by Judith Curry
Do I think we’re doomed to disastrous warming? Absolutely not. But do I think we are doomed if we persist in our current approach to climate policy? I’m afraid the answer is yes. – Myles Allen
Myles Allen has published an astonishing and refreshing article in the Daily Mail entitled Why I think we’re wasting billions on global warming, by top British Climate Scientist. Excerpts:
Last week, I was part of a group of academics who published a paper saying that the faster, more alarming, projections of the rate at which the globe is warming look less likely than previously thought.
That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.
JC comment: Thank you for acknowledging the obvious, something that interviews of the paper’s lead authors did not.
Do I think we’re doomed to disastrous warming? Absolutely not. But do I think we are doomed if we persist in our current approach to climate policy?
I’m afraid the answer is yes. Subsidising wind turbines and cutting down on your own carbon footprint might mean we burn through the vast quantity of carbon contained in the planet’s fossil fuels a little slower. But it won’t make any difference if we burn it in the end.
We need to rethink. For instance, if you suppose that the annual UN climate talks will save us, forget it. I met a delegate at the last talks in Doha in December who told me he had just watched a two-hour debate that culminated in placing square brackets around a semi-colon.
Since Kyoto, world emissions haven’t fallen – they’ve risen by 40 per cent. And these vast jamborees – some involving more than 10,000 people – haven’t even started to discuss how we are going to limit the total amount of carbon we dump in the atmosphere, which is what we actually need to do to avoid dangerous climate change.
While failing to delay CO2 levels rising through the 400 parts per million level, Kyoto and the policies which stem from it have achieved the loss of jobs from countries such as Britain – where we have at least managed a small reduction in the emissions we produce – to others whose factories are far more carbon-intensive.
As my Oxford colleague, the economist Dieter Helm, noted in his book The Carbon Crunch, we may have cut the CO2 actually emitted here, but our reliance on imports means the total emissions attributable to British economic activity have increased by 19 per cent since 1992.
Where Dieter and I disagree is that carbon taxes are the answer. A carbon tax will not stop fossil fuel carbon being burnt. While a modest tax would be good for turbine-builders and the Treasury, in the short-term it will not promote the technology we need to solve the problem.
There’s been a lot of talk about ‘unburnable carbon’ – the carbon we shouldn’t burn if we are to keep global temperature rises below 2C. A catchy phrase, but can we really tell the citizens of India of 2080 not to touch their coal?
And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap we will choose to leave that coal alone, I’m afraid you have some basic physics working against you.
Fortunately, there is a solution. It is perfectly possible to burn fossil carbon and not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: you have to filter it out of the flue gases, pressurise it, and re-inject, or ‘sequester’, it back underground.
How much is too much? Well, if the Transient Climate Response is 1C-2C, we’ll need to limit future emissions to around a trillion tonnes of carbon to avoid more than 2C of warming.
It could be a lot less or it could be a bit more, but since this is the middle of the range that everyone agrees on, let’s get on with it and revisit the total when temperatures reach 1.5C. That’s when we’ll have more of an idea of where we’re going.
If this is what needs to be done, why not just make it a condition of licensing to extract or import fossil fuels? In forestry, if you fell trees, the law obliges you to replant.
We must use the same principle: a law to compel a slowly rising percentage of carbon dioxide emissions to be sequestered and stored.
Fossil fuel industrialists will need a few years to gear up, but they won’t need taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Of course, there will be a cost, passed on to the long-suffering consumer. But making carbon capture mandatory would trigger a headlong race to find the cheapest sources of carbon dioxide and places to bury it.
Frankly, I’d rather pay an engineer in Poland to actually dispose of carbon dioxide than some Brussels eco-yuppie to trade it around.
Climate physics nerds may protest that it can’t be that simple, because each tonne of carbon in the atmosphere has slightly less impact than the last. But then carbon cycle nerds would point out that for each tonne of carbon we burn, a slightly higher fraction remains in the atmosphere as other carbon pools fill up. And as so often happens in science, if we bring these two sets of nerds together they annihilate each other in a brief burst of powerpoint, and we end up with the relationship we first thought of: 1-2 degrees per trillion tonnes of carbon.
JC comments: Myles Allen’s analysis of the problem is spot on, IMO. With regards to his proposed solution, carbon capture and storage is as appealing in principle as carbon-free energy; however both require substantial research and innovation before becoming economically and environmentally feasible.
But what is really striking about this essay is the refreshing ‘heresy’ of it, something that has been far too rare in the community of climate scientists that are operating under a self-imposed consensus not only about climate science but also the policy options. We need a diversity of interpretations, opinions, and analyses to generate discussion of a broad range of policy options for energy and climate change.
Note to Josh: we need a cartoon of the power point annihilation thing.
Reposted from the Open Thread:
Seems generally sensible, but…
I don’t see any relevant numbers. A trillion tons, that’s well within reach of air/sea extraction, over 2-3 decades after, say, 2045. Of course, that assumes the major sinks (ocean) are actually elastic in their response, which is questionable.
I’m fine with that, but I’d like to see an exponential increase of some sort rather than linear. (Not that he actually said it should be linear, but I suspect that’s how most people will take it.)
Who are we compelling? Those who extract fossil fuels do not burn them. We burn them in our cars. Funny how nobody talks about car carbon capture.
Sorry. Lets try that again:
From the article:
What he’s suggesting here, then, is some sort of “carbon sequestration” credits trading scheme. He’s leaving the details unspecified, which is wise because it’s in the details that the political horse-trading will take place. Of course, it’s also in the details where you find the risk of corruption or incompetence producing an unworkable scheme.
Here’s how I read his proposal: start with a requirement that for every 100 tons of fossil carbon burned, at least ono ton must be captured and sequestered. Each time there’ve been another 10 billion tons burned, the fraction goes up by 1%. He doesn’t really specify how the carbon is captured, so there’s a choice of “stack” emissions or air/sea capture.
This means operators can buy agricultural waste and sequester it somewhere away from oxygen, getting credits that can be sold to gasoline retailers or factories. A large power plant operator can build one coal (or gas or whatever) plant that captures stack emissions, and use it to offset 99 that don’t. The number will drop to 49 after “we” have burned another 10 billion tons, then 32 1/3, and to on.
These options are implicit in what he said. I would suggest modifying it as follows: first, make the rise exponential rather than linear. Start with 1/10% and double it with every 1 billion tons burned. Second allow operators to burn an equal percentage of fuel made from carbon captured from the air/sea rather than sequestering (or paying for the sequestering of) that amount. Third, allow operators to burn double the percentage of fuel made from carbon captured from stack emissions.
Either way, we’re not talking about a substantial increase in the price of energy. To start with, it’s a minimal cost. Given the expectation that the required percentage will rise, this will incent capitalization of R&D as well as construction of various technologies for carbon capture and/or sequestration.
Personally, I’d focus on capture and leave the sequestration for later, when capture is cheaper. Develop the technology and the markets for captured carbon, and once it’s paying for itself ramp up the sequestration process. But politically, you’ll get enough howls from people who think we need to “punish” energy users by making it artificially expensive. Sequestering will quiet them (a little).
Overall, I think he makes an excellent proposal, specifying what needs to be specified and leaving open what needs to be left open.
You could start by dumping agricultural waste into an anoxic ocean trench rather than wasting effort and money trying to convert it to fuel.
HEAR! HEAR!
You missed the part about wasting trillions of dollars. We do not need vast utopian techno-schemes to solve a nonproblem. Carbon capture is pure waste.
Not if it’s done as part of a political compromise where energy prices/costs aren’t raised (significantly).
CCS is ridiculously expensive, consuming 30% or more of a power plant’s energy just for the capture part. Who is eating the cost in your no cost political compromise?
1% of 30%, to start with. Typical denialbot, doesn’t bother to read.
I personally find the potential for unintended consequences of CO2 sequestration to be too high, along with the costs. The tragedy surrounding Lake Nyos in Cameroon, and the continuing underground fires in Pennsylvania, indicate uncertainties about underground connectivity and consequences that dwarfs those you [rightly] point to in climate models. What we really need are profitable uses – turn the free market loose to find ways to make money off of this “waste.” We’re actually extracting CO2 from the Jackson dome in MS – how much of that extracted could be replaced by Entergy and SouthernCo CO2 production?
You don’t have to sequester CO2, just carbon. Organic material (that lands on anoxic sea-floor) or solid carbonates would do just as well.
One more point…Thermodynamically, CO2 hydrates are much more stable than methane hydrates. Needs a catalyst to overcome the energy of activation barrier, but the price of the natural gas extracted could pay for the necessary infrastructure – and no fracking required!
We are doomed if we do not restore integrity to government science and constitutional limits on governments.
We have no time to blame.
Oliver K Manuel
Mandatory sequestration of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels would be great. How would you do it for transportation?
Solar is already cheaper than that.
As Bob points out, much of the discussion is moot if one can’t sequester CO2 that comes out of a tail-pipe. The energy benefits of combusting fossil fuel will be largely negated by having to supply energy to isolate the CO2 as it comes out of an IC engine by some as yet unknown process.
Consider that Myles Allen refers to the “Climate Nerds”. So speaking as a “System Nerd” myself, Myles Allen’s home country has a growing problem with supplying themselves with adequate fossil fuels in the future. That is the systems problem. They can always get the fuel they need by importing it, but the price will continue to increase. Climate change is only one aspect of the complete systems analysis.
So the research will still be needed to explore alternative forms of energy. Myles Allen completely misses this.
I think Myles Allen is the biggest climate nerd of them all as he can not see the bigger picture. We need a cartoon for that.
You don’t have to sequester tailpipe CO2 if it is burning carbon-neutral biofuel. And you actually only lose a fraction of the energy needed to compress if it’s getting shipped to a biofuel plant because you can run compressed air motors with it before bubbling through the biochambers at STP.
“Note to Josh: we need a cartoon of the power point annihilation thing.” Hell yes we do.
Opportunity cost is a very important concept for the climate-change debate. Because so much money is being spent on this issue, what is being foregone? It might be human needs–or it might be simple money-in-the-bank savings/investment that would increase worker productivity.
I fret over the fact that my job in the intellectual debate is to cancel out the other side. What if we all called a truce and produced real goods and services rather than ‘political’ ones?
Huh.
I’d have thought http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/23/matt-ridley-climate-change-scepticism-risk a better discussion.
Damage due CO2 emission is somewhere between $80-$100/ton, according to the very same sort of model Bjorn Lomborg took to Congress.
That’s $2.4-$3 trillion.
How is this about windmills being unsightly, again?
And how is waiting until we’re over 1.5C, or any other arbitrary number, a sensible action?
Indeed, it’s not waiting, it’s fiddling while Rome burns.
If you really subscribed to a wait-and-see position, you’d logically be arguing to put a halt to all CO2E emission completely, and do the measurements people are clamouring for: “what possible effect would such actions have?”
So what your effective position is, is covering your ears and eyes and chanting la-la-la-la-la-I-don’t-want-to-hear-it.
Bart
Accepting the results of bad models lead to bad decisions
Rob Starkey | May 26, 2013 at 11:42 am |
Begging the question leads to false conclusions.
So, Bart, even if you are right about the 3 trillion, which you probably aren’t, but anyway … the world economic product is about 83 trillion US dollars. Since most of that output depends on fossil fuels, we can say that the 3 trillion of “damage” is offset by 80 trillion in benefits.
Only if you tax the benefits at $3 per $80, then you get the extra money you need for the damage, otherwise it comes from income tax.
Since 3 in 80 is about 3% and governments already take in more than that, they can just divert some existing tax money to make up for the damages. Problem solved.
In fact, in the US money goes to the poor in the US, the poor in other countrie, and for other reasons to other countries. No reason to do any more, eh?
jim2, like they have spare money from existing tax revenues, which are only up to 10% of GDP, to use 3% for damage. No, they should tax the problem at its source, which is also justice.
jim2 | May 26, 2013 at 3:52 pm |
Most of that output depends on fossil fuels?
That’s a ludicrous claim.
Coal, oil and natural gas amounted to about two thirds of the electricity produced in the world up to 2009, it’s true, but converting from coal or oil to natural gas or wind is cheap and easy, as the US has amply demonstrated. Solar’s already cheaper than coal, for those nations with the good fortune to have regions with enough sunlight.. so ‘depends on’ is not the right term at all.
The cost of switching from coal and oil to these alternatives is a fraction of the damage coal and oil do. Even the cost of sequestration of coal or oil is a fraction of the damage coal or oil do.
There’s no dependency on doing this $3 trillion harm. If you accept that there is harm.. which you must, if you use the same logic and models as Bjorn Lomborg ascribes to Richard Tol when he explains in his testimony to Congress.
Gee, Bart, if you can switch fuels as easily as you switch the subject, we’d already be there.
Bart R.
I don’t necessarily agree with Myles Allen, but he did not say wait until it was 1.5 C and then start. He said start now and figure out the actual total that would need to be cut later (he used 1.5 C as an example). I agree that in 10-20 years we will have a much better idea if the ECS is 0.8 C or 2.8 C.
Right. Starting now should be that no regrets option that deals with the most issues with the least fuss. It is also an indication that the head freakout climate scientists in charge bow out gracefully.
Bill | May 26, 2013 at 5:39 pm |
Yeah. It took me my third reading before I started to clue into that the author was subscribing to a proactive approach. I eat crow for that in Bart R | May 26, 2013 at 12:09 pm |
Though I’m fairly certain ECS doesn’t have a single correct value, and changes (perhaps radically) over different spans of time differently. That isn’t something we’ll have knowability with only two more decades of data. Though, in one decade we could have Holocene-spanning, Marcott-validated, GCM runs that could give us one heck of a good running start toward conclusively determining the nature of the ratio.
My read of the the Chris Cook social cost paper is that is a very speculative piece that alarmists can use to justify very high carbon taxes.
In particular, the paper ignores the huge economic benefits of adaptation in rejuvenated infrastructure. IMHO, it over-estimates the costs and ignores the benefits of higher CO2. The model is tunable, but I did not find a place it could be downloaded.
I am solidly in the Myles Allen camp – let’s wait until we see 1 degree Centigrade of global warming (whatever that is) that is unambiguously attributed to increased CO2, then decide what to do with CO2.
We may decide we like the result just fine.
He could have said more about nuclear.
He must not think much of nuclear as a solution. Where is Nukey Lang?
What was is that led some to believe that a 2C increase in temperature is a critical threshold? Wasn’t it the same models that have been demonstrated to be unreliable?
Is carbon capture or building and maintaining robust infrastructure more likely to reduce harms from climate change/adverse weather in a world where there are limited resources? No regrets policies, imo; do not generally include most carbon capture since it is not cost effective. Where there are specific CC projects that make economic sense, I would support them but I am high skeptical that they generally a smart choice.
What was is that led some to believe that a 2C increase in temperature is a critical threshold? Wasn’t it the same models that have been demonstrated to be unreliable?
+1
What historical evidence that does exist, suggests that 2 degrees of warming is more likely to be of net benefit to mankind.
When the idiot climate scientists can produce more complete models that are able to anticipate temperature plateaus like the one we are on now, and also predict cooling, then I think we will also find that models that predict the premature end of the World will automatically disappear.
How exactly does any climate scientist expect to be taken seriously who claim that co2 will generate warming of 2 degrees when we know that during the Silurian period co2 was at 7000 ppm and yet despite that we entered a glaciation.
Climate scientists are a waste of tax payers money. I would get rid of the lot of them, de-fund them all. Lets just start all over again, appoint Judith Curry to select a few real scientists who may carry on diligently extracting ice cores and so on and who carry out science, not alarmism, we can safely leave that to Greenpeace and other religious cults.
“What was is that led some to believe that a 2C increase in temperature is a critical threshold?”
It used to be 3 degrees, then the CS fell.
No its always been 2C. thats the target in the EU as I recall.
