With one person per 5 kilometers squared, you don’t have a lot of homeless wandering around collecting cans to take to a recycling center 50 miles away. It is the Northern Territory, not Los Angeles.
A standard retail deposit, that doesn’t require a “collection” center would work okay, but the northern territory is looking to build redemption centers. The redemption centers can cut the refund to 5 cents or whatever since they have overhead. You end up with a friggin’ mess.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/03/28/296141_ntnews.html
Who gets screwed? So before freaking out, why not do a little research?
Cap’n,
Sorry about the ‘crap’. I should have said ‘claptrap’. Sowing doubts and raising concerns and asking for engineer-level derivations is anything but crap. It is well designed and does its job very well.
This wins the Internet:
http://www.just-drinks.com/news/coca-cola-amatil-schweppes-lion-fight-cash-for-cans-scheme-report_id109574.aspx
My emphasis.
This isn’t a topic, but a question. If we add “x” ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, what is being off-setting? What gas or gasses are decreasing? Or is that not how it all works.
If humanity doubled its atmospheric contribution it would be like adding a second layer of lineoleum to the first floor of a 100 story building.
I like the building/lineoleum anaolgy. But I think you are off by about 1 order of magnitude.
Jim S –> like percentages, if you increase ppm of one thing, the other things go down some, but only in ppm ==> When you count one million parts, if 390 are CO2, then there are only 999,610 parts left to be everything else. That said, the atmosphere ‘expands’ to accept as much gas as it added to it, so the CO2 is not off-setting anything.
However, one generally considers the 02 to have come from the atmosphere to make CO2 when carbonaceous substances are burned. So generally, when hydrocarbons (oil, coal, wood, etc) are burned, they take O2 (oxygen) from the air and combine it with the hydrogen and carbon to produce H2O and CO2, thus there is a little reduction in oxygen and an increase in CO2.
I actually once bothered to figure out, back-of-envelope, if the O2 used up, or the H2O produced was significant to the atmosphere, and discovered it wasn’t.
Kip Hansen and tempterrain
All of the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels came from the atmosphere originally.
Based on WEC 2010 estimates that by 2008 we had used 15% of all the inferred possible recoverable fossil fuels that were ever on our planet, we can only get to around 980 ppmv concentration when they are all 100% used up
As you point out, Kip, this will have no perceptible impact on the O2 concentration of our atmosphere.
But it will most likely provide a boost for plant growth (including human crops).
At the latest estimate of 2xCO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity of ~1.5C, this would produce GH warming of ~2C when all fossil fuels are 100% used up, some hypothetical day in the far distant future (150 to 300 years from today)..
I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over this non-problem. (There are a lot of real problems out there.)
Max
manacker, 1000 ppm over 280 ppm is nearly two doublings, so even your low-sensitivity estimate gives over 3 degrees, and the middle IPCC value of 3 C per doubling gives 5.4 C. Not so trivial perhaps?
And just how long will it take to dig up and consume all the fossil fuel on the planet, and so achieve ~1000 ppm of CO2 ?
“If we add “x” ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, what is being off-setting? What gas or gasses are decreasing? Or is that not how it all works.”
The gases decreasing are negligibly small. Although I seem to remember that someone claimed to have detected a reduction in O2 content recently.
CO2 acts in the same way as a dye would in water. If you start with a large tank pure water it will be very transparent. Add a strong dye to the water in a similar concentration (~300ppmv) and the water will become noticably opaque at certain wavelengths corresponding to a red, blue or whatever colour of the dye. It only takes a few drops to see the added tint.
Because our eyes are sensitive in the IR region we can’t see CO2 in the atmosphere in the same way we can see a dye, but it reduces the transparency, or increases the opacity, of certain IR wavelengths in exactly the same way.
should be “Because our eyes aren’t sensitive in the IR region….”
You might find this interesting, or amusing. Willis “It’s Not About Me” Eschenbach, self-proclaimed genius and world-famous DIY climate science practitioner, is also a world-class hypocrite. I am sure you have seen his gratuitous, over-the-top lectures on ethics, responsibility, honor, courage, the evils of religion, etc., etc. Here is one example:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
Willis professes love for Judith, then he scolds and insults her severely:
“The solution to that is not, as you suggest, to give scientists a wider voice, or educate them in how to present their garbage to a wider audience.
The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard.” …
“And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.”
Anybody who has been around the climate blogs for a little while has seen Willis go ballistic over real or imagined affronts to his honor. One example:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/26/ranger-rick/#comment-906445
Willis had to slap somebody around for allegedly calling him a liar.
“So don’t be acting all shocked that I called you out, Alexander. I am a throwback to another era. I grew up with cowboys who had very little but their honor and would fight for it. I come from a time where a man’s honor and honesty were important to him, and where calling a man a liar was one of the very deadliest insults you could offer a man.”
And Willis continues the slapping, in a subsequent comment:
“Like I said, maybe it’s not like that in Russia. I don’t know. I do know that I and many other men were raised to be honorable and honest. My great-grandfather, a seafaring man whom even his own children called “The Captain”, used to say,
“If there is a man who can call you a liar, kill him. If you are one, kill yourself. There is no room for either of you.”
Now I live in a more gentle time. I slap people (metaphorically), I don’t kill them … but that is the code that my family has lived by for generations, and I am no different from The Captain in that regard. So when some jumped-up internet jerkwagon like you calls me a liar, you will get both barrels … I neither lie nor do I tolerate nasty people claiming I lie.”
But Willis has confessed that he is a liar, a drama queen, and certainly not a man whose word is his bond:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/its-not-about-me/
In a post that I had not seen before, Willis unashamedly describes how during the Vietnam war to avoid being cannon fodder he enlisted in the Army to get the cushy and safe job of weatherman. But even that honorable service was more than the cowboy could stand, so he wormed his way out of his commitment by faking a suicide attempt and rendering himself senseless and useless with LSD.
I got on the wrong side little cowboy Willis and his fans at WUWT by posting the following:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/20/gold-fever/#comment-1228990
“I read your lame rationalization for your dishonorable behavior, Willis. Not impressed. You didn’t answer my question. I will rephrase it: What would the Captain think of your taking the oath and then worming your way out with a fake suicide attempt and other irresponsible childish shenanigans?
Look Willis, the facts are that you joined up to avoid landing in a rifle company. OK, so far. You then did not have the intestinal fortitude or the common decency to live up to your commitment, despite landing in about the most cushy position that the Army could provide. If I had been your CO, you would have been sent to Leavenworth, instead of Letterman. You should have been punished and then dishonorably discharged, and you know it. You are a shirker and a malingerer. You took an oath to serve your country and you refused to do your duty.
There were honorable paths to take, if your beef was with the legitimacy of the war. Conscientious objector; but you could have ended up in a rifle company as a medic and been killed, as many were. You were way too smart for that. You could have refused to take the oath and gone to jail, on principle. You had no such principle. You could have bugged out to Canada, or Sweden. If you had any self-discipline at all, you could have stayed in college and gotten a deferment. And so on, and so on.
The next time you get all indignant at someone for allegedly calling you a liar, or for some other insult real or imagined, and you invoke the legacy of the Captain as you fiercely defend your “honor”, I am going to have a very big laugh. Same goes for when you give your courage lecture, to those who choose to post anonymously.”
After a few more comments, I was banned by Anthony for expressing my displeasure with his moderating. Woe is me. About half of the content on WUWT is Willis’ pontificating and regaling on this or that, so I am not surprised that Anthony looks out for him.
+1
Thanks, willard. I forgive you for all the foolishness committed by your alter ego, willie :)
I hope you feel better for having gotten all that emotional baggage off your chest, Mr. Monfort.
When I’m counseling people, though. I usually suggest that after they’ve written something like this, it’s better to seal it in an envelope and put it in a drawer somewhere, to be thrown out later.
Almost never serves any useful purpose to send it to the target, or to share it with others.
Mr. Monfort,
So, do you feel any better now, having attacked me as well? Does it make you feel better to attempt to denigrate me, by using a baby-talk name? It does not make you bigger when you attempt to make others smaller, it just makes you appear childish.
This is one of the major reasons why such things should not be done in public, as it damages your reputation, not those of the people you attack in this way.
It is alright to get emotional, generally though, it is not alright to spew your emotions out in rants or screeds in public. Not therapeutic, not good for you, not good for others.
When you counsel Disabled Vets, what advice do you give them about how to handle these types of emotional issues? Do you tell them to write these types of public attacks and mail them to newspapers or blogs? How does that work out for them? If you do suggest this, do you feel their conditions are improved after taking this advice?
Don Monfort | February 26, 2013 at 1:47 pm |
myrrrhhh,
You forgot to tell us what religion the bankers practice
Their religion is power, belief in themselves as “the elite” – to that end they manipulate other religions/belief systems/ideologies/politics to their ends, create them even.
It’s their pawns who need strange beliefs to make themselves feel part of a special secret or otherwise ‘organisation’..
attacking the moderation is a tactical error. Obey the rulz, snapshot your comments, and fight the moderation battle on a different day at a different location. FWIW.
Other than that, welcome to the crossfire zone.
I see my original reply has disappeared. Tactical error?
Anyway Steven, I think I made it obvious that I didn’t expect to be welcomed back to Anthony’s blog. Sometimes it is appropriate to burn a bridge.
Don, comments discussing other blogospheric participants, particularly insulting ones, are in violation of blog rules here. Discussion of specific arguments are of course welcome.
I dislike ad homs because nothing is ever gained from them and often much is lost.
Your enforcement of the rules is spotty, Judith. Since you won’t allow me to reply to lame gratuitous insults, please tell kip that I don’t have anything else for him, or her.
Peter
I agree. The net is a public place where you must be circumspect in airing personal grievances in such a forthright manner in front of so many people.
tonyb
Tony and Peter,
Are you talking about Willis’ lambasting of Judith:
“And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.”
Or are you talking about me lambasting Willis for his highpocrisy? Or both? Please explain.
Indeed Don. I dislike them all, whatever the source and whomever that does them. However, I don’t often feel impelled to say something about it. I usually just move on to the next comment.
Problem is Don you combined two battles. Re litigating the complaint against willis and litigating the moderation issue. If your intention was to be banned ( u dropped the F bomb) then you stand on shakey group WRT moderation. You had a really good case on the honor issue. You laid out all the other options he had to preserve his honor, and I thought your case was a slam dunk. when you have a slam dunk case, ignore the secondary players. hehe monday morning qb.
Steven, you may recall that when I was sticking up for Anthony on lucia’s blog, when Zeke hyperventilated over Anthony saying something about jail, I stated that I wasn’t a fan of WUWT, didn’t go there much. Too many one-sided posts and comments, etc.
Anyway, when Anthony picked one of the particularly lame knee-jerk defenders of their climate hero and paired us up for a 24 hour time out, I had nothing further to say in Anthony’s house. Did you like my graceful exit?
Most of those commenting here don’t really know what we are talking about. They didn’t bother to inform themselves, before trying to psychoanalyze me, or come up with their own variation of the situational ethics defense for ole cowboy/self-proclaimed genius, militant defender of honor (his own, such as it is), Willis.
After much senseless rambling and his silly version of the situational ethics BS, josh-u-a hit on the reason for my disgust with Willis. That thing that Willis said about those who did serve honorably, while he faked attempting suicide, etc. You know, by Willis and joshie’s idea of ethics, those who run and hide could make the same “knuckling under and killing in the service of tyrants”, argument against those who fight and die, in any war. They probably believe the hiders are even more ethical, than the killers. One of the characters on WUWT actually made the point that the SS had taken an oath, too. That ain’t right, Steven. At least you and I, and willie, I mean willard, know it.
Peter, would you care to point out any ad homs you believe I made against Willis? If you read the post-It’s Not About Me-that I provided a link to, you will see Willis essentially boast about what I stated that he did. He wrote that post to provide his bona fides for his genius and his qualifications to practice DIY climate science. He was establishing how smart he is, by showing how he fooled the U.S Army. He signed up, took their food. clothing, shelter , medical care, pay, and deliberately lied and faked his way out of his commitment. Can you point to anything I said about Willis that is unjustified?
Don, I don’t keep score and I don’t troll. Whenever a comment is made that touches on the personality of another person (blogger or not) one is, as Tony has pointed out, making a public statement and it often reflects more poorly on the person making that statement rather than on the target.
I understand that there are side issues that affect many regular contributors in their relationships with each other and that feelings can be quite intense because of perceived injustices in the past and the sometimes less than evenhanded treatment that is meted out to offenders by webmasters.
While I generally dislike the use of ad homs I still find some to be humorous and having a certain style as, for example, many of Kim’s one-liners. Judith herself had said somewhere that if you must insult somebody, she would prefer it if it could be done with wit and style.
However, in your case, your particular post was far too long and even if what you speaking about were indeed the truth, the information contained in it seemed to be more revealing about your state of mind rather than on the moral and physical attributes of Willis himself.
Well, Don I thought you were pretty much on the mark. That said, willis has offerred to help with our charity for homeless vets (I sit on the board and helped found it ) So, I’d say that the situation is complex. The other thing I can attest to is that offscreen persona’s are very different from on screen persona’s. Willis the internet character is different from Willis the man. as I know him at least. I hear willard is a party animal.
For other people, lets say Zeke. he is just as civil and composed off the web as he is on it. The pixel world can be different than the meat world.
or it can be the same
Peter, when you imply that someone has been tossing around ad homs, you should have the guts to enumerate. Is that short enough for you?
Steven, I have no doubt that Willis would behave differently if we met face to face. Also, I am sure his story about cannon fodder in the service of tyrants would be modified, if I arranged for him to give a speech before the old fodder in the VFW. Willis could redeem himself by simply stating that he made a youthful mistake, that he is not proud of. I am not out to persecute anybody for avoiding the killing fields. As I said, it could have been done in an honorable way. I wouldn’t have even bothered to call Willis out, if not for all that BS about his cowboy code of honor, and The Captain. He needs to get a grip on himself.
Don, it seems that you don’t think lambasting someone is an ad hom. It is, so the example you asked of me is right above this post, it is the subject of our discussion. What makes it an ad hom is that you are attacking the person and not the ideas that have been put forward.
My guts have nothing to do with our dialogue. My idea is that when someone attacks someone else as a person, then even if what has been said is true, it still amounts to discussion of a person, not the ideas of that person and that it often reflects poorly on the person making that statement.
Don, if you disagree with what I have just said, I respect your right to do but I also have the right to move to the next comment whenever I am confronted with a personal attack on anyone, even if it were to be the Mann himself. In fact, if one were to make a personal comment on Michael Mann here on this blog I would suspect that he will sue for defamation.
Pet you have not given an example of an ad hom. You don’t know what ad hom is. Google it. In any case, I have told the truth about what Willis has done and the truth about what he has said. I have stated my opinion of his character, on this open thread. With me so far, pete? If you are proposing that I am only allowed to say nice things about people, then I suggest you forget about lecturing me and just move on to the next comment, whenever you see my name. Are we clear now, pete?
Wikipedia
Ad hominem
In Latin, the word homō (of which hominem is the accusative case) has the gender-neutral meaning of “a human being”, “a person” (unlike the words in Romance languages it gave rise to, such as French homme and Italian uomo). A translation of ad hominem that preserves this gender-neutrality is “to the person”. Ad hominem is an attack on the person, not the person’s arguments. [10]
Don this is what we all know. I certainly intend to move on and suggest that you do as well. BTW I am 73 years mature I certainly wouldn’t engage in any form of childish name calling but good luck to you anyway.
Try to get up to speed, pete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Read all of it, if you have time. I am not trying to discredit any argument of Willis’ by casting aspersions on his character. I am making a case that his character has glaring deficiencies, that I have enumerated and supported with evidence, such as his own words including his own description of his deeds. And I don’t see what your age has to do with any of this. Is that an appeal to authority? Does being 73 give you the right to criticize and tell me what opinions I can legitimately express? By your logic, you are ad homming me. Stop it now, pete :)
You haven’t said anything about Willis’ accusation that Judith is complicit in climate malfeasance crimes. I guess that is not ad hom enough for you. Or maybe you are a Willis aficionado and you agree with him. Nah, better you move on.
Ya, Don. The story now is that every decision anyone could have made was wrong. That’s weird. When I worked at Northrop there wasnt a single vietnam era vet at work who thought he made a wrong decision. And the other weird thing is that its been cast as a discussion about the war. I didnt see it as that. I saw it as.. one guy saying he never lies, and u catching him in one. The proper response was ‘don you are right’ the captain would not approve. I mean you gotta own that. That makes his decision all the more humanizing.
Since people are disagreeing about what constitutes an ad hominem, I’m going to discuss a pet peeve of mine. Ad hominem refers to a logical fallacy whereby a characteristic of an individual is used in a non-sequitur to discredit an argument. The key is it is a non-sequitur.
Insulting a person just to insult them is not a non-sequitur. Insulting a person when their character is relevant (such as in a political election) is not a non-sequitur. It is only a non-sequitur, and thus an ad hominem attack, when an attack against a person is used as an attack against their argument. As long as the two are kept separate, there is no logical fallacy.
Insults are not inherently ad hominem. Insults are not inherently wrong. Ascribing the title “ad hominem” to any and every insult people may level does nothing but show one’s ignorance. Ad hominems are logical fallacies. They are not merely being “rude.”
Willis can ad hom with the best of them and his rant at Judith was no exception. Appealing to authority is another form of ad hom, but not in any derogatory sense. I am too old to engage in childish name calling and I am certainly not up to your speed Don.
I just repeat my preference that the blogosphere focus on the arguments rather than on individuals and I think that you understand this but chosen not debate this with me nor with Kip H nor with Tony B. Goodbye.
You got it, Steven. The Captain would be turning over in his grave. But Willis is in too deep to admit it. I almost feel sorry for him.
Peter Davies, I understand your desire to avoid focusing on individuals, but you were wrong to say Don Monfort was engaging in ad hominem attacks. Ad hominem refers to a specific logical fallacy. It has nothing to do with societal niceties. You may not like Don Monfort’s comments due to their focus on an individual, but his comments did not contain ad hominems.
Peter, sometimes the arguments are about the character of individuals. Brandon accurately explained what ad hom is. But you do your own thing. Stay away from new tricks. Too hard on the psyche.
Thanks Brandon, I appreciate your thoughts on the subject of posts that focus on the person rather than on any argument or POV that has been put forward and I think that your interpretation of ad hom seems to be generally accepted by everyone.
In my original post I labelled the post in question as an ad hom because the poster’s original intention was to denigrate Willis’ views on courage and honour by attacking his character.
The other readers of CE should be able to judge for themselves if my original post was using the term incorrectly, however, regardless of whether I was correct or not, my subsequent posts elaborated on what I was talking about in no uncertain terms.
In any case, personal attacks are not cool and shouldn’t normally be perpetrated, but as Judith has suggested, there are ways of doing this that adds humour and style to the discourse and this is surely is partly what we all look forward to on our visits to her eSalon?
Don
I hadn’t run away, but merely obeyed the convention that when its night time I sleep.
I have a lot of time for both you and Peter (also for Mosh but don’t tell him that)
Personally I prefer civil discourse (which can be heated), partly in the hope that a serious and civil debate will encourage lurking scientists/researchers to participate in debating the issues raised. There are times when discussions here are dominated by the same few people and we need new and expert blood.
If an atmosphere is created that makes expert (or lay) onlookers decide to stay away that is to the detriment of everyone.
That is not to say that debate will not descend sometimes into acrimony or that things drift and people then bicker and often say highly amusing things.
Personally I have stopped reading the items from Willis so dont know the full context to your comments, but he obviously has his fans.
I can’t tell other people what to do, but at times I feel the mark is overstepped and your comments on Willis come into that category and I feel I must say something.
I’ve got the popcorn ready and the percolator on, as presumably your comments have found their way back to Willis and he will respond. Where do I buy tickets?
All the best
Tonyb
Peter Davies:
I have no problem with what you say here. It’s just a pet peeve of mine. I’ve always been a fan of linguistics and semantics. I find the topics interesting for themselves, not just for how they affect conversations.
I can see why people might disagree on this point. Personally, I’ve seen too many people “get away” with unacceptable behavior to agree with what you say. Part of me will always think personal attacks are not only appropriate, but necessary.
That said, I definitely agree personal attacks can detract from conversations, and they are more effective when done with humor and style. A certain degree of panache helps everything.
Oh! I forgot to include something in my last comment: You’re welcome! It’d be kind of rude for me not to say that in response to an offering of gratitude.
I will have to help you, Peter.
“In my original post I labelled the post in question as an ad hom because the poster’s original intention was to denigrate Willis’ views on courage and honour by attacking his character.”
Willis’ views on courage and honor and his failure to live up to his own alleged standards of behavior, are the essence of his character. I am criticizing Willis’ highpocrisy.
You are attacking my style, while ignoring the substance of my argument. Is that an ad hom attack, Pete? You probably also misuse the word ‘irony’.
And tony doesn’t like uncivil discourse, but he has his popcorn ready if Willis shows up. I am sure Willis’ highly sensitive antenna have picked up my “attack” on his honor, but I don’t think he is coming to tell us about the cowboys and the Captain this time.
Don Monfort | February 24, 2013 at 7:07 pm |
“Your enforcement of the rules is spotty, Judith.”
You’re not just whistling Dixie there. Standards are one thing. Double standards are another thing.
Keptin, I said Judith’s enforcement of her rules is “spotty”. I was not accusing her of exercising a double standard.
Willis has already responded:
“……As a result, I fear I won’t be responding to your spittle-filled rant. I’m happy to discuss my life’s failures, successes, stupid moves, and mistakes with reasonable human beings … so should you become one, and I firmly believe you can and will, please come back and we can talk further.”
Put away the popcorn Tony because I fear that there will be no Road to Damascus moment in this instance. Willis is too optimistic.
OMG, petey! Another ad hom? And I was afraid that Willis was going to come here and slap me around. I was about to fake a suicide attempt to avoid facing his wrath.
If you run into your hero Willis, ask him what The Captain would think.
yes Don the captain would be turning over in his grave.
I don’t see why willis doesnt tell it from that perspective. he had to make a decision that ran counter to everything he grew up worshipping.
I mean doesnt that sound much more dramatic. ” ‘I’ve always been taught to tell the truth, but here I found myself faking a suicide to get out of something. I guess in extreme cases truth is not the most important thing”
That’s more powerful in my book.. but then similarities with Gleick and lying for the cause come right up in your face… ouch. Then you’d be pressed to give others some slack…
Yes Don, burning bridges with Anthony is as easy as disagreeing with him.
Join the club!
Steven Mosher | February 26, 2013 at 2:21 am |
yes Don the captain would be turning over in his grave.
I don’t see why willis doesnt tell it from that perspective. he had to make a decision that ran counter to everything he grew up worshipping.
I mean doesnt that sound much more dramatic. ” ‘I’ve always been taught to tell the truth, but here I found myself faking a suicide to get out of something. I guess in extreme cases truth is not the most important thing”
That’s more powerful in my book.. but then similarities with Gleick and lying for the cause come right up in your face… ouch. Then you’d be pressed to give others some slack…
Hmm, you equate Willis’s getting out of the war created by the bankers through their control of the industrial/military complex with the dishonest criminal behaviour of a shill for them?
Why?
‘Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy’ Kissinger
“Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite’s ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an “event” that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11.” http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/290107rockefellergoal.htm
All the soldiers fighting in the banking families cartel’s hoax terrorist wars are the “dumb, stupid animals” Kissinger referred to.
Yes Steven, Willis has painted himself into a corner and he hangs there on the horns of a dilemma. I will have to ask our wordsmith petey if I am guilty of using mixed metaphors to make an ad hom attack.
PS: I wonder why Willis had not rushed in here to defend his honor. You would think that I deserved to be slapped around, or something.
myrrrhhh,
You forgot to tell us what religion the bankers practice.
Doug, I don’t have any serious beef with Anthony. I understand him taking up for his pal. Willis takes a lot of the burden of producing material for his blog from Anthony. It is amusing that Anthony thinks that banning someone from his blog is some sort of punishment. Willis and Anthony have a case of the big head.
Don – An example re my reply which ended up in the wrong place above:
Myrrh | February 26, 2013 at 8:33 pm |
Don Monfort | February 26, 2013 at 1:47 pm |
myrrrhhh,
You forgot to tell us what religion the bankers practice
Their religion is power, belief in themselves as “the elite” – to that end they manipulate other religions/belief systems/ideologies/politics to their ends, create them even.
It’s their pawns who need strange beliefs to make themselves feel part of a special secret or otherwise ‘organisation’..
===================================================
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
-David Rockefeller, 1991
The inclusion of the “intellectual elite” of course simply another manipulation of others by the bankers..
..just another variation of the “useful idiots”, because by this time they owned all the media worth owning.
Unfortunately my mouse wheel didn’t work properly and I had to read some more cr*p from our Don. He was banned from WUWT because you told Anthony to get f**ked which is quite original, coming from from a non-entity like our Don, who seems unable to come up with anything worth reading on any of the blogs he haunts.
Poor wittle petey, his mouse wheel malfunctioned and made him wead my tewible comment. Then his keyboard took over wittle petey’s mind and forced him to go all ad hom on me. You are what you accuse me of being, petey. I suggest you stop obsessing over what I do. Get involved in some kind of volunteer work, or take up knitting.
Myrrh.
I don’t equate Willis behavior with anyone elses.
I note this. Willis presents a strong case for always telling the truth. Keeping your word. Honor. Admiting when you are wrong. Holding others to account. That is the Captain side of him. Tell the truth or kill yourself, that is the Captain’s motto.
But, in a central part of his amazing life story there is this episode where he fakes suicide to get out of the army. Dwell on that. Note also the two episodes where he revels in the execution of two huge “bluffs”. ( the ambasssador and the King ).
As somebody who spent many years studying characters in fiction I would have to say that these episodes are key to understanding. I find this a beautiful human contradiction.Willis: “I tell the truth, I worship the truth, but let me tell you the story about these great Three bluffs.” In fact, as a story teller Willis is a fantastic example of classic americana. I’m waiting for a big blue ox. But, there is a post modern twist in that the narrator is unreliable.
At his core Willis is a bluffer. Good bluffers always have to present the appearence of worshipping truth, but in reality they are always hatching devious plans.
When The autobiography is finished, I’ll have a full treatment. But the core inconsistency, the deconstructive moment has already happened.
“So I was half drunk by that time, I said OK, well, we’ll just blackmail the Japanese Ambassador into giving you guys a piped water system. And when he asked what I was babbling about, I explained to him the devious plan that had somehow sprung full-blown into my brain when he presented the problem.”
‘Whenever I think that I’ve done bold things in my life, I think of My-mummie audaciously and cleverly bluffing her way in, all the way up to the top to see the King of Egypt himself, Farouk the First, in order to save dying children … and I realize I’ve done nothing, really, nothing at all …”
Not having had the benefit of a good literary education, I would put it more simply, Steven. Willis is a phoney. I would sum up his life as that of an underachieving itinerant handyman. He has had a lot of jobs that most would not want, in places that most would not want to spend their time. He knows a guy he met in the Army nuthouse, who allegedly killed a deer with a knife. OK. The biggest test in his life of his integrity and honor, he failed miserably. Couldn’t hack Army basic training. Now he is a blowhard on a climate blog. If not for the internet, nobody would pay him any attention. And I wonder when he is going to show up here to slap me around.
For me it’s just a character in a book, much as Gleick was, much as Jones and mann were. So, I really suspend judgement on the the actual person.
The same traits you put n a bad light can be put in a good light. I’m more interested in how readers who love the character are blind to the central contradiction. You will note however that when that character treads in certain toes, the reaction is overboard. Don’t assume that just because I name the behavior that I disapprove of it.
Yes Steven, I am being unabashedly judgmental. I don’t like hypocrites. I particularly don’t like hypocrites who smear the brave and honorable to cover up their own weaknesses. Are you sure you haven’t taken advantage of this thread to chastise your friend cowboy Willis, just a little bit? You know he is reading this stuff, and biting through his lower lip :)
I must say, it never fails to amuse me what Willis considers to be “defending [his] honor.” Acting like a grandiose and petulant child ≠ defending honor in my book.
Willis has also explained his behavior as that typical Westerners who grew up on ranches. I know some folks who match that description, and while like everyone else they are prone to being irrational at times, they also step up to the plate and show accountability for their actions, and don’t defend their irrationality on the basis of some imagined defense of honor.
As for Willis getting out of serving in a dishonorable and unjust war by trickery… Even if I agreed that trickery to avoid service was dishonorable (which I don’t), why should his actions so long ago be held against him now? Have we all not done things in touch circumstances that we might later live to regret? It’s not like his actions at that time caused the deaths of innocents, as did the actions of so many American soldiers who were in the unfortunate predicament of serving in Vietnam:
What a horrible mess:
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=kill+everything+that+moves&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=21456956408&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18249835292112965703&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_5u4wu139l1_b
I do give Willis credit for being honest about his past and standing up to those who would ordinarily be his allies but who instead judge someone’s character because of political tribalism.
That all said, the notion of Don calling someone else out for dishonorable for his blog commentary is equally amusing.
Same ol’ same ol’.
Don does hit the nail on the head here… mostly –
In response to this from Willis:
Don says this:
I don’t feel qualified to judge Willis’ “personality,” having never met the man. I can judge, however, the act of denigrating the service of those who served in the war in such a categorical fashion. Willis does seem to have a habit of trying to enhance his self-concept by denigrating other people – in some upside-down belief that he is defending his honor by doing so. In some situations, IMO, that habit is even more mistaken than in others – and this context goes way into the “more wrong” side of the spectrum. Demeaning those who did serve is far removed from defending one’s honor, IMO. Even those who committed atrocities (as so depressingly chronicled in the book I linked) were men stuck in a terrible circumstance, Denigrating them amounts to Willis dishonoring himself, IMO.
One more amusing aspect of this little flame war – from the WUWT thread:
JP Miller says:
Oh, josh-u-a. I just took a look at the book that you have chosen to represent the reality of the Vietnam War. The typical disingenuous looney left-wing fantasy. You people never quit.
http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/product-reviews/0805086919/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0
OK, Don – thanks for helping me out.