Its basically half way to the warmest its been in the few million years.
here doc. its been the target since the 90s
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/future/docs/brochure_2c_en.pdf
It has always been 3 degrees C in terms of ECS, but Nic Lewis and others figured out they would concentrate on TCR. This knocks it down and the 3C turns into 2C. Never mind the fact that ECS is what the landlubbers will experience.
Nice reframing by the pseudo-science skeptic crowd.
Webby, I think the Otto et al and Lewis work does account for long term feedbacks via ocean heat uptake. They produce separate estimates for ECS and TCS, so I believe you are factually wrong here.
Webster, “It has always been 3 degrees C in terms of ECS.”\
Actually, it has never been 3C degrees, scientifically speaking. It was 2 C or 4 C, but since science has become so warm and fuzzy, no scientist should be wrong, so the two estimates where averaged. That is the no scientist left behind policy. An ad hoc, scientists with disabilities act. Powder Puff Science.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 26, 2013 at 9:54 pm said: ”It has always been 3 degrees C in terms of ECS, but Nic Lewis and others figured out they would concentrate on TCR. This knocks it down and the 3C turns into 2C”
CORRECTION: it was 5-6C warming. originally – then they brought it down to 3C, then to 2C; not much to go until is proven that is ZERO, warming, zilch!
No mention of the ECS value in the Myles Allen opinion piece. And that is what humans will immediately experience as the vast majority of them live on land and not the ocean.
captdallas 0.8 or less | May 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm |
“That is the no scientist left behind policy.”
Best gag line I’ve seen in a while. Thanks.
Please, please somebody tell me how much of these 2°C we have “used up” already, and do we use GISS or BEST to measure it. Where exactely do we start, and what was the temperature of the earth at that time?
BEST is not a measure it’s an estimate. ;-)
A BESTimate (TM) actually.
David, you write “BEST is not a measure it’s an estimate.”
sarc on/ Careful, David. You will have Steven Mosher and John Carpenter after you. Dont you know that there is no CATEGORICAL difference between an estimate and a mesasurement. sarc off/
A micrometer reading is an estimate. Just ask three machinists.
You can figure that we’ve used up about .8C of the 2C.
2C is a threshold that we would be wise not to cross. At a 2C increase we would be about halfway to a world the human species has never experienced.
here is good document on the 2C threshold
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/future/docs/brochure_2c_en.pdf
So, what Miles is suggesting is that given a slower rate of warming
we have a few decades to go before we do anything drastic.
You really do not need to know these numbers to much precision, that is, it doesnt matter whether we have gone up .7C or .8C or .6C. Like many people you think you need more information to make simple decisions. You don’t.
“2C is a threshold that we would be wise not to cross.” I believe that figure was plucked out of the air to provide a focus rather than based on a clear understanding of the risks associated with particular temperature levels. cf a “No tricks zone” post of Der Spiegel’s interview with the 2C target originator.
Re:estimates
Measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with axe. In other words, leave plenty of margin for error.
Climate science version (or at least the alarmist version) seems to be: measure with yardstick, simulate with abacus, claim infallibility in media, refuse to talk to anyone who questions you. Chicken little would be proud, real people will get angry. Politicians will blame scientists. Science – and ultimately society – will be the loser.
Estimate twice. Cut once.
Steve Mosher
Since I have previously misunderstood it where you were trying to use sarcastic humor, I am going to ask- was your link to the paper trying to justify the 2C target a demonstration of Mosher’s humor or do you seriously believe the target’s justifications used in the paper to be valid based on what is known today?
I am guessing you were trying to be funny since the basis for the conclusions in the paper seemed so funny based on what we know today
“That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.”
“Slightly slower” is heresy?
“Of course, there will be a cost, passed on to the long-suffering consumer. But making carbon capture mandatory would trigger a headlong race to find the cheapest sources of carbon dioxide and places to bury it.”
So rather than assess a carbon tax expensive enough to make expensive, impractical alternative fuels competitive, the government will just regulate the world energy economy in a way that raises energy costs so much it achieves the same effect.
Yes we will stick it to the poor taxpayer, in his role as consumer, but hey, what’s the fun of being a climate scientist if you can’t reorganize the entire global economy by government fiat?
The greening biome is capturing carbon. Oh, and the globe is cooling.
=========
doesn’t look like it
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
What a beautifully fraudulent graph.
And even the fraudulent graph shows the slowdown at the time of the record CO2 emissions.
Oh gee, I just noticed the y-axis is in joules, not in Celsius, anybody care to translate that number? Also, I understand the temperature at 2000m depth is 4 degrees C while the surface temperature is around 15 degrees C. So how does all that energy in joules at 4C gonna heat up the atmosphere at 15C? I love to hear that explanation
“And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap we will choose to leave that coal alone, I’m afraid you have some basic physics working against you.
Fortunately, there is a solution. It is perfectly possible to burn fossil carbon and not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: you have to filter it out of the flue gases, pressurise it, and re-inject, or ‘sequester’, it back underground.”
Did any of these academics actually consult any real engineers or accountants or economists before drawing such an absurd conclusion?
Keiller calls it. This is Myles Allen positioning himself while still bowing in the direction of CAGW. The Demon Carbon must be sequestered!
Heh, plants been doing it for awhile now.
========
@Harold…
E.g. Technological Learning for Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies?
[…]
[…]
[…]
So he proceeds to cite a bunch of academics.
Which “economists” who aren’t a “bunch of academics” were you thinking of?
Or did you mean “Practical” economists, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, Jabe Blumenthal, Edgar Bronfman Jr., and Gary Comer?
Daily Mail claims: “In 1990, the UN said world temperatures would rise by 0.5 degrees between the beginning of 1997 and now”
Pretty sure they didn’t.
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Ask the stock analysts what they think of these stocks if the governments were to stop funneling billions into grants and loans and research and tax credits and mandated purchase requirements and….
Wrong question, GaryM. If you are interested in these stocks, the question to ask is … will governments increase or reduce funneling billions into grants and loans and research and tax credits and mandated purchase requirement?
..it won’t make any difference if we burn it in the end.
Assuming zero elasticity of carbon sinks and zero elasticity of geological carbon sequestration, this might be true. I can’t see these assumptions as either correct or so generally indicated by evidence as likely.
We know that the Hale Cycle had fifteen decades of reliable correlation to GMT up to 1950, and likely correlated for a far longer duration before in the 1950’s its signal was overwhelmed by AGW.
So we know that our rate of CO2E emission up to 1950 wasn’t so high the anthropogenic Forcing due CO2E emission and land use would cause significant climate system state changes. Which is cause to hope, I think, that reduction to pre-1950’s CO2E rates, especially if combined with the sort of land use changes promoted by the likes of Freeman Dyson, would make a difference in the end.
A less strict condition than Myles Allen proposes.
..Kyoto and the policies which stem from it have achieved the loss of jobs from countries such as Britain – where we have at least managed a small reduction in the emissions we produce – to others whose factories are far more carbon-intensive.
Again, Myles Allen makes claims that are not supported well by fact, although they may be common beliefs. They’re common beliefs because they play into a certain political agenda, which seems a common thread with most of Myles Allen’s argument, but they’re not true. You didn’t think jobs were bleeding from the UK to BRICS and other points before such climate policies? The data do not support you. You think the UK’s policies haven’t strenuously hedged against such job losses due climate — and every other — policy, and yet failed to stem this inevitable trend? The data do not support you. The UK has one option, which is to embrace its future as a nation with the resources it actually has, not as a nation with the resources its nostaligic-for-things-as-they-never-were political parties wish it had.
While ‘more carbon intensive’ may be a correlation, it is not a causative, nor even a durable or contributory factor. China has enough solar capacity in its southern deserts to easily replace a hundred times its coal capacity; at the rate the price of solar is dropping (especially as China has a practical monopoly on many key materials for PVs), inevitably this will happen. The UK’s solar potential? Negligible.
So while, yes, the UK’s life cycle CO2E has gone up while its reported internal CO2E has gone down, it’s not because of Kyoto. It’s because the UK is running around like a headless chicken.
Speaking of headless chickens, this is where I must eat crow.
I’d seriously misread Myles Allen as wanting to hold off all action until a 1.5C rise. I was wrong. I spoke out of turn. I must learn to read harder.
Myles Allen is saying to sequester all CO2E until a 1.5C rise. Which is, in the abstract, sort of what I’m saying. Except for little details like pragmatism and possibility.
In the UK, a socialist nation that would put up with such command-and-control measures, it’s perfectly plausible the government could simply pass a fiat, and make it so, and all CO2E in the UK would be sequestered, and the CO2E of all goods for import to the UK, too.
A nightmare, but plausible. Might work throughout Europe. Heck, if China and the other BRICSetera deemed it a good way to grow their European market share, they’d even oblige for the segment of their goods destined for the EU. At least on paper.
In the USA, and most of the world, that would just not happen.
Carbon cycle privatization, where the Law of Supply and Demand fixes the price of CO2E emission, is still necessary for pragmatists. Whether the Australian auction option being plugged by Robert I. Ellison, or the Citizen’s Climate Lobby Fee & Dividend system, or a revenue neutral carbon tax, so long as the pricing mechanism is determined by Market forces, that is the pragmatic approach.
And it might fit hand and glove with total immediate CO2E sequestration, like Myles Allen is suggesting is the only way forward. Only this way, everyone in the economy sees immediate benefit except the 10% or so Free Riders who are going to fight it every step of the way, as opposed to Myles Allens’ approach, that will be fought every step of the way by far more people.
US carbon emissions are at 1992 levels yet world emission is higher than ever before. What went wrong?
David
you exported your relatively clean industry and jobs to China who added a dirty co2 factor
tonyb
David Springer | May 27, 2013 at 7:45 am |
The rest of the world makes its government decisions by politburo-style committee.
The US makes its government decisions by sequester.
Okay, a nice essay overall, and quite a bit of humor to boot. Like this gem,
“Frankly, I’d rather pay an engineer in Poland to actually dispose of carbon dioxide than some Brussels eco-yuppie to trade it around.”
R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | May 26, 2013 at 12:19 pm |
Okay, that line, I have to agree with.
Having been to Belgium.
+1
My daughter was recently sent talk to eco-yuppies in Brussels and Bonn by Australia’s Dept of Climate Change. She survived the experience, but took two months travelling leave shortly afterwards (in fairness, she planned that first).
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/338992066996613120
willard, sorry to interject, just FYI.
Thank you for having interjected, oneuniverse.
Sorry about that.
Stat Oil is active in this area
JC: “Myles Allen’s analysis of the problem is spot on, IMO. With regards to his proposed solution, carbon capture and storage is as appealing in principle as carbon-free energy; however both require substantial research and innovation before becoming economically and environmentally feasible.”
The basic problem that they’re dancing around is that, due to the huge amount of nitrogen in boiler/turbine flue gas, the equipment to remove CO2 is huge and energy hungry. Leaving capital cost considerations to the side, CCS systems based on removing CO2 from flue gas result in something like a 30% energy premium; i.e. if it takes a ton of coal to make x kWH now, it will take 2600 lb to make that same kWH with CCS. This is inherent. It’s non-negotiable.
There is an alternative way of doing it which has a chance of penciling out if it’s part of a hydrogen-based scheme; if methane can be reformed in a “hydrogen plant”, which is a mature technology (these things have existed for decades), the CO2 is removed back in the process where there’s only CO2, H2, and small amounts of other things. This would probably only work in the context of a larger scheme to make H2 fuel for transportation purposes. It’s doubtful that this could ever be competitive as a stationary electric power generation scheme. Possibly, a few decades out, this might be feasible with a fuel cell-based system, but none of this is guaranteed to ever be feasible.
“Myles Allen: why we’re wasting billions on global warming”
If it was only billions rather than trillions.
“And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap we will choose to leave that coal alone, I’m afraid you have some basic physics working against you.”
With solar- obviously basic math is against it. But with nuclear there is no reason to assume basic physics is the problem. Nuclear has already greatly reduce the amount of coal used. Though nuclear may or may reduce the amount of coal China or India use in the future- it’s possible both countries could deplete all the their coal reserves, it’s pretty certain there current nuclear energy usage has and will limit how much coal these countries import. But one can make nuclear energy use much cheaper, and if this is done it could stop coal usage dramatically.
And lowering costs of nuclear energy is matter of economics and political
governance- not physics. And there isn’t different Physics for France than for all other countries.
“Fortunately, there is a solution. It is perfectly possible to burn fossil carbon and not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: you have to filter it out of the flue gases, pressurise it, and re-inject, or ‘sequester’, it back underground.”
The only successful sequestering of CO2 in the world which has been successful is using CO2 to increase production of the mining of oil.
There have other efforts but they have been failures.
And the idea putting any significant amount CO2 under ground, seems
to be asking for future major disasters.
“If this is what needs to be done, why not just make it a condition of licensing to extract or import fossil fuels? In forestry, if you fell trees, the law obliges you to replant.
We must use the same principle: a law to compel a slowly rising percentage of carbon dioxide emissions to be and stored.”
Without oil production, how much replanting of forests would you have?
Does any imagine worker would walk into forest carrying the seedlings?
And in terms government encouraging sequestering CO2, that sound more government corruption and will lead to similar thing incompetence which has resulted in wind turbine exploding and catching on fire. And the general massacre of birds and bats.
For those with a little patience: this video shows how climate experts can discreetly tippy-toe away from their original positions. It’s very dignified, and nobody gets hurt. I’m not sure which member of the consensus shown here is Myles Allen.
I have some Haydn albums/CDds somewhere. After listening to that, I’ll have to play Haydn seek.
That was fabulous, mosomoso, thanks for brightening my day!
I wish someone would give the same treatment to Finlandia … then I could use it as an accompaniment to my recent Wastelandia: Andrew Weaver et al‘s big green choru$ and $ymphony … in the key of Gore post ;-)
Instead of carbon capture and STORAGE, a more sensible approach will, I believe in the end, be RECYCLING. CO2 is going to be a very valuable resource. We need to learn how to recycle it. Mother Nature does this, but she needs to take up most of the area of the earth, both land and sea to do it. If we are to emulate her, then we need to be much more efficient. We need some sort of photosynthesis, or microbe, that can break the carbon-oxygen bond in CO2, the hydrogen-oxygen bond in water, and combine the resulting atoms into things we can use like food and energy.
Will we develop the technology to do this? I dont see why not. But should we succeed we will need CO2 in concentrations a lot highter than 400 ppmv if we are to achieve any success in a small enough area.
Cripwell, You are on record of saying that the effects of CO2 on climate are indistinguishable from zero. Now you are suggesting that we can gain useful energy out of a endothermic end-product such as CO2, above and beyond relying on the natural photosynthetic processes of the earth’s vegetation to transform solar energy to work.
Can you explain why we need to recycle CO2 at all? You say it is benign, so why not leave it alone? What exactly are you afraid of?
WHT you write “Can you explain why we need to recycle CO2 at all?”
Certainly. CO2 is the basis for Mother Nature producing the food and energy that we require. Even if peak oil is not in sight I, for one, do not assume that the supply of fossil energy is inexhaustible. Also, recovery is becoming more and more expensive. If we can learn to recycle CO2 in a way that is more economical than mining fossil fuels and growing food, then that is the way to go. In the end, it will boil down to economics. If we can produce food and fuel more economicly than growing it and mining it respectively, then that is the thing to do. We are already learning how to use solar power to turn our deserts into places to grow food. Recycling CO2 would be an extension of this sort of idea.
What are you talking about?
So you want to sequester CO2 just for the heck of it, or perhaps because there is some unknown possibility for future use?
Cripwell is one of yours, skeptics. A contrarian for contrarian-sake.
Cripwell said recycle not sequester, Pukite.
CO2 is indeed a very valuable resource, and simply releasing it through a smokestack is wasting it – we dilute it at a 0.04% concentration, where plants have a hard time utilizing it.
The easiest way to recycle it might be to dissolve it in water ponds, creating a huge “liquid greenhouse”, and let the best algae do their photosynthetic magic. As a general public – including me – does not like “recycled” food, the result should best be used as a bio-fuel, maybe for the same power plant.