I didn’t realize that the vets he interviewed were lying – obviously because they have something to gain all these years later describing the atrocities. And all those official evidence extensively documented – probably all fakes because the military had something to gain by writing up false documents and then keeping them away from the public eye.
If only I had the skills of a “skeptic” such as you I could be sure of conclusions without any verifying evidence.
You are pathetically naive, josh. My guess is that you did a quick search and that book was the most lurid and damning characterization of our involvement in Vietnam that you could find. And my guess is that you didn’t bother to read it and alternative versions of the story, before presenting it here as a definitive description of reality.
Everybody knows that there were atrocities committed in Vietnam by U.S. personnel. War and atrocities are like peanut butter and jelly. Nearly three million Americans went off to that war. A significant number of them were murderers, rapists, psychopaths, or just weaklings predisposed to cracking under pressure, before they put on a uniform. I wonder how you would have behaved
It is not surprising that out of 3 million the author of your book was able to find numerous (couple hundred?) individuals who had stories, real or imagined, to tell about atrocities. If you bothered to read the reviews of the book posted by people who identified themselves as Vietnam veterans, you got a different perspective. It was not about killing everything that moves. That characterization defames the millions who served honorably. It even defames those idiots LBJ, Bobby McNamara, and William Westmoreland.
But what do I know? I was all over it, josh. I received orders and gave orders. I saw our soldiers die, because we were obligated to follow rules of engagement to limit non-combatant casualties, when it was very GD difficult to tell who was trying to kill us and who wasn’t. I never witnessed an American soldier commit anything like an atrocity. It’s not something I would tolerate.
The atrocities that I have direct knowledge of were committed by the NVA and Viet Cong, under orders from their dear leader in Hanoi. Terror and murder were essential components of their strategy. Google Hue massacre. I could describe other examples, but they are too sad and painful for me to recount to people who don’t really care.
Kampuchea, my Kampuchea.
==========
If Joshua were un biased he would have compared the behavior of US troups with the behavior of ,say, the ROK. He must think there is something especially evil about americans. Don, don’t expect a balanced or comprehensive view of things from Joshua. Motivated reasoning at its best
Yeah Steven, josh is a hater raised on looney left-wing pablum. There isn’t a defamatory story about the U.S. military that doesn’t send a thrill up his little leg. The baby killer meme lives on.
I thought Judith’s piece was fair, balanced, helpful and conducive to positive debate. Watts’ intro re use of “denier” was precious, and did not reflect the tone of Judith’s piece in anyway. It was in no way a defence of any dodgy actions by scientists, more a plea for them to acknowledge fault, step outside the bunker, and work to improve the science rather than be policy activists. Who could disagree (except Anthony & Willis)?
Generally speaking, I have no beef with Anthony and I like Willis, but they are off the mark here.
Don Monfort
Willis’ past is his and his alone to live with.
What he did as a teenager is of little interest today.
He is interested in and apparently quite knowledgeable about several things regarding our planet’s climate, and that is what is important here, not his distant past.
Righteous indignation about his past behavior is misplaced.
If you are unable or unwilling to take him at face value in the ongoing debate about human-induced climate change because of something totally unrelated that he did over 40 years ago, so be it.
Sure, he’s got a bad temper and a short fuse, but that also does not detract from his knowledge.
Wehrner von Braun was the acknowledged “father of rocket science” (and NASA) – but also worked for the Nazis, and even joined the Nazi Party and “Allgemeine SS” during WWII. Did that make him any less of a rocket scientist?
So give the guy some slack and accept him for what he brings to the debate – not his far distant past.
(My thoughts on this, of course.)
Max
Et tu, maxie? Look, I know that somewhere near half the population have little to no respect or appreciation for those who have served in wars determined to have been necessary by our elected leaders. I would have thought that you were not among them.
If I see someone defame myself and millions of others who served honorably to cover up his own dishonorable weaseling and dodging, then I am going to express indignation that happens to be righteous. Last week I saw that Willis had called attention to a post-It’s Not About Me- in which he had done exactly that. I asked him what his grandpa The Captain would think about his behavior, and he doubled down. He got knee-jerk support from many morons on his side of the climate science soap opera catfight, including one who said that the SS had taken oaths too. And now your knee has jerked, and you are exposed as another hypocrite. You people wouldn’t be defending Willis, if he were not one of your heroes.
I haven’t criticized Willis’ alleged climate science. I will now. I haven’t seen anything original that significantly contributes to my understanding of climate science. What I have seen is Willis posting his thoughts and others shooting holes in them. If you can summarize and explain the solid contributions that Willis has made, I would be interested. That is a separate issue from what I am commenting on in this open thread, maxie. Are you getting any of this, maxie?
Now you know where you can stick you thoughts.
Max are you still working on that list of Cowboy Willis’ contributions to the advancement of climate science? When you got him confused with Wehrner von Braun, you must have had something in mind. We made it all the way to the moon, with help from our Nazi friend. Of course he would have done the same for the Soviets, if they had caught him first. But, has Willis given us anything that flies? If you are going to lecture me maxie, you should have the guts to answer my question. Don’t be like josh.
“Dirty weather” to report from Oz. We’re flooded in on the mighty Macleay. (That’s how you know it’s the real thing. Forget those other NSW coastal rivers.) 160mm on Saturday. But in case someone has a theory about extreme weather here, our wettest Feb day was a hundred more than that – in pre CC 1929! Our highest rainfall for a single day was late April 1963, when we copped 314mm. Our wettest year was not, surprisingly enough, the legendary 1950, but 1963.
They’ve pulled a lot of our temp records, but our rainfall stats stand. Our driest Feb ever was in 1939, but our driest year was 1902.
I love mentioning all this not because it means a bloody thing, but because it sends our Green Betters into a rage, even though it’s just bare fact. Before they pulled our temp records, every single month set its hottest average max between 1910 and 1919, except August, which was hottest in 1946. Our coolest Spring was likely 1999, and our coolest summer was likely 2011-12, but that’s all a bit hard to work out. Mind you, plenty of daily record temps for heat set in the last couple of decades. I know that’s important to some.
Ah, but I’m breaking the rules. The New Man at Year Zero is allowed to refer to the past, but not to examine it.
All those figures you quoted must be wrong. They are not what the models say!
Peter, it’s a good idea to copy or remember one’s local records. Those who know what is best for us are shortening up our Australian weather history, with all the best justifications of course. One day you may click on one of the many BOM based sites and find even your rainfall records have been shortened to the sixties, or even the nineties. If you ask why, the people will be very polite and scientific. Oh yes, most polite and scientific, and very patient with the likes of you.
The ‘mighty’ Macleay is an unprepossessing drainage ditch. But the BOM collects and makes available high quality data without fear or favour.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmax&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/trendmaps.cgi?map=rain&area=aus&season=0112&period=1900
You can access any data from any station – and these are quality controlled for however long the records exist. The secret for these are the Scottish exiles who brought the scientific enlightenment to Australia. They can be mapped and put in time series in state and national contexts.
You can get up to the minute radar data – http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR282.loop.shtml#skip
Good luck with the flooding.
Yes mosomoso. Throwing the past down the memory hole means
the serfs have no way of seperating wheat from chaff. The historical
record matters. Orwell understood how it works.
One of the serfs.
tsk! ‘separating’
“Seperate separates wheat from chaff.” – Miss Poderowski, 4th-grade teacher
As suggested in
http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/21/macroweather-not-climate-is-what-you-expect/#comment-298314:
“Today, we still use the 30 year ‘normal’ period”
I suggest we also need to re-define or newly define a “climate” as what we should expect during the service life of roads, dams, buildings / houses, breakwalls, levees, etc.
This could include averages, “standard” deviations, and extremes. To do so, we could use a 70 or 75 year “period” to accommodate long term swings in solar, PDO (index), ENSO and NAO cycles.
Another benefit could be to exclude intra-cycle upswings as justification of “climate change” as a political tool.
IMO we do need a register of common acronyms.
IMO we need a register of members’ climate models, including both theoretical and mathematical. We have seen plenty of ‘strange’ science from the IPCC. If we are to compete with them we have to either put up or shut up.
” Alexander Biggs
IMO we do need a register of common acronyms.”
What does IMO mean?
“In My Opinion” As a 90 year old, I thought everyone knew that. But it does illustrate my first point. As we delve deeper into a subject we tend to use abbreviations and acronyms, but we are not all up to the same speed. (it helps if you try to communicate with your grandchildren).
Alex, even my somewhat poor humour sensor picked up that one ;)
You obviously don’t do texting on your mobile phone but maybe you should get onto facebook and read the sort of abreviations that are used there.
My kids tell me that WTF is Why the Face
Sometimes people use acronyms to appear smart. GIS for instance – guess – and it is not geographic information systems. It is good practice to define acronyms before using them always – but quite often not practiced in blogs where we assume somewhat of a common jargon. Easy just to ask.
Like PDF that was asked about recently – probability density function – the bell curve of test results is a pdf. PDE and ODE are others may be reasonably not known. PDE’s are partial differential equations and an ODE is a type of lyrical stanza. A classic ODE is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode.
Doc
LOL!
tonyb
A must read spoof at Pielke Jr’s place
The Russian Meteor and Global Warming
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-russian-meteor-and-global-warming.html
There’s 90 seconds of my life I’ll never get back.
Lame. Very lame.
I enjoyed it. Thanks!
If only more “skeptics” would follow Pielke’s role-model in this little play and take the peer-reviewed literature as the arbiter as he did. I think he is imploring people to pay attention to publications, not sensationalism.
Liked It. Not great literature…but worth the minute’s reading.
Cool!
May be more old school religion , ‘the gods punishing evil AGW perpetrators,’ rather than science. What does this tell us about
climatology?
Russian meteor masterfully timed to coincide with Pope Benedict’s resignation and believed to be a sign Earth will experience runaway global warming if humans don’t change.
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/meteor-strikes-russia-unanimous-4-letter-response-t10715.html
More seriously – albeit marginally tribal.
We have – according to numbnut – global warming of 0.030C +/- 0.150C. Which allows for the possibility that warming proceeds apace – and insists that no one at all relevant has suggested that warming might not be proceeding to schedule. Statistical and scientific oddness indeed.
But I have never suggested that planetary warming didn’t proceed – albeit in a rather modest way – last decade. It warmed from a solid La Niña in the early years through moderate El Niño to some big La Niña more recently. See for yourself.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
So how did that emerge as a change in radiative imbalance – a moderately accurate direct measure of planetary warming and cooling? See for yourself.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=tropicalcloud.png
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS.gif
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png
Seems pretty clear to real scientists like Ole Humlum that internal variability and cloud radiative feedbacks are driving climate.
And yes the warminista memes all keep flying apart despite more desperate post hoc rationalisations and furious disputations in the blogosphere of specific studies or data. There is a refusal to add it all up and a focus on minutiae – a forensic dissection of language. Only lawyers and post modernists think that language can be usefully sliced and diced in that way. For the rest of us it seems a descent into incoherence.
…global warming of 0.03 degree C +/- 0.15 degree C per decade since 1997….
No, the mean rate of increase in the long term natural cycle was about 0.06C/decade a hundred years ago, and has now reduced to about 0.05C/decade in recent years because the ~1,000 year natural cycle (possibly related to the eccentricity of Jupiter) is approaching its next maximum, before cooling for about 500 years. For proof, see Appendix Q.1 of my paper on Radiated Energy
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
Now I see that you do indeed have a vested interest in maintaining the hoax, as I suspected, so maybe others might care to read John Coleman’s comprehensive summary of the history of that hoax, as posted by Wagathon a short while ago in a comment further down this thread.
Here’s the link –
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/24/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-299106
Doug,
I think you’ve got a few roos loose in th top paddock. Try reading the comment before instead of leaping in with what is – at any rate – quite incredible BS.
Well Chief – I don’t cherry pick 1997 like you. Why not start at 1998 and get net cooling with a bit less error? Either period would be meaningless.
My plot and calculations are in the Appendix of my paper* with data based on a period of over 110 years. Yours are meaningless because the period is less than the 60 year cycle which shows up very clearly in the plot in the Appendix of the above paper I wrote a year ago.
* http://principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
See also my latest epistle …
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/24/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-299516
The uncertain health impacts of climate change – a new study in the Netherlands
http://www.epha.org/a/5584
well one think we do know from models is that no amount of mitigation will reduce heat waves over the next 30 years. They are baked into the pipeline.
There are methods, proven methods, for adapting to heat waves, and some cities are talking notice and adapting. Hopefully more. One can hope they put the resources they have to immediate use to address the near term problem.
Mosh
Are the cold waves and snowstorms across the USA and Europe also “baked into the pipeline” of the “models”?
Max
Willard
You captured it all with the first six words:
This is all about the projected possible potential (imagined) future health impacts that (maybe) might occur as a result of (human-caused?) “climate change”.
Hmmm.
Meanwhile, the certain health impacts now of the cold, snowy weather across parts of the USA can be seen here
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/europe/europe-struggles-to-deal-with-cold-and-snow.html?_r=0
Last winter we had an even worse cold spell with snow in Europe, which brought even more certain health impacts to a large number of people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/europe/europe-struggles-to-deal-with-cold-and-snow.html?_r=0
But, then again, I suppose that this unusually cold and snowy weather is a result of anthropogenic global warming, right?
Duh! (Spare me the answer, Willard)
Max
Glad you like those first six words, MiniMax.
If you had to choose one, would it be “uncertain”?
As you know Willard – I am far from opposed to humantarian efforts – but it is far better to place emphasis on broad ranging assesments of needs and priorities than on the narrow global warming focus. The Millenium Development Goals and the Copenhangen Consensus rather than any take away message of carbon taxes fixing all our ills.
Besides which – why should we believe? First of all that global warming is any sort of a problem any time soon. Secondly that a gaggle of so-called experts can simplistically make any sort of reasonable estimates of risk and consequence of such a complex and broad issue. Third that there are not better uses for scarce resources that emerge from a broad rather than narrow focus on health and development.
The tide has turned and global warming is no longer a relevant issue – if it ever was more than an unfortunate diversion.
Western global warming alarmism is what mass mania looks like. There is not much we can do about it. The government has become a hall tree in the devil’s foyer with hooks that you hang your halo on before proceeding. Honest scientists have become ornate bootscrapers only decent folks use to wipe the mud off their boots before tramping the reservations of others.
Peter Davies and Dennis. Thank you for your replies and the meaning of WTF. I haven’t encountered that one because I tend to leave those problems to their parents. As for facebook even my relatives overseas know I don’t do Facebook. I have no desire to make Mark or his ilk richer.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Dennis that his kids were lying to him. It’s like the 4 year alone in the room with the candy. Did you eat that candy? No. If he hasn’t figured out yet that his kids are lying little besterds – that’s his problem.
WTF really stands for where to freddo.
I asked Todd Hoffman from HBO reality show Gold Rush. He says WTF stands for What the Frick
The Copernicus Institute at Utrecht University (oh that title!) has grasped the most fundamental principle of alarmism: the science is settled for promotional purposes and unsettled for funding purposes.
One must hint that even very recent “findings” are inadequate, without frankly admitting the speculative vagueness of one’s own “findings”. Just because all is “fraught with uncertainty” does not mean you stop publishing. In fact, it means you should start. Don’t really know? Use your education and pad out. Perish, by all means…but first you must publish. Later, your perishing will be someone else’s publishing, maybe even your own. Oh, it’s complex…
Tippy-toeing that fine line is what makes climate alarmism far more an art than a science. (Climate modelling, for example, is as scientific as a cow in a field, but who can deny its shaping spirit?)
Alas, the internet is full of redneck tea-partying skeptics who mistreat great artists. It’s Van Gogh’s ear all over again!
“the internet is full of redneck tea-partying skeptics”
In the immortal words of Archie Bunker… I resemble that remark!
‘GK: Kind of quiet out there, Dusty.
TR: Well, it gets quiet in Minnesota in January. People get thoughtful.
GK: Nobody moving out there. Makes me nervous something bad is just about to happen.
TR: That’s why you didn’t want to camp under a tree?
GK: That’s right. Cougars jump out of trees. Anvils fall out of trees.
TR: What anvils?
GK: That’s the problem. You don’t know until it’s too late.
TR: Never heard of an anvil falling out of a tree.
GK: You never heard of it because the people they fell on couldn’t pass on the word.
TR: What’s the anvil doing up in the tree?
GK: Somebody put it there because that’s the last place you’d look.
TR: You are crazy. You know that?
GK: Just telling you what I think.
TR: Loneliness has driven you over the brink into paranoia and insanity, pardner.
GK: Ha! I’m a cowboy. Loneliness is what I crave. Insanity is what we eat for breakfast. No, sir, solitude is a gift, Dusty. We are cowboys. Lonesome is part of the iconic nature of the calling.’
Yeehah.
Today is the anniversary, hey you global citizens in different
time spaces, acronym, (sigh,) G-C-D-T’s of Lempriere/ Clark
Ross 1841 making of the sea level mark in stone at The Isle
of the Dead, Port Arthur, Thoughts of Ozymandias.
Tony Brown has come up trumps and located the missing counter-
debate ter Pugh, Hunter et al, which was allI could find in me
internet -search. ‘Twas like the slate had been wiped clean (
This is a strongly argued counter view, in the best detective
traditions and I will follow up ter – the – best-of – me – ability –
with – an – over-view because it is quite long, like the mouse’s
tail in Alice in Wonderland..
Beth – the -cow – girl.
Here is a Link to the The 1841 sea level watermark benchmark
http://john-daly.com/
Having read the website it seems to be true that the 1841 mark of mean sea level has not been reached with the same degree of precision as specified by Tony B. The fact remains: the rise in sea level in that area since 1841 has not been as extensive as expected by orthodox climate science.
I am just a lonesome cowboy on a blue horse called Shibboleth. – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=blue_horse.jpg – On the plains where once Clancy went a drovin’ – the Diamantina, Cooper and Barcoo are in freshet and the lakes and the great inland sea are filling once more bringing an explosion of life that is miraculous. Yet one more annus mirabilis for the Australian outback.
Shibboleth and I have other plans. We are heading down the coast to the Bulli Heritage Hotel to see Abigail Washburn sing and play her bango on the 7th of March. I’m puttin’ on my redneck dancin’ shoes. See you there if you dare.
Captain Kangaroo
‘Lonesome is part of the iconic nature of the calling.’
But CK, at – least – yer- have – yer – blue – pony and I got
me camel, we go every – where together. )
B-t-C-G
Enjoy the gig guys and have a drink for the rest of us at CE!
We now have January 2013 global temperatures from both NOAA/NCDC and GISS. The former was 9th warmest on record, and the latter 6th. So there is no sign, yet, that global warming has resumed, and the pause has ceased. We will see whether HAD/CRU confirms this. The latest daily data from the satellites is that January’s significant rise in temperature was an unusual event, which will not be repeated in February.
The BIG pictute
Isn’t it time for the world to see the big picture, as in Sections 15 and 16 of my paper reproduced below.*
Anyone who understands why carbon dioxide has no significant effect on climate should consider joining about 200 of us at Principia Scientific International.
There have been many new members this month. Most prominent among them is John Sanderson, immediate past president of the Royal College of Science Association, Prof. Ole Humlum of the University of Oslo, Prof. Cliff Ollier of the University of Western Australia.
*
15. Support for the Mantle and Core Temperatures
The mystery of planetary core and mantle temperatures can now be unravelled with the concept of heat creep. Borehole measurements [27] indicate a thermal gradient of about 25 to 30°C/Km in the outer 10Km or so of the Earth’s crust. This is what we would expect, because the mean specific heat of earth, rock and clay is about a quarter that of atmospheric air, and a “pseudo” rate would also develop because of intra-molecular radiation. But specific heat increases significantly at higher temperatures, leading to the thermal gradient in the deep mantle being perhaps even less than 1°C/Km because the specific heat is in the denominator of the -g/Cp quotient.
Now, we need to see the big picture. There must be a continuous thermal plot which rises, at least from the top of the troposphere, down to the surface and then, at a steeper upward gradient in the outer crust, curving over to an almost level plot as it approaches the core. The whole plot has evolved autonomously by conduction and diffusion processes over the life of the Earth, and presumably similar plots have evolved on other planets like Venus.
Energy from the Sun “creeps” up the thermal plane, not only supporting surface temperatures, but even those of the crust, mantle and core. So, if insufficient energy is generated beneath the surface, then the shortfall will come from the Sun, at least over the course of many years.
The key point is that this plot would be very stable, and we should have nothing to worry about for thousands of years because it would take a huge amount of extra energy (which could only come from the Sun) to raise the whole length of the plot from the tropopause to the core.
When the Sun warms the surface by day, it merely deposits extra thermal energy at the boundary so that some flows into the crust and top layers of the ocean, and some provides extra warmth in the first 100m or so of the atmosphere. This extra pile of energy dissipates at night, the marginal cooling process being slowed by non-radiative and radiative processes.
But the big picture is, that the underlying thermal plot “supports” both the surface temperatures and even those in the crust, mantle and perhaps the core. It does not matter if extra energy is created in the core, or trapped temporarily at the surface, because the cooling process will accelerate if the temperature gap widens, or slow down when the gap narrows. Even the apparent loss of energy in the calculated terrestrial flow is misleading, because it is based on a thermal gradient that gravity formed and over which energy might even be flowing up towards the mantle, from where it may be released in volcanoes, thermal springs or undersea vents.
16. Conclusions
When Maxwell and Boltzmann dismissed Loschmidt’s postulate of a gravity gradient they did the world a great disservice, and they contributed to a belief in a non-existent warming by an imaginary radiative greenhouse effect. The subsequent “calls to authority” should be a lesson for all in the scientific world, for this has resulted in an absolute travesty of physics. The greenhouse conjecture will inevitably take its brief place in history as the biggest and most costly mistake ever in the field of human scientific endeavour. Hopefully that will be soon.
Scientists, be they climatologists, physicists or whatever, need to step outside the square and to adopt a paradigm shift based on, and supported by 21st century science. Dr Hans Jelbring and Roderich Graeff have each made significant contributions which must now be heeded before the mistake is perpetuated by those who now have personal vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
Climate has in fact been following natural cycles [28] as shown in the Appendix to the author’s paper on Radiated Energy [2] and the world can expect a period of about 500 years of cooling to start within 50 to 200 years from now.
The Loschmidt gravity-induced thermal gradient is more than enough to explain the proverbial “33 degrees of warming” and in fact the dry adiabatic lapse rate would lead to a mean surface temperature of about 25°C were it not for water vapour and, yes, to a much smaller extent, carbon dioxide reducing the gradient and causing lower base surface temperatures. In the Appendix is an outline of methodology that would almost certainly produce studies which would demonstrate the cooling effect of water in locations around the world.
Thermal energy can and does “creep” up the very shallow thermal gradients in planetary atmospheres and also in their solid crusts and mantles, supporting sub-surface temperatures. Indeed the physics of “heat creep” resolves the long-term puzzles of planetary core and surface temperatures, and, for this very reason, begs attention and claims validity for this 21st century new paradigm shift in climate change science. [29]
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Heh, now there’s a heat sink. Deep oceans, the flap of a butterfly’s wing.
====================
Shouldn’t that be the wave of a sea anenome’s tentacles?
Kim – the often cited ocean thermal gradient is discussed in Section 14 where it is explained that it in no way counters the argument. Furthermore, the expected gravitational gradients are observed where we would expect them in the Arctic Ocean.
Next time, Kim (and others), could you please read the paper first before hand waving. I’m not the Queen of England. Is that fair enough?
Meh, still looks like you want to call the crust, mantle and core a heat sink. What about core radioactivity?
===============
Doug, you misunderstood me about the oceans. Not your fault, mine.
I get your idea about the thermal gradient in the rest of the earth. I’m under the impression that there is too much turmoil deep to allow your idea to set in time.
===========
Kim – core radioactivity is no doubt a reality, but insufficient. The core needs additional energy. Just read my paper as I’m not going to condense 20 pages into 20 lines. My response to you is in the paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
From the earth, net out, not net in. That’s why I considered the ocean insignificant. Hey I could be wrong.
===========
Doug Cotton | February 27, 2013 at 3:59 am |
“Kim – core radioactivity is no doubt a reality, but insufficient. The core needs additional energy. Just read my paper as I’m not going to condense 20 pages into 20 lines. My response to you is in the paper”
No, but you seem happy to expand 20 pages into 2000 comments of 200 lines each all over every bloody climate blog you can find. Spare me.
Perfect (nearly) correlation between sunspot count and global mean surface temperature:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise
I added CO2 to your plot and reduced the ridiculously long means down to 20 years to filter sunspot cycles out of the solar data.
A whole different story now.
What’s our next move Kimosabe? Raise up a white flag and surrender to the warmist tribe?
Seriously dude, none of the usual suspects contest that there’s a suspicious looking connection between sunspots and global average temperature up to 1950. You won’t fool them (or me) by cutting off the data at 1950 anymore than Mann fooled anyone by cutting off tree ring proxy data in 1960 to produce the infamous hockey stick. Their point is that the connection breaks down after 1950 and it surely does as I easily demonstrated.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:240/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:240/from:1895/to:2013/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/mean:240/normalise
The 1950 meme is just wrong – without even looking at wood for dimwits.
Look at the science – Mike Lockwood says 1985 – but here’s a graph from scepticalsciance to start with.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Could there be a fifteen year lag in the system? Could there be another cause perhaps as suggested by real scientists like Ole Humlum?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=tropicalcloud.png
John Daly’s Tasmanian Sea Levels: The ‘Isle of the Dead’ revisited,
which is 3/4 down the page available as Part 1 and Part 2,
presents a powerful counter to the study by Pugh et al.
http://john-daly.com/
Contrary to the claim by Pugh et al, that the setting of a sea level
benchmark in stone at Port Arthur in 1841 was a hit and miss affair
at almost high tide by local meteorologist, Thomas Lempriere,
careless of instructions given by Captain James Ross Clark, John
Daly cites passages from Ross’s book of 1846 that show otherwise.
Ross was not only explicit about the mark being placed at MSL but
stated that ‘it was also struck according to pre-calculation based on
data from Lempriere’s tide log:…’the mark cut deeply in the rock in
the exact spot which his tidal observations indicated as the mean
level of the ocean.’
Ross wrote why such a benchmark was carried out:
‘The fixing of solid and well secured marks for the purpose of showing
the mean level of the ocean at a given epoque was suggested in a
letter by Baron von Humboldt to Lord Minto subsequent to the sailing
of the expedition and of which I did not receive any account until our
return from the Antarctic seas which is the reason of my not having established a similar mark on the rocks of Kerguelen Island, or some
part of the shores of Victoria Land…’ (In the Antarctic.)
Note the support of the Ross/ Lempriere measurements at the site
by Commander J Shortt RN on the same date and stated time, 47
years later which Daly shows to be the weakest link in the Pugh et al statistical probability scenarios.The weight of physical and documentary
evidence, gentle land rise data, El Nino in 1888, make Shortt’s data difficult to adjust for the Pugh scenarios, comparisons with Hobart and Spring Bay sea level histories, evidence of atmospheric conditions and wind conditions described in ‘Shipping News’ records , El Nino low sea level conditions make Pugh’s large error bar calculations at odds with observations, once tides, pressure and wind have been accounted for.
The Pugh et al case for a 13 cm sea rise that fits the IPCC claim
of 10-20 cm global sea rise during the 20th century is weakened
by the data that Daly presents and by other Australian sea level
measurements.It is important that John Daly’s ‘Isle of the Dead’
revisited is available on the internet so that people are able to
compare the arguments and evidence in the sea level debate.
H/t Tony Brown for finding it.
Beth
Thats all very interesting. Well done, Good sceptical research
tonyb
Today’s the feast of our 1841 sea level benchmark! Happy birthday, old gashes.
And Lempriere/ Clark/ Ross shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember’d…
Interesting Timing to be Removed from GEC Editorial Board
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2013/02/interesting-timing-to-be-removed-from.html
That’s progress!
============
Oh look
“The IPCC communications office tells Skeptical Science that The Australian has not provided a transcript or audio file of the interview for verification, but it does not accurately represent Pachauri’s thoughts on the subject”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/australian-pachauri-global-warming.html
Up to #15 now.
Things skeptics have falsely claimed others have said, as part of their propaganda
1) Skeptics falsely claimed the UK Met Office issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 years.
2) Skeptics falsely claimed the NOAA issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 year
3) Skeptics falsely claimed the IPCC predicted 0.4-0.5C warming from 2000 to 2012.
4) Skeptics falsely claimed Phil Jones said rising CO2 has falsified climate models.
5) Skeptics falsely claimed James Hansen and two collegues acknowledge a 15 year pause in warming.
6) Skeptics falsely claimed James Hansen used to say that natural variability wasn’t capable of stopping warming.
7) Skeptics falsely claimed IPCC AR5 admits ‘the jig is up’ with regard to man made global warming.
8) Skeptics falsely claimed the IPCC AR5 admits that the Sun is responsible for global warming.
9) Skeptics falsely claimed IPCC AR4 says the only solar effect is a change in TSI.
10) Skeptics falsely claimed the IPCC is unequivocal that 20th century warming is solely due to the increase in the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.
11) Skeptics falsely claimed NASA admits bias on role of the Sun.
12) Skeptics falsely claimed NASA admits all previous warming trends caused by sun.
13) Skeptics falsely claim James Hansen predicted 250 feet sea level rise by 2100.
14) Skeptics falsely claim James Hansen has said global warming flatlined for 15 years.
15) Skeptics falsely claimed Rajendra Pachauri had acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rise.
lolwot, boy are you a true denier. Remember your homework assignment.
Physicists correctly claim that the conjecture that water vapour can cause warming (and thus raise the surface temperature about 30 degrees and have positive feedback) is contrary to what the laws of physics dictate will happen, namely that it causes cooling, as appears to be evident when comparing climate in wet and dry cities all over the world.
Earth Science 101: Tropical deserts have the highest mean annual temperature of any climate type. That is exceedingly compelling evidence that the presence of water on the surface and water vapor in the atmosphere has a cooling effect.