This item illustrates the problem. I think a trillion tonnes ends up with 250 ppm added to the atmosphere for a total of 650 ppm, raising the bar somewhat from previous targets. The equilibrium rise would be over 2 C above the already committed values of over 1 C. Land, of course, may double that to 4 C. He says this can be achieved with continued fossil fuel burning and sequestration. It amounts to a call for strict regulation on the fossil fuel industry. Isn’t that where the whole debate started? I think this just represents a big circle back to the original calls on the fossil fuel industry to do something and to be more regulated, and we know how that has turned out so far. Just to be clear, I agree with such calls, but I think the target of a trillion tonnes is too high, and that this type of global regulation is not something that is realistic to expect without some major cash incentives (either via revenue from a carbon tax or international trading of credits). In other words, the target won’t satisfy one side, and the unfunded regulations won’t satisfy the other, so it is a losing proposition all round.
Have you accounted for the part that doesn’t end up in the atmosphere?
Yes, I took the natural sequestration to be about a half unless the trillion tonnes is what it would be before sequester efforts in which case we also have to factor in the efficiency of doing that. I assumed the trillion tonnes was what was left after regulated sequestering.
Actually, I should have looked at the calculation I did a while back, which showed that 100ppm = 200GT (not accounting for de-sequestration). It’s not really a call for “strict” regulation in the sense that most of those objecting mean, because there’s very little scope for arbitrary decisions. You’re either putting away x% of the fossil carbon you burn, or you aren’t. It leaves the “playing field level” among all players and competing technologies.
And his suggestion to start small and ramp up means that the initial impact will be small. And technology can hopefully keep ahead of the increasing percentage.
It’s not a bad option, although I would suggest allowing the alternate option of burning the same fraction of fuel whose carbon came from the atmosphere in place of sequestration. And I would allow use of double that amount of fuel whose carbon came from stack emissions. AFAIK this would incent all sorts of technologies in this field, both air/sea capture and stack capture.
Because of the small start, the impact on energy prices/costs would be small, but the money, and the expectation of the growing market, would be sufficient to pay for an exponentially increasing industry to support it. Ideally, the actual fraction of the cost of energy used to pay for carbon capture/sequestration would stay pretty much constant while the percentage ramped up to 100%.
What fraction of global emissions could be stopped at the source? Transportation, home-burned natural gas or other fossil fuels would be exempt. My guess is less than 25%.
That’s not the point. The point is it’s easier and cheaper to drag CO2 out of cooled flue gases than the ambient air. OTOH, if people are doing it, there’s a better chance for building up a market in it. So allow it instead of sequestration, but require twice as much so there will still be a good price for air-captured carbon.
I sympathize mainly with Judith’s comment about refreshing heresy. Climate policy exists in a self-inflicted state of monomania, in which a particular solution has been chosen, and is considered to be such a fragile plant that all other options must be treated as weeds and eradicated. Considering the fact that the chosen plant species has been refusing to grow for 20 years, this is insane by Einstein’s definition (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) .
The sinks filling up and that cancelling out the fact that CO2 increases temperatures logarithmically sounds good but it does not seem to be happening. Human CO2 production is increasing faster than predicted while the CO2 level in the atmosphere seems to be increasing about as predicted. The sinks seem to be getting bigger it seems to me. Or, alternately, the whole theory is wrong.
Likely, unknown carbon sequestering mechanisms will be recruited as CO2 level rises.
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‘sinks* filling up’
That is so funny. I would love to see your kinetic analysis of these ‘sinks’ filling.
*Look up the difference between a sink and a reservoir.
The southern ocean has a potential (ie the efficiency is less then 80%) due to the O3 and wind curl increasing stratification. The available potential is around 36ppm is less then 100 yrs eg Sarmiento 2011
The “sink” is undoubtedly the ocean with biology playing a bit role. Data from ice cores indicates that during interglacial periods 280ppm CO2 is the equilibrium point and during glacial periods 200ppm. I believe these are set by the average temperature of the ocean. The ocean is not close to saturated. Humans are injecting CO2 into the atmosphere pushing it out of equilibrium with the ocean. About half the annual injection is absorbed by the ocean each year. Even as the absolute amount of the injection has grown as rapidly as human population the amount that the ocean absorbs remains a rather constant ratio of 50% each year.
The constant ratio of absorption despite hugely larger absolute amounts being injected into the atmosphere is characteristic of an equilibrium system being driven further and further out of equilibrium. Resistance to change increases as the distance from equilibrium increases.
For all practical purposes the ocean is an infinite CO2 sink. Hulk say puny human can’t saturate the ocean with CO2 there is simply a limit to the rate it can absorb more which is largely set by surface area and partial pressure at the ocean/atmosphere interface. The rate would also be effected by surface turbulence i.e. a frothy surface has immensely more surface area than calm water for dissolving gases into it. Also the mix rate of surface water to deep water would play a role as pressure becomes so great droplets of liquid CO2 were recently observed deep underwater where new crust emerges in the so-called ring of fire which circles the earth like the seams on a baseball. We can probably safely assume that turbulence and turnover is constant enough to disregard changing only so marginally as to be inconsequential.
The whole theory is wrong. There’s nothing to stop CO2 from ‘flowing’ into the oceans when the atmospheric concentration increases. The annual change follows very closely the global temperature index levels.
I mean when CO2 is added to the atmosphere.
No, the theory of long-time-scale sequestration of CO2 is correct.
No ad-hoc here Webby, I just follow the observations. Your ‘long term’ trend is losing its pace – it’s plateauing, just like the temperature indices. Your point about the change in temperature is a strawman (you have repeated this one many times) – the correlation is between the temperature level (not change) and the change in atmospheric CO2. Can you please keep it in mind?
Now, what’s driving these CO2 changes at constant temperatures? I suggest a hypothesis: it’s the seasonal global temperature (SST…) cycle. The atmospheric CO2 doesn’t necessarily return to its starting point after one seasonal temperature cycle is over, even if the temperature does, if the sequestering is not fast enough to ‘keep up’ with the temperature cycle…
Seasonal cycles have been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. According to Edim, at 2 PPM/year, we should be at Venus levels of atmospheric CO2 concentrations by now.
That’s how ridiculous these anti-science types like Edim sound.
This article explains Edim-like thinking
From global warming to fluoride: Why do people deny science?
And it’s not like Edim has cornered us into a difficult position. He simply uses variations of FUD and the Gish Gallop to make a scene, with not a care in the world at the damage he does.
It really does suck.
Damage? You’re funny.
It’s not 2 ppm/year, it’s variable, depending on the temperature level.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo_anngr.pdf
It was 0.85 ppm/year on average in the 1960s. At sufficiently low temperatures it gets negative.
2 PPM and rising, with noise on top having to do with fluctuations in SST leading to fluctuations in CO2.
We are slowly seeing a bait&switch in what AGW metric is being applied
The ECS is actually closer to what people that live on land will experience (since there is no ocean to sink the excess heat), and this has a range of 2 to 4.5C Scaling this on the upper end from what Myles Allen states, we get 2/2.5*4.5 = 3.6C.
So the ECS range is now 2C to 3.6C, or a mean that is probably close to 2.8C. That will be the land temperature change that Myles Allen asserts that we will see, and is verified by the current observational numbers as CO2 has changed from 280 to 390 PPM with a land temperature change of +1.2C
According to CO2 log sensitivity assuming ECS of 2.8
dT = 2.8 *ln(390/280)/ln(2) = +1.3 C
which is only slightly higher than what we have seen in land temperature anomalies (i.e. the BEST data set).
Behold the bait&switch.
The far larger bait and switch is from alarmism based upon land surface temperature to ocean heat content below 700 meters. That’s a pretty frickin’ big move for the goalposts. It’s not even the same game anymore. At least surface temperature was where we live and breathe and grow crops so that made some sense to worry about. We’re now supposed to ignore the 15-years and counting lack of global warming in the lower troposphere and get our panties in a wad about thousandth’s of a degree C per decade change in ocean temperature below 700 meters and this sequestered global warming of the deep ocean is somehow going to jump out into the atmosphere at some as undetermined time in the future.
Global warming alarmists have become like unto the Keystone Cops only less well organized. You people are ridiculous and it’s a pure joy for people like me to watch you make greater and greater fools of yourselves as your misbegotten physical models of the earth continue to fall further and further out of sync with reality.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I’m working on a system to bring that deep ‘missing’ heat back to the surface just as the end of the Holocene hits, but I’ve nothing yet to beat Nature.
==============
“The ongoing push to squander billions of dollars and sacrifice our economies on the altar of climate change is dangerous nonsense. Like sundry other isms, Climatism is a triumph of belief over evidence, of righteousness over reason.” ~Walter Starck
Photosynthetic life-forms at the base of the food chain don’t have a problem with increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. Nor do CO2-producing humans at the top of the pyramid.
And Myles “11C” Allen has yet to show that IPCC models can predict their way out of a wet paper bag.
Yawn.
I had to figure out what this 11C point is about.
From Gavin Schmidt on RealClimate in 2006
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/how-not-to-write-a-press-release/
It could be that Myles Allen is a believer in averages. Since he got castigated for emphasizing the high end when talking to the media, now he is low-balling the numbers, figuring that will balance out his predictive powers.
Amusing argument for hypocrisy.
=========
With climatists, abandonment of the scientific method is an a priori assumption so all results should be seen as expressions of ideological dogma.
In 2006, Myles Allen fanned the flames of alarmism, and now he is unhappy with the conflagration.
You follow your rules, and we’ll follow ours.
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WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 26, 2013 at 2:49 pm | Reply
“I had to figure out what this 11C point is about.”
I thought I smelled bacon frying. It was neurons in your cerebral cortex being called out of retirement and burning off the fat that had accumulated around them since the last time they were used.
Did it hurt?
Myles Allen reminds me of an old cartoon of two Frence Nobles before the guillotine; One says to the other” Perhaps we misunderstood the public mood then”.
With socialists, at the heart of their dogma is the fear of free individuals engaged in the business of living. What better way of controlling the individual exercise of free will than to require a license to use energy.
Requiring a license to drive, fish, and work. There are more occupational licenses than you can imagine.
If you wanted me to drive over to your house to cut your hair, pull a tooth, stick a few pins in your sorry butt, and de-worm your flea bag mutt, I would need the following licenses:
Driver’s
Barber”s
Dentist’s
Acupuncturist’s
Vet
I don’t think he comprehends the difference.
=============
The French aristocracy were socialists?
It’s been a projection all this time. Warmists are merchants of certainty, ” a loose–knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, running effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades.”
“A well-documented, pulls-no-punches account of how science works and how political motives can hijack the process by which scientific information is disseminated to the public.”
We’re wasting trillions…
… more like how a scientific hoax works. Interestingly, it took far less time to debunk than the Piltdown Man hoax, which took 50 years to debunk and another 50 years to learn who all were in on the hoax.
Since I really would like to know, I post this a second time:
Please, please somebody tell me how much of these 2°C we have “used up” already, and do we use GISS or BEST to measure it. Where exactely do we start, and what was the temperature of the earth at that time?
It is clear that the last 2 C. of warming was good for the earth and its denizens, supporting more total life and more diversity of life. It is just as clear that the next 2 C. of warming will be just as beneficial.
==============
Thank you, kim. But as a beginner I am looking for an answer like:
Temperature in 1700: 13.24°C
Temparature in 2012: 14.87°C
Reference: HADCRUT4
(I invented the numbers)
OK Alexej, you are “looking for a number” for past warming.
HadCRUT 3 or 4: 0.7C from 1850 to today:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/trend
“Eyeballing” CET (as a proxy for global temperature) shows around 0.3C warming from 1750 to 1850.
So the net warming (from all causes) was around 1C since “pre-industrial” year 1750.
Let’s get another estimate: this time from IPCC.
IPCC told us in AR4 that climate forcing from all natural plus anthropogenic components from 1750 to 2005 was 2.3 Wm-2.
Using theoretical physics this forcing would result in 2.3/3.768 = 0.6C warming.
This estimate includes no impact from feedbacks.
Let’s guess that the net impact from all positive and negative feedbacks was another 0.4C.
Since 2005 we saw CO2 increase from 379 to close to 400 ppmv, but this would add less than 0.1C, for a total of around 1C
So the estimate of around 1C is probably the best guess.
But how much of this warming was caused by what is highly uncertain, of course.
And it would be silly to “add it into” estimates for future AGW, as indicated earlier.
Max
Alexej Buergin
Do not fall into the silly trap of “adding in” past warming to the potentially damaging future AGW.
We have seen around 0.7C warming since 1850 (HadCRUT3 or 4) or around 1.0C since 1750.
But that warming is history, it has not harmed us and its cause is highly uncertain.
In fact, we are arguably better off at today’s climate than we were at the end of the Little Ice Age, when it was around 1C colder on average.
The only reason that alarmists add this 1C into the “potentially alarming AGW” is to make the warming look more “alarming”.
But it is silly.
Estimates of potentially alarming AGW should start today, not some arbitrarily picked date in our past.
Max
You have to remember the global average 2 C is not uniform because the climate won’t be in equilibrium that quickly. At current warming rates, it may be 2 C on average, 4 C in the northern continents, and even up to 8 C in the Arctic, so it sounds more harmless than it is, and that is for just a doubling to 560 ppm, which may occur as soon as 2070.
Jim D
Stop the silly “shell and pea” game.
Global AGW is what it is.
Future AGW does not include any past warming we have seen and are now enjoying, thank you.
And if we reach 560 ppmv in 2070 (as you guess) we would not be “doubling” CO2.
We would be increasing it from today’s 394 ppmv by 560/394 or by 42%.
Get your numbers straight, Jim. Your fear mongering doesn’t work when it’s based on obviously incorrect numbers.
Max
I always wonder why Manacker has to lie in every sentence he writes. Personally I only want to understand the physics and systems aspects so that I can make reasoned decisions.
The fact remains that pre-industrial CO2 is estimated to be around 280PPM (My analysis shows that it may be over 290 PPM, but that’s the uncertainty in the baseline). If we reach 560 PPM, that would be a doubling. I don’t know why Manacker has to misinform and lie about that.
This is another Manacker rhetorical misinformation tactic. By calling “future” whatever has not previously occurred keeps one forever unaccountable. Consider this: A point of parole is not to commit future crimes. When Manacker commits another crime, he will plead to the judge that the crime he just committed was no longer in the future.
Manacker is much like a Slick Willie. He adjusts the meaning of the word “is” to suit his argument.
The sad part of this is that natural languages are ambiguous, and the rhetorical criminal can double back and argue whatever he wants about the words he has written.
Because of that, I work out the physics and science and I can tell you based on the observational evidence that what Jim D states is correct. The average land temperature will increase at a 50% higher rate than the average global temperature, and about double the SST value
So Manacker, I suggest you argue over that fact instead of making up stuff. Here you go:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 26, 2013 at 6:17 pm |
“I always wonder why Manacker has to lie in every sentence he writes. Personally I only want to understand the physics and systems aspects so that I can make reasoned decisions.”
Well I wonder why Dr. Paul Pukite has to lie about his name on this blog and pretend it’s WebHubTelescope. Actually I don’t wonder. I’d want to be anonymous if I were penning the crap that you do too.
What I’m really wondering about is what “decisions” you think you have to make about global warming. Are you deciding what your policy will be when you run for president of Minnesota? What decisions could a non-descript principal engineer at BAE, one of ten thousand such employees at BAE, possibly have to make about global warming that has any measureable import whatsoever?
I seem to recall you blogging here recently from a skiing trip to Switzerland. Perhaps you’re deciding on whether you should be burning more fossil fuel flying halfway around the world and back than some “skeptics” like me use in a decade? Those types of decisions possibly? Please elaborate.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 26, 2013 at 6:17 pm |
“Because of that, I work out the physics and science and I can tell you based on the observational evidence that what Jim D states is correct. The average land temperature will increase at a 50% higher rate than the average global temperature, and about double the SST value”
Pardon me for asking, Dr. Paul Pukite, but don’t people with credentials like yours usually attach their name to their calculations? Why do you refuse to be held accountable for your work if it’s as good as you say it is? Non sequitur is your middle name, Dr. Pukite.