One of the big problems with hypothetical global warming is sweeping generalizations. So called sensitivity changes across time and space. H2O can plunge the planet into an ice age if too much becomes frozen. However when it’s mostly liquid it warms the planet. The dichotomy forms two great attractors where there are semi-stable states of either mostly frozen or mostly liquid water on the surface. Variable arrangment of continents changes heat distribution from tropics to poles favoring one attractor or another. Axial and orbital precession also varies on shorter time scales to favor one or the other. Currently the continents are arranged so we’re in a no man’s land where just the small changes in orbital and rotational configuration that changes solar power distribution spatially and temporally gives one or the other an advantage. When the liquid phase attractor is dominant clouds put a cap on maximum temperature. CO2’s ability to raise surface temperature exists in inverse proportion to how much surface water is available to form clouds which cap the maximum attainable regional surface temperature. All observations make perfect sense in light of this. The rest is just detail.
It’s illuminating to examine the transition point where interglacial periods begin. Ice melts and raises surface albedo by exposing darker rocks beneath and high albedo sea ice becomes low albedo ocean surface. Adding to this as landlocked ice melts the ocean volume increases and its surface area along with it turning rocks with albedo around 0.15 into ocean surface with albedo around 0.05. It also raises the stored energy by adding the heat of fusion to the ice in the phase change which then forms a barrier against ice reforming from the liquid. The end result is a transition from ice age to interglacial in mere thousands of years. Temperature shoots up like a rocket then hits a ceiling temperature when the maximum amount of cloud cover is acheived which is about 70%. This ceiling temperature is near identical every single time. It’s also the highest temperature that is acheived during the interglacial when then goes on slow march downward as ice slowly rebuilds. Lather, rinse, repeat. This has happened scores of times in the last several million years. The earth is ringing like a gigantic bell.
P.S. The greenhouse effect is mostly from the global ocean. Downwelling longwave infrared does not and cannot slow the loss of heat from a body of water in any significant amount. Water is completely opaque to it. All it does is raise the evaporation rate which then changes the environmental lapse rate causing clouds to condense at the same temperature but a higher altitude. At the higher altitude there is less restriction to radiative cooling to space and nothing else changes. In restricted circumstances where evaporation over the ocean is restricted or a great many whitecaps are breaking up the cool skin layer then DWLIR has an opportunity to slow heat loss but these opportunities are very limited. Over land where there is limited water available to evaporate DWLIR raises the surface equilibrium temperature. These opportunites are less limited and are largest when the surface is frozen which drastically limits evaporation. Thus the greatest warming effect from CO2 should be observed and actually is observed to occur in greater proportion in the northern hemisphere (because it has twice the land area as the southern) and in the higher latitudes (because they experience freezing temperatures more than lower latitudes).
Write all that down. At some point in the near future it will become part of Earth Science 101.
Tropical forest nights are warmer than desert nights. Ponder that and explain it. Clue: this is where the IR effect of water vapor matters.
Your comments stray a long way from real physics in this real world. You make a hand-waving comment “H2O can plunge the planet into an ice age if too much becomes frozen. However when it’s mostly liquid it warms the planet” even after acknowledging that dry regions like deserts have higher mean temperatures. My research also appears to indicate they have higher mean daily minimum and mean daily maximum temperatures. This is what would be expected from the physics described in my paper on Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
You then you say “Downwelling longwave infrared does not and cannot slow the loss of heat from a body of water in any significant amount. Water is completely opaque” but that is also incorrect, because the process of slowing radiative cooling happens right at the surface where the radiating is happening. This is explained in my March 2012 paper on radiated Energy …
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
JimD Typical locations with higher rainfall are cooler than those with lower rainfall.
Are you both not aware that the wet adiabatic lapse rate is less steep than the dry one? Hence, for radiative equilibrium, the surface temperature is lower due to water vapour and the release of latent heat when it rains.
Doug, your platitudes in reply to me are not explaining anything. Maybe you don’t know how cold it gets at night in the desert or why the diurnal cycle is so large in drier areas like these.
JimD – I have published a study of desert temperatures and will soon be expanding it more than tenfold. So I have some evidence – you have just hand waving. See the Appendix of my latest paper, and, if you want to know why physics predicts this, just read the paper.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Unless your treatise says that the desert cools more quickly at night because the downward IR is less in drier air, it is provably wrong.
JimD
Yes of course tropical rainforest nights are warmer than tropical desert nights. Tropical rainforest days however are cooler than tropical desert days. The higher mean daily temperature however is the tropical desert. Tropical deserts have the highest mean annual temperature of any climate type. That’s Earth Science 101. Write it down.
Doug Cotton
Yes, I’m aware of dry, saturated, and environmental lapse rate characteristics. I’m also aware of what’s called lapse rate feedback (google it) which is negative. As water vapor rises and causes increased greenhouse forcing environmental lapse rate declines and counteracts it. A couple recent papers investigating the magnitude of lapse rate feedback found it larger than expected. That finding is no surprise to me as I’ve been expounding on how environmental lapse rate declines with increasing greenhouse gases so long as there’s water available on the surface for evaporation. It’s exactly why my hypothesis expects to find. I also expect that studies of average convective cloud height will find the height increasing as a result of reduced lapse rate and that the net result is little increase in surface temperature with rising GHG concentration wherever there is plenty of water available on the surface to evaporate. Write that down. Most of is already known geophysical science and the part that’s still unknown will be known before many more years have passed by.
JimD
Learn it:
http://www4.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/climate_systems/tropical_desert.html
Tropical Desert Climate
Distinguishing Characteristics
Temperature
The tropical desert has the highest mean annual temperature of any climate on Earth. The high temperatures are a result of the high sun angles throughout the year and having the highest percentage of sunshine of any climate. No month has an average temperature below 18oC (64.4oF) and many places have consecutive average monthly temperatures in the mid 30os Celsius (90oF). Daytime temperatures can reach 50oC (120oF) at low elevation inland deserts.
@Doug Cotton
Liquid water on the surface will warm the planet until enough clouds form to reach equilibrium then it warms no mo. This is why temperature shoots up like a rocket at the transition from glacial to interglacial then hits a ceiling temperature. The ceiling is the same every time. The ceiling is when most of surface is liquid water and clouds have reached the ~70% coverage level which we observe today. At that point if more clouds form less sunlight reaches the surface and less water evaporates causing fewer clouds which allows more sunlight and more clouds. Clouds are a themostat. Write that down.
Keep quotes and links, lolwot.
i have but posting them causes the comment to enter auto-moderation. I’ll probably not update the list anymore anyway, it was fun for the weekend but now I am bored of it
“I am bored of it”
Join the club.
[lolwot] I’ll probably not update the list anymore anyway, it was fun for the weekend but now I am bored of it
Utter drivel generally has that effect. Try switching to non-fiction.
I know it’s a little late for this, but I just ran across the following: Microbiome of the upper troposphere: Species composition and prevalence, effects of tropical storms, and atmospheric implications. From the abstract:
and
This means ecosystem changes, including some that are anthropogenic, may have contributed to any observed “climate change” over the last century. Most of these bacteria are probably swept up from surface sources, but some may actually have life histories that depend on airborne transport or even growth. And even taxa that are swept up may have significant effects and have been influenced by land-use changes, as well as such things as the movement of the desert line in the Sahel.
AK | February 25, 2013 at 4:11 pm | Reply
re; upper atmosphere microbiome
Yes, I read the paper when it came out. It was discussed here.
“This means ecosystem changes, including some that are anthropogenic, may have contributed to any observed “climate change” over the last century.”
Non sequitur.
“Most of these bacteria are probably swept up from surface sources, but some may actually have life histories that depend on airborne transport or even growth.”
No. Bacteria have life cycles measured in hours. These have almost certainly evolved to live their entire lives in the atmosphere. Extremophiles thrive in less likely environments. They’ve been found living far underground with a metabolism based on oxidation of iron.
“And even taxa that are swept up may have significant effects and have been influenced by land-use changes, as well as such things as the movement of the desert line in the Sahel.”
Pure unadulterated specuation with little if any biological or geophysical basis. What’s the transport mechanism? Only the most powerful convective cells lift out of the troposphere and only the most powerful volcanoes can do the same. Do these bacteria (more likely archeans) have rocket boosters or something? How would their metabolism function in the two far different environments of surface and upper atmosphere?
AFAIK those living far underground don’t necessarily have “life cycles measured in hours.” In fact, I would dispute that all bacteria even in daylight environments live that fast. Many bacteria experience a growth rate dependent on nutrient availability. (Ref’s too numerous to provide, but see here.)
And while (IMO) bacteria adapted to permanent life in the air are perfectly plausible, so are those adapted to life-histories shifting between aerosol and terrestrial (or marine) habitats. (A quick search with Google Scholar yielded this, although I’m confident a more extensive search could yield many other examples of complex bacterial, or in this case archaeal, lifestyles.)
See the last paragraph of my (temporally) previous comment
Actually, most tropical convective cells lift air from the lower (or lower-mid) Troposphere into the Tropical Tropopause Layer (“TTL”), “a layer between the typical level of convective outflow (12 km) and the cold point tropopause at 16–17 km” (see e.g. here). The questions of transport in this layer as well as across the Cold Point Tropopause (“CPT”) remain unsettled (see, e.g., here and ref’s therein). IIRC similar processes appear to be involved in the polar front/jet stream interaction.
I’ll admit it’s been a while since I read the referenced articles, but AFAIK they remain good demonstrations of how much still isn’t known about these processes.
You dispute that bacteria have life cycles in hours on what basis?
I think you need to go bone up a bit on bacteriology.
http://textbookofbacteriology.net/growth_3.html
The textbook science says hours. And if they are starved they die within hours discounting species which can sporulate. You can certainly dispute the textbooks if you wish but it probably won’t stick well if you do your disputing anonymously in blog comments.
I’ve found it’s generally not productive to dispute textbook science in non-controversial (apolitical) experimental sciences. Biology usually fits that apolitical experimental science description.
From your link:
Not exactly the same thing. Did you think I wouldn’t bother to actually follow your link?
Fast-growing bacteria might have lifetimes measured in hours, but slower-growing ones are known (see your own link), and bacteria known only from a few bits of DNA might have even longer generation times. In addition, the life cycle of many bacteria includes sporulated stages, which can last years, and can’t be discounted for bacteria with an areal growth phase.
And, BTW, I’m not anonymous. I prefer not to spatter my name all over the internet, but you can find it if you dig into my blog.
As for textbooks, many are full of errors, and most are out of date relative to active research. Something practicing scientists (and many amateurs like me) are well aware of.
AK | February 25, 2013 at 4:11 pm | Reply
re; upper atmosphere microbiome
I see the paper you linked also discusses mid-troposphere samples. These probably are swept up by convective cells but it’s still a non-sequitur to presume that the kind and composition has changed in recent years. That would seem to require that the kind and composition of convective cells that do the lifting have changed and there is no evidence of that. If they are surface bacteria they are almost certainly dead bacteria shortly after being lofted into the mid-troposphere. The UV will kill them pretty quick if starvation doesn’t get them first. So they’re effectively like unto dust. And there is still absolutely no reason to believe their are any more or any fewer of them now than 500 years ago, or 500 million years ago for that matter.
Nonsense! (No denigration intended.) It only requires that the”species” distribution of the bacteria available to be upswept changed, which is completely plausible if the ecosystem has changed from desert to grassland or vice versa.
One of the most ignored aspects of popular discussions of aerosols involves differences in their ability to act as condensation nuclei, for either water or ice. Different “species” of bacteria have potentially very different external capsules, and for that matter different types of degradation products with potentially different levels of hygroscopicity. (Most bacteria have considerable phosphate in their bodies and membranes, both free and bound to carbohydrates. And phosphate is so hygroscopic as to exhibit Deliquescence)
Very small changes in how cloud droplets and snow interact could produce substantial differences in how much precipitation reaches the surface, or even at what heights re-evaporating cloud droplets end up shedding their water.
Granted, it’s speculation. But it’s an almost criminal mis-use of parsimony (IMO) to dismiss any unproven alternative explanation for recent climate changes while using the currently popular explanation as an excuse to demand major changes to most people’s lifestyle. If an explanation is plausible, it should at least be investigated and incorporated into models, before the CO2 explanation is considered “proven”.
The nonsense is your baseless speculation that there’s any change in mid-upper troposphere microbiome that would have a detectable effect on climate.
Nonetheless, the response, and feedbacks, of the biome is almost completely neglected. Considering the potential effect on cloud formation, this is dismaying.
===============
AK | February 25, 2013 at 4:11 pm | Reply
re; upper atmosphere microbiome
Much more in-depth commentary on the paper here:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/high-flying-bacteria-play-role-in-forming-clouds-and-precipitation-15525
Viability is up to several days and the author wonders how that is possible as did I due to UV and other adverse conditions.
I’d like to know how the researchers (at Georgia Tech same as Curry) determined viability as only PCR and gene sequencing is mentioned. PCR is an amplification method that takes a few gene fragments from a small sample and multiplies them so there’s enough to statistically reassemble them into the genes from whence they came. They were probably using the Shotgun sequencing method and equipment developed by J. Craig Venter. Venter circumnavigated the globe, twice, collecting and sequencing bacterial genomes from the ocean. But I digress. Once reconstructed the gene sequences can be looked up in the gene library to determine the organism they came from. Venter added over 1 million new entries to the gene catalog!
Anyhow, this technique does not require viable bacteria. Dead ones work just fine all it requires is DNA and it can be fairly degraded DNA at that because the sequencing technique is based on statistical quantities of small fragments of DNA. So I’m left wondering how viability was determined.
“How did the good politics of social justice become chained to the bad science of global warming?” – Freeman Dyson
That quote just shows Dyson doesn’t understand “social justice.” The politics of social justice is the accumulation of power by progressives in government, so its invocation by CAGW activists is not only not a surprise, but to be expected.
“Social justice” is like “fairness” of “for the children” – deliberately amorphous terms used to conceal the iron hand of government coercion in the velvet glove of compassion.
Who could be against social justice, or fairness, of anything for the children?
Dyson obviously is not opposed to ‘the good politics of social justice’ and just as obviously knows ‘bad science’ makes for bad politics irrespective of whatever grand intentions some lying politician employs to deceive the public.
When cheap energy has made the globe’s population peak at 9-10 billion, then the chances of so-called ‘social justice’ have a much more fertile field. Heh, cuz we’ll be less fertile.
====================
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=elephant-seals-help-find-missing-piece-in-global-climate-puzzle
Noble and Nobel cause corruption perhaps Wagathon?
Once an award the Nobel may be more a sign of the devil now…
Devilishly clever eh?
Excellent correlation between sun spot count and global mean temperature:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/from:1895/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise
Variation of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is the fundamental cause of climate change on Earth as determined by a long term imbalance between solar radiation entering the upper layers of the atmosphere and the total energy emitted from Earth back to space
…e.g., TSI decrease = e.g., Little Ice Age
Why Americans are the Weirdest People in the World
http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/
I think there’s a lesson there for ClimateBall.
The study of course accounts is some fanciful way for the relative perceived stakes involved in comparing different cultures where, for the Machiguenga for example, the amount of money was “equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned from episodic work with logging or oil companie,” which is another way of saying–e.g., <more money than they see in a month of hard labor… when they can get the work.
Na, the lesson was a few paragraphs down
“More recently psychologists had challenged the universality of research done in the 1950s by pioneering social psychologist Solomon Asch. Asch had discovered that test subjects were often willing to make incorrect judgments on simple perception tests to conform with group pressure. When the test was performed across 17 societies, however, it turned out that group pressure had a range of influence. Americans were again at the far end of the scale, in this case showing the least tendency to conform to group belief.
Heh, Americans have an Uncommon Core.
============
er, ‘had’.
======
Why Americans Are Not The Weirdest People in the World
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4LENN_enUS461US461&q=weird+cultures
Enjoy.
david you would fit right in with the Sambia Tribe.
You’re confused Steven. I’m not the one who lives in San Francisco. I think you probably meant to say that the Sambia tribe would fit just fine in your neighborhood.
C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General Who Took on Tobacco, Dies at 96
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-25/c-everett-koop-surgeon-general-who-took-on-tobacco-dies-at-96.html
Computerization in Health Care Demands High Data Standards
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/computerization_in_health_care.html
Tree rings, anyone?
“The power of mass manias is reinforced by severe disapproval of any questioning of their certain truth. Any doubt is seen not just as error needing correction but as conscious deliberate evil deserving expulsion or extermination. With adherents permitted only to support the established dogma, these movements tend to gather followers rapidly. But they also soon become afflicted with a growing disconnect from reality which they can neither acknowledge nor adjust for…” (Stark)
The observed increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is due to the increase in global mean temperature as shown=>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.65
In turn, the increase in global mean surface temperature is due to the increase in solar spot counts as shown=>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/from:1895/normalise
Open threads r so good … no gatekeeping … all inclusive,
even telesopes may speak, … any topic under and including
the sun: ‘ Say, hasn’t it been warm lately? ‘ … Weather vari –
ability…regional – climate …vari – ability, foolish – clever human
vari -ability. …What was it Yogi Berra said?
“Telescopes” … there be gremlins (
Does anyone have a URL for downloading the new HAD/CRU 4 data? TIA
This is from woodfortrees:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/hadcrut4gl
Speaking of uncertainty, this just in:
http://www.rtcc.org/uncertainty-as-eu-carbon-market-vote-cancelled/
Bubble mechanics.
==============
Is it too late to cancel Belgium?
It’s never too late to cancel Belgium.
Please, never on a Tuesday.
==========
Small rise in global temperatures could thaw permafrost
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/small-rise-in-global-temperatures-could-thaw-permafrost/
Via Dan Moutal from planet3.org.
“Small rise in global temperatures could thaw permafrost”
I think it may depend on what the local temperature is, but that’s just my opinion.
Andrew
Methane deteriorates rapidly, and a thawing permafrost would be evidence of poleward migration of growing zones. That’s a plus.
========
There’s been some serious cyclonic activity over Australia’s tropical West. We tend to forget that the North West has by far the most cyclones of the Australian coastline. Moreover, those of greatest intensity come in autumn, especially mid-autumn. If they’re to have an active season up there this year, the worst may come in April. One good thing: they are more trackable than those on the other side of the continent.
Olivia in 1996 had the fastest ever non-tornado wind gust recorded on Earth: 408 km/h! This beat the 1934 Mount Washington speed of 374 km/h, though it wasn’t recognised at the time.
Cyclone Joan killed nobody but was incredibly destructive. A 74 million dollar damage bill for Port Hedland in 1975!
The terrible southern WA fires of 1961 were fed by cyclones way to the north, sending colossal winds but no rain, and feeding the 41 day inferno.
The problem in the late 19th century was all those pearlers and other shipping, so WA cyclones were great killers then. The April Fool’s cyclone of 1884 wiped out forty vessels of a pearling fleet. 140 lives lost.
The present climate where I live reminds me a lot of the 50s and 70s. The Maitland flood of 1955 formed an inland sea the size of England and Wales to the west of Sydney. A couple of decades on, Tracey demolished a city. Let’s hope we learn from the 50s and 70s, and that, in the face of such disasters, we don’t have to listen to idiot propagandists proclaiming a “new normal”.
“Recommendation
On any view, Press is not a fit and proper person to be employed in any capacity at the University of Tasmania. I hope that the University will investigate his misconduct and fraud and will dismiss him forthwith.”
Yours faithfully,
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/monckton-accuses-tony-press-uni-tasmania-of-fraud-and-deception/
“The earth is no longer threatened by the catastrophic global warming forecast by some scientists; warming passed its peak in 1998-2005, while the value of the TSI by July – September of last year had already declined by 0.47 W/m2.”
~Abdussamatov (Nov. ’08): “The Earth, after receiving and storing over the twentieth century an anomalously large amount of heat energy, from the 1990’s began to return it gradually. The upper layers of the world ocean, completely unexpectedly to climatologists, began to cool in 2003. The heat accumulated by them unfortunately now is running out.”
Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303
Ideal diet is massively controversial today. So whaddya know?
===============================
I agree with David Wojick; http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/24/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-298272 :
”The climate debate is a cornucopia of confusions.”
Instead of the continuous ‘cornucopia of confusions’ on the climate debate at least one due final synthesis based on natural laws and observations in reality is already available, according to which natural factors have controlled the recent warming, and on which any influence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions has not been empirically found:
Even politicians as laymen can easily understand that the anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not dominate the increase of CO2 content, as they learn to know the natural laws that control the CO2 content in atmosphere: the CO2 content in atmosphere is controlled together by both all the CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and all the CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks. The CO2 sinks determine how much CO2 from the total amount of the CO2 emissions stays in atmosphere, in which a share of single CO2 emission is proportinal to the total quantity of all the CO2 emissions. As to the share of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions it is only about 4 % of the total CO2 emissions. For instance the human CO2 emissions control, at most, only about 4 % of the total content of CO2 in atmosphere, and even only 4 % of a total recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere. IPCC is totally wrong as there in the model simulations all the increase of CO2 content in atmosphere is regarded as anthropogenic.
These results agree with what even Tom V Segalstad and Murry Salby have stated.
I understand, that everybody of those who regard anthropogenic CO2 emissions as a matter of significance on a cause of the recent warming and/or extreme climate events, is normative, in a way or an other, i.e. she/he at least ‘hiddenly’ believes in anthropogenic climate change, altough there is no empirical evidence available. On this kind of inadequate bases even the Rio protocol 1992 was based: ” — Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” Until now there have not been proved any real ‘threats of serious or irreversible damage’ which could be caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Whereas there are plenty of empiric observations according to which the increasing trend of CO2 content in atmosphere follows warming and not vice versa; e.g. comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 , http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#comment-287036 etc.
Bernie Lewin has a nice article at the Bish’s detailing the machinations necessary to demonize CO2 incorrectly.
=======================
Yes, a fascinating thread
agree
Lauri Heimonen
I agree.
Here is your statements supported by the observed data:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.65
Greenland Ice Record Shows Current Temps Are Cool
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/26/greenland-ice-record-shows-current-temps-are-cool
And the powerful graph is
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
hahahaha
The Holocene is senile, possibly kept on the respirator by AnthroGHGs. Shall we take it off the respirator?
=========================
+1.
kim, the “skeptic” troglodytes have just emerged to rediscover the Holocene. Maybe next they will progress to the Industrial Age. It is just a matter of time.
No doubt we’ll progress out of the Holocene. It is just a matter of time.
===================
and Lappi screwed up the axis
Heh, and we may be screwing up this whole ‘global warming’ thing if we’re descending into the next Ice Age. Heck, we’re doing so even if we’re only descending into the next Little Ice Age. Both these possibilities are a Hell of a lot more likely than much further natural warming.
================
Until somebody runs it through the Skeptical Science refrigeration unit, the MWP in much of China would appear to be a touch warmer than now. Of course, you’d find times in that period when the old Dynasty-stressing curses of cold and drought recurred, but the Northern and Southern Song seemed to do nicely on the overall warming. And didn’t the Ming find out the hard way about global cooling in the LIA!
Dear Skeptic,
I notice Roy Spencer quietly released a report last month admitting the earth is heading towards thermageddon. If Roy Spencer acknowledges CAGW now, shouldn’t you?
lolwot, you still don’t get it, do you?
Subsequent to Roy’ s first post which lolwot seems to be referring to when he claims Roy showed thermageddon., Roy wrote the following three statements.
@@@@@@
The data support my previous claim: the anomalous tropospheric warmth was the result of a temporary increase in convective heat transport from the surface to the atmosphere, as evidenced by cooling SSTs, and well-above average precipitation
@@@@@
Above-average moist convective heat transport from the ocean surface to the atmosphere appears to have led to sea surface cooling, and tropospheric warming, in January 2013
@@@@@
It DOES look like the Feb. temps will come down considerably:
http://http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps
As RW has pointed out, after a surge of temporary warming, the atmosphere radiates the extra energy to space.
@@@@@@
So the thermageddon has been cancelled.
On recent GISS, a January anomaly in the 60s often results in a record warmest year. And if ENSO neutral persists, it could be a record warmest year in a year dominated by neutral conditions.
Wouldn’t that be cool?
@JCH
I wish. Back to back La Nina’s have created a near record drought in Texas that’s persisted about 5 years now. The drought of record lasted 10 years and happened in 1950-1960. No coincidence that. You know that 60-year cycle skeptics keep droning on about most evident in the AMDO? As Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s deja vu all over again”.
Dr Spencer’s site has been hacked,
tested by gabby and some rock music is all that is there
> lolwot wrongly claims Spencer admits thermageddon.
His false claim count must be in triple figures by now. He’ll be made an honorary prof of climate science at this rate..
.
Confusions in the OSTP OA Policy Memo — Three Monsters and a Gorilla
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/02/25/confusions-in-the-ostp-oa-policy-memo-three-monsters-and-a-gorilla/
Thanks for the plug to my article Willard. Happy to field questions. This is a pretty big deal.
David Wojick
Looks like:
3 Monsters (duplication, non-uniformity, multiplicity)
plus
1 Gorilla (urgent need to cut spending)
equals
1 Can of Worms.
Let’s hope the Gorilla wins.
Max
Max, I am simply defining the monster design issues. We may well get a fed-wide portal out of this thrash, one that links the journal literature to the funding. That would be very useful indeed. Lack of funding for this portal is the problem not the solution.
Warmists want to abandon the surface air temperature ship – it doesn’t suit them any longer.
“Unfortunately many people (often even including climate scientists) mistakenly equate the warming of global surface air temperatures with global warming. That is simply inaccurate.”
“More importantly, over the past 17 years the planet has accumulated the equivalent energy to detonating 3.7 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second, every second. It takes a fundamental misundertanding of the global climate to deny that immense amount of global warming.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/australian-pachauri-global-warming.html
I believe this is called “moving the goal posts”.
Comical, innit?
It’s global heating now. You cannot measure/observe it, but it’s basic physics.
Edim
The Skeptical Science rationalization on “where the energy is going” is pretty silly, for a couple of reasons:
– prior to ARGO in 2003 there are no reliable records of global ocean temperature and since 2003 the record (after “correction” of the initial results, which showed net cooling) shows barely perceptible warming (0.008C warming of the upper 700m over 10 years)
– even if the ocean is acting as a net thermodynamic reservoir, that should be seen as “good news”: at the current rate, the upper 700m would warm by 0.7C by 2100 (and if half of this heat went even deeper, the net temperature increase would be even less).
– it takes a lot of imagination and a major leap of faith to imagine that a warming of the ocean of less than 1C is going to result in major global warming of the surface atmosphere if and when it decides to “come out of the pipeline” (the sort of thing a “model”, with no common sense built in, might envision, but no sane person would spend much time worrying about)
Max
Fact:JackGate — There has been no global warming on Earth over the last 10,000 years — see e.g., Easterbrook Graph… a 10,000 year cooling trend.
It’s raining and flooding all the way down the east coast of Oz.
I like the comment below. lol:
‘How many floods will it take to ram home the message that
climate change is real?’
Duh .. fergit ‘global warming’ and drought. The solution, of
course, is ‘keep the carbon tax.’
http://www.news.com.au/national/major-queensland-centres-brace-for-more-flooding-woes-as-rain-system-moves-north/story-fndo4ckr-1226586392234
Beth
Sorry ’bout them floods y’all are havin’
Made me think.
Pol-I-ti-shuns like ta plan
Ta tax as heavy as they can
Cli-ma-ti-shuns help their plot
By warnin’ ’bout it getting hot
An yer crops all dyin out
Cause there’s gonna be a drought
They’ll say it’s caused by yew an me
Cause we drive an S-U-V
But if it floods above yer head
They’ll say, “that’s whut our models said!”
An if its cold they’ll holler, “See,
Jest like we warned it’s gonna be!”
“So hot, cold, wet er dry
Let’s make them car-bon taxes high!”
Writ by: A nuther snow shuvlin, shiverin serf
Max
Dear fellow serf,
As yer say, so eloquently, Max, if it “does” it “is’ and if
it “doesn’t it “is” “does” denoting drought, flood, fire
or any other goddam pestilential event.”is’ denoting
“CAGW” now described more cicumspectly as
“climate change.” …Duh.
Beth the serfie.
The Other Migration Story in Mexico: Climate Change
http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2013/02/migration-story-mexico-climate-change
Willard
Get serious.
Mexicans (or Central Americans) are NOT moving north to the USA as “climate refugees”.
Duh!
They are economic refugees, just like many people moving into western Europe from poorer nations in Africa or other parts of Europe.
If you are REALLY interested in reading about “climate refugees”, read about the mass migrations across Europe (mostly from north to south) at the end of the Roman Optimum and the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Max
Max,
Desertification is a gradual process – not a step function. Once it sets in, there may still be some good years but there will be more bad years. Overall it will cause a farm to be less economically viable than it would otherwise be.
If that farm is then abandoned, is the ex-farmer then an economic or climate refugee? I’d say he was both, wouldn’t you?
Yes, MiniMax, the Roman Optimum.
Very interesting. Please continue.
That’s one small step for a desert, one giant leap for desertification.
tempterrain
A slightly warmer world (as we had during the Roman Optimum, for example) leads to less desertification than a slightly cooler world. Large parts of what is now the Sahara were not desert back in Roman days.
And it appears that the slight warming we have already seen since coming out of the Little Ice Age is causing a greening of parts of the Sahara (and other desert regions).
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
So your specter of “climate refugees” escaping increased desertification resulting from global warming resulting from human GHG emissions is contrived.
Fuggidaboudit, tempterrain. It’s a myth.
Max
Max,
So you are saying that we may be in danger of losing our deserts? That there’s no such thing as desertification anymore?
So how is it that Lake Chad has halved in area in last 50 years and the Sahara has expanded rather than contracted?
But you’re telling us that it would have expanded even faster without the benefit of all that lovely CO2 in the atmosphere?
I don’t like desertification. Lacks zest and gusto. The same applies to acidification.
What about landscape zenification?
tempterrain
You got it wrong, tt.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
As you can read the Sahara is shrinking not growing.