Webby
Just for your info: “future” is (by definition) that, which has yet to occur.
Past warming has already occurred, and there is no evidence that it has hurt us one iota. We also do not really know how much of this past warming (if any at all) was caused by AGW or how much was caused by natural factors; lots of “uncertainty” there (as our hostess has pointed out).
One could even argue that we are marginally better off with the climate we have today than we were back in 1750 with the climate we had then.
One cannot back up the argument that we are worse off. Makes no sense.
So when we are talking about the negative effect of AGW, we have to start with today. This is the climate we now have and we’re doing just fine with it, thank you.
There’s another dilemma there, Webby. Some estimates tell us that future warming could start off being beneficial on average for the next 2C or so; after this, the estimates tell us that the net effect could be more detrimental than beneficial.
Nobody really knows, of course. This includes you, Webby – you do not have a clue whether future warming will be mostly beneficial for humanity or up to which point this is likely to be so before the net impact is most likely to be detrimental.
Lots of uncertainty there, Webby.
Max
Judith Curry
As you wrote, what is striking about this essay is the refreshing ‘heresy’ of it, i.e. it essentially acknowledges that the “C” in the “CAGW” premise (as outlined by IPCC in AR4) has been falsified by the observed data.
Myles Allen observes that we are not “doomed to disastrous warming”, i.e. that we have more time to figure out long-term solutions to the energy supply and potential AGW problems. Good.
Allen also agrees that carbon taxes are not the answer. Also good.
And he accepts that solar will not be the solution. Very Good.
However, Myles Allen apparently does still assume that there is a long-term AGW problem that needs solving (this is basically a leap of faith based on accepting the IPCC CAGW story, albeit with slightly delayed timing). This is not so good, because it is basically more of the “same old same old” we have been hearing for years.
In addition, the author underestimates the potential of nuclear. Studies have shown that nuclear can compete economically with coal today in most locations (without any carbon tax). Nuclear fuel (unlike coal) is in almost inexhaustible supply, especially if one considers existing fast breeder technology using thorium, which also solves the spent fuel problem.
Shale gas as a replacement for coal is also a clean solution, which reduces the CO2 emission considerably.
Allen proposes carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a solution, to be borne, in the final analysis, by the ”long-suffering consumer”. This does not appear to be a good choice, since CCS is basically “non-value added” (i.e. it generates cost without producing any added value).
In addition, the cost per tenth of a degree theoretically averted by 2100 is several trillions of dollars. Not much “bang” (maybe) for a helluva lot of “bucks”.
However, if CCS can be done in such a fashion that it results in the generation of biomass as a fuel source, then there is added value.
That is the direction we should be going, instead of chasing costly, ineffective non-added value solutions, because we would get a benefit from the added value, even if it turns out (as I suspect) that there is absolutely no AGW “problem”.
Max
Someday the AGW faithful may come to realize trees are a renewable resource.
Alarmist theory and models say more CO2 is going to cause a lot of trouble.
There is not a single actual data set that supports this.
The data shows that temperature and sea level is well regulated and not following CO2 as it increases.
The only thing that is following CO2 is that green things are growing better while using less water.
We should make expensive decisions about our future based on actual data and not on model output that has showed no skill for two decades.
Year after year, they say, well, we were wrong again, but someday we will be right. We know how to model the climate and being dead wrong for two decades does not prove we ain’t right. REALLY?
Who really still believes their stuff? Some do, but most people I meet and talk to do not.
When I meet someone, I try to talk about climate and I tell them that when the oceans are warm and wet, it snows like crazy and that puts the upper bound on earth temperature. I tell them that when the oceans are cold and frozen, it don’t snow much and that puts a lower bound on earth temperature. I tell them that CO2 is a trace gas and it is a greenhouse gas and it very likely does have a trace influence.
I tell them, Water, in all of its states is abundant and Water, in all of its states is what regulates the temperature of Earth. Water and Ice Melts and Freezes at the same temperature. Arctic Sea Ice melts and it snows like crazy. Arctic Sea Ice freezes and the Snowfall stops. It really is this simple. Most people I tell this to, do understand this.
Just one question, did it snow like crazy on Greenland this past year after the record low ice extent?
Just asking if the data matches your theory.
I think based on the data, you need a drastic adjustment to you theory.
Carbon dioxide is removed from the carbon cycle by coral and shell-fish. This can keep it sequestered for eons; EONS, I say. So hire more coral and shell-fish; much safer than trying to pump gas phase carbon dioxide underground.
True, true all a part of the infinitely buffered oceans that comprise more than 70% of the Earth’s surface.
Plus, shellfish are good to eat. That way we have more food and sequester carbon at the same time – viola!
Surely there’s got to be something alarming we can point to like, perhaps… the problem of runaway sweet peaches of the sea.
That’s actually not a bad idea. We could set up “artificial reefs” made from woven fiber glass, floating in parts of the sea that are now empty water. The benthic communities that come to inhabit such constructions could be periodically collected and dumped to the sea-floor. At the bottom of an anoxic ocean trench. Both organic carbon and calcium carbonate would be sequestered.
An Internet for your nickname, Mayor of Venus.
Rest assured that all we need are Humans and Soylent Green:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/4108130785
Myles Allen’s argument fails at: “Of course, there will be a cost, passed on to the long-suffering consumer. But making carbon capture mandatory would trigger a headlong race to find the cheapest sources of carbon dioxide and places to bury it.”
“Fry or mitigate” is a false dilemma of ignoring adaptation etc.
Why mitigate when it is much cheaper to adapt?
Why mitigate when the science is so uncertain that we could well be heading into global cooling not warming.
Why mitigate when we need major warming to prevent the next glaciation?
Allen further errs on: “And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap we will choose to leave that coal alone, I’m afraid you have some basic physics working against you.
Fortunately, there is a solution. It is perfectly possible to burn fossil carbon and not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: you have to filter it out of the flue gases, pressurise it, and re-inject, or ‘sequester’, it back underground.”
He ignores the potential for breakthrough developments, and underestimates the enormous cost of sequestration with negligible gain.
Why sequester carbon dioxide when it provides such critically needed agricultural benefits?
Panicked politicians make poor decisions.
Those panicking the politicians do it for religious motivations or riding the gravy train and cause serious harm to society. Allen’s carbon tax would cause devastating harm to the billion people living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25/day.
Enable poverty stricken nations to rapidly develop for the well being of their citizens.
Pursue sustainable fuels and energy with pragmatic cost effective R&D.
Restore “climate science” to the foundations of science.
Restore politics to sound stewardship.
True, we’d have a greater mitigation positive impact if we bribed mullah’s to allow us to build greenhouses in Palestine.
I’m not surprised that most skeptics here miss the opportunity to welcome some fresh thinking from Dr. Allen.
Rather than playing the boring game of picking out those nits you disagree about, you might try focusing on the parts that you can agree with. for a change.
–e.g., letting the rest of academia know the UN exits are still open to anyone who believes they have a reputation to protect?
Uh, I for one don’t agree that global warming is such a danger that we need to spend billions on carbon sequestration. Nor do I find it reason to celebrate when one progressive wants to spend a few billion less of other people’s money. Some may find those nits, I find them adult, Amazon rainforest size cockroaches.
He is still a CAGW consensus supporter, with at best a lower case c.
You want to see a welcome reception from skeptics? Show a consensus scientist who comes out and says, wait, I was wrong, we do not know enough to say we need to decarbonize the economy or enact other massive regulations of the economy to reduce carbon emissions. (It seems to me someone around here did something very much like that, and was praised by skeptics and vilified by the consensus.)
But this “fresh thinking” still calls for massive government control of the energy economy, massive increases in energy costs, and oh yeah, lots more funding for climate research.
That’s as refreshing as an afternoon breeze in Phoenix – in July.
No, it doesn’t.
No, it doesn’t.
Research is always good.
AK,
“Of course, there will be a cost, passed on to the long-suffering consumer. But making carbon capture mandatory would trigger a headlong race to find the cheapest sources of carbon dioxide and places to bury it.”
The author doesn’t explain what the cost is that will be passed on to the “long-suffering consumer,” but he makes it clear that it will be enough to force a “headlong race” to find cheap sources of carbon dioxide and land
Where precisely do you think Exxon or BP will find sufficient carbon dioxide to offset the amount of fossil fuel they extract? And how much will it cost? What about the land? The equipment? This is a tax dressed up as something else. What happens when they don’t find enough CO2? Who decides? Where will it be sequestered? What about safety standards, and prevention of re-emissions?
You think this won’t involve massive regulation and massive costs? Did you read the article?
And I won’t bother arguing about the billions already wasted on “climate research.”
GaryM
I think you are stupid. How could yu read through everything he wrote and miss this
“We need to rethink. For instance, if you suppose that the annual UN climate talks will save us, forget it. ”
Now, that is some rather fresh thinking for a man who believes in AGW.
So, try an again and prove that you are not stupid. Re read what he wrote and try to find those points where you agree with what he said.
Any idiot can find the differences. All commenting on the web is about
finding where the other guy is wrong. Instead, look for points where you are surprised by the agreement.
That’s where your common ground is. Occupy the common ground and try to make it bigger
Steven Mosher,
You are a true believer, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to read the writings of another progressive critically, any more than you can your own musings.
I didn’t miss the sentence you quoted, I understood it better than you did.
“We need to rethink. For instance, if you suppose that the annual UN climate talks will save us, forget it.”
Right. The UN talks won’t save us. What does that mean? Is that a dissent from CAGW? Maybe for a brilliant scholar like you, but to someone stupid like me, it means we need to be saved (CAGW), but the isn’t able to do it for political reasons so we need to reframe the argument.
Ever heard of reframing? You should have, you progressives urge it all the time when you fail to impose your latest boondoggle isn’t imposed on the voters.
You are a pompous pedant. I take a personal insult form you as a badge of honor. You’re nobody on this blog ’til Mosher makes some snide, throw away remark about you.
The ground truth about you is that you are a vain, dogmatic progressive who sometimes is incapable of engaging in adult conversation. Have a good Memorial Day, I will.
That one of the most hypocritical and snakiest of the alarmists has what moshe calls ‘fresh thinking’, if only to him, is hardly cause for celebration, but rather the question, what took him so long to pick up on the ideas skeptics have been shouting for years?
=========
moshe kowtows to the Wizard of Oz’s ‘fresh thinking’. Get aholt of urself.
===============
I really have to stop commenting and playing poker at the same time. Especially when there’s no edit function.
@GaryM…
I suspect I’m wasting my time with a denialbot, but…
He’s talking about a gradual ramp up. This means the costs passed on to the consumer will start very small. Will they get larger? Probably not.
Wherever they like, out of a number of options. Each of which can be developed by anybody with capital. With a good expectation of a market.
No different from any other capitalization, such as SO2 scrubbers for a coal-fired plant.
NO! It’s not a tax. It’s a requirement that if you do “A”, you must do something to deal with “B”. It doesn’t mandate how, it doesn’t mandate who you buy it from, it leaves the entire market free for anybody who comes up with the capital and technology.
They’ll find it. Starting out at 1% of total carbon burned? And as the amount required ramps up, the industry to supply it has already had time and incentive to ramp up ahead of it.
What about it? How is it different from safety standards for shooting “CO2 into reservoirs to squeeze out stranded oil, a proven technology called enhanced oil recovery, or EOR”
No more than any other modern industry, such as fracking.
Yes.
Gary
“You are a true believer, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to read the writings of another progressive critically, any more than you can your own musings.”
I’m a libertarian. Epic fail for you on that one.
AK, true there doesn’t have to be tax under Allen’s scheme. If there is a regulation, there can be a penalty for not complying. This has to be large enough that complying is much cheaper, but it could also be a source of revenue from those that fail to comply. If sticks rather than carrots work for this type of mitigation, that would seem to be his choice.
Steven Mosher,
Estimates are measurements.
“Synthetic” data is ground truth.
CO2 “warms” the planet even when temperatures are falling.
And you are a libertarian.
I don’t assess what someone is politically by what they claim they are. Many progressives claim they are conservatives, capitalists or libertarians (Bart R, Max_OK and the Faux Skeptical Warmist being cases in point). I determine their political views by their affinity for government control of the economy. When I first started following the climate debate, I would indeed have thought you were a libertarian. But your ever more strident defense of the consensus, and derisive attacks on skeptics (do you know any other kind), convince me you have done a Keith Kloor, and returned to the bosom of your tribe.
And besides, libertarians are progressives anyway on social policy at least, and usually on foreign policy as well.
Funny thing is that government control of the economy is in the constitution, and has been for over 200 years whether or not you are conservative, liberal, independant, libertarian, progressive, communist, or socialist.
Funny thing is the commerce clause only applied to regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. Until Franklin Roosevelt threatened to “pack the court” by appointing addition justices to re-write the Constitution for him to enable the progressive economic agenda.
There was also this thing called the contract clause, but I am sure you have never heard about that. It went the way of the tenth amendment, being read out of the “living” constitution because it impeded the growth of leviathan.
Not to mention, “regulate” did not mean in the 18th century what it has been deformed to mean now.
Hey, Gary, there’s a new thread for your reading pleasure. Don’t stint yourself.
=====
Fresh thinking, moshe? Skeptics have been way in advance of Dr? Allen.
===============
Not all that many. A lot of the “skeptics” simply refuse to believe there could be a problem. Everything they say is just specious rationalization of that position, just as everything many of the alarmists say is just specious rationalization of their base agenda of reversing the Industrial Revolution.
Nice point. The problem is cooling; warming is beneficial.
===========================
The problem is more CO2 in the atmosphere than there’s been in the last 10 million years. Back then, C4 grasses and the major ecosystems that depend on them didn’t exist. Back then, the Tibetan Plateau and the Tropical Easterly Jet it drives didn’t (probably) exist. We’re taking the massively complex non-linear system that is our planet into state-space it’s never been in before, both climate and ecology.
Kim.
Anytime your opponent adopts your thinking on a single matter you have a choice.
You can welcome his change or you can kick him for taking so long to come around to your position. If you want him to come around to MORE of your positions, do you think he will be more likely or less likely to change his other positions, if you great him or kick him.
does the phrase sore winner resonate with you?
Nor has it ever been in the same state space, and my, oh, my, life goes on, for billions of years.
========
Life goes on, with an occasional hiccup. Such as the one at the end of the Permian. We don’t need any hiccups big enough to crash our economy right now, thank you very much.
moshe, I don’t expect Myles Allen to change from listening to me, but look, he’s already changed from listening to criticism, some from the likes of me. Political feedback, though, from the likes of those who bought his 11C hysteria has probably been more persuasive.
He regrets his alarmism, but can’t give it up. Give him time. Then I could be a sore winner.
=================
Another nice point, AK. The big dangers seem extraterrestrial. Hope we have a fun Carrington.
============
I am fattening up the calf at the moment.
As soon as one says sorry, made a mistake in calculating the effect and am very sorry to have frightened you all and compared you to Holocaust Deniers, then i will prepare supper for all and sundry.
Doc
That calf may end up being a tired old saggy cow, with meat as tough and stringy as a Mississippi horse, before you get that concession from the consensus crowd.
Max
+1 DocMartyn
An apology is precisely what’s missing from Allen’s (in reality not so) “fresh thinking”. If it’s taken him this long to realize – and acknowledge – the folly of the wasted trillions, while ignoring the damage that the “old thinking” has done, how long will it take him to realize and acknowledge that his (also not so) “fresh” solution may well have considerable drawbacks and negative impacts? Not the least of which are those identified by our hostess:
Are we supposed to pretend that his previous silent acquiescence never existed? At the very least, he could have pulled a reverse-Muller, so to speak!
Steven Mosher
You are dead wrong, Mosh.
Most skeptics have no objection whatsoever to the “fresh thinking” Dr. Allen has brought to the debate with his essay.
That fresh thinking, boiled down to a nutshell, is that we do not have to rush into mitigation solutions, because we have much more time than we thought before AGW could present a possible problem.
That much of Myles Allen’s essay is good.
But then Allen moves away from “fresh thinking” to “same old same old” when he opines that CO2 levels must be controlled anyway because we all know that AGW is a potential threat.
It gets even worse when he proposes silly solutions like CCS without even thinking them through with an appropriate cost/benefit analysis. That’s definitely not “fresh thinking”.
Summary from this rational skeptic:
“Fresh thinking”: Yes.
“same old same old”: No. (Heard that all before. Yawn!)
Max
Manacker,
Or the risks!
The risks with CCS are inherently far greater than with nuclear power. Why would any rational person give it serious consideration?
Again, this ‘fresh thinking’ is hardly fresh, except perhaps to Myles Allen, and of course those poor serfs still being sustained on media narrative.
moshe expects me to glorify this hypocrite, merely because he can ape skeptics.
==========
encourage the areas of agreement, you should
avoid using the word But you must
watch to the end
manacker | May 26, 2013 at 6:29 pm | Reply
Steven Mosher
You are dead wrong, Mosh.
Most skeptics have no objection whatsoever to the “fresh thinking” Dr. Allen has brought to the debate with his essay.
_______
Max_CH I don’t know if you speak for most of the people here who claim to be skeptics, but my impression is most of them are not open to anything, old or new, that goes counter to what they believe.
Max_OK
From your comments here I’ve gotten the impression here that you are “not open to anything, old or new, that goes counter to what
theyyou believe”.Does that make you a “denier”
Just curious.
Max_CH
@Steven Mosher…
So has he crossed that “thin green line”? Or was he always on our side of it?
some lines, crossed he has.
encouraged, he should be.
Mr. Mosher has a point. We skeptics should give due consideration to Dr. Allen’s thoughts.
1. He says everyone agrees man-made CO2 will be a problem. That isn’t true.
2. One of his ideas is to force domestic industry to spend money on carbon sequestration. This is another big government solution to something that might not even be a problem.
3. He says we can force countries like China to spend money to sequester their CO2 by not buying their products. This is the most stupid idea of the lot. First off, we would probably plunge China into a depression, risking another revolution there – not in our best interest. If not that, it likely would start a global trade war, plunging the world into a recession or depression.
His ideas are not good ones. Natural gas is a good idea. Nuclear is a good idea. Government intervention in the way of mandates, carbon taxes, or subsidies – not good ideas.
It seems to be another case of the CAGW alarmists scientists advocating on energy policy and economics – something they know nothing about – at lest no more than the guy standing next to them at the pub.
When climate scientists advocate energy policy, which many of them seem to love to do – it discredits them, climate scientists and all scientists. The climate scientist advocates are serious damaging the credibility of science and academia in general, IMO.
Case in point:
What a classic of a statement from ignorance.
Steven is right on this. Prof. Allen has shown promising signs recently. This article is the latest. He defended Lindzen against a hostile moderator at a recent debate. He did not pile onto David Rose for his recent Mail article. However, he seems to have attacked Matt Ridley in rather personal and dishonest terms. The Guardian perhaps creates cognitive dissonance. But, we should welcome promising signs.
It’s not fresh thinking. It’s debatable whether it even qualifies as thinking.
Emily Litella was more honest. She’d say ‘nevermind’ instead of ‘evermind’.
============
‘During the 1960s and 1970s, foreign aid donors carried out two major projects in Burkina Faso’s Yatenga Province—the heart of the country’s densely populated Central Plateau—to build earthen bunds designed to reduce soil erosion over thousands of hectares. Conceived without the involvement of local people, however, the projects did not meet farmers’ needs. Indeed, farmers failed to maintain the bunds or deliberately destroyed them, and the bunds soon disappeared. Meanwhile, the surface of barren land on the Central Plateau expanded inexorably, and empty, encrusted fields extended across significant parts of the region. Useful tree species were lost, and little natural regeneration occurred. As
the landscape was denuded and exposed to severe water erosion, the land and the people became increasingly vulnerable to drought.
The devastating agroenvironmental trends in the Sahel were also weakening the social fabric. Entire families left the region to settle elsewhere, or husbands migrated to coastal countries to earn income, leaving their families behind during increasingly long periods. By 1980, for many farmers, the choice was simple: claim back their land from the encroaching desert or lay down their tools and leave.’ http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/oc64ch07.pdf
The simplest and most productive means of sequestering carbon is with restoration of degraded lands and ecosystems. But there are other ways forward. The reduction of black carbon, nitrous oxide, ozone, methane and sulphide emissions. Development, education, health care, sanitation and safe water influencing population dynamics.
to stop destruction of pasture land kill goats.
However, goats are wealth and more goats is more wealth and more desertification.
Trade them rifles for goats. “Gold may not get you good men, but good men will always get you gold.” -Machiavelli, IIRC
http://facts-universe.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/goats-on-trees-in-morocco.html
‘Management intensive grazing was designed by dairy and beef cow farmers and is also used by sheep farmers and ranchers. The idea is to create a series of small paddocks enclosed by highly portable, usually electric, fences. Each paddock needs to have a supply of water. Livestock are moved into the paddocks when the grass is lush, usually in fairly large numbers of animals in a small area. Then, in perhaps 12 to 48 hours, the livestock are moved out of that paddock and into a new one, while the grass in the grazed paddock recuperates for a month. Thus, intensive grazing always has livestock on the best forage. Intensively grazed grass has healthier root systems, and, as a result, the soil under it holds more water and nutrients. Kristan and George rotate their goats through the grass paddocks every 12 to 24 hours depending on the condition of the grass.’ http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Spring2003/Goats/tabid/1511/Default.aspx
Goats are not the problem – the grazing system is.
I agree CH
Undoubtedly carbon sequestration in soil through altered farming techniques and reclamation of badlands is a wonderful solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. No doubt it has other merits aside from the non-problem of carbon in the atmosphere which makes it wonderful. Peace on earth would be wonderful too and about as likely to happen.
Bjorn Lomborg continues to have the only possible solution that makes any sense. Work on an alternative energy source that’s abundant, renewable, available to everyone, and cheaper than anything else. I doubt mass production of backyard nukes is the answer but it’s R&D worth pursuing for the marginal situations where shipping fuel to a destination is cost prohibitive. The only practical source of abundant clean energy is solar energy and it has to be stored in chemical form usable by current infrastructure i.e. liquid hydrocarbons. If it’s less expensive than nuclear or fossil then no one has to be persuaded to use it they’ll flock to it of their own volition. It’s technically feasible. Nature already does it with self-reproducing photosynthetic factories and doesn’t need our help to do it. We just have to reverse engineer the mechanisms employed by nature and put them to work for our goals instead of nature’s goals. This is being done regardless of what else is going on and at the current rate of progress it’ll get done before fossil fuel gets too expensive so long as the CO2 bedwetters are kept in check. So far they are indeed being kept in check. I was worried for a while they’d be taken too seriously for too long but fortunately the worm turned, the earth stopped warming, and now they’re too busy covering their asses and trying not to look like hyperbolic imbeciles to make any further progress in the winning of hearts and minds.
Not happening? The reason it is happening is that it provides economic advantages to farmers and increases resilience to floods and droughts. It also increases food production by the needed 2% a year with essentially the same amount of land.
http://conservationagriculture.mannlib.cornell.edu/pages/aboutca/advantages.html
http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/oc64ch07.pdf
Cheap energy is ultimately the solution – but there are other ways forward with black carbon, ozone, sulphides, nitrous oxides, methane etc. It includes as well conservation and restoration of ecosystems as well as development – education, health, safe water and sanitation – reducing population pressures.
– http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation –
@David Springer…
Or, we can create “designer” mechanisms: Synthesis of customized petroleum-replica fuel molecules by targeted modification of free fatty acid pools in Escherichia coli
For those not familiar with biochemistry, this means they created a brand new pathway for synthesis of diesel.
The multiple guess section refers to “superstorm” Sandy. Propaganda. Sandy was a cat 1 at landfall. Hardly super.
Not even.
How many atlantic basin storms were more powerful than Sandy?
Andrew? no
Katrina? no
Hugo? no
Wilma?no
Betsy? no
Camille? no
Do you get the drift?
There is a yes though, do your own research to find the one storm more powerful than Sandy.
It’s been coolin’ not warmin’ but Western society is a worsenin’ more than we thought because we no longer celebrate the success of others in bringing value to society so how much do we gain when even those who helped to destroy the culture now understand that the global warmin’ rate much less than ever thought?
The only thing “new” in this article is the substitution of sequestration for taxation as a means of forcing the decarbonization of the global economy. Oh, at a “perhaps” slower rate.
People who try too hard to find bridges, sometimes end up getting sold one.
Sequestration is a very high form of taxation, but born by electricity conmsumers only.
As I understood the proposal, users of liquid fuels (e.g. vehicles) would have to pay for sequestration of a similar percentage of the carbon they’re using.
I am so sick of people justifying carbon taxes and other stupidities by saying that we should do it “if we want to avoid the temperature from rising over 2 degrees.” It is worse when they are academics with higher degrees and professorial jobs. These people are incapable of thinking it through. They simply run with the crowd because they do not have any independent thoughts. Having a degree does not justify not using your brain but that is how it works out. Let me make it simple. There is this talk that putting more carbon dioxide into the air will warm up the world. Thousands of academics are hung up on that But what happens when someone proves them wrong? Unfortunately nothing. The herd mentality of these groups is so strong that they will simply turn a deaf ear to any opposing view. They think science is on their side when they have no idea how science is. It so happens that right now, this minute, that carbon dioxide is not warming the world. It did not do it yesterday, or last year, or ten years ago, or fifteen years ago. Does this mean anything to you? That is simply an observation of nature. It is a scientific observation because it is based on measurements of global temperature which has not changed for fifteen years. But these people have a theory they call greenhouse theory that is used to calculate how much a given amount of carbon dioxide will warm the world. This theory told them that right now global temperature should be rising at the rate of 0.2 degrees every decade. The theory has been proven wrong because there is no warming at all. Do any of these people know that in science a theory that makes wrong predictions is cast off into the trash basket of history? I ask because that is where the greenhouse theory of warming belongs, right next to phlogiston pushed in there hundred fifty years ago. It is a very simple fact, not hard to understand, but denied by many academics who simply do not understand that it is not negotiable. Your Myles Allen is an example. After 15 years of no warming at all these guys have decided that maybe, just maybe, the warming is not as bad as they thought at first. Well, yes, but that is not how it is. It is zero, zilch, none, But he does not under stand that the game is over.when he goes: “That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.” For him, nothing has changed, the game goes on and IPCC rules. Have I told you that stupidity annoys me? Just in case I didn’t, let me say it again: stupidity annoys me. Here we are, atmospheric carbon dioxide level highest in history, it is totally refusing to warm the air, has done that for fifteen years now, but Myles still goes “…we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide levels lower…” I guess there is no way to open a closed mind, even to save it from himself.
Manacker, your dilemma for the IPCC AR5 just got a little starker.
========
JC comments:
Myles Allens’ advocacy for mitigation policies is crap. he hasn’t a clue what he is talking about. He is the classic case of a doomsayer climate scientist talking about stuff that is way outside his area of expertise.
Not IMO. I see it as high cost, bound to leak from storage and bound to leak in getting to storage. Leaks of CO2 are very dangerous – far more dangerous than gas leaks and gas explosions. Leaks from pipes carrying high pressure CO2 will flow down valleys and kill all animal life, instantaneously, below the level the CO2 fills the valley to. It is inevitable it will happen. That is 100% of animal life dead within minutes of being covered by CO2. Contrast this with the minuscule probability of contracting a cancer in the far distant future from radioactive material released from Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Furthermore, the amount that can be sequestered could make only a small difference to the total emissions from fossil fuel plants. it is another pie-in-the sky idea like wind power and solar power.
I’ll just refine my first sentence a bit. It should read: “Myles Allens’ advocacy for mitigation policies [he advocates] is crap.”
So yes the planet isn’t warming for a decade to three at least. But it takes a sort of insanity to imagine that we are changing marine and terrestrial conditions in a non-linear and chaotic system and argue that it is all good.
For life, anyway, higher CO2 and warmer temperatures, within man’s power to achieve, are all net good.
=================
Prefer just ‘are net good’, thus avoiding Robert’s critique.
=========================
Ah but do we know that it is net good – or that we will get warming?
To claim to understand all of the control variables and couplings is a sort of madness I can’t go along with.
At any rate I am suggesting stuff that is being done anyway for many reasons – mostly human development. It works and we want more of it. We need a bandwagon – something like those 1980’s Ford Transits – and to try not to sing out of tune.
What if it turns out to be especially good for some “demon” lichen that invades all our fields and kills the crops so it can have sunlight? And develops immunity to fungicides and other “sprays” as fast as they’re developed?
It’ll get something that eats it, AK. It’s the circle of life.
Got it Chief. I, for one, don’t guarantee warming even with rising CO2.
=========
Also, Chief, paleontology is the clue to ‘net good’.
=============
@ kim…
Cockroaches maybe? But what about our crops? And the people they’re supposed to feed?
” TOKYO–Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will clarify his government’s plan to resume operation of idled nuclear power plants in a growth strategy to be compiled in mid-June, Kyodo News quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying Saturday.
The draft energy policy to be included in the growth strategy states that steps will be taken to restart reactors judged safe for operation by the nuclear regulatory authorities, they said. ”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/abe-to-pledge-resumption-of-japan-nuclear-plants-2013-05-26
Japan finally figured out that it’s energy that powers the economy. Fancy that.
Interesting, Abe has an idea as to government’s role in priming the economy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/with-abenomics-japan-catches-a-sense-of-revival/2013/05/24/a82f4ecc-c2c5-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html
Yep, with just about every other country in the world devaluing their currency, Japan can follow suit or get worse economically.
I understand Japan’s worker to non-worker ratio has gone from 11:1 to 2:1. No wonder they are in trouble.
Peter Lang | May 26, 2013 at 9:44 pm | I understand Japan’s worker to non-worker ratio has gone from 11:1 to 2:1. No wonder they are in trouble.
A possible solution?:
http://www.alor.org/Library/TheUseofMoney.htm#1a
“We have to recognise that there is an increasing number of people – a number which is bound to increase continuously up to the point where it forms the major portion of the population – which will not be required, for any considerable length of time of their lives, in the economic and productive system at all. That is one of the facts that you have to face along the lines on which we are going – and the proper lines too.
Now then we have to arrange that those people can get goods without being employed. Our objective is not to employ those people but to disemploy them and yet give them the goods
. Now you can do that quite easily by something that we know as the dividend system. If you have a dividend at the present time – if you are the owner of some of those very few shares existing in the world, still paying dividends – you are in fact getting a piece of paper which entitles you to a fraction of the production – not of the particular thing in which you have shares – but of the total production of the world.
We have this pool of wealth, and if we extend this dividend system so that all of us who are not employed can have our dividend warrants, and those who are employed can be paid in addition to being employed, then we would have a state of affairs which exactly parallels the physical facts of the case, and nothing else.
I can well realise that there is need of great mental adjustment to agree to proceed along those lines”
myrrh – I haven’t had time to read it all either. I have a pretty busy day today. But just note that banks aren’t lending money because the 30 year rate and the short rates are too close together. You can thank the government for that.
myrrh – looks like socialism dressed up in a different uniform. That being said, Hayek advocated for social security in the sense that government aid should be given to the disabled and poor. If done properly, I’m all for it. Something like a negative income tax, a version that gives nothing to the well off, would work for me. The disabled, including those feeble due to age, should be given more than those able to work in order to maintain incentive – something missing from many socialistic systems. Also, suicide by lethal injection should be an option under some circumstances. I have seen too many people in prolonged suffering and wishing for death, I guess. There are also diseases like Alzheimer’s for which this could apply given a living will stating such.
What is the definition of the well off?