Max
PS Back during the warmer Roman Optimum, remember Carthage?
re Desertification, satellite data sees greening of planet. Ref
Dr Craig Idso on recent papers finding no increase in desertification.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-greening-of-the-planet.aspx
California GHG Auction: Some Anecdotal Evidence of the Cost of Regulatory Uncertainty
http://www.lawandenvironment.com/2013/02/california-ghg-auction-some-anecdotal-evidence-of-the-cost-of-regulatory-uncertainty
regulatory uncertainty is easily solved. elect libertarians
That’s the best idea you’ve had in like forever.
Mosh
You got it right.
(But it looks like your state, beautiful California, is already so far down the path of becoming a European-style “nanny state” that it may not be possible to reverse the trend. I hope not, but the patient may be DOA.)
Max
elect libertarians
I’ve no problem with any country electing anyone the voters choose. Part of me was half hoping that the USA would elect a very right wing libertarian President and Congress. I’d just be curious to know if things would turn out to be quite as bad as I think they would.
But overall I’m pleased they didn’t and I don’t believe they ever will. The so-called “Libertarians” just don’t have the numbers. They know that and that’s why they are dissing the concept of democracy by equating it with mob rule. Their only chance is an armed seizure of power. Is that what they are planning? Is that why they are so keen to hang on to their weapons?
tempterrain
Huh?
Where did you get that screwy idea?
Individual freedom and liberty (the ideal of libertarians) can only survive under a democratic system of government, where the individuals are free to choose the ruling class.
It’s so obvious it hurts.
Max
Max,
You need to have a chat with people like Wagathon. You’re a bit out of touch!
Will someone tell Max why Democracy isn’t a favoured concept in some circles these days?
If not you might just Google on key words like mob-rule, democracy, liberty etc and you’ll find plenty of this sort of thing:
Not mob rule, tempterrain. Just human nature.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
tempterrain
Democracy can survive longer than “200 years”, but it takes a constant effort to avoid the spiral that David Springer describes.
The key to its survival is individual freedom/liberty, an elected representative government that can be held accountable by the ultimate rulers (i.e. the voting public), ideally through direct referendum on key issues (or, if this is not practical, through the election of its representatives).
The greatest danger (implicit in David Springer’s spiral) is creeping totalitarianism, whereby the ruling class in the central government takes away an increasingly greater role in the decision process from the voting populace, until it has attained total power.
This is a natural process, as C. Northcote Parkinson noted humorously a half a century ago. Government bureaucracies grow organically unless this growth is stopped.
The voting public is the only force that can prevent this from happening, and limit the government’s role to providing those protections, infrastructures and services, which the public wants it to provide and no more.
That’s why “grass roots” libertarian citizens’ groups (like the “Tea Party” in the USA) have an important role to play. (BTW, there are also non-libertarian groups who oppose too much centralized government power on various specific issues, such as government intrusion into privacy, surveillance, etc.)
Switzerland has survived for over 700 years as the world’s oldest living democracy.
But it has been a constant struggle and still is, today, where one of the greatest challenges is to resist the pressure to allow the centralization of power under proposed EU membership, and thus the loss of sovereignty of the Swiss voting public.
Max
Max,
You see what I mean now after Dave Springer’s comment?
Look, its down to the Swiss voters to decide on membership of the EU. There’ll be pros and cons either way. Having to make a tough choice is not an argument for removing democracy but strengthening it.
Dave Springer is against democracy because he’s one of the 25%, or so, of US citizens who support or are sympathetic to the agenda of the so-called Tea Party. Tea Party candidates are unelectable on a national scale so naturally we see these sort of sentiments in their ranks.
re; Switzerland is the oldest surviving democracy at 700 years.
Yeah but China has been around for five times that long. Egypt even longer. Direct democracies don’t last. The United States experiment isn’t a democracy. It’s a constitutionally limited republic and the checks & balances of the constitution are being effectively voided by negation of states rights and supreme court that interprets it as a living document such that the commerce clause has been abused into meaninglessness. Everything under the sun in some trivial way, shape, or form effects interstate commerce and therefor everything under the sun is subject to control by the federal government. This too shall fail. The failure began in 1913 with the establishment of a permanent federal income tax. By 1930 the federal government was collecting money from individual citizens and using it to buy their votes with entitlements. Later states became effectively controlled by collecting revenue from individual citizens of those states and then offering much of it back to state governments with strings attached. There is another civil war in the offing. Keep your powder dry.
I’m not against democracy, per se. I’m against what’s called tyranny of the majority. Various theoretical means of preventing same were employed in the formation of the United States and in later years a strong middle class with upward mobility was thought to be the key but that’s failing too. The science of buying elections with the tiniest of majorities is too easily done with computers and instantaneous communications combined with what effectively a two-party system because no third party can become viable in that circumstance is bringing it down. The tea-party is a monkey wrench that might work making a pseudo third party that can transform marginal 51/49% majority/minority into a plurality where no majority, and hence no tyranny of the majority, can become functional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
tempterrain | February 28, 2013 at 6:22 pm |
“Dave Springer is against democracy because he’s one of the 25%, or so, of US citizens who support or are sympathetic to the agenda of the so-called Tea Party. Tea Party candidates are unelectable on a national scale so naturally we see these sort of sentiments in their ranks.”
What do you consider “national scale”? It would seem your definition excludes everything but presidential election. There are scores of congressmen who have Tea-Party stamp of approval. I might remind you that Sarah Frickin’ Palin, probably the least politically qualified person to run for national office in modern history, came within just a few percentage points of winning? After 8 years of the widely despised George W. Bush the republican nominees were supposed to be utterly crushed yet a ticket with a wacky fundamentalist Christian woman on it came too close for comfort to winning. Fortunately an ad-hoc majority in the house consisting of a coalition of Rinos and Tea Partiers can force gridlock. When it comes to Washington the best government is the one that do the least harm through deadlock. Clinton was able to compromise to get things done but governing from the middle is something that Obama just can’t do so he’s just not governing at all or doing what he can through fiat with government agencies and stretching the rules of executive power.
Dave Springer,
“Tyranny of the Majority” ? So you are saying that because democracy is not perfect “there is another civil war in the offing”. And what would that achieve, even if successful from your own POV ? It would replace what you imagine to be a tyranny with the harsh reality of the genuine article.
No one is saying democracy is perfect. For every democratically elected politician there are supposed to be three or four paid lobbyists in most western countries. The wealthy are able to afford the lobbyists, they can afford to run ads on TV, they can buy up newspapers and TV stations to disseminate their own opinions. There’s more evidence that , in this way, there is a tyranny of the minority over the majority than the other way around.
Some on the left disparage the whole concept of parliamentary democracy as being a sham. They are making the same argument as those on the right, essentially. Because it isn’t perfect let’s oppose it.
How about saying, because it isn’t perfect, let’s improve it?
tempterrain
Neither you nor I can discuss US politics very effectively, since neither of us live there.
I personally believe that David Springer is overly pessimistic in his premise that representative democracies (like the USA, Switzerland or Australia) are doomed to eventual failure because of the spiral to totalitarianism, as he described it. The premise is that when over half of the voting public is on the government dole in one way or another, the slide into totalitarianism and the loss of individual freedom is all but certain.
I would agree with him that the danger is there, the trend of ever more powerful central government is real and that it takes constant vigilance on the part of the voting public to make sure this spiral does not happen and that the government provides only those services, infrastructure and protections, which the people want, and no more.
As I understand it, Tea Party movements are a grass-roots expression of this resistance to bigger and more powerful central governments taking higher taxes from the public in order to finance larger government programs. As a result such movements are needed to slow down (or even reverse) the deadly spiral to totalitarianism and to ensure individual liberty.
As far as Switzerland joining the EU. This will not happen, even though some politicians would like to see it. A referendum to join the EFTA was rejected by the Swiss voters 20 years ago and the Swiss voting public is at least 70% united today that EU membership would be a bad deal. Polls taken in many neighboring regions of France, Germany, Austria and Italy show that the people there would like to join Switzerland if they could (but of course they cannot).
But there is the constant, not-so-gentle pressure from the EU (Switzerland’s largest trading partner) to “comply” with EU rules, regulations and laws.
The Swiss concept of representative democracy is “bottoms up”: starting at the community level (with the highest share of tax revenues), followed by the cantonal (or state) level (with the next highest) and finally the federal government (with the smallest piece of the tax revenues).
Obviously, joining the EU does not fit this approach.
As I understand it, this is the way the USA was first conceived (the Jeffersonian approach), but over the years the federal government has become more and more powerful (and has taken an increasing share of the total tax revenues). Whether or not this trend will ever be reversed (or even stopped) is questionable (and certainly not something I would be qualified to speculate on).
Max
“because it (democracy) isn’t perfect, let’s improve it?”
Yes. And the way to improve it is to limit what government is allowed to control. It should be be a means for advancing the common good, protecting some from the predations of others, giving all the same benefits and costs. It should categorically not (as now) be allowed to become a weapon for some to dominate others by means of huge taxes and bureaucracies.
Democracy is the means of attaining liberty but is no guarantee of maintaining it, as Hayek argues, (Ch 5 The Road to Serfdom ) and
as posters above discuss. Liberty requires constant vigilance by
a committed citizenry recognizing that the best government is one
that makes the least inroads on individual freedoms. The threat
for democracy is politicians buying crony votes with promises of
funding and/or new regulations sought by special interest groups
lsuch as the green movement..
Libertarians are not opposed to democracy; they believe that government should be elected.
What they are opposed to, is totalitarian government (including eg the welfare state), however it comes about – ie by dictatorship or by democracy.
What you could thus say, is that as libertarians oppose unlimited government, they also oppose unlimited democracy. IOW, that there are things that governments should not be allowed to do, no matter how many people vote for it (sending people to gas ovens ovens, high / redistributive taxes, whatever). The general idea is that democratic government should not be allowed to a means for the many to plunder or oppress the few. Mob rule by majority vote is still mob rule, a tyranny of the majority.
Libertarians think the basic purpose of government is to ensure that citizens do not violate each others’ rights. It should not as now largely be the very agent of some violating the rights of others (by discriminatory taxation and regulation etc).
BFJ Cricklewood,
Are you saying that Governments should have the power, say, to conscript young men and women into the armed forces, but they shouldn’t have the power to pay for their education if they can’t afford it themselves, and they shouldn’t have the power to pay their medical expenses if they are sick?
Should anyone have the right to plunder or extort others to pay for their own medical treatment and education ? No, noone should have the right to violate the rights of others; that is obviously just crime.
Should governments have the right to carry out the plunder and extortion on their behalf? No, that is just (massively) organized crime (common euphemism : the welfare state).
Like much else, helping the needy should be a consensual (market) activity, not a coercive (political) one.
I’m still not clear how you can claim to support democracy but at the same time restrict what policies voters may or may not choose. Democracy is about just that, the ability to choose which government should be elected and on what platform they should be elected on.
I’ve heard some suggestions that governments should be limited by the powers of constitutions. But who decides on the constitution anyway? That has to be done democratically too.
If voters decide that they want money spent on health care and education that’s their right. No-one agrees with everything governments spend money on – that’s normal. Get used to it and get over it.
Are you really so naive as to believe that voters actually get what they really want?
Politicians are highly adept sellers of snake oil, and the only real advantage of democracy over totalitarianism is that voters at least have a modicum of influence.
that (spending on health care etc) is obviously just crime.
It’s not at all obvious. For a start a crime is defined as the breaking of a law. The law, in nearly all countries, is the other way around. It actually states that taxes should be paid and its also a legal requirement that schools and hospitals should be funded and operate according to legally enforcable rules and regulations.
“Are you really so naive as to believe that voters actually get what they really want?”
I’d like zero taxes and free beer! But, I’m not naive enough to think that’s likely to happen any time soon. Sure, democracy has its obvious flaws and it’s easy to get cynical about politicians. Most people, in the West, tend to take it all for granted because they don’t have any personal experience of living under anything different. But there’s still plenty of countries where there’s no democracy. If you think life under Barrack Obama or David Cameron, or whoever, is bad just look at the alternatives.
Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that governments act according to the will of the people.
“Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that governments act according to the will of the people.”
Well no at times they don’t. I think everyone is aware of that. But, politicians always have one eye on the opinion polls and they know, and it’s good that they know, there is a limit to what they can get away with!
Yes, there’s a limit to what they can get away with, but they’re very adept at pushing those limits should they see fit, as history has shown us time and again – witness, for example, what happened in Germany in the 1930’s
“No-one agrees with everything governments spend money on – that’s normal. Get used to it and get over it.”
Yes, don’t object to or resist being oppressed, get used to it and get over it. That’s what unlimited democracy requires, even unto putting people into gas ovens.
I’m still not clear how you can claim to support democracy but at the same time restrict what policies voters may or may not choose.
If by “democracy” you mean mob rule – tyranny of the majority, no restrictions on what some voters can elect to have done to other voters – then you are right.
The libertarian objective though is a minimizing of tyranny (the polar opposite of libertarianism being totalitarianism, aka socialism, ie widespread state controls). And since unrestricted democracy promotes a tyranny of the majority, the two are in conflict. Of course to someone who sees no wrong with tyranny, calls to limit democracy will fall on deaf ears.
tempterrain
So it’s not obvious to you how some people being plundered and extorted to benefit others is a crime ?
The criminal in this case being the state itself, it is meaningless for you to point out that this is all a-ok with the state’s own laws and courts. If white people had been a majority in South Africa, would that have made apartheid a-ok too?
JC, where’s the ‘recent comments’ thingy?
It always helps ter call a shovel a b….. spade, ( replace ‘b…..’
with a popular Oz adjective,) Willis. Climate refugees are
so often political refugees, from cleptocracy – authoritarian
-regimes, yearning fer the life styles of free world capitalist
economies.
Beth,
Many of your political disposition accuse refugees of wanting to come to Oz for the free health care, free education and accuse them of being happy to bludge on the B***** dole!
If they had their way they’d order the Australian Navy to use the refugee boats for target practice.
I love it that Arlo Guthrie is a republican.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g266Uwp6ZnI
The toxicity of the refugee debate is shown in comments like that. I could accuse you of supporting the Labor party in sending Tamils back to be raped and tortured. You are too stupid for words.
CK,
I could accuse you of supporting the Labor party in sending Tamils back to be raped and tortured
Well you could – but you’d be wrong. The Labour Party have calculated that they need to ditch their previous stance, which I did support, in order to counter the Liberal line. I don’t know if that is a correct calculation but, if it is, I’d rather the Labour Party stuck to their principles and lost the election.
The political support for the refugees is from the Greens and those on the left of the Labour Party and those, on the left, but outside of the Labour Party.
There’s none from the political right as far as I know. Do you know of any?
It is spelt Labor – does not use the English spelling.
So you are even more of a dingbat than the Labor Party? The inner city dickwad hipster demographic that is less than 5% of the population and specialises in moral superiority and goats milk cheese.
Ideally – you would like a system that worked, where people did not drown enmasse, that satified obligations under the refugee convention and where people wern’t sent back to be raped, murdered and tortured. So take your stupid posturing and do something useful with it or stick it back up your arse where you got it from. I don’t really care.
CK,
I’ll take that as an acknowledgement that you don’t know of any so-called “libertarian” support for the plight of the Tamil refugees.
That’s why I do have a problem with the use of that word. “Libertarian” should mean that people are free to work and live where they like. But not if they are Tamil refugees eh? But it may be different if they were Tamil multimillionaires. Then they’d be welcome into Australia. No questions asked – except maybe a short check to verify they did, in fact, possess a certain level of wealth.
The Australian term is small l liberal – and derives from the Scottish enlightenment. I think we need a whole new approach but I can only speak for myself and am not prepared to discuss anything on this with such as you.
Your politically motivated rants are unbearably stupid.
Captain Kangaroo,
You’re backing away from a scrap on this one? You’re being quite sensible for once!
tempterrain
Oz is not the only haven for “climate refugees” looking for relief from the heat (and free health care plus monthly government funding). We have them in Switzerland, too.
Switzerland has a 1.8 million non-Swiss residents (22.5% of the total population of 8 million)., but only around a third of these came as “climate refugees”, with the rest just coming (mostly from other European countries) to work and live here.
During the war in Sri Lanka we got lots of (Tamil) Sri Lankan “climate refugees” (40,000); the war in ex-Yugoslavia sent us some “climate refugees” from Kosovo and Bosnia (350,000) and the Arab spring in North Africa plus the war in Eritrea has sent us another wave of “climate refugees” from Africa (120,000).
And all this despite the fact that it hasn’t warmed over the past 10-15 years!
Go figure.
Max
No I am backing away from an amoral idiot who wants to argue this in terms of warm inner glow pissant progressive politics. I find it utterly repulsive that you can use human suffering to construct a narrative in which you have a starring role as a sterling moral compass but in fact achieve less than nothing at all. The bible says that you shall know them by their fruit. By your fruits you are a horrible little twat.
Max,
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that all refugees are “climate refugees”. And no-one is saying that all climate refugees get into boats and end up in detention camps.
John Steinbeck’s novel “The grapes of wrath” tells the story of an Oklahoman family whose farm was in the dust bowl area, and useless, and so migrated to California . The causes of the dust bowl weren’t solely from climate change. That may have been a factor but bad agricultural practices were probably more significant. At the time they were just considered to be economic refugees looking for a better life. Most mass migrations are defined ultimately by economics of one form or another.
We probably haven’t seen anywhere near the worst of it yet. Climate change may cause wars and of course wars create refugees who won’t have much if any money. So will they be classed as economic refugees, war refugees or climate refugees? It won’t be as clear cut as many might imagine.
Captain Kangaroo,
If you find it “repulsive” then I must be on the right track. But I can’t take all the credit. I have to share that with Beth. She’s the one who brought up the subject of refugees. I’m just interested in knowing why so-called ‘libertarians’ are quite so libertarian on this issue as they are on others.
tempterrain
Well, there is no doubt that one of the largest mass migrations that ever occurred was the movement of the Barbarian (mostly Germanic) tribes that finally ended the Western Roman Empire.
And there is good evidence that a major cause of this movement (mostly from north to south) was the end of the Roman Optimum and the start of a colder climate cycle, with resulting harsher weather, crop failures and famines, forcing these masses of people to leave their homelands and migrate.
So I can see why (in earlier times when people were more dependent on and vulnerable to the weather than today) a shift to colder weather in the temperate zones could cause “climate refugees”.
In addition to several years of drought, the “Dust Bowl” was at least partly caused by over-farming marginal regions that were not really meant for farming long-term. So the “Grapes of Wrath” folks could be considered “climate refuges”, but only partly.
As pointed out earlier, past periods of warmer climate have generally coincided with “greening” of deserts while colder climate is associated with increased desertification.
Climate changes continuously.
Despite the current “pause”, it appears that we are still in a general phase of slight warming.
This should open up agricultural farm land that is too cold today across N. America, Europe and Asia, where most of humanity lives.
At the same time it could very likely also result in some greening of areas that are currently too arid for agriculture.
And there may even be some local areas that are affected adversely.
But I think it is silly to speculate that there will be more negative than positive impacts from a slight continued warming and thus a major increase in “climate refugees”.
Based on history, I’d be more concerned if it started to cool off again over a longer period of time.
Max
‘If you find it “repulsive” then I must be on the right track. But I can’t take all the credit. I have to share that with Beth. She’s the one who brought up the subject of refugees. I’m just interested in knowing why so-called ‘libertarians’ are quite so libertarian on this issue as they are on others.’
You are quite toxic. Beth made a distinction beween calling people climate refugees – a nonsense category because nowhere has climate changed in a way that is distinguisable from background – and people fleeing tyranny. You will find that all true liberals are in favour of protecting human rights. If you had any sense of history – you would know that enlightenment liberals championed freedoms everywhere in the world. You would know that Lincoln was a Republican. You would know that freedom is not an ideal for yourself only but for all humanity.
If you had any practical and pragmatic ideas – by all means. But you don’t – you have only simplistic, shallow and moralising judgements based on warm inner glow politics. It is all so pointless and vapid – tell me how you have been a hero of freedom and I will be impressed – I will not be impressed with your stupid cafe society politics.
tempt .
, fer the record I wasn’t the one who brought up the subject of refugees. it was Willard, 26/02 @ 19.am with this:
http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2013/02/migration-story-mexico-climate-change/#.US8trjffHFk
My response was on much current migration as a political issue due to
mis government.
“Lincoln was a Republican.” Well yes that’s true. The US was still a revolutionary society in the mid 19th century. There was a strong grouping known as the Radical Republicans which was a driving force for the abolition of slavery. But as American society has changed and become more conservative, so has the Republican Party changed with it. There are few, if any, Radical Republicans left. The name itself seems to be a contradiction in terms even. There’s just nothing radical left any more. Its become an ultra conservative Party. Period. (as the Americans say)
But back to pragmatic solutions as far as Australia is concerned. I’d start by processing asylum seekers on shore like other countries do. It costs ten times as much to process them in another country anyway. That’s just a cynical way of removing the protection of Australian law without the embarrassment of actually changing it.
Beth,
You say the Tamil refugees are fleeing because of mis-government. Some will say they are fleeing in the aftermath of a war. Others will say they are wanting to move to Australia purely for economic reasons.
That’s the way it is when there is a refugee problem. There’s always more than one single reason for it.
Republicans, ultra-conservative? In what world? Republicans have compromised their conservative position on practically every issue.
Beth,
Your response would have looked like a response if it did respond to it in a structural way.
Besides, I hope you can own your comment, since I’m not making you write it.
In any case, please do continue.
tempterrain
You are revealing your total ignorance of the USA with statements like:
American society has, indeed, changed since the mid-19thC.
But it has NOT “become more conservative”.
Instead it has become “LESS conservative” and more “social” (as have most nations).
Read your history.
Max
tempterrain
Having lived briefly in Sri Lanka during the brief “pause” in hostilities (2001/2002) and having good friends, who still live their now, I can comment to your #299296.
You write to Beth:
The war is over. The ending was brutal (for the Tamils).
The current ultra-socialist (i.e. communist) government is full of corruption and waste, and does not care a whit about the populace; as in most communist countries, there is no real democracy and poverty is rampant. And Tamils are considered second-class citizens, to boot.
So Beth is right: the poverty is largely a result of the mis-government, and that’s why people are still leaving long after the shooting and killing have stopped.
But they are NOT “climate refugees” in any shape or form.
Neither are all the Africans that are feeing to Europe. either from open war, abject poverty or dictatorial governments.
Max
“I love it that Arlo Guthrie is a republican.”
I’m a republican too! Do you love that? His Dad use to sing “this land is your land, this is my land” which has very leftish sentiments. Does he sing that song too?
Max,
Yes you’re right that the whole of America has changed since the mid 19th century and in many ways it is more progressive now than it was then. But that’s not because of the Republican Party. What I probably should have said is that the American establishment has lost its revolutionary zeal. The kind of zeal that led them to side with Napoleon against the British and invade Canada in 1812 for example.
Its difficult to imagine now but the French and American republican movements were viewed as dangerous social experiments in the 19th century by other European powers principally the British. I believe US republicans used to use the term Tory as a form of abuse in the same way as modern day British socialists would. That’s all gone now. US Republicanism doesn’t mean anti-monarchism and anti aristocracy any more, but it did at one time.
Sri Lanka Communist? No that’s not right
Current politics in Sri Lanka is a contest between two rival coalitions led by the centre-leftist and progressivist United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), an offspring of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and the comparatively right-wing and pro-capitalist United National Party (UNP).
Many of your political disposition accuse refugees of wanting to come to Oz for the free health care, free education and accuse them of being happy to bludge on the B***** dole!
You’d have to be staggeringly naive to deny that, no matter what your political disposition.
I was jest going ter ask the same thing, Edim.
Yes, wheres the ‘recent comments’ section gone, its impossible to follow the current debate.
tonyb
I think Joshua complained that folks were stalking him and responding to his comments. or thats what peter lang told me.. ok sarc off
Was that where he claimed I had a breakdown on this blog and starting following him around humping his leg? I think that’s what he said about me, and if he feels like he’s been molested, it’d make sense for the people behind the curtain to want to protect him.
How are we gonna keep track of every one Tony, yikes!!
Beth.
Beth? Beth? Is that you? Raise your hand and shout if it is…
tonyb
Lost – in – the- fog – i – pray – i’m – not – headin’ – fer – the slough –
of – Despond … aaarrgghhh!
If this is deliberate, it will diminish flame wars, and inhibit conversation. Judy’s call.
=======
Suppositions there, tempt, I ‘m makin’ a distinction between
‘political’ and ‘climate’ refugees. As fer firin’ on anyone, well
I ‘m pro the individual and anti ends justifin’ means. Noble
cause corruption ain’t a libertarians’ scene, tempt, hope it
ain’t yrs either.
@Beth
“I ‘m makin’ a distinction between ‘political’ and ‘climate’ refugees”
I’m a refugee from the political climate.
I think it was spr..ger – he triggered an implosion of the recent comments list. I don’t dare even say his name.
Slough of despond? Is that near vale of tears?
Say the warminista trolls seem to have regrouped and are mounting a full frontal assualt led by General Le Pétomane ably assisted by Lance Corporal numbnut. The artillary is not all that accurate – but adds to the fog of war.
‘Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.’
Shibboleth and I are attempting a flanking manoeuvre.
From the front line of the climate war.
Best Rergards
Captain Kangaroo
The front line can be a dangerous place ter be, take care not ter
be in the line of fire, Captain Kangaroo and Shibboleth. )
“Keep yer head down, yer bowels loose and never volunteer for nuthin”
Is it normal that I can’t see the list of last posts as it used to be on the right side ?
It was very useful because looking at the names I could know whether there was a probability to read something interesting or not.
But perhaps it is only a problem on my end ?
Nope, it’s changed. Accident or on purpose? What would JC do?
===============
Top jest, kim!
kim and tonyb
Type in “recent comments” in the box
They will come back when you reopen Climate Etc.
(It worked for me.)
Max
Look. Ive got a torch and rope. I’ll climb up and see if there are any other survivors on this thread. I may be some time…
tonyb
OK, Im back. There seems to be some survivors having a firefight on this thread.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-298952
Its nasty though, you might want to cover the childrens eyes. Oh the humanity!
tonyb
Bingo! Climate models are domesticated turkeys dropped out of helicopters.
=======
A classic that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST01bZJPuE0
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Heh, exit line for the modelers.
===============
Mmmmm…
Turkey fricassee!
My fav’rite.
Max
Here is an excellent demonstration of why the IPCC got wrong its 0.2 deg C/decade warming for the next two decades.
http://bit.ly/13Wi8d9
The above result shows the recent warming of about 0.2 deg C/decade is the transient warming rate and the long-term warming rate is a smaller value of about 0.1 deg C per decade, which reduces IPCC’s climate sensitivity estimate by half to about 1.5 deg C.
Oh No! The warmist “orthodoxy police” are at it again!!
Obviously, they are trying to cripple Climate Etc. — because of how the endless comments here saying the same things over and over again are exposing the fraud being committed by fraudulent climate scientists in The Great AGW Hoax (Peter Lang’s comments in particular!)
And the worst thing is – people won’t see this comment to find out what’s going on!!!!1!!!1!!
How long will this last? How deep will this tyrannical silencing of noble “skeptics” continue!!!!??!!?1?1!!
Oh. The humanity!!!!1!!1!!!!
Weird. This must be someone’s sockpuppet – Joshua’s usually far more on point and sensible.
If this really is Joshua, could you kindly point to the paranoiac post you are mocking? Everyone should be enabled to join in…
If there isn’t one, are you just making things up on behalf of some sort of misguided tribal loyalty? That’s not generally like you…
lol!
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/11/15/curry-down.html
Grab the women and children and head for the hills! Don’t forget the keys to the bunker!!
A three month old comment on another blog? A comment that was not taken seriously by any other commenter? A comment that was walked back on within a couple of hours?
You’re really reaching here, Joshua. Your tribal roots are showing, methinks…
kch-
There’s more where that comes from. He made a couple of similar posts on this blog as well. As I recall, no one said “Dude, that is just flat-out paranoid nonsense.” Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The level of delusional thinking reflected in that post (i.e., that there is some “orthodoxy police” monitoring all comments at blogs, let alone that such a “police” force has the influence to get WordPress to shut down Judith’s blog because of one among thousands of comments made daily in the “skept-o-sphere”) is obvious.
“Walked-back?” He later “admitted” that his speculation was “wrong.” It wasn’t wrong – it was delusional. What kind of a mentality dreams up such a postulation?
The point is that we’re all tribal. Of course my “tribal roots” are showing. I wouldn’t ever pretend otherwise. Would you? Would anyone deny that to be that delusional, Peter would have to have massively succumbed to bias rooted in motivational reasoning? I have no basic problem with legitimate questions from skeptics. What I find hilarious is when “skeptics” employ obviously “skeptical” thinking and then deny the obvious and also generalize about the thinking of “skeptics” as if motivated reasoning isn’t a prominent feature (even as they say that you can’t generalize about “skeptics”).
Joshua-
As an example of delusional thinking that post was pretty mild – more like self-important speculation than anything else. Aside from others pointing out that he was wrong, it was mostly ignored at BH. I certainly don’t remember anyone taking it seriously. It’s definitely something to be pointed at and mocked at the time, but…months later? Why bother?
Also, I somehow doubt that your point in your original comment was ‘…that we’re all tribal.’ (Who can argue with that?) I’d suggest that your point in your original comment was to score some cheap yuks by parodizing something not said on this blog, at this time, about the current WordPress foul-up. The only motivated thinking I saw was yours.
And…it was disappointing. You’ve spent a great deal of time and effort on this blog and others holding peoples toes to the fire of self-examination of motive. You’re frequently one-sided about it (and sometimes just plain tiresome), but at I, at least, have learned to honestly examine my positions for the reasoning behind them. Truly useful.
But now, mockery from nowhere. For nothing. Has the debate grown so wearisome, so disappointing that reason has to be displaced with point-and-laugh? Pretty depressing, if so.
kch –
I’m not going to go to the mat in defense of the value of blog silliness (whether it be mine or that of others) …and you make other good points as well. I do think it’s worth noting one fairly subtle but still important point, however:
I try not to question motive. Asking for consideration of motivated reasoning does not equate to questioning motive. It is actually, IMO, an important distinction.
kch
I kinda suspected this was the case, but it’s clear now that Josh has lost it.
A pity.
Max
Joshua protesteth much.