In our system, people who work longer get more. My mother gets $34,000 a year. She has not worked since her days as Rosie the Riveter during WW2. My father retired in his 80s.
Ah, the death panels.
Well-off would be anyone who has an income over the poverty level. For medical benefits, net worth would be considered with 2-3 million excepted for retirement.
An early out would be a personal decision. However, medical benefits cannot not include every possible medical option either. It’s just not doable.
jim2 | May 27, 2013 at 10:01 am |myrrh – looks like socialism dressed up in a different uniform. That being said, Hayek advocated for social security in the sense that government aid should be given to the disabled and poor. If done properly, I’m all for it. Something like a negative income tax, a version that gives nothing to the well off, would work for me. The disabled, including those feeble due to age, should be given more than those able to work in order to maintain incentive – something missing from many socialistic systems.
Not really socialism, it’s totally outside any of those boxes because it brings in a completely different way of thinking about money, I have no idea what it should be called except after him..
In Britain and other countries there already exists social security which replaced the work houses.. This is more like the original principle of the Health Service which was based/influenced by the scheme the mining communities in Wales had in place, each working member of the community contributed to a fund which could then be accessed by any member of the community, working or not, whether the workers had many children or none, it was simply a fund in common to pay the doctor or hospital. The first thing the doctors did was yell until they got a guaranteed amount of money for ‘every patient on their books’, but this was milking the system.
I’ve only come across this a week or so ago and haven’t had time to read much of what he’s written, but what he’s saying is based on the principle of Common Law, (which is The Law in Britain, and so in the ‘colonies’ and on which the US Consitution built*), which in principle is the complete freedom of the individual, it appears he has extended this to ‘resources’ held in common, the “pool of money”, which is how we would get our dividend to put into the economy to buy the good and services which others are creating but for which payment is extra to that dividend which all get. The control of money is the key here, which means there is no one manipulating the money supply, as for example now the bankers, who have control, refuse to lend and so are stifling business while they mop up bankrupting people and getting the property or whatever put against loans, which gives them not only the money already paid for loans but the principle guaranteeing it. If everyone had money it would no longer be a commodity to be exploited by those who could get control of it, be that the banking cartel as at the moment or some tinpot king or queen or other…
What this turns completely on its head is the idea that anyone should have to work … This is very hard to get one’s mind around if brought up in a society which thinks work is an ethic, “incentive to work” is another form of slavery, handouts for those unable to are degrading if thought of as that, no? From what I recall, “the Protestant work ethic” was created as a concept to get cheap labour for the factories in the boom of the industrial revolution.
Also, suicide by lethal injection should be an option under some circumstances. I have seen too many people in prolonged suffering and wishing for death, I guess. There are also diseases like Alzheimer’s for which this could apply given a living will stating such.
Well, this comes back to Common Law, no one has the right to legislate against your self determination. So it’s not a case of changing the ‘law’, it’s really a case of legislation which is in direct conflict with a person’s freedom is unlawful to begin with.
We can see the principles of Common Law have been eroded in our poster child for it the US, the patriot act and so on, only because this is the country that explored the principle and set up protection for it. So while it is the Law in Britain and other places, (contrary to Napoleonic Law in which everything is forbidden except what is granted), we are no longer taught its principles, which at the time Douglas wrote would not have been the case. So I think we have to first understand the principles of Common Law to fully appreciate what he is saying here. Though also I don’t have the knowledge to analyse his economic strategy, perhaps there are some reading this who could shed more light on it.
*http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_british_constitution.htm
I found this a good introduction, jogging memory of what I had been taught at junior school level. I came across, a short while back when I was exploring the US Constitution, that juries can decide if the law they are being asked to judge someone guilty or not guilty of breaking is actually a fair law. The judges of course don’t like that known..
I think what Douglas is saying is that just as in Common Law everyone is equal so in economy everyone should have, there should be no have nots. Leisure isn’t a dirty word..
I have bookmarked some other pages to read more carefully, I’ve skimmed them so far but in a week’s time will have the time, here’s a couple:
http://www.alor.org/Library/RealisticConstitutionalism.htm#1a
http://www.alor.org/Library/Dictatorshipbytaxation.htm#1a
From the last:
“PUNISHMENT BY TAXATION
If the present system of taxation consisted, as it does, of an organized system of robbery but without any other objectionable aspects, it would, in all conscience, be unjustified. But in the past few years, and particularly since the [First World] War, another feature of it has come into prominence, although there is very little doubt that it has always been contemplated.I refer to the use of the taxation system as a method of inflicting punishment without trial and at the discretion of anonymous individuals. As an example of what I mean I might say that, since my own efforts to explain the nature of the taxation have come into some prominence, I have been consistently pestered by various assessments for income tax which require a great deal of time, expense, and trouble to dispose of. Even if and when disposed of, they constitute a serious additional tax, since it is inevitable that skilled legal assistance be employed in connection with them and much data collected, and, of course, the cost of this is not reimbursed. It should be incredible, if it did not happen to be true, that a system which allows a claim to be made on you, leaving the trouble and expense of proving that it is not justified upon the shoulders of the person assessed and that no redress for unsubstantiated claims is possible, would be tolerated; but that is exactly the position of the taxation system. It is, of course, exactly the reverse of ordinary business procedure, where a claimant for services rendered can always be put in a position of proving his claim. The system employed traverses the fundamental principle of British justice, in that it forces you to give evidence against yourself. During the [First World] War I had some contact with the more hidden side of politics, and I was informed that income tax was a favorite device for penalizing anyone unpopular with the authorities. The same sum in taxation could be raised far more cheaply and with infinitely less friction, by simple taxes, such as sales taxes, or other straightforward devices , even if it be granted, which of course is not the case, that the taxation was necessary. The recent commission upon the simplification of income tax stated that many of its provisions were
“frankly unintelligible to them and that only the skilled administration by the Inland Revenue officials had made them workable.”
This is exactly what they are intended to be, thus leaving the power over the individual for taxation purposes in the hands of the bureaucracy.”
So, this may appear as nit-picking, but only to those who don’t know what principles of Common Law have butchered – someone commented in a discussion or blog, don’t recall now who, that we are taught not to put up with bullying at school, yet we put up with bullying by government acts (legislation which is not The Law), without protest.
From the britsasttheirbest link:
” Eighteenth century Americans adopted Locke’s ideas, and claimed ‘the bright inheritance of English freedom’ as theirs. (The phrase appears in a letter from New Yorkers to the Mayor of London in 1775.) Their War of Independence was a gauntlet hurled in the faces of King and Parliament who had refused to recognise the ‘ancient rights and liberties’ of British subjects living abroad. The American Bill of Rights, which came into effect December 15, 1791, protected liberties fought for and defended in Britain over the previous thousand years. They included:
“The right to equality before the law
The right to habeas corpus
The right to trial by jury
The right not to bear witness against oneself
The right to petition government for redress of grievances
The right to bear arms and defend yourself from attack
The right to your property and house, free of government searches or seizure—‘your home is your castle’
The freedom to own and sell property
The right to freedom of conscience
The right to freedom of speech.”
Anyway, I’m still trying to get my head around his economics:
“What we do know at the present time, beyond any possibility of doubt, is that whether the administrative system is perfect or not it is producing, not merely all that we can use by our financial system at the present time, but large surpluses, and in my opinion it is nothing less than suicidal to start reorganising an admittedly effective producing system before you have touched upon where the real trouble lies, and that is in the effective demand system, the purchasing power, so that you have to realise that it is neither in the actual processes of production nor in the methods called administration of production, that this trouble lies.
It lies simply and solely in this ticket system which is summed up in the words, “the monopoly of credit,”
and the monopoly of credit is to all effects and purposes the same thing as the banking system.”
Why do people persist in believeing there is some kind of rlinear relationship between CO2 concentration and global average temperature. What happened in 1940 disproves that. Climzte change has an on/off charadter that no one seems to understand. Basically it gets back to the UN’s IPCC never having been set up to do scientific research. Burying CO2 in the ground from whence it came is a great idea, but is it practicable and what will it do to the cost of fossil fuel?
Err here is what people believe
T = f( many factors)
one of those factors is C02. there are other factors. Sometimes those other factors outweigh the transient effect of C02.
If you could hold all those other factors constant while changing C02… the response would be roughly linear.
Ah, caveats.
========
That seems like a totally unwarranted assumption to me. Even if that’s what the models show, how do we know that’s not because it was built into them due to the pre-conceptions of the model builders? Anyway how sure are we that the models are really emulating the actual Earth system?
CO2 is a control variable in a complex system consisting of multiple interacting feedbacks.
There are 2 modes of change. Quantitative and topological. A quantitative change drives small changes in the system – this may be to tropospheric warmth, ocean heat content or changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation and clouds. A topological shift is a chaotic shift to a new attractor – a different mode of climate. A small change in a control variable – µ – can cause the system the balances in the system – THC, cloud, ice, dust, etc – to shift abruptly as tremendous energies cascade through powerful systems. The result is abrupt climate change which happens at all scales in the Earth system.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/bifurcations.png.html?sort=3&o=37
Steven Mosher | May 26, 2013 at 8:34 pm said: ”one of those factors is C02. there are other factors”
if the other ”PHONY” factors are .preventing warming by CO2; it means that: the ”other factors” should have produced global cooling; therefore: big carbon emitters should be rewarded. Reverse psychology
‘AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior. ‘ http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.long
The question to ask AK is – with many (i.e. far from a single deterministic) wildly divergent solutions of these non-linear equations possible within the bounds of feasible inputs and couplings – is what ‘a posterioiri’ criteria determine the plausibility of the solution behaviour?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Seriously, it’s a whole lot easier to ask the sort of questions I do than to answer them. I recently asked a question about models to which I received the answer (to paraphrase) “that’s interesting, we’ll look into it.”
What that told me is that a feature I consider of critical importance to the planetary circulation system did not loom large in the awareness of people who work with the models. We know that complex non-linear systems can undergo sudden phase changes in response to small changes of external “forcing” or internal conditions. It’s very plausible that unique features (such as the Himalaya/tibet system) could lie at the heart of potential bifurcations (“tipping points”) within the system.
The probabilites are unquantifiable, but it would seem intuitively more probable that unfamiliar regime changes would occur with CO2 levels outside the bounds they’ve (probably) been in since before the Himalayan orogeny. The new basin of attraction occupied after such a regime change might be one never seen before on the planet.
As for modeling? I’m extremely skeptical of any attempt to define bounds to the behavior of our planet’s climate, especially with something like pCO2 outside the historical range.
But how much difference does it make? A climatic regime change, or an ecosystemic regime change, will only seriously impact our civilization if it causes a socio-economic(-political) regime change. Good to minimize the chance of that, by reducing the growth of pCO2 and pulling the excess out of the air as quickly as feasible, without however imposing other risks of such regime changes. Such as trying to enforce a substantial increase in energy prices.
God you ramble on – it is a sign of not being satisfied with possible answers from limited facts and insisting on answers based on impossible speculation.
The models are based on nonlinear equations of fluid motion – that gives you the clue as to the essential shortfalls. But I take it you didn’t read the McWilliams paper. It took me a month – should take you at least 10 minutes.
Your question of the other day I discussed – but it seems to have disappeared into the aether.
‘Though essentially studying the failure of the monsoons in 1899, Walker decided to find a way of forecasting the yearly changes in monsoons. He was convinced they were in some way tied to global weather. As he sorted through world weather records, he recognized some patterns of rainfall in South America and associated them with changes in ocean temperatures. He also found a connection between barometer readings at stations on the eastern and western sides of the Pacific (Tahiti [French Polynesia] and Darwin, Australia, to be exact). He noticed that when pressure rises in the east, it usually falls in the west, and vice versa. He coined the term Southern Oscillation to dramatize the ups and downs in this east-west “seesaw” effect. He also realized that Asian monsoon seasons under certain barometric conditions were often linked to drought in Australia, Indonesia, India, and parts of Africa and mild winters in western Canada. Not only did he see the relationship between oscillations of air pressure in the eastern and western Pacific and the monsoons in India but also rainfall in Africa. He also noted that temperatures in Western Canada were above normal during these oscillations. Walker was convinced that all these events were part of the same phenomenon.’
I would suggest that the TEJ is connected to the global interanual to decadal to much longer patterns being identified.
“Steven Mosher | May 26, 2013 at 8:34 pm | Reply
… the response would be roughly linear.”
You write “linear” and mean log
T = f( many factors)
That works if T is a complex number that represents frequency response. Even then, you’re assuming linearity.
What happened in addition to CO2 from 1910-1940 was worth about 0.2 degrees, and was barely noticeable. Doubling CO2 is worth 2-4 C, and has been, and will be, noticed.
Jim D | May 26, 2013 at 8:42 pm said: ” Doubling CO2 is worth 2-4 C, and has been, and will be, noticed”
WOW, and another WOW!!! You forgot to say ”BOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” again…
Yes, indeed, from my model assuming Myles Allen’s 2.8C ECS, the change in temperature anomaly from 1910 to 1940 is 0.2 degrees C.
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/8367/19101940.gif
The amount of excess CO2 was still in its infancy.
Those error bars are certainly possible, as the mean is about 3C.
JimD, “What happened in addition to CO2 from 1910-1940 was worth about 0.2 degrees, and was barely noticeable.”
the SH SST minimum around 1910 was ~16.1 C the 1944 temperature was ~16.7 C degrees. The current SH SST is ~ 17C degrees. The majority of the thermal capacity of the “surface” temperature thinks you are wrong.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jqoPKsbYTUo/UaK7ohxuMSI/AAAAAAAAISs/yYjYBSbh80M/s771/HADSST3%2520hemispheres%2520absolute.png
It is pretty interesting how baseline sensitive the “surface” temperature data is. Must have something to do with all those silly oscillations.
captd, the question was about global temperature. Do you want to try again?
JimD, those two graphs represent over 70% of the “GLOBE”. If you look closely at the cute little blue line, you can “see” what appears to be volcanic forcing impacts that cause the cute little blue line to drop below the cute little orange line. Since most of the OHC increase has been in the NH/ north Atlantic, the shape of that little blue line is kind of interesting.
It is almost like that “global” surface temperature is FUBAR.
Jim D,
Does Cappy hold the keys to the universe with his cryptic mutterings? I really doubt it.
Cappy,
this is the way to do analysis
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzdkvqisOYY/UYReRRDKKrI/AAAAAAAADec/17ypjYtqcpE/s1600/hadcrut.GIF
Global temperature is kriged as 70% SST and 30% Land. And SST is about 1/2 of Land because half the excess heat diffuses into OHC.
Got it?
captd, I still can’t tell if you disagree that decadal average global temperatures in the 1940’s were only 0.4 C higher than in the 1910’s, half of which would have been CO2, and half natural variation, which is what my thing that you answered was about.
Kriging is a simple idea. It provides estimates of variables at points using weighted averages of neighboring points. Webby ‘The Mechanic’ Colonoscope’s architecture is more a matter of making grossly simplistic assumptions about the evolution of a variable to a predetermined conclusion – all expressed algebraically.
If there were any intrinsic validity to the process – to any of the processes he uses – we would have solved climate decades ago on the back of an envelope.
I am very unbelieving about precise attribution prior to satellites.
Even then – what do we really know about clouds?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=1
‘… an examination of ISCCP in relation to the MODIS dataset shows that over the past ten years of overlapping measurements between 60°N –60°S both datasets have been in close agreement (r=0.63, P=7×10^-4). Over this time total cloud cover has been relatively stable. Both ISCCP and MODIS datasets show a close correspondence to Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) over the Pacific region, providing a further
independent validation of the datasets.’ http://www.benlaken.com/documents/AIP_PL_13.pdf
In the recent warming period – 1976 to 1998 – the large natural variation in TOA flux appears to dominate CO2 by quite a lot. So if little of the recent warming was actually AGW – then what does that mean for the future?
All Chef Hydro ever does is post graphs that are filled with noise.