==============
I doubt anyone’s still reading this far down the thread, but if so…
Joshua –
“Asking for consideration of motivated reasoning does not equate to questioning motive. It is actually, IMO, an important distinction.”
I don’t see the distinction you are making. If you have the time/inclination, I would appreciate your expanding on this. (I do believe that I can see the distinction in theory, but your apparent – to me, anyway – lack of even-handedness in application would seem to defeat the theory here.)
Max –
Don’t overstate it. I think he just succumbed to the joy of the cheap shot. And, really, who hasn’t?
Seems it’s ridgy-didge. The Northern Hemisphere has recorded it’s coldest official temp, well and truly eclipsing that of 1933. If I was a climate bedwetter I’d make something of that. It does not mean a bloody thing, of course, but it’s fascinating how a “record” becomes an “extreme” when the implication is inconvenient.
I’m of the opinion that nobody has a clue what future climate will be like (because its complexity is worse than we thought, think or will think). However, it seems that, even if a new Ice Age occurred right now, our climate luvvies, after a slightly embarrassed consultation of Skeptical Science and the Tammie who isn’t Debbie Reynolds or Sandra Dee, would soon have it all fitted nicely to their script.
Even if the impossible happened and we found ourselves living in a “stable” climate, they’d attribute its “eerie sameness” or “unnatural monotony” to You-Know-What. Give up, rednecks. Just send money.
Show them the bloody money!
The
box disappeared.
Our beloved Bishop’s comment disappeared.
Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
You be the judge.
Willard,
What was the Bishop’s comment?
Good question, Cap’n.
Heh, Cap’n, imagine trying to teach him to fish.
==========
Joshua, inquiring minds want to know. who is paying you to be able to blog commment 24 hours a day? Who is your boss?
Bob,
Thank you for your concerns.
Why ask that q only to Joshua?
Willard oh Willard, because he is the only one that causes me, a very part time reader, to deliberately avoid reading anything he has to say. Sometimes, my curiosity gets the best of me and then I curse my lack of discipline. Cause tinnitus oh Willard. Reading him is enough to make a grown man cry. Reading him should be a Geneva Violation.
bob –
Spectacular logic and reasoning.
If you had to guess, bob… what % of your comments at Climate Etc. would you say are in response to my comments?
Do you think it might be higher or lower than the % of your responses to other commenters, on average?
I have a guess about the answer, and that the answer will prove that you are “skeptic” and not a skeptic. I’m curious as to whether you share my assessment.
Whadya think, bob?
Ka-ching!
I do want to commend you, however.
The reasoning behind (paraphrasing):
is a thing of beauty and a sight to behold.
As an appreciator of the mind of “skeptics,” I thank you, bob, from the bottom of my heart.
Curiosity will kill the Bob.
Please cease and desist, for your own good it seems.
willard, cease I shall. Joshua has caused me develop a mild form of Tourette’s Syndrome. Should I consult an attorney?
Good question, Bob.
Bob –
The climate “orthodoxy police” pay me. Quite handsomely, I might add. There’s a matrix of multiplier bonuses based on number and type of comments in response to mine – and commenters asking me who pays me are worth the most remuneration!
Thanks, Bob! I’ll enjoy a fine steak tonight due to your attention. Please don’t stop now.
Joshua, I hear that new drugs are in the pipeline. One is being tested for inane verbosity and they are recruiting patients. You available?
I think ol’ Joshua gets paid by the non-answer.
Andrew
But he gets a bonus if he can hit his “Skeptics Are Bad” quota for the month.
Andrew
Since when has eating steak been allowed in the looney left wing orthodoxy, joshie? Read any books lately?
http://acko.net/blog/to-infinity-and-beyond/
How much to simplify is always a dilemma. Take radiant energy, it is incoherent, non-polarized, isotropic and homogeneous. In order to simplify, you assume an ideal “shell” to limit it to anistropic, up/down, with negligible stored energy and a finite thickness based on the spectrum of the particular portion of the spectrum of interest, with an infinite power source to maintain a constant energy state. You reduce a remarkable complex situation to a simple “shell” of its former self :).
Now imagine analogizing the atmosphere of the Earth as a bridge, Cap,’n.
Willard, could you imagine analogizing the oceans of the Earth like an atmosphere? :)
Good question, Cap’n. Let’s wait for Chief to take the cue.
Willard’s larned a lot for an analogy so apt.
================
Seems fair enough to me. Sometimes I even reply to Joshua without reading his comment.
> Sometimes I even reply to Joshua without reading his comment.
If we can rely on what you said many times, you might prefer to say that you even reply through Joshua, Captain.
Not sure exactly what you mean there, willard – but I will point out that what Chief says (at least on this topic) isn’t reliable.
First, he has said a number of times that he ignores my posts only to often contradict that statement by responding to my posts.
Second, I’d say his claim of responding to my posts w/o reading them is highly implausible – as it is rare that he has responded to my posts (which he does quite often) w/o specific reference to what I said in the post he was responding do.
It is interesting, however, why Chief engages in behavior that he then needs to deny in a fashion that doesn’t pass basic skeptical scrutiny.
Any thoughts about why he’d do that?
Chief does not respond to your comments, Joshua: he simply posts after yours.
It must look like a conversation, you know, for that’s what we’re supposed to be having.
Not really an expert on bridges – but I did do finite element analysis and steel design at university. Finite it may be but is certainly not infintesimal – and materials variability are dealt with both in quality assured manufacture and safety factors. 1.67 times calculated stress is less than the nominal steel strength from memory of those dim and distant pasts.
In general in natural philosophy – however – arguing from analogy is discouraged.
Solar-Terrestrial Volatility Weaves
We must stop wasting resources; stop substituting climate change hysteria for prudence and stop destroying the economy and basic principles of personal responsibility that demand we think clearly and act rationally. Our safety and security and the future of our country are at stake. We must be less hypocritical of our indictment of industrialization and modernity: Richard Lindzen asks that we all be more intelligent than to simplistically assume “the earth’s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century.” Whatever nature brings our way, Lindzen reminds us that human history is very clear—i.e., “that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience.”
Prof Nasif Nahle has done studies on backradiation in his paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/New_Concise_Experiment_on_Backradiation.pdf
which I cited a year ago in my paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
Nasif is one of several physicists and professors of other disciplines on the team at Principia Scientific International all of whom recognise fallacies in the AGW conjecture.
You need to see the big picture to understand the relative insignificance of backradiation, as explained towards the end of my latest paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
1. The thermal gradient (AKA “effective lapse rate”) is pre-determined by the force of gravity, the weighted mean specific heat of the gases in a planet’s atmosphere (at that altitude) and the degree of intra-molecular radiation which, in the case of Earth, is somewhat dependent on the percentage of water vapour which, as is well known, makes the gradient less steep.
2. The overall level of the plot is established by the autonomous propensity for there to be radiative equilibrium with incident Solar radiation. The area under the curved plot of outward radiative intensity thus has a propensity to remain constant if the gradient alters. So extra water vapour makes it less steep by lowering the surface end and raising the tropopause end.
3. The surface temperature can then be calculated by extrapolation of the thermal plot of temperature against altitude in the troposphere. The temperature can be derived using SBL from the values of radiative flux at each altitude from (2). The higher the tropopause, the greater the distance over which the temperature can rise, this explaining why Venus is much hotter than Earth.
4. The mechanism whereby the thermal plot is maintained involves the absorption of energy originally from the Sun (both in downwelling and upwelling radiation) which is then dispersed in all directions over the thermal plane, in order to maintain thermodynamic equilibrium, in accord with the requirements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
5. The thermal plot continues its upward climb more steeply in the crust (due to lower specific heat) but far less steeply in the hottest regions of the mantle because specific heat increases significantly with increasing temperatures.
6. Heat creep, as described in (4) allows thermal energy to enter deeply into the subsurface regions and, eventually, to support core temperatures and provide energy which can contribute to that in volcanoes and thermal springs and vents.
7.The surface warms temporarily during the day and then both radiative and non-radiative processes slow its rate of cooling, but there is a limit to such cooling due to the underlying very stable thermal plot of temperature against altitude or underground depth. This is why the base of the atmosphere does not continue cooling at a fast rate all through the night. The force of gravity redistributes absorbed energy in such a way as to provide a supporting temperature at the boundary of the surface and atmosphere, and even at the boundary of the mantle and core.
It shouldn’t matter whether it is net in or net out, should it?
============
I can’t get past P1 of Nasif. If it startes off so wrong – how can it get any better. It is totally insane.
No the truth is, Mr Anonymous Hydrologist it’s not wrong, but you find it uncomfortable, perhaps for personal reasons. If you are going to say anything I write is wrong, then you are going to need to back up what you say with physics at a comparable level, which I rather doubt that you know. Anything but accurate physics would be like water off a duck’s back. I’ve argued with hundreds like you in the course of writing thousands of comments on climate blogs. Go and find anyone who’s successfully corrected me anywhere since, say, my first peer-reviewed paper was published nearly a year ago.
Be watching on Principia Scientific International and some blogs for my next article starting …
Roy Spencer’s misunderstood misunderstanding
and the $100,000,000,000 Question
by Douglas Cotton
The question as to whether carbon dioxide has any warming or cooling effect on world climate hinges entirely on one key issue, which I will discuss in this article and endeavour to explain in a way that is understandable to those not versed in the science of atmospheric physics, but also irrefutable by those who are. The issue is one which was first raised in the 19th century and it has been debated ever since. Yet it is surprisingly easy to resolve with what is now standard physics.
and ending …
So Roy Spencer’s “misunderstanding” is in fact more than just a misunderstanding: it is a huge error made by all those propagating the mistaken concept of a radiative greenhouse effect, supposedly raising the surface temperature 33 degrees.
World economies are going to suffer and lives are going to be lost, all because of this. We need to think on that, and not misunderstand the consequences.
Everyone knows my name Doug – it is Robert I Ellison. Chief Hydrologist is a reference to The Simpsons I find amusing. I have such a small mind and am easily amused.
‘The incident solar power flux impinging on Earth’s surface, which is (known as insolation), is already an annual average, during daylight exclusively, that should not be averaged once again [1]. The result obtained from averaging insolation twice is an unphysical average of solar power flux impinging on the outer sphere by dividing the annual average of incident solar power flux on each square meter of the outer sphere by four…’ Nasif Knucklehead
The reduction by four is the result of pure geometry – and is not derived from any other considerations at all. So page 1 I gave it up as a hopeless case not worth wating my time on further. It is all totally insane.
Mr Everyone Knows Me:
My paper is not dependent upon Prof Nahle’s paper, which I only mentioned above because of another reference to it by Norman on Roy Spencer’s blog, which, by the way, seems to be hacked at the moment, so I can’t give you the link.
But, in case you have any further difficulty in understanding what Nasif is saying, he is pointing out that mean radiative flux cannot be determined by taking a mean of the corresponding temperature and then raising that temperature to its fourth power, as per SBL. The mean of the fourth powers of a set of numbers is nothing like the fourth power of the mean of those numbers, now is it?
The real Earth rotates, absorbs Solar energy into its surface, and cools at night. At higher temperatures the radiative flux is significantly greater, not in proportion to T, but in proportion to the fourth power of T. So if you just average T and average Solar radiation as if the Sun only warms the surface (with constant radiation day and night) to 255K, then you are falling into the trap of using averages of averages, instead of integrating radiative flux (which is based on T^4) over all temperatures and all altitudes, with different emissivity in the atmosphere than at the surface..
You could also read …
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/The_Model_Atmosphere.pdf
and
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/Copernicus_Meets_the_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
though my paper does not depend upon these issues.
As best I can estimate the 255K should really be somewhere between 265K and 275K, (-8C to +2C) after allowing for lower emissivity in the atmosphere, and integrating for a rotating sphere, rather than a flat Earth. Then the redistribution of KE by gravity leads to the surface in a totally dry region being around 20 to 25 deg C, with water vapour then reducing it to about 15 deg.C.
Mr dickwad of the longwinded and totally pointless equivocation
You descend immediately into lies and obfuscation. Not much point continuing is there?
China’s 2012 Energy Report Card by Trevor Houser | February 27, 2013
Note especially the rapid increase in energy related CO2 – higher than the US.
Highlighted by Andrew Revkin at DotEarth
I was impressed by the manner in which he diminished the accomplishment of manned/womanned space flight, in stark contrast to the ‘Race’ between the US and the USSR, way back when. Very middlekingdomly.
==========
…the snow doesn’t give a soft white
damn Whom it touches -e.e. cummings
That’s one of the coolest comments yew have made here on CE,
Wagathon :)
John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, calls “Global Warming” the greatest scam in history.
The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam by John Coleman
The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming.
How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?
The story begins with an Oceanographer named Roger Revelle. He served with the Navy in World War II. After the war he became the Director of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla in San Diego , California . Revelle saw the opportunity to obtain major funding from the Navy for doing measurements and research on the ocean around the Pacific Atolls where the US military was conducting atomic bomb tests. He greatly expanded the Institute’s areas of interest and among others hired Hans Suess, a noted Chemist from the University of Chicago , who was very interested in the traces of carbon in the environment from the burning of fossil fuels. Revelle tagged on to Suess studies and co-authored a paper with him in 1957. The paper raises the possibility that the carbon dioxide might be creating a greenhouse effect and causing atmospheric warming. It seems to be a plea for funding for more studies. Funding, frankly, is where Revelle’s mind was most of the time.
Next Revelle hired a Geochemist named David Keeling to devise a way to measure the atmospheric content of Carbon dioxide. In 1960 Keeling published his first paper showing the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and linking the increase to the burning of fossil fuels.
These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas. In addition they failed to explain how this trace gas, only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, could have any significant impact on temperatures.
Now let me take you back to the 1950s when this was going on. Our cities were entrapped in a pall of pollution from the crude internal combustion engines that powered cars and trucks back then and from the uncontrolled emissions from power plants and factories. Cars and factories and power plants were filling the air with all sorts of pollutants. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution and a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action. Government accepted this challenge and new environmental standards were set. Scientists and engineers came to the rescue. New reformulated fuels were developed for cars, as were new high tech, computer controlled engines and catalytic converters. By the mid seventies cars were no longer big time polluters, emitting only some carbon dioxide and water vapor from their tail pipes. Likewise, new fuel processing and smoke stack scrubbers were added to industrial and power plants and their emissions were greatly reduced, as well.
But an environmental movement had been established and its funding and very existence depended on having a continuing crisis issue. So the research papers from Scripps came at just the right moment. And, with them came the birth of an issue; man-made global warming from the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
Revelle and Keeling used this new alarmism to keep their funding growing. Other researchers with environmental motivations and a hunger for funding saw this developing and climbed aboard as well. The research grants began to flow and alarming hypothesis began to show up everywhere.
The Keeling curve showed a steady rise in CO2 in atmosphere during the period since oil and coal were discovered and used by man. As of today, carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million. But, despite the increases, it is still only a trace gas in the atmosphere. While the increase is real, the percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 remains tiny, about .41 hundredths of one percent.
Several hypothesis emerged in the 70s and 80s about how this tiny atmospheric component of CO2 might cause a significant warming. But they remained unproven. Years have passed and the scientists kept reaching out for evidence of the warming and proof of their theories. And, the money and environmental claims kept on building up.
Back in the 1960s, this global warming research came to the attention of a Canadian born United Nation’s bureaucrat named Maurice Strong. He was looking for issues he could use to fulfill his dream of one-world government. Strong organized a World Earth Day event in Stockholm , Sweden in 1970. From this he developed a committee of scientists, environmentalists and political operatives from the UN to continue a series of meeting.
Strong developed the concept that the UN could demand payments from the advanced nations for the climatic damage from their burning of fossil fuels to benefit the underdeveloped nations, a sort of CO2 tax that would be the funding for his one-world government. But, he needed more scientific evidence to support his primary thesis. So Strong championed the establishment of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was not a pure climate study scientific organization, as we have been lead to believe. It was an organization of one-world government UN bureaucrats, environmental activists and environmentalist scientists who craved the UN funding so they could produce the science they needed to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Over the last 25 years they have been very effective. Hundreds of scientific papers, four major international meetings and reams of news stories about climatic Armageddon later, the UN IPCC has made its points to the satisfaction of most and even shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
At the same time, that Maurice Strong was busy at the UN, things were getting a bit out of hand for the man who is now called the grandfather of global warming, Roger Revelle. He had been very politically active in the late 1950’s as he worked to have the University of California locate a San Diego campus adjacent to Scripps Institute in La Jolla . He won that major war, but lost an all important battle afterward when he was passed over in the selection of the first Chancellor of the new campus.
He left Scripps finally in 1963 and moved to Harvard University to establish a Center for Population Studies. It was there that Revelle inspired one of his students to become a major global warming activist. This student would say later, “It felt like such a privilege to be able to hear about the readouts from some of those measurements in a group of no more than a dozen undergraduates. Here was this teacher presenting something not years old but fresh out of the lab, with profound implications for our future!” The student described him as “a wonderful, visionary professor” who was “one of the first people in the academic community to sound the alarm on global warming,” That student was Al Gore. He thought of Dr. Revelle as his mentor and referred to him frequently, relaying his experiences as a student in his book Earth in the Balance, published in 1992.
So there it is, Roger Revelle was indeed the grandfather of global warming. His work had laid the foundation for the UN IPCC, provided the anti-fossil fuel ammunition to the environmental movement and sent Al Gore on his road to his books, his movie, his Nobel Peace Prize and a hundred million dollars from the carbon credits business.
What happened next is amazing. The global warming frenzy was becoming the cause celeb of the media. After all the media is mostly liberal, loves Al Gore, loves to warn us of impending disasters and tell us “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”. The politicians and the environmentalist loved it, too.
But the tide was turning with Roger Revelle. He was forced out at Harvard at 65 and returned to California and a semi retirement position at UCSD. There he had time to rethink Carbon Dioxide and the greenhouse effect. The man who had inspired Al Gore and given the UN the basic research it needed to launch its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was having second thoughts. In 1988 he wrote two cautionary letters to members of Congress. He wrote, “My own personal belief is that we should wait another 10 or 20 years to really be convinced that the greenhouse effect is going to be important for human beings, in both positive and negative ways.” He added, “…we should be careful not to arouse too much alarm until the rate and amount of warming becomes clearer.”
And in 1991 Revelle teamed up with Chauncey Starr, founding director of the Electric Power Research Institute and Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, to write an article for Cosmos magazine. They urged more research and begged scientists and governments not to move too fast to curb greenhouse CO2 emissions because the true impact of carbon dioxide was not at all certain and curbing the use of fossil fuels could have a huge negative impact on the economy and jobs and our standard of living. I have discussed this collaboration with Dr. Singer. He assures me that Revelle was considerably more certain than he was at the time that carbon dioxide was not a problem.
Did Roger Revelle attend the Summer enclave at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California in the Summer of 1990 while working on that article? Did he deliver a lakeside speech there to the assembled movers and shakers from Washington and Wall Street in which he apologized for sending the UN IPCC and Al Gore onto this wild goose chase about global warming? Did he say that the key scientific conjecture of his lifetime had turned out wrong? The answer to those questions is, “I think so, but I do not know it for certain”. I have not managed to get it confirmed as of this moment. It’s a little like Las Vegas ; what is said at the Bohemian Grove stays at the Bohemian Grove. There are no transcripts or recordings and people who attend are encouraged not to talk. Yet, the topic is so important, that some people have shared with me on an informal basis.
Roger Revelle died of a heart attack three months after the Cosmos story was printed. Oh, how I wish he were still alive today. He might be able to stop this scientific silliness and end the global warming scam.
Al Gore has dismissed Roger Revelle’s Mea culpa as the actions of senile old man. And, the next year, while running for Vice President, he said the science behind global warming is settled and there will be no more debate, From 1992 until today, he and his cohorts have refused to debate global warming and when asked about we skeptics they simply insult us and call us names.
So today we have the acceptance of carbon dioxide as the culprit of global warming. It is concluded that when we burn fossil fuels we are leaving a dastardly carbon footprint which we must pay Al Gore or the environmentalists to offset. Our governments on all levels are considering taxing the use of fossil fuels. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of naming CO2 as a pollutant and strictly regulating its use to protect our climate. The new President and the US congress are on board. Many state governments are moving on the same course.
We are already suffering from this CO2 silliness in many ways. Our energy policy has been strictly hobbled by no drilling and no new refineries for decades. We pay for the shortage this has created every time we buy gas. On top of that the whole thing about corn based ethanol costs us millions of tax dollars in subsidies. That also has driven up food prices. And, all of this is a long way from over.
And, I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of it.
Global Warming. It is the hoax. It is bad science. It is a high jacking of public policy. It is no joke. It is the greatest scam in history.
John Coleman
1-29-09
My late friend and mentor John Coleman wrote a book called “The Quiet Mind,” which is perhaps of more value than anything written on global warming.
The article is from John Coleman, co-founder of Weather Channel.
Wag, understood, my point remains valid.
Confucius say elevator smell different to midget…
John. I believe this should be in our next Slayers book to be published by Principia Scientific International. If you would agree to such, please contact me dougcotton@live.com.au before March 6th, or write direct to John O’Sullivan our CEO. I will draw it to his attention now.
I don’t think you will be hearing from him, Doug.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Doug already channels Loschmidt. Why not Coleman?
Global mean temperature is back to its long-term trend:
http://bit.ly/13Wi8d9
If there is a non-stationary series – it seems unlikely that there is a long term trend but merely unpredictable shifts in trajectory. A mad clockmaker is driving the ICBM.
If the remaining survivors on this thread are bored and would like something to discuss, I’d appreciate suggestions in answer to my question at the bottom of the long comment that follows (I apologise that some will have read this before).
Carbon pricing is highly unlikely to succeed in the real world.
What is the probability that a legally binding international agreement can be agreed, implemented and maintained (ramped up across all 195 countries in unison) for 100 years or until greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to a sustainable level?
The assumptions that underpin the economic analyses used to justify carbon pricing are academic; they are appropriate for an academic exercise but they are unrealistic, impracticable and highly unlikely to be achieved in the real world. Here are some of the assumptions:
• Negligible leakage (of emissions between countries)
• All GHG emission sources are included (all countries and all GHG emissions in each country)
• Negligible compliance cost
• Negligible fraud
• An optimal carbon price
• The whole world implements the optimal carbon price in unison
• The whole world acts in unison to increase the optimal carbon price periodically
• The whole world continues to maintain the carbon price at the optimal level for all of this century (and thereafter).
If these assumptions are not met, the net benefits estimated by Nordhaus cannot be achieved. As Nordhaus says, p198 http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf :
In other words, if only 50% of emissions are included in the carbon pricing scheme, the cost penalty for the participants would be 250%. The 50% participation could be achieved by, for example, 100% of countries participating in the scheme but only 50% of the emissions in total from within the countries are included, or 50% of countries participate and 100% of the emissions within those countries are included in the scheme (i.e. taxed or traded).
Given the above, we can see that the assumptions are theoretical and impracticable in the real world. To recognize this point, try to envisage how we could include 100% of emissions from 100% of emitters in USA or Australia in the CO2 pricing scheme, let alone expecting the same to be done across the whole world; e.g. China, India, Eretria, Ethiopia, Mogadishu, Somalia, etc.
As the world tries to increase the participation rate the compliance cost will skyrocket. If global carbon pricing was attempted it is inevitable more and more of the twenty-three Kyoto greenhouse gasses and more and more of the emitting sources will have to be included in the pricing scheme, and this must be implemented in all 195 countries,. Australia has started with including only the largest 400 emitting businesses. Emissions from agriculture and road transport are excluded. EU excludes even more emitters from their ETS. But, eventually all source of all GHG would have to be included. And, importantly, the emissions from all sources will have to be measured for international trade, fraud, cheating, free-loading reasons. The required standard of measurement and reporting will continually be more stringent. Just imagine what the compliance cost of measuring all GHG emissions from all sources, in all countries, at the standard needed for international trade would be, eventually.
It seems few are thinking ahead to where carbon pricing would lead us eventually. Or the ultimate costs of it. However, it will become apparent.
For the reasons stated above, it is clear to many that an international treaty to regulate or price GHG emissions is most unlikely to be successful. It is the wrong approach. There is a much better way to cut global GHG emissions in an economically rational way. If we take the economically rational approach, the vast majority of people will support it. Opposition will become negligible.
Just to repeat the question, given the above, what is the probability that a legally binding international agreement can be agreed, implemented and maintained (ramped up across all 195 countries in unison) for 100 years or until greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to a sustainable level?
Or, alternatively, how could the probability of successfully implementing a global carbon pricing scheme be estimate?
Say, Peter, would the correct answer be ‘no probability?’
Hi Beth,
I’d like to write a poem to show I recognise your comment is slightly tongue in cheek. But my poetry skills are zero.
I think the probability is low. But others think it is high. Pekka Pirila for example thinks the probability is high. So what I am seeking is for discussion about how it could be estimated. Even if no answer is forthcoming I think the discussion would be very revealing and people could learn a lot from discussing why they are so fat apart. Trying to close the gap could be educational.
I am in favour of workshopping it. Ideation may be required. I have in mind a beret, a shot of expresso and a hashish cigarette. It worked for the existentialists. We could then issue a manifesto. Is this feasible – or am I just being nostalgic?
Yesterday….
According to webby – I am now in charge of ‘the blog’ – so I given myself a promotion and am willing to throw considerable resources at this question. Webby, tt, blah blah, numbnut. I’ll swear I thought they were turkeys and could fly.
I was saying “ideation” ages ago, before it went all commercial. I used to say it just about every day. Really, I was using it long before you even heard the word.
Peter, you write “a legally binding international agreement”
This is an oxymoron; it can never exist. What has to happen is for nations to agree on an international agreement, and then pass their own laws that make this agreement enforceable. There are no international courts where any such agreement could be brought to the bar of justice, and then any judgement enforced.
Jim Cripwell,
I’d previously included in brackets (Treaty, Protocol, whatever). I am not concerned about the details of the legal agreement. I am concerned about the probability that a global carbon pricing agreement can be reached, implemented and maintained.
This may help to get the wording correct and explain what i am talking about.
The most recent round of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held at Doha, December 2012, included this decision (Draft decision -/CP.18):
Where I am trying to get to is to deal with this:
However, governments, policy makers and citizens are concerned about whether an international, legally binding agreement is the best way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Should the Parties to the Convention (i.e. the nations of the world) support the development of “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties”? Have alternative approaches been properly assessed?
One way for citizens to evaluate the alternative policy options would be using ‘Decision Analysis’.
But we can’t make any progress if we can’t find a way to estimate the probabilities that proposed policies will succeed.
So I am seeking some help to work out how we might estimate the probabilities.
Peter, you write “I am not concerned about the details of the legal agreement. ”
Fair enough. I will not participate in any such useless discussion. Unless there is a completely clear way in which an international legal agreement can be made binding, then all you are doing is wasting your time, and that of anyone else who is foolish enough to join in.
Jim Cripwell,
So why do you continually post your statements of your beliefs over and over again. How may times have you posted the same nonsense on Climate Etc.? Is it 100 times yet?
Your comment just shows you have no interest in the policy issues. That’s OK. That’s your business.
However, if you don’t realise there was a Kyoto Protocol and the UN is now striving to reach an international agreement by 2015 for implementation by 2020, then anything you do say would be of no consequence anyway.
My question was about the probability that a treaty, protocol, legally binding instrument – along the lines of Kyoto or whatever it is that is being negotiated – could actually be achieved. I did not ask about the details of how the agreement might be structured and enforced. That is a totally separate debate. Furthermore it is not something you or I would know anything about. So raising it is purely a ‘bate and switch’ tactic. Some might call it, together with your unprovoked insults ‘trolling”.
Peter Lang
Let me throw in my two cents’ worth.
There is absolutely NO (= “null” = “zilch”) chance that a binding global Kyoto agreement with teeth will EVER be signed by all the nations involved.
If another phony, non-binding resolution to “fight global climate change” or “hold global warming to no more than 2C” is signed, this will simply be another worthless piece of paper.
It has stopped warming (I know lolwot hates to hear this, but it is a fact).
Warming is likely to continue to stall for another decade or two (a VERY long time in politics, but an insignificant “blip” in climate).
IF it does start warming again after that time (and this is quite likely) CAGW will have been dead a long time as a political force and politicians will be looking at other schemes and scare tactics to get their hands on your wallet (as they always do).
That’s my prediction.
Max
PS Jim Cripwell is absolutely right in continuously hammering on the weak spot of the CAGW premise (the fact that it is not supported by empirical scientific evidence). This message needs to get across to one and all, so that everyone becomes aware that CAGW is only a model-generated paper tiger, and not a real potential threat to humanity.
Two and a half billion people rely on burning biomass, which is a sciency sounding word for twigs, charcoal, dung etc. Many who can get their hands on raw coal and kerosene burn that in their homes. (Don’t know if you’d make a separate category for that – something like off-grid fossil?) The health, safety and pollution implications are between massive and stupendous, so perhaps our Green Betters would like to find a way to reduce THOSE emissions by making sure that hydro, nukes and up-to-date fossil power are available to much greater numbers of humans. (Remember humans?) Why, even solar and wind can be a less imbecilic “solution” when contrasted with a pot of lentils stewing over dried camel dung.
I know I’m not really responding to your proposition Peter, and I respect the spirit in which you’ve put it. But we are tackling the problem at the wrong end. Many Western intellectuals lack enthusiasm for the “westernising” of the Third World because material prosperity doesn’t relieve all problems, especially their own mal-de-siecle. Perhaps massive dams and coal plants don’t make people happy, but desperation breeding and biomass burning can’t be doing much to remedy those great fetish “issues” of western intellectuals: over-population, desertification, deforestation and GHGs.
Australia could reduce its emissions massively just by modernising its coal power generation (30% savings!). Nobody willingly drives around in a forty year old Ford Falcon, but that is a good analogy for what Australia does with its coal. Bushfire control is another ho-hum thing with our climate luvvies. Clearly, the chief concerns are revenue, political invasiveness, financial manipulation and bureaucratic expansion. So, you ask what are the chances of an agreement on emissions? I would ask: what are the chances of finding anyone who is interested in the actual reduction of GHGs in real time in the real, not modelled, world?
We need to survive this global fetishism by treating it like the charade that it is. Germany realised it had to use its massive reserves of brown coal as more and more of the stuff was found in Eastern Europe. Merkel used the excuse of Fukushima to help Germany revert to its fuel of choice (and be less reliant on the kindness of Gazprom and those nice Russians they always get on so well with). I’m told she even burgled the environmental piggy bank to pull off the switch, while the green fingers were busy wagging at Japan.
Australia needs to do a Merkel: we need to talk Green while we dig Brown. But coal is chocolate sunshine, and it must never be wasted. No more clunkers! Let’s get an international agreement, by all means. To wit: Nobody is allowed to insult our superb Australian coal (or any fossil fuel) by burning it in rickety old clunkers. Start with that, a win-win. Always start with a win-win.
mosomoso, of course “material prosperity doesn’t relieve all problems.” But by lifting people from a state of desperate struggle for survival to one where they have time and energy to pursue less survival-critical activities, it enables them to explore their potential as human beings, perhaps to pursue spiritual development. Those who would, by their policies, condemn the desperately poor to remain poor, are committing a crime against humanity.
Yes, Faustino, Lady Poverty is like Gaia: an overrated hag, and only chic from a distance.
mosomoso | February 28, 2013 at 7:02 am | Reply
“Two and a half billion people rely on burning biomass, which is a sciency sounding word for twigs, charcoal, dung etc. ”
Yeah but that’s carbon neutral. You know the famous saying ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, CO2 to CO2’ right?
Seriously though the soot could be a local health problem. Not sure how much would have burned naturally. I suspect that’s probably close to a wash with soot from artificial fires substituting for soot from natural fires that are unnaturally suppressed. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea to stop burning biomass in open fires just that it probably isn’t much different than what would happen naturally anyway.
david springer
Indoor burning of dung, firewood and other “biomass” causes an estimated death of a million humans per year from resulting respiratory ailments according to WHO.
But CAGW aficionados should welcome this “carbon neutral” source of fuel
We must keep these people from replacing this energy source with reliable, low-cost energy based on coal or other fossil fuels.
A million human lives per year is a small price to pay in order to “save the planet”.
Right?
(Err…unless you’re one of the “million”…)
Max
manacker | February 28, 2013 at 8:12 pm |
“Indoor burning of dung, firewood and other “biomass” causes an estimated death of a million humans per year from resulting respiratory ailments according to WHO.”
If you’ll qualify that with poorly vented indoor burning then I’ll agree.
“But CAGW aficionados should welcome this “carbon neutral” source of fuel.”
Indeed. Along with stoves and fireplaces that have working chimneys then I do too.
“We must keep these people from replacing this energy source with reliable, low-cost energy based on coal or other fossil fuels.”
Who do you figure is going to pay for electrical lines and/or natural gas pipelines along with the appliances to utilize those fuels? Where are your figures showing that electricity is a cheaper way to cook and heat than wood? Generally speaking electricity is hideously inefficient for those purposes. I have many friends in the northeast US who heat with wood because it’s cheaper than natural gas and natural gas is way cheaper than electricity.
“A million human lives per year is a small price to pay in order to “save the planet”
Ditch the melodrama. Three million children die every year from malaria. That’s a far larger problem and the cost per life saved much less. Vaccinations, nutrition, and sanitation are next up on the hit list of the most effective ways of saving the lives of impoverished children. As Moshpit would say, unfool yourself.
Right?
(Err…unless you’re one of the “million”…)
Max
Lord Lawson wrote to Sir Paul Nurse, President of The Royal Society, on 25/2/2013:
Dear Sir Paul
My attention has been drawn to a speech you gave last month at Melbourne University, in which you chose to criticise me by name in terms which bear no relation to the truth. In the interests of accuracy, I have obtained a full transcript. I recognise that, as a distinguished geneticist, you are not a climate scientist, and may therefore feel ill at ease discussing the complex issue of climate policy. But that is no excuse for wanton misrepresentation both of the issues involved and of my own position.
So far as the latter is concerned, you claim that I “would choose two points and say ‘look, no warming’s taking place’, knowing that all the other points that you chose in the 20 years around it would not support his case”. That is a lie. I have always made clear that there was a modest degree of recorded global warming during the 20th century (see, for example, my book An Appeal to Reason, which you have clearly not taken the trouble to read). However, so far from choosing any arbitrary ‘two points’, I was drawing attention to the fact that this warming trend appears to have ceased, since – contrary to the predictions of what you describe as “consensus scientific opinion” – there has been no further recorded global warming at all for at least the past 15 years, as even the IPCC Chairman, Dr Pachauri, has now conceded. Whatever the precise reason for this, it cannot simply be dismissed or denied.
Again, you assert that the reason I do not share your position is that I am one of those “who have political or ideological views that lead them to be unhappy with the actions that would be necessary [sic] should global warming be due to human activity… Because these actions are likely to include measures which involve greater concerted world action, curtailing the freedom of individuals or companies and nations, and curbing some kinds of industrial activity, potentially risking economic growth.”
There is nothing ‘political or ideological’ about my dissent from your position. It is true that I value individual freedom, and consider it immoral to be recommending measures which would hold back growth in the developing world and condemn hundreds of millions to avoidable poverty. But my objection to the policy you favour (see, again, my book, where it is clearly set out) is that it is not cost-effective (even if it were globally attainable, which the recent collapse of the Kyoto process suggests is not the case); and that, should an active policy response prove necessary, the only rational course is adaptation.
On the wider issue, I cannot accept your contention that only ‘scientists’ should decide the appropriate policy response. The role of scientists (or, rather, climate scientists) is to try and understand the complex science and its implications, and to convey that understanding, with all its attendant uncertainties, to democratically elected policy makers, who are then responsible for framing policy, taking full account not merely of the science but also, crucially, of the economics – which, insofar as you consider it, you appear to dismiss as not being “as evidence-based or as rational as science”.
In conclusion, I hope that, on reflection, you will recognise that there should be a difference between the behaviour appropriate to a President of the Royal Society and acting as a shop steward for some kind of scientists’ closed shop. Not to do so can only bring the Royal Society into further disrepute, which cannot be in the public interest.
Yours sincerely, The Rt Hon Lord Lawson. Chairman. The Global Warming Policy Foundation
‘That is a lie’. And it is, from the President of the Royal Society. The Bish has an angry thread about this. Great Britain is facing Bryony Blackouts, and beginning to get disturbed.
=====================
“there has been no further recorded global warming at all for at least the past 15 years, as even the IPCC Chairman, Dr Pachauri, has now conceded”
that’s a lie
two lies actually
lolwot, Lawson’s statement accords with comments made by Pachauri in a front-page interview in The Australian recently. I’ll see if it’s still online
THE UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last “30 to 40 years at least” to break the long-term global warming trend.
Dr Pachauri, the chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that open discussion about controversial science and politically incorrect views was an essential part of tackling climate change. In a wide-ranging interview on topics that included this year’s record northern summer Arctic ice growth, the US shale-gas revolution, the collapse of renewable energy subsidies across Europe and the faltering European carbon market, Dr Pachauri said no issues should be off-limits for public discussion.
In Melbourne for a 24-hour visit to deliver a lecture for Deakin University, Dr Pachauri said that people had the right to question the science, whatever their motivations. “People have to question these things and science only thrives on the basis of questioning,” Dr Pachauri said. He said there was “no doubt about it” that it was good for controversial issues to be “thrashed out in the public arena”.
Dr Pachauri’s views contrast with arguments in Australia that views outside the orthodox position of approved climate scientists should be left unreported. Unlike in Britain, there has been little publicity in Australia given to recent acknowledgment by peak climate-science bodies in Britain and the US of what has been a 17-year pause in global warming. Britain’s Met Office has revised down its forecast for a global temperature rise, predicting no further increase to 2017, which would extend the pause to 21 years.
Dr Pachauri said global average temperatures had plateaued at record levels and that the halt did not disprove global warming. “The climate is changing because of natural factors and the impact of human actions,” Dr Pachauri said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134 (paywall)
Faustino
I think iolwots point has been is that no one has actually seen or heard the statement that pachauri had supposedly made.
I would like to see the actual interview with quotation marks around the words he is supposed to have said.
Conversely we should also expect a firm rebuttal from him and a complaint he has been misquoted.
At the moment it is all hearsay
Tonyb
lolwot, remember your homework assignment. As of now you are a slow learner. As the Mosh says, unfool yourself.
Faustino
Your last comment appeared as I wrote my comment.
Can you repeat the whole comment when the pause and the length of the pause are mentioned within quotation marks
Tonyb
Tony, I’ve copied most of The Australian’s piece as it appeared.
Anyone who thinks that The Australian would misrepresent Pachauri on its front page can contact the author, Environment Editor Graham Lloyd, at lloydg@theaustralian.com.au. The Oz is very good at printing corrections or letters from those who feel they have been misrepresented, and there has been no denial from Pachauri.
lolwot
You are confused.
The Australian cites a statement from Dr. Pahauri, in which he acknowledges the observed current standstill in global warming, which was previously pointed out by the UK’s Met Office.
More than a week later, Dr. Pachauri has not contested this or corrected the statement he allegedly made.
So the “null” hypothesis is that the statement by The Australian is correct.
Show me the evidence that the “null hypothesis” is incorrect or stop your silly bleating.
And fer Chrissakes don’t fall into the trap of calling it “a lie”. That’s absurd.
Max
.
ENSO neutral kicking the chit out of the back-to-back La Nina fright show. Not too cool, if ya know what I mean.
@tonyb: I would like to see the actual interview with quotation marks around the words he is supposed to have said.
Seconded.
Conversely we should also expect a firm rebuttal from him and a complaint he has been misquoted.
Not necessarily. He may prefer to save his rebuttals for statements about the IPCC report. Making a big deal of whether or not he gave an actual number of years (17 according to the article) in an interview might be below his threshold of rebuttal-worthiness. Otherwise rebutting could become a full-time job for him.
Faustino
Sir Paul Nurse, President of The Royal Society, may have been a brilliant geneticist, but today he is simply a political hack.
A shame for him.
Max
Doug Cotton
I have been puzzled by the energy with which you defended on this thread some thesis of yours concerning temperature gradients in gazes.
I was puzzled because this is a well understood and rather easy subject so there is not much room for “paradigm shifts”.
That’s why I decided to read your paper to find out what all this was about.
Consider the following as a review
Some general considerations.
– There is little mathematical background. When I read a paper, I look first at the equations. The reason is simple – equations don’t lie and don’t admit inconsistent interpretations. A scientific paper with only words is hard to read because words may have different interpretations and thus lead to different equations. Especially if the words used are either invented or have not the usual meaning. In your paper the first and last equation I found was in Section 6. 20 pages words and 1 (trivial) equation is a bad ratio for a very quantitative topic.
– It is very hard to identify what is actually the main purpose and claim of the paper. You sometimes leave on wild tangents and there is not a crisp, straightforward process starting with clearly defined hypothesis and finishing with quantitative conclusions. I settled with the supposition that your claim (cf abstract) is “Show whether or not a thermal gradient evolves spontaneously in still air in a gravitational field”
– Large parts of the paper (4,5,7,15) are confused, confusing, partly wrong and even if they state obvious truths, these are mostly irrelevant to answer the question which is the purpose of the paper.
– More specifically all mostly indirect “discussions” about the radiative properties of GHG have nothing to do with the purpose and conclusions of the paper.
Second to the principal claim of the paper.
Your answer is yes. And I can indeed support this claim with a resounding yes too.
However I will now prove this claim with 3 basic equations without needing 20 pages.
To illustrate the claim it is best to realize your thought experiments with an atmosphere (or a cylinder) containing a rare gas. For example Helium. The reason for that is that He follows very closely ideal gas laws. Moreover as He is a monoatomic gas it has only 3 degrees of freedom and its temperature is uniquely defined by its transalational kinetic energy. This spares confusing and irrelevant details about vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom.
The state of our He atmosphere is thus uniquely defined by 3 state variables P (pressure), T(temperature) and ρ (molar density). As we want to express the state variables as functions of z (altitude) in order to verify a gradient existence, we will need 3 equations.
First is the equation of state of an ideal gas : P= ρ.T
As we consider “still air”, the second equation is hydrostatic equilibrium : dP/dz =μ. ρ.g where µ is the molecular weight
The third equation is obviously the first principle of thermodynamics : dU = δQ + δW. By observing that the heat conductivity of gases is very low, we will add the adiabatic hypothesis : δQ = 0. From this hypothesis follows that we have .P.V^γ = constant.
So now we have the desired 3 equations for our 3 variables and after some trivial algebra (that I will omit) we obtain that dT/dz = g/Cp.
Conclusions
– Yes the gravity that manifests itself by the hydrostatic assumption causes a temperature gradient in every gaseous atmosphere. But no, fluids with high heat conductivity which are generally liquids (Hg, H20 etc) will rather tend to an isothermal layer even in presence of gravity. Oceans are for example less adiabatic than the atmosphere.
-This result is general as soon as the adiabatic hypothesis is a correct approximation . More specifically nothing has to be supposed about radiative properties, nature of the gaseous molecules or presence and intensity of any external energy supply.
-This result will be violated locally. This is because the hydrostatic approximation is no more valid if the velocity field has a significant vertical component. For anecdote, this is exactly the same kind of problem that met Anastassia with her condensation model. That’s why in presence of strong convection the temperature gradient will be no more constant and will deviate from the formula above.
-There is nothing new or original in these insights and the paper is rejected.
+1
T, what about the thermo to the core? If you didn’t look, that’s fine; it confuses and intrigues me.
==============
Kim if by core you mean the Earth’s core (and mantle) then it is off topic. Solids are not ideal gases and the answer on gradient questions is obtained in a very different way. You just solve the heat equation. This is not simple in the transitory case but easy in the steady case.
The biggest problem you will meet is that you don’t know the temperature and the dynamics of the molten core which is a magnetic fluid.
OK, that’s what I thought, and thanks. More data, please.
=================
Tomas
You do indeed completely miss the main point of the paper. Maybe the title will give you a clue. “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
The whole point of demonstrating the development of the thermal gradient equation (-g/Cp) from first principles (and, yes, in just two lines) is to point out that we don’t need to derive it the clumsy way, as in the linked item under “Lapse Rates” in Wikipedia.
And by deriving it this way, and understanding the mechanism, and why it is a corollary of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, we can then see why it does in fact extend to conduction in solids and diffusion in liquids. I have made quite clear the difference between convection and diffusion in gases and liquids.
You are incorrect in assuming that a gravitationally induced thermal gradient does not evolve in solids and liquids. I have given empirical examples of such.
Above all, you appear to miss the point that the paper explains the ramifications of such gravitationally induced thermal gradients and the underlying thermal plot. There is sufficient quantification in linked references which I have no need to copy into the paper. You think equations don’t lie? They certainly do if the assumptions behind them are false. Only today I had to point out to someone why the Virial Theorem is not applicable for molecules in a gravitational field.
Temperature is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the molecules in a region, and it is only a function of such mean KE.
Hence, there is no relevance in introducing compression, expansion, pressure or density into calculations of thermal gradient in a gravitational field. To do so indicates a lack of understanding of these basic facts of physics.
Now, if you really do understand the ramifications and the significance of the conclusions in the paper, then you should be able to answer these questions …
(1) How does the required energy get from the Sun to a region of the surface on the Equator of Venus in order to raise it by the observed 5 degrees when it rotates out of its 4-month long night into its 4 month day?
(2) Why is the net effect of water vapour a lowering of the Earth’s mean surface temperature.
(3) Considering the mantle and crust of Earth, why is the plot of temperatures against depth not the usual linear conduction plot, but rather a curve which has the very different gradients that are mentioned in the paper for the mantle and the outer crust?
(4) What is the role of radiative and non-radiative processes in slowing the rate of surface cooling on Earth?
(5) Given that radiation from water vapour slows the cooling of Earth’s surface, why do inland dry tropical regions have higher mean minimum and maximum daily temperatures in their warmest month than do similar wet regions?
In a nutshell, Tomas (and others) we are talking about a real world with a real atmosphere and real Sun. Obviously if our world were twice as far away from the Sun then it would be cooler, all else being the same. The ideal gas law and equation of state relate to adiabatic conditions which start out with a certain amount of energy. It is that energy divided between the number of molecules in the region which determines temperature. It has nothing to do with pressure. Sure, if you seal off the system and heat it then the pressure will increase as the temperature does. But in a real world you can’t stop energy being radiated away as fast as it is received from the Sun, and the temperature is set by Solar intensity (via SBL) and not by pressure. On the other hand, gravity re-distributes energy forming an autonomous thermal gradient in the process and actually allowing thermal energy to “flow” up the shallow thermal gradient in order to re-establish thermodynamic equilibrium. I hope you picked up this important point in the paper.
Now if it is “well understood” then it should also be well understood that there is thus no need for any radiative greenhouse effect to raise the surface temperature by those 33 degrees, because gravity is already doing so..
Is that something you well understand Tomas? If so, good. Then perhaps you will have the same desire that I have to halt the waste of money and lives that is resulting from the greatest hoax in the history of mankind. Or do you just not care about anyone else in the world, especially not those in developing countries, Tomas?
Your equation of state is wrong, because temperature is simply not a function of pressure and density and nothing else. You can learn what real physics says it really is in this real world if you deign to read this comment ..
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/24/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-299516
Green fatigue sets in: the world cools on global warming
Canary in the coal mine: dead and dying Old Europe set to sink deeper into recession.
Dont worry. Mark Carney is taking over the Bank of England on July 1st, Canada Day!. With a Canadian at the helm, the UK will go on to better and better finances.
The EU can’t fall quick enough…?
Jim Cripwell
Getting a Canadian to head the Bank of England can’t hurt.
But the best bet for the UK is to go ahead and have that referendum on leaving the EU, which David Cameron has suggested.
Let the people decide.
(The EU bureaucrats hate the idea of the voting public getting involved in such decisions. Might set a precedent leading to an implosion of the whole EU structure – and a lot of cushy jobs in Brussels and Strasbourg).
Max
So business as usual for the Banking Cartel.
Which very well organised criminal organisation continues to create money out of nothing and lends this to governments charging the taxpayer interest.
http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.History.of.the.Money.Changers.htm
Tipping Points or Gradual Change?
Global Tipping Point Not Backed by Science, Experts Argue
Contrast Jeffrey Brown’s identification of the peak of global oil export capacity in 2004 and documenting its subsequent decline.
Jeffrey Brown Webinar/paper Commentary: The Export Capacity Index
See Brown’s Figure 15: (2005) Top 33 Net Exporters’ ECI [Export Capacity Index] Ratio
Anyone know if Dr. Curry is alright? Well? This is a pretty long weekend thread…..
If it stretches into Easter, we’ll need to send search parties to Georgia Tech. Happy to do it if denizens pay my fare.
Atlanta in late March. Dogwoods in bloom. Robins in the trees.
Hey, Faustino, count me in, too!
Max
Yes Max,
O to be in Atlanta
Now that it is Spring,
And Aprill with his shoures soote
The droughts of march hath perced to the roote,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyghte with open ye …
H/t Chaucer another pilgrim..
April is the coolest month,
Breathing Judys out of lilacs.
===================
Lines ter the green movement on the waste land of economic
opportunities missed by their back ter the ‘golden age’ politics
of fear.
‘What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of the stony rubbish ?’
H/t T S Eliot.
Peter Lang
Agree there is a lot of silly stuff here from time to time; but there are also interesting comments.
(No problem about misspelling my name. You’ll note I also misspelled yours.)
Sorry.
I suspect she is fed up with the level of the discussion.
;-)
Peter Land
I doubt that our hostess ever gets “fed up with the level of the discussion”.
After all, she’s in control of what gets through and what does not – and she appears to be very lenient in her censorship.
But, what the hell, the lady’s busy – she’s got a full-time job.
Max
Mamacker,
Judith is certainly very lenient and very tolerant. But I’d be surprised if she isn’t quite disappointed about the way the content of the comments has deteriorated over the past year or two. Yes, she’s in control of moderation, but as you point out, she also has a real job so I suspect doesn’t have the time to try and control the’ Brat pack’. She tries to influence, in a very nice and unbiased way, but it has had little lasting effect.
Manacker,
Sorry for the spelling mistake. It was a genuine typo, not me being smart arse.
Chicago hit with 5.4″ of global warming
AccuWeather reported, “the snow event late Tuesday morning through daybreak Wednesday, a total of 5.4 inches were measured at Chicago O’Hare International Airport [beating the previous record set in 1935]…
Two of my recent letters to The Australian:
Published 26 Feb:
Letters, columns and news reports in The Australian have long conveyed serious concerns about threats to freedom of speech in Australia. Yet in that very journal Human Rights’ Commissioner Gillian Triggs denies that Australians have such fears (Opinion, 25/2). She also says that, by contrast, we – Australians at large – are “justly concerned that they and their families will be racially abused in a public place,” something which holds no fear for the vast majority of the population, who are neither abusers nor abused.
I fear that, like some in the government, Professor Triggs gives insufficient weight to the critical importance of freedom of speech relative to potential abuses of it, and to abuses of power which flourish in darkness.
Sent today in response to a Catholic Bishop drawing on the Pope:
Denis Hart knows nothing of economics (“Pope’s wish an ethical market,” 1/3). Competitive markets ensure that resources flow to their highest value use, so that, collectively, we make best use of scarce resources. Vendors succeed by offering a better deal than their competitors, and get repeat business through a good reputation. In tight labour markets, employers get the best from their staff by treating them well.
The impact of market economics and trade has seen a huge and unprecedented rise in global well-being over the last 60 years, which could have been achieved by no other means.
None of this is immoral, and the Pope’s call to “remoralise” and “civilise” the economy is ignorant.
The markets serve society well, but they are not social services. Governments exist in part to redress perceived shortcomings of markets. Unfortunately, they do so very poorly and at high cost, and should rely more on market mechanisms than regulation and intervention.
By lifting billions of people from a state of desperate struggle for survival, market economics has given them time and energy to pursue less survival-critical issues, including spiritual development.
Faustino,
I saw this letter. I agree.
@Faustino: Competitive markets ensure that resources flow to their highest value use, so that, collectively, we make best use of scarce resources. Vendors succeed by offering a better deal than their competitors, and get repeat business through a good reputation. In tight labour markets, employers get the best from their staff by treating them well.
Thirded. (Assuming that was the letter PL was seconding.)
Obama (or whoever writes the annual economic reports to which he puts his imprimatur) also seems in agreement. At Chapter 9 of the 2009 Economic Report of the President we read,
The United States relies on the private sector to organize most
economic activity. Through price signals and competition, markets
allocate scarce resources to their highest-value uses, encourage
businesses to avoid waste, and create incentives to invest in new
technologies.
Whether the sequel in that chapter is equally copacetic would depend on the reader.
Threats to Australia’s freedom of Speech by members of
Labor Government continue. Finkelstein report and this:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/stephen-conroys-pitch-to-control-the-news/story-fn59niix-1226587251535
It’s the Sugar, Folks
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/its-the-sugar-folks
That’s quite a study. Should make it all that much more interesting to watch libertarians twisting themselves into knots to argue why there shouldn’t be public health policies aimed at reducing sugar intake. The public cost of diabetes is enormous and and is growing very rapidly.
Huh.
1. Libertarian? check
2. Oppose public health policies aimed at reducing sugar? Nope.
your bias is getting the best of you Joshua.
Ok. Not all libertarians. But enough of them to make for much popcorn worthiness.
Good!
Let’s force ’em to switch to cyclamate!
Problem solved…
Max
e360 digest – 28 Feb 2013:
Earth Unlikely to Face An Ecological Tipping Point, Study Says
A team of international scientists has rejected the idea that the planet could face a sudden and irreversible ecological shift as a result of largely human-driven pressures, suggesting that such global transformations are more likely to occur over a long period of time. While earlier studies have warned that ecological pressures — including climate change, biodiversity loss, and over-exploitation of resources — could drive the planet toward a dangerous “tipping point,” the new paper says the ecosystems of different continents are not sufficiently interconnected for such a global shift to occur. And while as much as 80 percent of the biosphere includes ecosystems that have been affected by human activities, major ecological shifts driven by these human pressures “depend on local circumstances and will therefore differ between localities,” said Erle Ellis, a scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and co-author of the paper, published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. This reality, the authors suggest, should encourage communities to pursue appropriate conservation solutions at local and regional levels rather than becoming distracted by projections of “doom and gloom” on a global scale.
Could you tell us more about the global ecological tipping points? I haven’t heard of them, unless you mean the oceans. Did they address the oceans?
Civilizations come and go. The American experience, Western Europe… they’re just recent examples. We have more to fear from ourselves than the environmnent has to fear from us. The longest and most enduring memorial to humanity on a modest scale are some stone implements and on a grand scale the Egyptian pyramids and Great Wall of China. A thousand years from now a few restored gas pumps will be the only historical reminder of humanity’s flirtation with the idea of humanity’s God-given right to liberty.
Jim D
While there undoubtedly have been major swings in our planet’s past climate over its geological past, there have been NO “global ecological tipping points”.
And there will not be any future “global ecological tipping points” caused by human CO2 emissions, despite silly claims by James E. Hansen before a U.S. congressional committee.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2007/Testimony_20070426.pdf
And
Blah, blah…
There have been “local or regional ecological tipping points”, which have been recorded throughout human history, but that’s a different story.
Max
Yes, I agree, ecology is local not global. The ocean is the only area where effects can be long-range. The only global measure is extinction rates which will increase as they have with previous lesser climate changes in the Cenozoic Era. I am not sure how the concept of a tipping point applies to ecology as a whole, but, for sure, ecologies will be replaced locally by something else that is hard to predict. The replacement could be called a tipping point for that ecology at that place, which may have lasted for millennia, and then will change completely within decades.
Wagathon | March 1, 2013 at 12:21 am |
“A thousand years from now a few restored gas pumps will be the only historical reminder of humanity’s flirtation with the idea of humanity’s God-given right to liberty.”
Many experiments, rovers, lower stages of lunar landers, American flags, and thousands of American bootprints will be on the moon for many millions if not billions of years.
How’s that for a lasting monument? Enough to make the Pharoahs and Ceasars green with envy would be my guess.
Jim D
We apparently agree that (barring effects of asteroid impacts or major tectonic eruptions, etc.), “global tipping points” have not occurred and will almost certainly not occur in the future (and absolutely certainly not from AGW).
But t here is a bit too much conjecture in your last post about what “will” happen in the ocean as a result of AGW.
We (you and I or anyone else) do not have any earthly notion of what “will” happen in the ocean with or without the posited impacts of AGW.
Will an increase in temperature of a few hundredths of a degree C in the upper ocean lead to increased growth of phytoplankton and, hence, the entire marine food chain?
Will the slightly reduced pH or higher carbon content have a similar effect on small crustaceans or other life?
Or will there be an opposite effect?
To posit that “change = extinction” requires that one quantify the degree of change that could lead to extinction of which specific species, based on some solid data. These are missing.
Let’s just leave it that AGW, as constrained by the availability of fossil fuels on our planet, is virtually certain NOT to result in any tipping points (as have been projected by James E. Hansen) on land or in the ocean.
OK?
Max
Jim D
Back to your earlier post.
If we define “extinction” as the point when there are no more living members of a certain species, then this is undoubtedly an instantaneous “tipping point” sort of thing, i.e. when the last one dies.
This is happening almost daily and has been almost forever in our planet’s history. Wiki tells us:
and
So we are talking about a natural process that has been going on for billions of years.
Max
Max, are you saying that species extinction is a smoothly ongoing process with no mass extinctions ever?
manacker, “global tipping points” do occur regularly and have major repercussions for local ecology. Ice Ages come to mind, but also the cooling that came with Antarctica’s glaciation and the PETM warming episode, just to quote examples from the Cenozoic Era. What we are about to get is something of that sort.
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Here we have Don Quixote, playing an alarmist, and Sancho Panza, playing a skeptic.
“Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”
“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.
“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.”
“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.””
—Part 1, Chapter VIII. Of the valourous Don Quixote’s success in the dreadful and never before imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with other events worthy of happy record.
Steven Mosher, You had a post censored on WUWT. Would you be prepared to share it with us on this blog?
I dunno which thread?
This one
@@@@@@
Steven Mosher says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:52 pm
[snip – arguing about an off topic issue with a rant – mod]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/28/february-2013-global-surface-temperature-at-normal/#more-81074
@@@@@
yes, Jim I found it.
Look at the chart in the post. That chart is a MODEL RESULT.
The model is NCEP CFRS.
Anthony like to post that model as if it were data. One time he and I were arguing over email and he threw that data at me and when I pointed out it was a model result and not data he went silent.
So now he’s trying the trick on his readers.
So I pointed out that the data is actually a MODEL OUTPUT.
Then I pointed out that this model relies on the data he and others doubt.
Then I pointed to the physics models (RRTM) used by NCEP.
basically: Anthony posts the results of a model. he pretends its data.
I pointed out that it is model output. That model relies on physics and data input that skeptics deny.
The moderator was protecting Anthony’s butt.
Thnks, Steven.
It really was pathetic.
It wasnt a ‘rant’
I pointed out that the chart came from a model.
i linked to the model page.
I then explained that the model uses radiative physics.
I linked to the pdf describing the model and its physics.
Then, I linked to a page describing the validtion of that model
and its use in GCMs.
Then two sentences saying, if you promote the output of a model, you implicitly accept the inputs and the physics.
OR
if you doubt the inputs to a model and doubt the physics, then you cant use the results.
So, you see why I get tired of pointing skeptics at evidence. When you catch them in a climategategate like trick, they will dump your comments in the trash.
Steven Mosher: i linked to the model page.
Could you provide the link here? I would appreciate it.
Steven Mosher
I think I understood the gist of your last post, but to make sure, let me repeat it below.
Model results are NOT data.
Where “data” is (Feynman) “empirical scientific evidence” (i.e. based on actual physical observations or reproducible experimentation).
I think we are 100% in agreement on that, Mosh, but I’m glad you cleared it up.
Max
Progressives just can’t think through skeptical arguments. It goes against their training/brain washing.