OTOH, here I link a diagram that composes SST and Land temperatures PERFECTLY to match global T (even catching likely human input errors) and the Chef wets his pants in panic
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzdkvqisOYY/UYReRRDKKrI/AAAAAAAADec/17ypjYtqcpE/s1600/hadcrut.GIF
Congratulations dweeb – you have managed to recreate the temperature series using only the temperature series and a fitted factor to account for reduced variability over oceans. You are a stupendous idiot.
Palle and Laken – in their very new paper – on the other hand manage to splice ISCCP-FD and MODIS and to validate using SST. It very much goes to the causes of recent warming – or not warming.
Note the shift in cloud accompanying the 1998/2001 climate shift.
‘The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) is determined from the difference between how much energy is absorbed and emitted by the planet. Climate forcing results in an imbalance in the TOA radiation budget that has direct implications for global climate, but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’ http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
The friggin’ ‘noise’ is louder than the friggin’ signal by far. So we just ignore the friggin’ ‘noise’? Friggin’ idjit.
JimD,
“captd, I still can’t tell if you disagree that decadal average global temperatures in the 1940′s were only 0.4 C higher than in the 1910′s, half of which would have been CO2, and half natural variation, which is what my thing that you answered was about.”
The SH temperature rise from 1910 to 1944 was ~ 0.6 C. The LIA depression is estimated to be around 0.7 C. While there is a large margin of error, that implies 0.4 to 0.8 C for the 1910 to 1944 period. The noise in the higher latitude land temperatures is too large to be useful, especially due to Antarctic estimates pre 1980.
So your “only” 0.4C higher really should be at least 0.4C higher (0.6 +/- 0.30 is more realistic). You are comparing the low end of one estimate to the high end of another and getting a higher response because of that.
You and Webster are putting way too much confidence in the noisiest part of the data. .
JimD, This you might find interesting.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/to-remove-or-not-remove-seasonal-cycle.html
That shift shouldn’t change the mean or trends much, but it does change the noise or variance.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-YT1RNGjeMlY/UZwY_runNJI/AAAAAAAAINU/VLJKMM6cM2M/s843/BartR%2527s%2520Warming%2520stdev.png
Then when you overly smooth the “surface” temperature data it looks like it is less variable than the satellite data, but it is actually about twice as noisy. Then pick a longer term smooth that fits your “eyeball” of what you think should be happening and tah dah!
It is like the stats joke, “What result would you like?”
JimD, Just to provide a different look that your myopic approach,
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uk7y9TLDCPg/UaNWJeJaz7I/AAAAAAAAITI/NICdqv3z9kA/s921/Global%2520absolute%2520using%2520hadsst%2520and%2520giss.png
That is an approximation of Global Absolute Temperature with the contribution by hemisphere and surface, land/ocean. As you are aware, land temperatures are the average of Tmax and Tmin while the SST is just the approximate SST. Subtle difference there which with a small variation can lead to large leaps in conclusions.
Since you and Webster are married to views that suit your agenda, this is probably a waste of time, but teasing out the attribution with “REASONABLE” uncertainty is a bit of a challenge. Your 0.2 C appears to be land related while the 0.6 appears to be longer term SST/OHC changes.
Now I know you have a perfectly good theory and a lot of time invested explaining why things are not quite going according to plan, but occasionally, it doesn’t hurt to take a little different look at the data.
Whether you are intelligent or not does not matter. All you do is link to stuff with absolutely no context and which is absolutely incomprehensible. You may be smart agenda-wise because this is your plan to waste everyone’s time by contributing to the ongoing FUD.
Good for you little baby chef.
The nice thing is that I actually do the analysis work. There is no filtering and no fitted factor. The SST actually has more than twice the weight as the Land temperature data.
Nice teamwork by the Captains Courageous, Captain Kangaroo and Captain Dallas. Cappy K does the quote mining and insults while Cappy D does the shoddy data manipulation to present to the loser skeptics.
Webster, “. The SST actually has more than twice the weight as the Land temperature data.”
Yes it does, good for you.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rainy-day-look-at-surface-temperatures.html
There is an approximation of the absolute “global” surface temperature with weights by hemisphere and “surface” sst/land. In your warped mind you still have the NH tail wagging the global dog.
Since all those temperatures are estimated averages of lots of various oscillations and quasi-oscillatory interactions you might even want to consider seasonal cycle variations.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/to-remove-or-not-remove-seasonal-cycle.html
But then removing those seasonal cycles that cause baseline dependence in anomaly comparisons may not be the best way to go.
The simplest way, sometimes the best way, is to stick to 60S-60N to reduce noise and focus on heat content. Using BEST Global Land only though has to be the WORST way, IMHO.
‘Performing a correlation analysis between SST and ISCCP/MODIS total cloud amount we find that overall there is a negative correspondence between cloud at middle latitudes and a positive correspondence at low latitudes. In particular, a strong positive correlation between SST and total cloud is identified over the Equatorial Pacific region (6ºN- 6ºS) of r = 0.74 and 0.60 for ISCCP and MODIS , respectively, which is found to be highly statistically significant (p =4.5 × 10^-6 and 0.03).
Other regions over the globe present localized significant positive and
negative correlations [8], but this is the more extended region with consistent positive correlations. A time series of these data is presented in Figure 4. A strong correspondence between SST and total cloud cover is expected over the Equatorial Pacific region as ocean temperatures provide a strong influence the day-to-day formation of convective clouds, but with small impact on the radiation balance. We also expect that at mid-latitudes, the clouds in turn influence ocean temperatures as they provide a negative radiative forcing via their shortwave reflection.’
You quote it out of context and without any consideration of the data at all? Idiot.
‘The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) is determined from the dif-ference between how much energy is absorbed and emitted by the planet. Climate forcing results in an imbalance in the TOA radiation budget that has direct implications for global climate, but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’ http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
Let me explain to you Deniers (as the prez calls you). The ocean takes up about 70% of the area of the Earth’s surface. The land takes up about 30% of the area of the Earth’s surface. With a sampling of ocean and land surface temperatures, we should expect that the global temperature is a 70/30 proportional mix of the ocean and land temperatures. That is what the HadCru data sets show:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzdkvqisOYY/UYReRRDKKrI/AAAAAAAADec/17ypjYtqcpE/s1600/hadcrut.GIF
Further, it has been asserted from OHC data that the ocean is retaining about half the excess heat — that heat diffuses to deeper water where it does not show up in SST. In that case, the ocean temperature should be about half the land temperatures (which has no heat sink to speak of). That also works to explain the data
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
The only thing I deny is that you have a freakin’ clue.
‘Noise’ is much bigger than ‘signal’ in the satellite era. Dimwit.
Webster, “we should expect that the global temperature is a 70/30 proportional mix of the ocean and land temperatures.”
Wrong, it is classified land and ocean but there is a large portion of the land and ocean that is ice, some varies seasonally, some doesn’t. Land that is close to oceans is less sensitive than land that is well separated from oceans. Since there is significant asymmetry between the hemisphere and a 3 C difference (~15Wm-2) in the absolute temperatures between the hemispheres, your simplistic assumptions are useless when 1 to 2 Wm-2 of precision is required. What we should “expect” is nearly unimaginable complexity. Like this,
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K0KGV6zP3Sk/UaPIjdJ-xDI/AAAAAAAAIUE/z187qms8Kbg/s979/Solar%2520and%2520the%2520tropical%2520stratosphere.png
That is an indication that solar variability has a larger than anticipated impact on tropical cloud/ozone “forcing” or “feedback” if you prefer. One of those irritating little inconsistencies with your simplistic modeling. That is a cumulative impact and since it impacts the lower troposphere and stratosphere differently, most likely clouds, ozone or tidal effects near the turbopause, whatever, it is definitely not included in the models.
Now if you can get over yourself, you might realize that “surface” temperature anomaly is nearly useless on its own, the only thing “known” about CO2 forcing is ~0.8 to 1.2 C per doubling and the satellite data indicates there is a crap load more going on than your modeling indicates.
Again, let me explain to you Deniers (copyright Prez Obama). We have a ECS of about 3 and a TCR of about 2. The ECS shows up as a Land-based warming because there is no place for the heat to sink except as a rise in temperature. The TCR shows up in the global temperature because this has a significant heat sink in the ocean.
Remember that the ocean takes up about 70% of the area of the Earth’s surface while the land takes up about 30%. Sampling the ocean and land surface temperatures, we get a 70/30 proportional mix of the ocean and land temperatures. Witness how well that fits the HadCru data sets:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzdkvqisOYY/UYReRRDKKrI/AAAAAAAADec/17ypjYtqcpE/s1600/hadcrut.GIF
As the OHC data suggests that the ocean is retaining about half the excess heat, the ocean temperature should be about half the land temperatures (which again has no heat sink to speak of). That also works to explain the data
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
Again I don’t deny anything other than that you have any clue at all about how climate works.
‘Finally, I provided an outlook on response theory as applied to random dynamical systems, rather than in the more familiar context of statistical mechanics near equilibrium. This theory provides the response function
R(t) of a chaotic system to time-dependent forcing, as well as its
Fourier transform, the susceptibility function (Ƹ). In fact, climate change involves not just changes in the mean, but also in its variability [3]. Thus,
the susceptibility function will allow us to get a handle on mechanisms of high sensitivity in the response of climate variability to deterministic, anthropogenic forcing—such as increases in aerosols and greenhouse gases—as well as to random, natural forcing, such as volcanic eruptions.’
‘http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/PREPRINTS/Math-Clim_Sens-SIAM_News%2711.pdf
Go away until you understand what this means.
Michael Ghil is of course aware of natural variability on all scales – you are aware of nothing much at all but gross simplifications around imaginary physics.
Webby, Just repeating over and over again an incorrect statement about ECS does not make it true. You should try to dig into the latest papers and show in detail why you think they are wrong.
Jim D
The “early 20th C warming cycle” showed a linear warming trend of 0.53C (Delworth & Knutson 2000).
This all occurred before Mauna Loa CO2 measurements, but we have the ice core data cited by IPCC and summarized by Siegenthaler 1986.
These estimate CO2 concentrations:
1910: 299 ppmv
1944: 311 ppmv
Using the IPCC AR4 estimate of 3.2°C for 2xCO2 CS at “equilibrium”, we get:
3.2°C * ln(311/299) / ln(2) = 0.18°C for dT(CO2) at “equilibrium”
So this leaves 0.53 – 0.18 = 0.35°C for “what happened in addition to CO2”.
Conclusions:
– your estimate of 0.2°C is way off
– “natural factors” contributed to 0.35°C of “early 20th C warming”
– other estimates suggest that “natural factors” contributed 20% to “late 20th C warming” of around 0.5°C = 0.1 °C , or 0.45°C over the entire 20th C
– total 20th C warming (1906-2005) was 0.74 °C (IPCC AR4)
– so 0.74 – 0.45 = 0.29°C can be attributed to CO2
CO2 increased from 298 ppmv (1906) to 379 ppmv (2005)
Observed transient climate response TCR for 2xCO2:
= ln(2) * 0.29 / ln(379/298) = 0.84°C
Add in 0.6°C to arrive at 2xCO2 ECS = 1.44°C.
Looks like your “doubling CO2 is worth 2-4 C” is on the high side, Jim.
The data suggest it’s around half that value.
Max
There’s many a slip
twixt the linear
and logarithmic
in compluh
oh so very –
compluh – cated
climate – change.
How many years? How many tax dollars wasted?
Measured manmade global warming signal?
Empirical data for any relationship between atmospheric CO2 and “Global” average temperature?
Myles Allen is a classic expert eventually he will concur with critics of CO2=Warming, while insisting that those critics were in fact wrong.
I had a friend who would argue vehemently that black was white until he realised he was wrong, when he would immediately argue vehemently that you had argued that black was white. He seemed to have been completely unaware of what he was doing. He studied science at Imperial College London, probably head of department now.
prudent alarmist started looking for backdoor exit. GLOBAL warming is phony; warming by 1,5C, or by 2C is just as phony as warming by 5C, the original lie
So Gatesy – why don’t you explain again how La Nina cools the Pacific Ocean and it rains less (less cloud) – and vice versa with El Nino?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/bifurcations.png.html?sort=3&o=37
The cooling is only at the surface, but the heat content increases because a cooler surface radiates less too. Opposite in El Nino.
The sst cooling is a result of less input ie solar irriadiance which is significant in the datasets of the declination of the solar cycle.eg Ruzmaiken.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/docs/abstracts/2b_Ruzmaikin_contr.pdf
Whoops – wrong graph.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/SOI_GMSL_zps6063be55.png.html?sort=3&o=0
The cooling of the ocean surface in the Pacific is the result of upwelling of cold water in the eastern Pacific. At any rate – ocean heat content depends on the difference between incoming and outgoing energy. Incoming energy declined a bit over the last decade (in SORCE) while outgoing energy from reflected SW declined a little bit more – giving warming seen in the ARGO record.
The graph shows sea level and the Southern Oscillation Index. Sea levels fall with La Nina and rise with El Nino. This is the exact opposite of the narrative that Jimbo and Gatesy reiterate. Explain away guys.
The SOI looks a bit odd here. I thought there was a major El Nino in 1998. Compare it with some other SOIs.
Anyway, the sea level drops as El Nino subsides, consistent with the net loss of heat from the ocean during that phase. You have to think of El Nino as an efficient way to lose heat because the warm water spreads eastwards over the surface creating more surface area. That heat loss would not have occurred without the El Nino priming the surface for it.
The SOI is not an ENSO index – it is related as a leading indicator. The data is maintained by the BOM and the graph comes from the CSIRO.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi-1993-2000.shtml
Sea level is an instantaneous measure of ocean heat content and water volume. The sea level decline in La Nina are a result of more cloud and rain over the western Pacific especially – as well as a decline in ocean heat content. You don’t lose heat and then some time later the sea level drops.
The signal is quite unmistakable.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=39
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-LWCERES.png.html?sort=3&o=58
And this one is especially interesting for the longer term cloud change – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=72
ENSO is part of a bigger and longer term global system that can only be incompletely isolated.
Chief Hydrologist | May 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm said: ”’why don’t you explain again how La Nina cools the Pacific Ocean and it rains less (less cloud) – and vice versa with El Nino?”
La Nina cools east pacific / warmer west pacific; rain more in La Nina year in Australia. chief, you should get occasionally outside, to see for yourself
Australia’s Professor David Karoly – one of the high profile, government funded, climate scientists in Australia who are committed extreme climate doomsayers – has released his modelling which shows his best estimate is the world will warm by 4.5C from preindustrial temps by 2100.
https://theconversation.com/uncertainty-no-excuse-for-procrastinating-on-climate-change-14634?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+27+May+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+27+May+2013+CID_cc59febf1cd70e387d52ee918dc03928&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Uncertainty%20no%20excuse%20for%20procrastinating%20on%20climate%20change
Just got home from a short vacation and read all the posts. But when it comes to getting to the chaste Arno Arrak in his May 26, 6:30 entry made sense to even dummies like me. I don`t care if you don`t like paragraphs. And Heman Pope, you are my hero, just plain common sense is what you are about. And Kim thanks for keeping Mosher in check. Maybe there is a little hope for him if we can separate him from Hansen.
kim kept Mosher in check ? Controlled Mosher? HA HA !
kim couldn’t control a fork without getting punctured lips.
kim couldn’t control a toothbrush without getting a black eye
Don’t you know “kim” is an acronym for
Klutzy Inept Monkey
Max _who thinks he’s OK ,
I’m afraid ter say, seems witless when challenged by subtle
allusions. Kim is ‘non-pareil ‘ fer witty rejoinders_ter wit …
re apocalypse in history, Golgamish and Noah …
‘Med Sea in the unremembered mists of temps passe,
the Black is deja vu all over again.’
H/t kim 28/08/12 @12.25am.
Beth.
‘Gilgamish’ … yer no I can’t spell!
Waiting for Kim’s reaction Max_OK? Your post was a bit ad homish to say the least! Thought for the day: never react, always respond. That’s the difference between adults and children. You are not 15 years old Max_OK so the Chief’s wrong ain’t he?
moshe resents the slur on his bot.