Skeptic A – You claim that your models, and your temperature data show that CAGW is a reality and justifies massive intrusion of government into the global energy economy. But here, one of your models, using some of your data, doesn’t even show the warming you are using as the excuse for implementing your progressive policies.
CAGWer B – See, you just used climate model outputs from our massaged temperature data to make an argument, and called it data in doing so. Therefore you are treating model outputs as data, and can’t criticize us for doing so.
There isn’t a progressive around who will understand the logical failure in their response.
It was probably a mistake to call the model output “data,” but that was not the point of the WUWT post, or many others like it in the past. The point is that some of the CAGWers’ own “data,” real and created, is not supporting their predictions of thermageddon, and has not been for a while.
That is not an acceptance of the validity or accuracy of either the models or the temperature data.
Climate, from physics to finance, has enough ‘cognitive’ dissonance for both sides to share in the bounty.
=================
Matt,
http://rda.ucar.edu/pub/cfsr.html
Maybe that helps?
John Carpenter: Maybe that helps?
Probably. Thank you. It may not be exactly “the” page that Steve linked to, but that probably does not matter.
Steven Mosher: I pointed out that the chart came from a model.
i linked to the model page.
I then explained that the model uses radiative physics.
I linked to the pdf describing the model and its physics.
Then, I linked to a page describing the validtion of that model
and its use in GCMs.
That is an intriguing argument. You do not yourself assert that the mean Feb surface temperature map is inaccurate or dubious, only that it is based on models and that therefore Anthony Watt ought to believe that it is dubious. You do not even dispute the main interpretation: that the maps shows that Feb 2013 mean surface temp is nearly equal to the mean surface temp of 1981 – 2010. The implication is that the GCMs and the models that support this temperature map can not both be accurate. If the models that support this temperature map are accurate, or if this map is accurate despite inaccuracies in the models, then the use of the word “warming” for the current state of the climate is inappropriate.
You mention specifically the use of “radiative physics”. One can believe in the laws of “radiative physics” without believing that they are sufficient for every purpose to which they are used. Here they are used, with other physics, only to get as accurate a surface temperature map as possible (if there is one that is more accurate, you might direct our attention to it), not to predict the future course of the climate mean resulting from increased CO2.
Your argument seems to be not that Anthony Watt is wrong; but that it is inappropriate for him to show that these model results are in conflict with other model results.
Sure.
Look at the image
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/feb2013_ncep_2mglobal-temperature.png
See NCEP CSFv2!
I had the balls to point out that it was model data
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/
Look at the image and you will see CSF.
So I linked to this paper, and explained that weather forecasting uses raditaive physics.
http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/cfsv2.info/CFSv2_paper.pdf
reading that paper will show you what Radiative transfer model is used.
CSFR uses RRTM so I linked to that as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_radiative_transfer_model.
And you note that RRTM is used in GCMs. Apparently that pissed them off. The fact that they post the results of a model as if it were data and dont even realize the provenance of that data
Then I made the following Point.
“If you doubt the inputs to CSF ( temperature measurements collected by NOAA) as Anthony does. If you doubt radiative physics as WUWT readers do ( C02 doesnt warm the planet ). THEN you cannot use the results of CSF to prove a point.
OR.
If you use the results of NCEP CSF to prove a point, THEN you are bound to, rationally committed to, accepting both the inputs ( NOAA temperature products ) and the model Physics ( RRTM).
It wasnt a rant. It was a piece of logic showing how folks at WUWT accepted model results because they liked them, and they havent even looked at how that “data” is created.
‘That is an intriguing argument. You do not yourself assert that the mean Feb surface temperature map is inaccurate or dubious, only that it is based on models and that therefore Anthony Watt ought to believe that it is dubious. You do not even dispute the main interpretation: ”
No that is NOT my argument.
My argument is much better.
1. Skeptics have claimed they doubt the NOAA temperature products.
2. Skpetics have claimed they doubt radiative physics.
3. Skeptics have called GCMS Junk.
However, in this case, they present model outputs as if it were observations. But, if they really hold 1,2 and 3, then they cannot consistently believe that the NCEP output is any good.
Conversely, If they accept the output as good, they are rationally commited to the computational chain that produced it. If they want to use that output they have to “buy” the physics and “buy” the inputs.
My position: NCEP output is a good tool. I accept the inputs. I accept the physics, I think the output is usable. The specifics depend on what you are using it for.
“You mention specifically the use of “radiative physics”. One can believe in the laws of “radiative physics” without believing that they are sufficient for every purpose to which they are used. Here they are used, with other physics, only to get as accurate a surface temperature map as possible (if there is one that is more accurate, you might direct our attention to it), not to predict the future course of the climate mean resulting from increased CO2.”
Of course there are more accurate than RRTM. Those would be LBL models. Second, these physics dont just get you a surface map. Good christ. You cant figure the surface independent of the other layers.
look at NCEP output options.
in addition, the physics is used for a variety of things:
designing radars. Designing satellites. Missiles. Any transmitter/receiver. Generating temperatures ( see UHA or RSS ) and yes, they are used in NCEP products. Looking at weather satillite images of a hurricane? Yup somebody ran radiative physics on that.
The physics describe the transmission of any kind of EM through gases,particles, etc. These models have been validated, calibrated, used by engineers to build shit that works. This physics tell you that doubling C02 will add 3.7 Watts of forcing. So, one cannot simply say
“oh this physics doesnt apply” This physics plays a part in predicting future temps. Notice I said a Part. You will get nowhere challenging this physics.. oh maybe membership in the skydragon club.
I’d buy the physics, and I do, but a some of it’s been sold to the highest bidder.
==========
MattStat, Mosher is making the same weak argument you’ll see all the time in responses to skeptics. That it is wrong to claim a something contradicts a position if you don’t believe it. It’s silly. I am free to point out contradictions in a position even if I don’t agree with either side of the contradiction. It’s like when you say, “Assuming you’re right about X…”
Besides that, he is also conflating different models with each other. One could easily believe the model used for the data in that post is accurate while GCMs are inaccurate. The only reason skeptics couldn’t reasonably accept that model is if they don’t accept radiative physics. Mosher claims they don’t, but the reality is most do.
Mosher has a point in that the article is vague about what the data is. A person reading the post might not realize the data comes from a model. But that’s pretty much all he gets right.
I wonder if the skeptics would agree this is a cherry-pick to highlight months that are average, and not mention all the months that have been above average, or the series of years that have been above average.
Steven Mosher: 1. Skeptics have claimed they doubt the NOAA temperature products.
2. Skpetics have claimed they doubt radiative physics.
3. Skeptics have called GCMS Junk.
That’s probably true of someone, or some many. You should address your remarks to them.
Brandon. You are making no sense.
The argument is pretty simple. Lets try an analog.
Let’s suppose That I argue the average weigh of americans is 150 lbs.
You challenge me and ask what scales I use. I say ‘ The scales from Exacto scales” you then proceed to trash exacto scales and say that exacto scales should not be trusted.
A year goes by. Then you make the argument ‘look at this paper, It proves That the average swede weighs 167 lbs ”
I read the fine print and point out that exacto scales were used.
I then point out that fact to others:
On one hand, when they dont like the answer, they attack exacto scales
Later, hoping nobody is looking, they use exacto scales to try to make there own arguments.
My point is pretty simple: they dont practice a consistent form of skepticism.
Another analog; I say I will be there in an hour. You challenge me.
I explain. My car goes 60 miles per hour. You live 60 miles away and
Distance = rate*Time.
You then challenge that D=R*T and refuse to accept it.
A year goes by. You then present an argument that relies on D=R*T
basically, you cant have it both ways. You might think you get to, but you dont get to.
moshe tilts at scarecrows. They don’t make them anymore like Mother Rigby did. Skeptics are a varied breed, no two alike; the flock of consensus crows shimmer only dully and monotonously.
===================
Mathew. I did. and that comment got snipped.
Not for swearing. no curse words.
Not for personalizing the attack. I named no one.
Not for being off topic. The chart was the center piece of the post.
Now, you name me a time somebody at WUWT was snipped for pointing out that a chart was the output of a model and not an observation!
I pointed out the facts. This chart comes from a model. This model uses Noaa data. This model uses GCM physics.
Deal with that.
Here is a challenge.
1. go find a skeptic who ACCEPTS the noaa temperatures used as this models inputs.
2. go find a skeptic who accepts that RRTM is settled science.
Your claim that skeptics exist who believe this is like saying unicorns exist.
in your dreams.
lets ask Brandon.
1. do you accept the inputs to the model as valid?
2. Do you accept RRTM as settled science?
or you?
And what consequences follow from your acceptance
I don’t accept much a nuthin’, moshe. It’s all a big stew of conjecture, various bits acquiring greater credibility from time to time and bubbling to the top. You’ve apparently seized on a solid bit, a radiative principle, and are holding it up and crowing over it. Throw it back, the feast is not yet well enough cooked.
============
Steven Mosher, I described a position. You claim the position makes no sense then immediately resort to analogy. Analogies should be used to clarify, not make, an argument. That you never even attempt to discuss what has actually been said is silly. It can only create confusion.
In fact, your response depends upon creating confusion as your analogies merely repeat your original position. They don’t say anything new, and thus they don’t address anything I said. Posting them is nothing more than repeating yourself with lots of clutter. They’re a waste of time. If you want to have a discussion about whether or not I am “making no sense,” quote my words and say how they’re wrong. Stop relying on stupid tricks.
Straw man arguments are so boring. Let’s try an honest version.
“Let’s suppose That I argue the average global temperature is increasing.
You challenge me and ask what models I use. I say “GCMs from climate consensus scientists.” You then proceed to trash GCMs and say that GCMs should not be trusted to predict global warming.
A year goes by. Then you make the argument ‘look at this paper, It shows no warming for this period.”
I read the fine print and point out a GCM was used.”
I’ll rephrase in normal English.
CAGWer – We have to decarbonize because climate models predict catastrophic warming.
Skeptic – Here is the output of a GCM using consensus temp data, and it does not show the predicted warming, so we don’t need to decarbonize.
Skeptic – See? I was right and you just admitted it. Let me rewrite what you actually wrote, and claim you argued something completely different, and I’ll show you how.
You compared global average temperature to global average temperature, but I will change that to comparing the average weight of Swedes to the average weight of Americans.
You post the results of a “climate data analysis,” and I will point out that I did a Sherlock Holmesian investigation and learned that the analysis was done using a computer.
You point out that this one analysis does not support the CAGW argument of run away warming (without actually, you know, saying so). I mischaracterize you to say that this one output “proves” there is no global warming.
Straw men arguments are dishonest.
Steven Mosher:
1. Skeptics have claimed they doubt the NOAA temperature products.
2. Skpetics have claimed they doubt radiative physics.
3. Skeptics have called GCMS Junk.
If that is what you wrote at WUWT, then the moderator made a mistake snipping you. It’s totally vapid.
Meanwhile, you are have accepted that the posted graph from NCEP CFRS is pretty accurate. Right? Something that the GCM forecasts might profitably be compared to and contrasted with?
It’s too bad the WUWT moderator wasn’t in the mood for some light-hearted, self-deprecating introspection. As kim notes:[There’s] enough ‘cognitive’ dissonance for both sides to share in the bounty.
Still, Mosher could have targeted ‘skeptics’, instead of skeptics. (Joshua emphasizes this distinction.) On the one side, philosophical ‘skeptics’ (i.e. anti-dogmatists, political reactionaries, etc.). And on the other side, scientific skeptics (i.e. Carl Sagan – a famous skeptic known to have used radiative physics in his greenhouse modeling of Venus.)
blueice2hotsea, I’m hard pressed to see how he can label skeptics as he did. Mosher said skeptics doubt radiative physics. Since when? I think I’ve always seen people say the opposite.
And for the record, I can doubt GCMs without doubting that particular model.
Brandon Shollenberger
Well depending on Mosher’s intent, he may have made a mistake. Or not.
But I basically agree with you – provide you share Carl Sagan’s notion that a skeptic is someone who rejects (or suspends judgment on) claims which are based on “crummy evidence”. (Sagan wrote several articles for the Skeptical Inquirer back when I was a subscriber.)
Skeptics do not reject radiative physics. Although ‘skeptics’ might.
Brandon –
Steven Mosher can speak for himself. But I am hard pressed to see how you are unable to see how Mosher can label skeptics, etc.
Mosher’s academic background includes philosophy. For milennia, skeptic has special meaning in phlosophy. Given that perspective and context, his labeling makes sense to me. And I disagree with it from my perspective.
Hope that helps.
blueice2hotsea, as memory serves, Mosher has used the word skeptics to refer to a group that accepts radiative physics at least dozens of times over the years. I know I’ve seen hundreds of examples of that usage by people on this blog alone. Given that, I can’t see the justification for what Mosher said.
If someone knows a word has a common usage in a forum, it is wrong for them to use it in a different way without making it clear they’re doing so. This is especially true if that word is a noun which refers to a group of people. Knowingly misusing a label like that is deceptive. The fact the usage might have been acceptable in a different context does not change that.
Assuming skeptics as a group accept radiative physics, and assuming Mosher knows this, his remark is unjustifiable. If either assumption is untrue, he remark is justifiable.
Stephen Mosher: You will get nowhere challenging this physics..
I can’t remember that I have ever challenged this physics. What I have asserted is that there are other energy transport mechanisms relevant to climate and climate change; that the concept of “equilibrium” probably does not apply to the Earth climate system; and that a few other such specific shortcomings in the theoretical claims make it impossible to know what doubling (or otherwise increasing) the CO2 concentration will do globally, given the states of the climate now.
Sure, AGW theory is a dead idea but global warming is still useful politically: AGW Alarmism and the ‘hockey stick’ are still giving the charlatans and snake-oil salesmen something to play a fast, loose and dirty sting on the folks. We still have Democrats that are are being elected by associating the business of living with evil.
Might be late to the party but get an eyeful of http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/01/climate-sceptics-capture-bloggies-science.
Webby not amused.
The Medium is the Message:
The Guaridan a self-styled “Greenie” shows it is wholly oblivious to the socio-economic and political implications of climate change as a heuristic phenomenon–e.g.,
We are electing politicians associate the business of living with evil as if going to work in the morning to make products people want and are willing to pay for out of their own earnings is causing calamitous climate disruption and destroying the environment.
Read “http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/01/climate-sceptics-capture-bloggies-science” again.
Admittedly SkS first, but in hot pursuit CA,Tallbloke, JoNova and WUWT.
It all changes as I write: “Skeptical Science who have never lobbied to be nominated and are the only non-climate sceptic blog on the Science shortlist, has now asked to be withdrawn from the shortlist due to its concerns about the legitimacy of the voting process”. Sulk, sulk.
simon abingdon
Let me get this straight:
1. Skeptical Science is voted as one of the best climate blogs.
2. Skeptical Science questions “the legitimacy of the voting process”.
What’s wrong with this picture?
(I knew these guys were a bit goofy, but had no idea just how extreme.)
Max
Simon Abingdon Read “http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/01/climate-sceptics-capture-bloggies-science” again.
Admittedly SkS first, but in hot pursuit CA,Tallbloke, JoNova and WUWT.
And:
It all changes as I write: “Skeptical Science who have never lobbied to be nominated and are the only non-climate sceptic blog on the Science shortlist, has now asked to be withdrawn from the shortlist due to its concerns about the legitimacy of the voting process”.
There is nothing on the page, that I can see, which gives: “Admittedly SkS first, but in hot pursuit CA,Tallbloke, JoNova and WUWT”.
Is this what you meant by “it all changes as I write”? That this was on the first time you read it, but was removed from the page?
This is still about the shortlist, not the final voting. Perhaps SkepticalScience found themselves going further down the pack..?
The website page now shows JoNova in the lead,
Hall of Fame: Slashdot and Lifehacker have won this category three times.
JoNova
Tallbloke’s Talkshop
Climate Audit Skeptical Science
withdrawn by request
Watts Up With That?
It is a dysfunctional politic that lets Western academia get away with preaching in schoolrooms that if we destroy America we will end hurricanes and tornadoes and the seas won’t rise. The AGW Alarmists have nothing to offer but a world facing a looming catastrophe but it will rain lollypops everyday if we believe in the schoolteachers of global warming.
Seems like certain groups of people, worthy and wishing ter
do good, tend ter be open ter authoritarian doom – sayer
‘thou shouldst’ messages, Wagathon.
Herewith a thought fer today:
‘What has alwas made the state a hell on earth has been
precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven’
H/t F Hoeldelin
Beth the ex-school – teacher – before – she – became –
a- cow- girl )
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Consarnit! someone should make a law agin’ it…
..And things seem ter be fallin’ apart, Pokerguy.. Do yer think the
centre can hold? :)
Not sure, dear Beth. But that falcon is one worried bird :-)
A life without conviction is like a mind without a thought–e.g., open to everything but the obvious…
Conviction is fine, even admirable when accompanied by an open, flexible mind and sense of moderation. Terrorists are nothing if not convinced.
We are holed up at a shack on the Tweed River –Shibboleth and I. I am eating exquisitely delicious Indian takeaway and drinking pomegranate beer. It wasn’t always that way. Earlier we had negotiated paths cut in steep, wooded hills. Cliffs falling away sharply in places where the hillside had been had been washed away. We were trying to cross the Great Dividing Range to Murwillumbah in New South Wales. Until we learned that the track had been washed out ahead and headed down the coast road instead.
It is raining lightly everywhere still – just enough to keep soils moist and the creeks fresh. What is the source? The multivariate ENSO – Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) – Southern Annular Mode (SAM) – and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) indices show most all of Australian rainfall up to decadal scale. I’d hazard it was most of the above driving the widespread rain – although there is centennial and millennial variability. Ask CH at climate etc when he gets back from holiday.
The refugee crisis to my north is a tragedy. One in 20 boatpeople are dying. There are refugees living in derelict buildings in Sydney – because claims processing has been stopped since August 2012 – and because they aren’t permitted to work in the meantime. Refugees are being sent back to rape, torture and murder. There are refugees in detention camps in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans and in remote Australia. There must be a cheaper way and there must be a way to treat refugees with some common decency. We obviously need fewer boats to be leaving ports in Malaysia and Indonesia. That means processing human rights claims offshore. Any boats that do get through need to be rounded up and the people conveyed to some quite nice tropical island. There is always plenty of spare capacity somewhere. In fact – Australia has some quite nice island resorts that have some spare capacity – and may even be a bit run down – what with cyclones, GFC and expensive dollars. We would know where they were and that they were cared for – we could tender it out to the lowest bidder. This might be a damn site cheaper than shutting them away in camps at home and abroad. We would need to have health and character checks but just pack them off to some quite nice Island somewhere – while weeding out the holiday makers from Papua New Guinea.
The climate war is trivial compared to the tragedy to the north. Nonetheless – the serfs are revolting in UNtopia – Minnesota and duty calls.
Best regards
Generalissimo Skippy
I checked the local weather forecase for tomorrow–i.e., more of the same multivariate ENSO, PDO, SAM and IOD events on a decadal, some centennial and also a slight millennial scale, inducing to some extent a variable rainfall. Good luck.
We are holed up at a shack on the Tweed River –Shibboleth and I. I am eating exquisitely delicious Indian takeaway and drinking pomegranate beer. It wasn’t always that way. Earlier we had negotiated paths cut in steep, wooded hills. Cliffs falling away sharply in places where the hillside had been had been washed away. We were trying to cross the Great Dividing Range to Murwillumbah in New South Wales. Until we learned that the track had been washed out ahead and headed down the coast road instead.
It is raining lightly everywhere still – just enough to keep soils moist and the creeks fresh. What is the source? The multivariate ENSO – Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) – Southern Annular Mode (SAM) – and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) indices show most all of Australian rainfall up to decadal scale. I’d hazard it was most of the above driving the widespread rain – although there is centennial and millennial variability. Ask CH at climate etc when he gets back from holiday.
The refugee crisis to my north is a tragedy. One in 20 boatpeople are dying. There are refugees living in derelict buildings in Sydney – because claims processing has been stopped since August 2012 – and because they aren’t permitted to work in the meantime. Refugees are being sent back to rape, torture and murder. There are refugees in detention camps in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans and in remote Australia. There must be a cheaper way and there must be a way to treat refugees with some common decency. We obviously need fewer boats to be leaving ports in Malaysia and Indonesia. That means processing human rights claims offshore. Any boats that do get through need to be rounded up and the people conveyed to some quite nice tropical island. There is always plenty of spare capacity somewhere. In fact – Australia has some quite nice island resorts that have some spare capacity – and may even be a bit run down – what with cyclones, GFC and expensive dollars. We would know where they were and that they were cared for – we could tender it out to the lowest bidder. This might be a damn site cheaper than shutting them away in camps at home and abroad. We would need to have health and character checks but just pack them off to some quite nice Island somewhere – while weeding out the holiday makers from Papua New Guinea.
The climate war is trivial compared to the tragedy to the north. Nonetheless – the serfs are revolting in UNtopia – Minnesota and duty calls. The comment above will be uncommented and retrospectively deemed not to have happened – as it obviously an imposter. Anyone repeating it will ‘win’ an all expenses paid one way trip to UNtopia – Minnesota. You are advised to pack warmly.
Best regards
Generalissimo Skippy
Better than tender it out to the lowest bidder, train them to fix the places themselves. Teach them the construction, maintenance and management skills. When they’ve fixed up one place so it is suitable for high paying tourists, move them onto the next place. Keep going until they’ve rebuilt Australia’s infrastructure. When individuals have the skills to run their own businesses, (and can say Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi without a foreign accent) then they can be released and become productive members of Australian society. :)
Hell – don’t have to keep them locked up. There are lots of jobs Aussies don’t want.
Chief , GS and wonderful Shibboleth, be careful how yer negotiate
those northern flooded rivers… It’s true what yer say about the
political refugee problems in Australia. Humane, pragmatic outcomes
need ter be found.
If there’s not much else happening this weekend you could try this test.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Who said there was no such thing as a “left libertarian”? I’m one, apparently, with a score of -8.5 on the left /right axis and -6.2 on the authoritarian /libertarian axis.
Try this test:
Who do you prefer George Washington or Mao Tse-Tung? Do you think the answer is simple?
■ If you are a Tibetan Buddhist monk, you prefer a God-fearing protector of personal and religious freedom like George Washington
■ If you are a tenured professor in liberal fascist academia, then Ward Churchill is more inspiring than Winston Churchill, the mass murderer Mao is your philosopher, and Bush-haters Castro and Chavez are your comrades.
George Bush opposed and beat Al Gore and refused to go along with Europe and the UN’s Kyoto Agreement and the Left’s global warming alarmism. Since then nature and American-made satellites have been on the side of Bush.
+ Here’s the rest of the story as I now understand it on the rise and fall of the United States government and its relationship to the rise and fall of integrity in scientific research.
http://tinyurl.com/cg69otr
I regret that couldn’t decipher this puzzle earlier.
With deep regrets,
– Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
tempt, I got to the first question – “If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations” – and wondered whether it was worth proceeding. First, much of the huge growth in global well-being in recent decades has been driven by TNCs. Second, TNCs are owned and staffed by humans. Therefore this is not an agree/disagree proposition, and I can’t answer it in those terms.
Okay, the site FAQs dealt with my concern. I scored 4.25 on economics – to the right, but only half, or less than half, of Milton Friedman’s alleged position. I scored a similar degree of libertarianism, at -3.49. That accords with my self-view of being economically towards the right and tending to libertarianism, but not extreme. tempt’s score shows him as far left – with a score similar to Stalin, and far more libertarian than Gandhi (who I don’t regard as particularly libertarian).
Economic Left/Right: 0.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23
OMG, I see they think Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is economically “Right”. That’s a joke. She’s well to the Left. She helped set up the Socialist Party in Australia, her time before politics was as a far left lawyer defending unions and allegedly involved in union fraud. A few days ago she stood with the strongest union in Australia singing “Solidarity forever” and told the members “we are not a Progressive Party, we are not a social democratic party, we are a Labor party. That’s who we are”. Yet this survey has her a well to the “Right”. No wonder this survey has been suggested by a Far-Left troll.
Those rate-your-ism sites all have fancy descriptions of this and that. All I ever want to be is a commie hater from the fifties.Not a McCarthyist (they hung out with Robert Kennedy!), not an Objectivist (Ayn Rand made a hero of a bloody architect!), not anybody who’s all frisky and busy, who has to fit everything to a dogma.
I just want to be a fifties commie hater, nothing more. The rest just follows. Climate modellers, economic theorists, food-pyramiders, ab exercisers, hipsters, Kahneman quoters, locavores, Collingwood supporters…you’ll know instinctively to ignore them all.
When we were all locavores, we were malnourished by Spring.
===================
I want to see those coffee bushes growing on the outskirts of Portland and Seattle. Organic and Fair Trade, of course. And imagine those Floridans stuck with all those oranges. My bladder burns at the thought! But brambleberries should get the New Yorkers through winter without too much scurvy.
Not to worry if you’re a celeb locavore confronted with temptation in the form of high food miles. As Pope Alexander used to say to young Cesare, when you’re doing the pontificating, others do the fasting for you.
Locavores in history ‘malnourished by Spring.’ Say kim, potato
famines weren’t too good, either. I believe the last Irish famine
was also the last western famine. The evil Industrial revolution
and fast ships appear to have been a coupla factors of some
significance in the demise.
Five questions ..
(1) How does the required energy get from the Sun to a region of the surface on the Equator of Venus in order to raise it by the observed 5 degrees when it rotates out of its 4-month long night into its 4 month day?
(2) Why is the net effect of water vapour a lowering of the Earth’s mean surface temperature.
(3) Considering the mantle and crust of Earth, why is the plot of temperatures against depth not the usual linear conduction plot, but rather a curve which has the very different gradients that are mentioned in the paper for the mantle and the outer crust?
(4) What is the role of radiative and non-radiative processes in slowing the rate of surface cooling on Earth?
(5) Given that radiation from water vapour slows the cooling of Earth’s surface, why do inland dry tropical regions have higher mean daily minimum and maximum temperatures in their warmest month than do similar wet regions?
Answers here …
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Well, tempt, no way could you and I be libertarian cousins,
me friend. ‘Left libertarian’ is a contradiction in terms unless
yer want ter play with concepts of freedom, eg not ‘freedom to’
… , instead ‘freedom from’.. so hey, we need more (and more)
legislation to ensure everyone is free from any kind of want,
free from all kinds of expanding classifications of discrimination.
More laws fer everybody’s good.
Hmm, …hafta limit freedom of speech, introduce more (and more)
controls on media, Oz Finklestein report, so that every one’s free
from name calling, heck, end a long traditions of robust debate,
eg Voltaire, satirical literature, Jonathon Swift, Alexander Pope,
“bring out the censorship board” …tramp, tramp, tramp… And in
art,say, a picture’s worth a thousand words! can’t have that
uncensored … The tradition of Goya, Daumier and a whole
armoury of cartoonists, it jest won’t do…
Beth the libertarian cg.
Yes, but too much freedom of speech for the serfs could lead to misogyny and corrupt sport…in Western Sydney, no less!
Beth and mosomoso +1 (each)
+1
Beth
Ah reckon ah’m kina more lahk a li-bur-tar-yun serf, too (‘cordin ta that test of ol tempy) – but ah ain’t left leanin er left handed er left out er ennything lahk that. Fact is, ah never hurd tell too much bout left leanin li-bur-tar-yuns an cain’t hardly magin ennything lahk that. Souns ta me lahk whut they call an o-xy-moron.
Doncha reckon?
Max
Max,
Ah reckon yer right, brother li-bur-tar-yun serf, ’bout a
left leanin’ libertarian bein’ a sort of o-xy-moron :)
Beth tls.
Beth
Reckon a nuther way of sayin it is: ifn a li-bur-tar-yun serf leans too much ta the left, he’ll fall raht off the turnip truck.
Max
I was reading some posts and discussions over at Realclimate. Seems they must have had another meeting on “climate communication”.
Gavin is answering critical questions AND being moderately civil!
Sometimes I note that people confuse force with energy. They assume, for example, that gravity can generate energy in effect out of nothing. It can’t, because a force in physics is never energy.
According to this Wikipedia item “it is clear that energy is always an indispensable prerequisite for performing mechanical work, and the concept has great importance in natural science. The natural basic units in which energy is measured are those used for mechanical work; they always are equivalent to a unit of force multiplied by a unit of length. Other equivalent units for energy are mass units multiplied by velocity units squared … Classical mechanics distinguishes between potential energy, which is a function of the position of an object within a field, and kinetic energy, which is a function of its movement. Both position and movement are relative to a frame of reference, which must be specified.”
So, broadly speaking, energy can be grouped into potential energy (PE) and kinetic energy (KE) and, since energy is not normally created or destroyed in our atmosphere, it is correct to say that (for any small region) the mean (PE+KE)=constant in an adiabatic process, that being one in which no external energy is added to a system, and no energy removed from the system.
An important point to note is that the basic laws of Newtonian physics can be applied with reasonable accuracy to the free path motion of molecules travelling between collisions. As the paper explains, the change in PE (due to a change in the vertical component of its position in a gravitational field) can be represented as an opposite change in its kinetic energy. But during collisions (where PE is obviously the same for each molecule) there is a propensity for KE to become homogeneous. We can observe this when diffusion spreads warmer temperatures horizontally across a room without any apparent air movement. However, whilst it also spreads warmer temperatures in a vertical plane, as it does so a thermal gradient evolves because the thermodynamic equilibrium that is eventually established is in fact isentropic, meaning that the mean (PE+KE) for molecules is the same, but not the temperature, because the temperature is a function only of the mean KE and that KE must vary when PE varies in order to keep (PE+KE) the same at all levels.
It seems that climatologists are somewhat determined to rubbish the Loschmidt postulate that a thermal gradient would thus evolve by diffusion, even in a perfectly insulated, sealed cylinder of air. (They probably realise that the postulate demolishes the greenhouse conjecture in a single blow.) Consequently, they make out that convection must be necessary, and they call the gradient a “lapse rate” in order to associate it with some “lapsing” process, which is thought to result from convection. Then they assume that warm air only ever rises by such convection, and, if there were no convection, they assume there would be isothermal conditions at all altitudes. None of this is the case in our real world.