=====
Re Beth Cooper comments on May 27, 2013 at 3:38 am
I’m sorry, Beth but “subtle allusions” require some thinking, which isn’t my favorite activity. When I go to the trouble of thinking, I expect a worthwhile result. Too often the subtle allusions you speak of turn out to be no more than corny with a cover. I find masked cornball boring and tiresome rather than clever. I prefer plain old cornball.
Then why does talk like a smart arse adolescent with little to no book learnin’?
Jack, like minds. I’m a Kim fan (who wouldn’t love a witty bi-racial urchin from Imperial Lahore?) and copied Arno and Herman’s posts to my CAGW files.
We’ll know we are approaching a solution when folks like Myles Allen start to recognize that CCS is (and will very likely forever remain) far more costly than nuclear power. The solution has been in front of us all along…. only the green sensibilities of the most environmentally/climate concerned among us have taken this obvious solution off the table. In the end, reality will impose itself, and nuclear plants will start being built as rapidly as possible.
I agree. Who doesn’t agree and what are your reasons?
Here’s a reason. People are afraid of ’em. I’m not sure I would want to live next door to one. But if I was many miles away I would have no objection.
‘More people were killed at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile Island’ (car bumper sticker)
I never put bumper stickers on my car. There’s always the possibility the message, even if it’s not political or religious, will anger some nut enough to cause a problem.
I don’t wear T-shirts with messages or brand names. I don’t have rings through my nose, tongue, or ears. I don’t dye my hair or wear it in a ponytail. I do nothing to attract attention to myself.
Good heavens, Max_OK and I have some things in common. But I attract attention even when seeking anonymity. ;-)
I love me some nukes. My hippie neighbours – though most are just good beer-and-family types – would probably get all radicalised if someone built a reactor around here. With nukes you get all the potency of a coal power station without that smell. Not that I mind the smell of carbon in the morning.
The second ugliest sight in the world is a line of wind-turbines. The ugliest sight is a half-abandoned solar farm with greasy, dusty panels and a sign saying “Developed in Partnership with the European Union for a Sustainable Tuscany”. Grimy, impotent piles of junk. Take them away. Make Brussels a HAZMAT dump for trashed renewables. There’s an idea: recycle Brussels.
mosomoso
presumably your Tuscan example is a real life example? If so do you have a link to it?
They are planning a 55 acre solar site on agricultural land about ten miles from us. Solar energy is horribly inefficient here partly because we only get some 1750 hours of sun per annum and light levels fall off considerably in winter when the energy would be most needed.
tonyb
What do you do with 270,000 tons of high level nuclear waste?
Turn it into fuel for the next couple of hundred years at $60/MWh.
http://www.ga.com/energy-multiplier-module
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jan/10/san-onofre-nuclear-reactors-general-atomics/?#article-copy
There are many small modular systems operating – over 60 years of development – and many more in the race for commercial deployment.
This is safe, cheap and reliable nuclear energy for the next 50 years.
tonyb, the Palmer article linked by Peter Lang showed that in Melbourne, Vic, about 37.5/37.8 S (sources vary), solar output has dropped to zero by the early evening electricity consumption peak usage. So that you need to maintain the same peak capacity as if you didn’t have solar. An argument against in your area.
Tonyb
I’ve done plenty of hiking in Europe in recent years. That small, dilapidated solar slum was something I just stumbled across in the countryside. I’m not sure it was even functioning. Pre-2008 people were milking other people’s euros for all kinds of nonsense. Hence 2008.
It’s O/T, but this uninhabited NEW town in the Rioja (apologies to El Faustino) is a perfect example of Eurowaste. I’m sure there was a sustainablity consultant or two sustained in the process of building this:
http://slowcamino.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/can-el-beaver-come-out-to-play/
Tonyb,
Here are some photos of abandoned commercial solar PV installations (and other abandoned renewable energy plants):
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/
And here is one that is just wind farms (hundreds of them):
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=broken+wind+farm&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47008514,d.d2k&biw=1185&bih=772&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=dDufUcD-L7OO7QavrICQDw
A disgraceful mess. No one is responsible for decommissioning or waste disposal with renewable energy plants.
You sound pretty non-descript Max_OK. I can relate to your farming background but find your talk too Oklahomian to understand properly.
I did the test Max_OK
http://www.gotoquiz.com/results/how_oklahoman_are_you
My results?
You are 69% Okie’
Dang, youre pretty Oklahoman. You definetily border this state Your’e probly Texas or Kansas. Don’t worry, property is cheap so you can move here with relative ease.
Hell Max there’s hope for me yet! BS baffles brains methinks ;)
So MAX_OK is no true Oklahoman, eh Peter Davies? :)
The most interesting political statement I’ve seen recently was a “Reagan-Bush ’84” bumper sticker on a brand new SUV.
As Peter Lang shows, abandonned wind turbines are
a blight on the landscape. The problem with windfarms
when they become obsolete is getting the turbines
removed.The energy investment is costly especially as
eg in the Netherlands a wind project supposed to be
around for 25 years had to be renewed after 12 years.
Subsidy regulations applied by the government are
based on a write off after 15 years.( C le Pair 2009
‘Electricity in the Netherlands.’ page 6)
A picture’s worth a thousand words …
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/
Re Peter Davies post May 27, 2013 at 7:20 am
Peter, that test was made up by some rabid Oklahoma University football fan obsessed over the Sooner’s rivalry
with the University of Texas Longhorns. Oklahomans don’t dislike Texans.
“And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap…”
Uh… I hope he meant solar and wind. Because nuclear already is that cheap, despite all the safety measures related to it. Of course nuclear may power our grids but it will hardly ever power our cars. And electric cars still have a long way to go.
“Fortunately, there is a solution. It is perfectly possible to burn fossil carbon and not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: you have to filter it out of the flue gases, pressurise it, and re-inject, or ‘sequester’, it back underground.”
This is a complete nonsense to me. In a world where it is deemed unsafe to store solid and sealed nuclear waste underground, it somehow becomes safe to store gaseous CO2 in there? Not mentioning the fact that the energy needed to do so is so huge that it of makes the energy source about as effective as solar or wind. And watching and maintaining this underground storage will become another huge energy and resource sink.
The one point I agree with is that there’s no stopping to human release of CO2 into atmosphere. Any nation trying to do so automatically places itself into economical trap. And the idea that every nation in the world will do that is about as naive as the idea that communism is the best social order. It would be great if it worked but there is no way it could.
The warming will come. It is inevitable. Instead of trying to stop it, we need to get ready for it. Seriously and without emotions. If we can’t fight it, we need to use it.
Indeed. I want real time live translation when this “mandate” is announced to the Chinese. “All your coal and other combustion costs are about to rise by 30%.” It should be hilarious.
“the refreshing ‘heresy’ of it”
Most people get over their infatuation with heresy for heresy’s sake sometime in their junior year of college. You’re a little behind schedule.
There are so many smart people here and anyone who fails to visit are missing out on a free education…but so many are confused about coal and the planet`s energy mix over the next several decades.
The IEA has informed us that coal will soon supplant crude as the #1 energy fuel. Germany is in the process of closing its nuclear generators and will open 6 new coal-fired power plants this year with 12 more coming in the following 6 years or so. Japan is taking bids for new coal-fired power plants and China and India are constructing 100 or so every year.
How about the USA? Nobody seems to understand that of our 104 reactors not one broke ground after 1974. Their 40 year life span is fast approaching and very few new ones will ever be built because they are too expensive. Of course many will get extensions but we are in effect undergoing a de-facto phasing out of these reactors so what fuel will take up the slack? Will it be natural gas? Only if it stays below $4.00 per million btu`s. Utilities must answer to their ratepayers and investors and they are expected to use the most reliable and affordable fuel and coal will be their choice.
It may surprise some here but in the first quarter of 2013 the public utililities used coal for more than 50% of their generation, more than Nat/gas, nuclear, hydro and renewables combined. And now that we know that CO2 has nothing to do with global warming our farmers of crops and trees will be the beneficiaries of this magical, wonderful compound.
Right and the Utopians believe that demonizing coal and fossil fuels with carbon taxes will change the future in some positive way. Inefficiency is already a tax and the Utopians need a cause more suited to their narrow minds. That could be UNtopia. Let them build their vision of paradise in the Sahel or Minnesota. They can then lead by example and show the flawed world the path to enlightenment.
While in the real world, improving efficiency and increasing diversity is a natural progression that can be stimulated without demonizing any energy source. If CO2 is to be sequestered, it will be in an efficient manner as fertilizer, refrigerant or fuel, not pumped into the deep oceans in some cli-fi UNtopian cartoon.
New coal plants have been regulated out of existence because the EPA CO2 emission requirement is that of natgas. We are going to gas for the forseeable future, even at ten dollars. The only policy issue is whether EPA will kill the existing coal plants, which were also built inthe 70s or before. It’s a gas, man.
David, the EPA driving electrical generation to natgas will likely end up with IGCC modifications in the future. That is a bit Ironic.
And let’s not forget the Tiger Economy of Europe: coal-lovin’ Poland. For some reason or other, the Poles don’t seem excited by the advice and opinions of the international New Class of clever chappies, or by the prospect of dealing with Gazprom and the Russians. Imagine that!
The Trumpeter of Krakow
Come forth and take a bow.
The Poles take troubles how
A ship to waves its bow.
===========
David, You haven`t been paying attention. In the USA there are now 10 new coal fired power plants under construction and another 43 in some stage of early development. All will meet EPA specifications. In 2010 there were more coal fired power plants built since 1985. Also after the 2014 mid term elections EPA will lose a lot of their clout. Some old ones will close down which is good because the new ones will be more efficient.
Jack, in the last decade or so we have added over 200,000 MW of gas fired capacity and almost no coal. This is why coal’s market share is dropping. Ten new plants does not change this massive transition but I am very curious how these new coal plants are meeting the EPA CO2 spec? Can you point to one? I will look into it.
The EPA has become so politicized the obvious thing to do is simply eliminate the agency altogether. How many paid gadflies do we need? Isn’t the attorney tax already too large? Government has become a clot going to the heart of commerce. The model for government down-sizing should be to start with those who stand up and cheer the razing of Americanism and then pull the plug. We can get by without the EPA. California has its own EPA.
@Peter Lang | May 27, 2013 at 3:33 am
The people who made money off these relic “green” energy installations should now be sued to clean up their messes.
Objects of veneration. Face the nearest one, and pray for Gaia. Make sacrifices. Meat, wine and virgins preferred.
=========
Nelson, Fraser. “It’s the Cold, Not Global Warming, That We Should Be Worried About.” Telegraph.co.uk, March 28, 2013, sec. elderhealth. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html
A partial solution to the “entitlement” problem?
Goodness me, cold is bad?
===========
David, You need to go to Energy Information Administratrtion and punch in New Coal Fired Power Plants and they will give you a link to NETL. Remember when we as a nation begin to export LNG it is going to be shipped to the highest bidder and as we move our transportation fuels from diesel to LNG and Compressed N/G their less lucrative power generation market will be of lower priority. The EIA`s most recent projection is that coal will be the dominate fuel for power generation until at least 2040.
Jack (try to reply to my posts), NETL does not build powerplants. Do you have a link to a plant actually under construction or a list thereof? I am a big fan of coal and fought hard for it but it is going down at this point. The mercury rules alone are progged to cause massive shutdowns and/or switching to gas. The CO2 rules seem to preclude new construction. Hence my curiosity.
Don’t expect AGW catastrophists
Will stop there humin’ and hah-hahin’
Sooner than cicadas stop their buggin’
David …I did not say that NETL constructed power plants. They keep track of all the power plants that have been constructed in the past, the present and the future. Yes I could do all the work for you and tell you exactly where they are all located but that would be a waste of everyone`s time here that have little interest. As far as the EPA trying to deny construction for emitting CO2 they would have to take every single generating plant to court to prove their case. No more flawed or bastardized models allowed…just observable, empiracal evidence and since 1979 the satelltie sensors have told us so convincingly there has been no warming of the planet for over 32 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/20/monckton-challenges-the-ipcc-suggests-fraud-and-gets-a-response/#comment-1311386
Werner Brozek says:
May 20, 2013 at 7:35 pm
There has been no warming for 17 years on any measure, as the IPCC’s climate-science chairman now admits.
This matter regarding the 17 years was the case earlier, however the situation with GISS, which used to have no statistically significant warming for 17 years, has now been changed with new data. GISS now has over 18 years of no statistically significant warming. As a result, we can now say the following: On six different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 18 and 23 years.
The details are below and are based on the SkS site:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
For RSS the warming is not significant for over 23 years.
For RSS: +0.123 +/-0.131 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
For UAH the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For UAH: 0.142 +/- 0.166 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hadcrut3 the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.094 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hadcrut4 the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.094 +/- 0.109 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For GISS the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For GISS: 0.103 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For NOAA the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For NOAA: 0.089 +/- 0.104 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
If you want to know the times to the nearest month that the warming is not significant for each set to their latest update, they are as follows:
RSS since August 1989;
UAH since June 1993;
Hadcrut3 since August 1993;
Hadcrut4 since July 1994;
GISS since October 1994 and
NOAA since July 1994.
(By the way, RSS shows a slightly negative slope since December 1996 or 16 years and 5 months through to April 2013.)
=======
We’ve been lied to..
Myrrh, you write “We’ve been lied to..”
And we now know we have been lied to on an other issue. See
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/5/27/met-office-admits-claims-of-significant-temperature-rise-unt.html
The UK Met Ofice has finally agreed that there is no evidence for any CO2 signal in the temperature/time graph since 1850. The reklevant quote is
“Plainly, then, the Met Office should now publicly withdraw the claim. That is, the Met Office should admit that the warming shown by the global-temperature record since 1880 (or indeed 1850) might be reasonably attributed to natural random variation. Additionally, the Met Office needs to reassess other claims that it has made about statistically significant climatic changes.”
Jack (do you not know how to reply?), can you name a single coal fired plant presently under construction? EIA collects operational data on all existing plants but I am not aware of any NETL inventory. Please point us to it.
It seems to me that when you peel this onion to the core, what Allen is saying is that, in response to recently available information, you can:
1) bail on CO2 control completely, or
2) retreat from the “renewables uber alles” approach that has been green orthodoxy for the past couple of decades, and try something different, this time with less panic, and without the insistence that “renewables” be the complete and absolute holy grail.
He seems to opting for 2.
Given that, you really have two options for electricity generation:
1) CCS, or
2) Nuclear.
So what this all boils down to is no nukes. We’re back to UCS circa 1980. Thus the declaration without proof that nukes will never be economical, but CCS will.
That’s the long and the short of the entire article.
Myles never explained how wasting billions will lead to “doom” – a few billion equals DOOM? Talk about “alarmist” my goodness.
Bankers suck dry $100s of billions with absolutely zero productivity or value attached to it, and Myles thinks a few billion is a problem when it is spent on CO2?
And, as Bart R pointed out, “damage done by CO2 = $3 Trillion”, so if “a few billion” mitigated some of that damage, it might be one of the best returns you have seen since 2008!! Ha!
Finally, I would point out the overwhelming number of replies here are “AGW deniers” – flocking together on a denier Judith Curry website. DeSmogBlog bio on Judith > http://desmogblog.com/judith-curry
Bankers are on the AGW bandwagon, which is wasting 100s of billions. No evidence of any damage done by CO2.
What a concentration of falsehoods here!! Chinese PV is doing great, the cost goes down and the efficiency goes up and if only oil and gas and nuclear were priced with their clean-up costs attached instead of using taxpayer dollars, renewables would be cheaper.
Which brings us to the reply after my last comment – “No evidence of any damage done by CO2” – Oh, REALLY??!! Calgary flood and Hurricane Sandy were damaging, and as a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture resulting in bigger rain deluges and deeper snow there is more flooding – every single rivier coming from the Canadian Rockies is flooding now, and