But there is an ingrained concept it seems, that the thermal gradient must have something to do with expansion of air in a column as it moves upwards and thus cools. Consequently they start their calculations by introducing pressure which is included in the Ideal Gas Law. But the ideal gas law itself can be derived from first principles (using kinetic theory) provided that we understand first that temperature is proportional to mean kinetic energy and is only a function of that mean KE of molecules in the (small) region.
I deliberately avoid unnecessary computations in my paper, in order to show the simplest derivation of the thermal gradient – done in just two lines, using first principles, wherein we assume mean (PE+KE) remains constant in all regions and throughout all regions.
Some people, it seems, judge a paper by the number of lines of computations, rather like judging a book by its cover. Computations may appear impressive, but they prove nothing if the underlying assumptions are false in the first place. Likewise the multi-million dollar computer models of the assumed radiative greenhouse effect are completely fictitious, because the assumptions are indeed wrong.
For example, climatologists have been known to misuse the Virial theorem which relates to forces of attraction between individual molecules, and which thus leads to another form of PE. But that PE has nothing to do with the gravitational PE being discussed in the theoretical derivation of the thermal gradient, which is based on interchanges of KE and gravitational PE.
Others work with the Ideal Gas Law, but fail to understand the prerequisites and limitations thereof. You can’t even derive these laws without starting from the concept that temperature is proportional to mean KE and not a function of pressure, density or anything else. Hence any computations which show temperature as a function of pressure, density etc are simply incorrect.
If you turn a horizontal, perfectly insulated sealed cylinder of air to a vertical position, these steps occur …
(1) Gravity rapidly sets a pressure gradient by physically moving some molecules downwards until a physical equilibrium evolves in which more molecules in the lower half of any small vertical column physically support a smaller number of molecules in the top half, doing so by collision processes.
(2) Meanwhile the process of diffusion of KE causes a thermal gradient to evolve far more slowly, so we immediately see that there is no relationship between pressure and temperature.
(3) Simultaneously with (2) the slight variations in temperature cause very minor consequent changes in pressure which “fine tune” the pressure gradient.
Then, there is nothing to stop a general cooling of the whole cylinder of air if the insulation is removed. The pressure will remain almost the same, and there certainly will be a pressure gradient. But the temperature is not maintained by the pressure. Instead, it needs new energy to be added in order to replace that which is being lost. And so it is that the atmosphere absorbs energy originally from the Sun and the whole surface-plus-atmosphere system radiates away to space a very similar amount of energy per second as it receives from the Sun. This sets the overall level of the thermal plot of temperature against altitude in the troposphere. Then the thermal gradient sets the plot in position so that its intersect with the surface is at a pre-determined temperature and all the assumed “33 degrees of warming” was in fact already more than achieved by gravity, with water vapour reducing the gradient and thus the surface temperature. We can probably give carbon dioxide the credit for a very small cooling effect brought about in the same way that water vapour reduces the thermal gradient – aka “lapse rate” – as is well known to occur. So much for the GHE conjecture!
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Someone please let me know when/if Joshua ever makes a non-idiotic, non-self-glorifying comment.
Joshua makes a distinction between scientific skeptics and ‘skeptics’. The latter being those who have at least temporarily fallen into a trap of reactionary cynicism\contrarianism. He also cautions against motivated reasoning, sometimes in a self-parody.
So I would argue that Joshua’s comments have not been altogether worthless. And I would argue the same for mine.
BI2HS
Joshua’s distinction between scientific skeptics and “skeptics” is a fine line, but I can accept it as you have defined it.
It has a direct parallel on the other side.
There are those who have fallen into the trap of blind faith/dogmatism rather than rational evaluation of the all of the available data with a totally open mind to any new dissenting findings that come along.
Let’s call this category “dogmatists”, as opposed to rational warmers.
OK?
Max
Yes.
Does Joshua also have word for those of his own ilk, ie people who have at least temporarily fallen into a trap of credulous/cretinous acceptance of government-funded alarmism, due to their own politically-dominated motivated reasoning ?
BB –
My guess is Joshua thinks that at one point or another, motivated reasoning juices the arguments of nearly everyone in the climate debate, himself included.
Perhaps Joshua is in moderation timeout right now and can answer for himself later.
The SKS folks are right-on-the-facts. Moreover, Gavin Tapp’s weblog has posted solid evidence of organization-level astroturfing
There is no evidence that the editorial staff of sites like WUWT, PJMedia, etc. personally collude in unscrupulous astro-turfing practices. And yet, these same editorial staffs have embraced other unscrupulous practices — for example, the unilateral “outing” of posters’ personal identities … so who knows?
Conclusion SKS should not lend its name to the unscrupulous and/or anti-scientific practices that have been associated to astro-turfed and/or politics-first climate-change denialism.
Good on `yah for standing up for rational science and honest public discourse, SKS!
Heh, the ‘and/or’ are giveaways.
=================
Rank speculation masquerading as comprehensive thought. Transparent, and paranoid.
====================
Yesterday’s Guardian science post talked to the organizer of the Bloggies and the guy admitted that the situation is out of control and nothing he can do about it. The piece revealed that 13 of the top 17 blogs nominated for best science blog in the Bloggies were aligned with AGW skepticism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/01/climate-sceptics-capture-bloggies-science
The writer used the term “Freeped”, which I haven’t heard for ages.
This astroturfing is likely real.
WHT
When I were a lad, a ‘freep’ was schoolboy vernacular for a high-pitched flatulence.
Plus ça change… ;-)
WebHubTelescope, your conclusion has been obvious to everyone for a long time … save for denialism’s true-believers, that is!
Not to mention, students of the history of science recognize the symptoms of astro-turfed denialism, eh?
Worldwide oil sales are on the order of three trillion dollars per year … does any rational person imagine the folks getting rich off carbon energy would scruple at tough-to-trace astroturfing … to protect their wealth and power?
I recall that the Freepers derived from participants of the Free Republic message board. There was also the LGF board back then, but the proprietor Charles Johnson got on his road bike and rode away from the wingers when he found out how anti-science most of them were. The pinnacle of their achievements was when they forced out Dan Rather from CBS.
But now with the Donors Trust Fund having to give their money to someone, the only mystery is how the dough is being divided up.
WHT
‘Donors Trust’… rings a bell. Let me think. Oh that Donors Trust.
The one that distributes vast sums of money from anonymous donors to the organised denial industry:
How… peculiar.
BBD
Before you get your knickers all twisted about the “vast sums of money” given to the “denial industry” by some private group, consider the fact that billions of dollars (of taxpayer money) are going annually to support the multi-billion dollar CAGW scare industry (and this could become trillions of $ if a global direct or indirect carbon tax is levied on the public).
Follow the money trail, BBD, and you’ll see where the really “big bucks” are flowing (and the sad part is that it’s all coming from taxpayers, who have nothing to say about how their money is being squandered by the politicians.).
Max
Wake up Max!
“has posted solid evidence?
DUDE. He did not post evidence of astroturfing. This is what he claimed
“But I’m willing to bet that 95% of the 252 comments posted are in the climate skeptic/denier side of the argument, and almost certainly the result of organised activity funded and coordinated by companies that feel they have something to lose.”
Huh. he didnt read them? hes willing to bet? coordinated by companies?
Really? that dud sounds like a conspiracy theorist. Hes got zero evidence. ZERO. he didnt even read the comments.
kim
Scratch’n’sniff radiative physics.
Yes but Donors.
Yes but Donors.
Presumably you agree that… efforts are being made to confuse the issue?
Thanks for the hilarious bit about the SS withdrawal from teh bloggies.
They withdrew because they didn’t want to be humiliated. Precious!
Good point Manacker!
Lessee … all the climate science in the world could be supported for a full year from … [calculates] … two hours of coal-oil-gas revenues.
It’s good that you’re starting to appreciate these common-sense realities, Manacker!
Fanny
Duh!
What is that supposed to demonstrate, Fanny?
That a reliable global supply of energy has a higher value for humanity than global climate research?
No doubt. Neither you nor I could do without the former, but if the latter stopped today, we would hardly notice it.
But, since you apparently missed it, that’s not what is being discussed here.
It is the relative “peanuts” being spent by ‘Donors Trust’ to “support the organized denial industry” (according to BBD) as compared to the(taxpayer funded) multibillion dollar global warming industry.
Got it? (Not really that complicated.)
Max
manacker
Even Andy Revkin wondered in 2008 when Al Gore revealed a $300,000,000 campaign to spread his odious message, but wouldn’t reveal the source of the moolah(loot) other than to say that it was from ‘anonymous and internet’ donors.
================
Fan
Time for your reality check.
1. Something like 99.999% of money in climate science comes from government
2. Government has a vested in alarmism
The unsurprising result is that the government-funded manufactured consensus is one of alarmism. Only the braindead and those under five years old can’t see the state’s real agenda here.
@ Fan : Uhhh … the denial of knowledge *IS* a good thing, right Erica?
You’re way off-base here. The basic argument is over what attitude to take towards the science fraud that has permeated much of the consensus.
And, by and large, skeptics deny fraudulent science, while many alarmists such as yourself endorse it (if only by remaining silent about it), since the fraud helps to support their heavily statist political position.
So, to fix your comment : denial of fraudulent ‘knowledge’ is indeed a good thing.
Good point Erica!
But the conspiracy is even broader than your post indicates!
Only the braindead and those under five can’t see the REAL agenda of modern-day “science” and “mathematics” and “history”:
• Undermine the authority of God with the science of evolution!
• Undermine the authority of the market with the tragedy of the commons!
• Undermine unity born of racism with values of humanism!
• Undermine the autonomy of the freehold with public health measures!
• Undermine the autonomy of the family with sex education!
• Undermine confidence born of incapacity with cognitive science!
• Undermine confidence born of ignorance with knowledge!
Let’s all demand that our society nurture the values we cherish by turning away from knowledge!
Thanks to the efforts of coordinated cadres of astro-turfers, the United States now leads the world in denying the implications of scientific evolution, conservation, humanism, public health, education, medicine, and knowledge!
Uhhh … the denial of knowledge *IS* a good thing, right Erica?
`Cuz look how much trouble Eve created, by consuming the fruits of knowledge!
Erica : Only the braindead and those under five years old can’t see the state’s real agenda
Fan : Good point Erica! But the conspiracy is even broader than your post indicates!
Oh dear, Fan is reduced to relying on the clapped-out “conspiracy” strawman again. (And also, a number of other knee-jerk loony-left non-sequiturs).
He is over years old, I assume***, so that just leaves but one explanation – Fan is a classic Knee Jerk.
—–
*** Mind you, judging by the inane endless smilies he moronically imagines are clever, I could be wrong.
Oh Erica, do be kinder to five-year old Fan.
He hasn’t yet worked out that, in general, you don’t need to posit a “conspiracy” to explain the behavior of an organization in pursuing its own interests. And in particular, that no “conspiracy” is needed to explain why government funds CAGW panic – it thereby increases its chances of expanding its powers and revenues. No big secret, just business as usual.
No discussion here on the latest study of moderate volcanic activity over the past decade and effect on flattening global temperatures?
http://phys.org/news/2013-03-volcanic-aerosols-pollutants-tamped-earth.html
Surely there has been discussion but this thread is so long I missed it.
The main thing this paper emphasises, is that the certainty with which the IPCC has, in the past, made claims in the SPMs, is severely undermined by these sorts of reports, which cast doubt on the validity of the consensus that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes CAGW.
Logic fail.
The argument that C02 will cause warming and not cooling is utterly independent of this paper.
1. The properties of the C02 molecule are such that it is relatively opaque to Longwave radiation. This is lab tested science. Field tested science.
science so solid that we engineer working devices based on it. Like c02 detectors in some buildings that use changes in IR transmission to detect C02.
2. The concentration of C02 in the atmosphere establishes a ‘level” or altitude at which the earth effectively radiates to space. This altitude is known as the ERL. The concentration of C02 above the ERL is constant.
such that when the concentration reaches a low enough level, earth can radiate energy back to space.
3. Increasing C02, raises the ERL. Because the earth has a negative lapse rate ( higher is colder ) when the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder place in the atmosphere.
4. When the earth radiates back to space from a higher colder place, that transfer happens more slowly. Cold bodies loose energy less rapidly than warm ones.
5. When the loss of radiation at the TOA is slower, the surface responds by increased output of LW, it becomes warmer than it would otherwise.. You could also say it cools less rapidily.
Nothing in the paper comes close to challenging this science because it cannot.
Start Here: http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld001.htm
Then get the textbook referenced in the slides.
Read that. get off the internet for a few days. read the basic text books.
You’ve asked repeatedly for the explanation. Once again I have.
A) explained it to you.
B) pointed you at a simple explanations.
C) Given you a reference to primary sources.
It will be obvious if you dont read C.
Steven Mosher said:
“Logic fail.
The argument that C02 will cause warming and not cooling is utterly independent of this paper.”
______
I agree. What has been hotly debated over the past few years are the causes for the flattening (at higher levels) of global temperatures. What this paper does is place some attribution for that flattening with a series of modest sized volcanoes. What one could do is remove the estimated cooling effect from aerosols over the past decade and estimate the effect on global temperatures. Furthermore, one could remove the negative forcing from the cool phase of the PDO or ENSO activity and see what the effect would be on global temperatures. (oh, yeah, that’s been done).
But none of this directly has anything to do directly with the cooling or warming effects of increasing CO2, long-term or shorter. That of course, could be added to a model run along with volcanic, ENSO, PDO forcing and see what it tells us.
It’s like talking to the cat!
TSW
Thanks for this – very interesting indeed – see also Vernier et al. (2011) Major influence of tropical volcanic eruptions on the stratospheric aerosol layer during the last decade.
All food for thought, unless of course one has already decided that it’s all a hoax ;-)
Eh, I’m going blind. Vernier is a co-author. As is Solomon, who also has form for this sort of thing ;-)
Skeptical
The interesting part about the impact of volcanic activity on our climate is that a very large part is unknown.
As Ian Plimer once pointed out, the total CO2 leaving the Earth’s interior through all fissures, cracks, underwater volcanoes as well as the few above-ground volcanoes (which are the only ones that are well known) could well be greater than the amount emitted by humans.
By comparison, the total CO2 emissions from all known volcanoes is only around 1% of that emitted by humans.
Over 5,000 active underwater volcanoes have been identified, but many more than that may still exist.
http://www.universetoday.com/28862/underwater-volcanoes/
A study by Hillier & Watts (2007) indicates the existence of more than 3 million volcanoes worldwide (two thousand times as many as are currently known!).
http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~tony/watts/downloads/HillierWatts2007GL029874.pdf
And a survey of several studies concludes:
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
So, yes, volcanoes may really be a significant factor in our planet’s climate (beside just the short-term aerosol effect you mention).
Max
…much like Planned Parenthood even the name — Skeptical Science — is an abortion… The Left turned English into a Liars Languange
…there is nothing more necessary than truth, and
in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value ~Nietzsche
Thanks, Wagathon, for the quote from Nietzche, that I repeat below:
“…there is nothing more necessary than truth, and in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value”
. . . because opponents of “scientific facts” (truths), i.e., proponents of lock-step consensus science, have unwittingly sold their own friends and relatives into slavery for a few pieces of gold – research grants, tenure, promotion and awards.
However, none of them intended these long-term consequences of actions taken for short-term benefit.
Yes, well, didn’t Nietzsche end his days as a babbling idiot?I don’t mean go be cruel, but I can’t help having a visceral dislike…really a kind of revulsion…for such dictates. The trouble is that truth is less a thing than an ongoing struggle. I’m much more comfortable with those who admit to doubts than those, as per Yeats, who are filled with passionate intensity.
Pokerguy,
F. Neitzsche was not a nice man,
He had his little ways,
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
H/t AA Milne
Beth
Apologies ter Nietzsche fer spellin’ his name wrong.
Evening Miss Beth,
I do like that he supposedly was protecting a horse from a vicious beating when he had his first mental collapse. Apocryphal or not, it’s a nice story. He must have had his good points. Candidly, I’m not smart enough to read philosophical treatises. Most effective soporific I know. I’ll take the poets any old day instead.
Good evening pokerguy,
I like literature that affirms life, poetry like Roethke’s ‘Root Cellar’
and Greek tragedy where the protagonist has the courage and
will to act despite … and I think this is what yer find in the
climate debate from those who refuse ter succumb ter fear of
apocalypse but look instead to problem solving innovation and
adaptability.
Beth.
Beth. I love “Root Cellar,” I’m so glad you posted it because I wasn’t familiar. My education has been terribly spotty, and I’m just not getting around to the Greek plays now, in my early 60’s. Currently reading Antigone. I love heroic women. Heroic men tend to be one dimensional it seems to me, while women are lovely and complex. Lady Macbeth as far as I’m concerned is a much more interesting character than her rather doltish husband (to stretch the term “heroic’ all out of shape….)
Truthfully, the older I get the more heartbreaking I find this all too brief moment of ours in the sun. How sad is Roethke’s poor dumb dirt, breathing its tiny breath And the mystery, which even a child understands by the time he or she’s ten years old. “Out of a misty dream our path emerges for a while, then closes within a dream.” And good old Poe with his dream within a dream. “I stand amid the roar of a surf tormented shore and hold within my hand grains of the golden sand….”How few! yet how I they creep through my fingers to the deep…while I weep-while I weep”. What a genius poor tormented Poe was.
Swedish doctor and statistician Hans Rosling on population and
planned parenthood.
Beth,
Thank your for this link. Hans Rosling’s videos are always very informative and enjoyable as well.
So there is no way out. 9-10 billion population for sure. More if we kill kids and constrain economic growth.
So, to keep population down: we need to maximise economic growth. That will also help achieve the other factors to minimise peak population such as less violence, less ward, more and better education for all (especially girls and women in the poorest countries).
He mentioned energy. How can we provide the energy to allow GDP growth rate to be as fast as possible – i.e. to provide the world’s population of 9 to 10 million with per capita energy approaching that of EU and USA?
One thing for sure is renewable energy will have little part in it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.html
Peter Lang
Most estimates agree that human population growth rates will slow down sharply this century (they already have), and that we will reach up to around 10.5 billion by 2100 (an exponential growth rate of around 0.4% per year).
We have just recently gone through a period of extremely high population growth (exponential rate of 1.7% per year).
And since 1970 the per capita fossil fuel consumption (CO2 emission) has increased by 20%
Global energy demand will undoubtedly increase as underdeveloped nations pull their populations out of abject poverty by providing a reliable source of low-cost energy as China, India, Brazil, etc. are doing today.
And, while the developed nations are reducing the per capita consumption of fossil fuels and increasing the GDP generated per ton of CO2 emitted, it is reasonable to assume that the overall per capita use of fossil fuels will continue to increase, possibly at a somewhat slower rate than in the past (I have made the WAG that it would increase by 30% over today’s value by 2100).
This could be a bit lower if all western nations immediately adopted the policy of building no further coal-fired power plants, building new (economically competitive) nuclear plants instead (as you have suggested).
But taking my more pessimistic basis, we arrive at around 640 ppmv CO2 by 2100 (checks with first four “business as usual” scenarios and storylines in IPCC AR4).
At the latest observation-based estimates of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity this would produce around 1C warming above today by 2100 (assuming “equilibrium” is reached).
I am personally not going to worry about this, since it is in the same order of magnitude as past warming, which has not hurt us one iota.
So yes, in summary.
– Population will continue to increase, but the growth rate will most likely slow down considerably as nations develop.
– Global energy demand will grow faster than global population, with per capita human CO2 emissions increasing; however, this increase could be mostly counteracted by really “going nuclear”
– Based on latest 2xCO2 ECS estimates, we could have around 1C GH warming by 2100; a bit less if we really “go nuclear”
– AGW is not a real potential threat to humanity or our environment
Max
FYI –
Embedded videos are subject to deletion by JC. Her explanation to David Springer after a number of his went missing was that she prefers video URLs ; they take up less space on the page.
Manacker,
Thank you for this. It’s very clearly written.
I would like to ask some questions of you and anyone else who can contribute knowledgeably.
1. Why is your projection of 1C warming so much lower that IPCC AR4 projection of 3C to 4C warming for the same CO2 concentration by 2100 (640 ppm)?. Is all that difference due to reducing the 2xCO2 ECS from 3C to 2C?
2. You said: “At the latest observation-based estimates of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity …”. Is this “latest” ECS figure generally accepted? If not, why not?
3. What is the most recent consensus of climate experts on climate sensitivity? What is going on in the backrooms of AR5 and among the scientists who are influential on climate senstitivity? (By the way, I have read the sections on climate sensitivity in the leaked AR5 – it seems the words are little changed from AR4).
Beth,
How did you get your Ted link to show as video? I pasted another TED video and it showed as a URL.
Peter,
I have posted several Hans Rosing TED talks here.
I type in ‘TED talks Hans Rosing’ and press on the video
image of the one I wnt to see then control c to Climate Etc.
I never have a problem with this.
Beth
Thanks Beth. That’s what I did. It didn’t show as a video. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. But I see JC prefers the URL anyway, so I’ll try to comply (and hope I don’t accidentally post a picture of the video in future).
blueice2hotsea
Thank you. I’ll try to comply with JC’s wishes, and if I don’t it in future it will be a stuff-up n my part, not intentional.
By the way, I like your name.
So interesting, Beth. You’re eroding my distrust of TED. What next? Booker winners?
He’s wrong, but only in the way that all people who predict are wrong. Life and the world always turn out to be more complex and surprising than thought. (That’s why all climate models and predictions are utterly risible. – but they’re an extreme example of shallow-minded hubris). More importantly, he’s also right! Over-population is the fruit of desperation and insecurity. People who send their kids to orthodontists don’t breed like paupers in war zones.
Who predicted the fade-out of the Italian mamma and her bambini? Nobody. I don’t expect a prediction to be right, just not stupid. After the facile, literal-minded and oafish Ehrlich, Rosling is so refreshing. His mind is off death and on life. Death is the business of the dead, and we’re not dead.
The greatest liberator in history was not Bolivar or Lincoln or Reagan or Sun Yat Sen. It was the automatic washing machine. We shouldn’t rest till there’s choice for all, and that means plentiful food and cheap, abundant energy for all. If that has already been achieved in big slabs of the world, it can be achieved in all the world. People who don’t want any part of it can be directed to the nearest tent shop. Those who think the poor won’t be benefited should ask the poor. But ask quickly, before that human dies and another quickly generated human takes a place beside the dung fire.
Peter and mosomoso, re comments on Hans Rosling and energy.
he has a TED talk video on washing machines which you might
like, I do. I hope this is just the url.
http://blog.ted.com/2011/03/21/the-magic-washing-machine-hans-rosling-on-ted-com/
Yep, just a few billion chicks liberated by a white box. And until every household has such a white box women will be slaves to the tub and riverbank. It looks quaint, but handwashing is the least possible fun in the universe, apart from egg candling or watching The English Patient.
Hey, I really like Hans. He discriminates, numbers aren’t numbers, if you know what I mean. Pity he’s a warmie, but if he ever comes to Oz we can bail him up in a quiet corner, maybe bend his specs a bit, then tell him to lay off the climate bedwetting – or else.
One of the most spewful moments in recent history was when Gore was given the Nobel in preference to the sublime heroine, Irena Sendler. She’s gone now, but I reckon that they should give a joint posthumous prize to the impossibly brave Irena and whoever invented the automatic washing machine (it was a group effort). Irena won’t mind sharing…it’s all she did!
I miss this week-end’s Open Thread.
willard, CE is currently on automatic pilot. The may be a Guiness-Book-of-Records-length weekend.
Let’s hope nobody notices.
The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is due to the increase in global mean surface temperature with correlation coefficient of 0.9 as shown:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.62
Trying to control CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by man is a fool’s errand.
The sun is the cause of the increase in the global mean surface temperature as shown:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/from:1895/normalise
I posted this summary of a discussion I had with a renewable energy advocate elsewhere:
This is my summary.
We agree:
1. Nuclear power is about the safest, or near the safest, way to generate electricity, at least in the large quantities demanded by modern society. http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html
I hope you agree (or can explain why you don’t):
2. Nuclear power is the least-cost, low-carbon electricity generation technology (at the scale required to allow large cuts in CO2 emissions from electricity generation).
3. The cost of CO2 abatement with nuclear is much lower than with wind, solar or any of the other non-hydro renewables.
4. It is very likely a large proportion (more than 50%) of our electricity will have to be supplied by nuclear power by 2050 if we want to largely decarbonise electricity generation by then (e.g. http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios)
5. It is unlikely renewable energy will be viable as a major component of electricity generation by 2050.
6. The cost of renewable energy is very high now, and likely to remain so (even though it will come down in real terms as will nuclear).
7. Renewables are constrained by physical factors (such as low energy density, intermittency, unreliability, not dispatchable (mostly), material resources required, land area required (e.g. http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.html ).
8. Nuclear is not constrained by these physical constraints.
9. Nuclear is constrained by public phobia and the politics that result from that. The public phobia and politics can change. They could change quickly if the US President led the way and/or if environmental NGO’s like Greenpeace led the way.
10. Most of Australia’s existing fossil fuel power plants will be replaced by 2050. They will be replaced by the least cost option at the time. If nuclear is allowed to be cheaper than fossil fuels, it will replace the fossil fuel plants when they are retired without government intervention to pick winners. This would be the least cost and fastest way to make major cuts to emissions from electricity generation by 2050.
I agree with you:
11. The large size, cost and construction time for the >1GW size plants being built in USA, Europe, China and other countries are difficult to finance. (Renewables are not cheaper, but it is easier to finance small incremental investments than large investments. It’s also easier for the government to hide to real costs of them.).
My response is
12. Small nuclear generating plants will be available and economic after 2020. They will be factory built and shipped to site. Here is a USA example, approved by US President in November to be commercialised (two in operation in USA) by 2022: http://www.uxc.com/smr/Library/Design%20Specific/mPower/Presentations/2012%20-%20Reactor%20Design%20Overview.pdf . And here is a Chinese example: http://www.uxc.com/smr/uxc_SMRDetail.aspx?key=HTR-PM
13. For current status of small nuclear power reactors (updated 26 Feb) see: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html
“There is revival of interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power, and for process heat.
This interest in small and medium nuclear power reactors is driven both by a desire to reduce the impact of capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.
The technologies involved are very diverse.”
For the period 1960-2012, CO2 goes from 316-385 ppm and HADCRUT3 global from ~287.7-288.4K.
So while CO2 increases 21%, temperature increases 0.24%. What part of the 0.24% is due to man-converted CO2?
Great question. Co2 = .039% of atmosphere. 97% is naturally occuring. So, let’s expend millions if not trillions on co2 mitigation to save the planet. Does anyone here understand what indoctrinated, lobbotomized fool means?
What is a Western academic?
The Left is not sustainable. Yeah real mystical, voting with your dollars and your own future instead of voting with your prejudices and other people’s money. The MARKET is free enterprise instead of working deals through the crony capitalism of an ever expanding secular socialist big government bureaucracy– the sort of thing that has funneled millions to Al Gore for being the champion of the AGW alarmist groupthinkers and of UN-approved witchdoctors of climate change authoritarianism. The only real mystery how is easily the Democrat party adopted the platform of Leftists who openly hate Americanism and a majority of Americans support the change in the political climate from individual liberty and free enterprise to to secular, socialism and big government.
It Doesn’t make Cents.
One of the prime arguments for taking serious action on Global Warming is the price of not acting, or acting later, is too high. Here in CA, Jerry Brown has mandated $30B to $90B price tag to move to 30% renewables by 2020, a cost up to an entire year’s budget. He rejects other methods of C02 reduction, including Nuclear, Hydro, and CA all natural gas electric plant. It makes me think the actual math behind C02 reduction has not been considered particularly well. I also question the idea that man can not “pause” global warming by pushing up sulfates into the atmosphere. If Global Warming is so catastrophic, and given the complexity and global scale of the problem, shouldn’t governments sponsor research immediately as a safeguard? Yes, it has consequences, but perhaps the 20 or 30 years it buys will allow the world to react in a good fashion to global warming.
The proponents of AGW have not offered real solutions, other than to scare people into doing something. If these people are certain of the catastrophes that await, shouldn’t they argue for the destruction of China and India Coal plants? Perhaps, as a beginning, the implementation of severe sanctions such as those on Iran. And should not the US, with its massive per capita C02 production, eliminate illegal immigration?
And definitely we ought to have Nuclear plants replacing all the coal plants. After all, electric generation is the big C02 bogeyman.
Meanwhile, the argument that the 3rd world is at risk similarly makes little sense. If we really wanted to, we could provide clean chlorinated water to the 3rd world. That would be cheaper life per life than the expensive, nonsensical, AGW solutions.
This post was inspired by Heinrich, who seems to be of the belief that no observational data can prove that Global Warming does not exist.
Study 1 => Global warming pause linked to sulfur in China
Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth’s temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record.
http://phys.org/news/2011-07-global-linked-sulfur-china.html#nRlv
Study 2 => Volcanic aerosols, not pollutants, tamped down recent Earth warming, study says
http://phys.org/news/2013-03-volcanic-aerosols-pollutants-tamped-earth.html
What a joke. Science has become opinion. How sad. Why publish before one is completely sure that the study is an accurate description of nature?
Ed Barber,
I agree with most of your comment, but not with geoengineering and not with this bit:
The reason I don’t agree with this part is because I believe there is a better way and it can be largely controlled by USA with no conflict and all benefits.
The better way is to remove the impediments to low cost nuclear power that can be implemented in all nations. This can be largely achieved by the USA It can be led by the President and the citizens of the USA. It could be greatly facilitated if even one of the major anti-nuclear lobby groups, such as Greenpeace, WWF, FoE, etc decided to lead on this (this would help but is not essential).
Given that there are many Australians on CE, and that I am an English cricket fan living near the Gabba (previously near the Oval) and also an Indophile, I feel obligated to advise that India are 306-1 towards the end of the second day. Only 77 ahead.
Off topic! I mean, off non-topic! I mean…you know what I bloody mean.
David Springer – regarding wet “lapse rate” see my paper and the study in the Appendix showing water vapour cools
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf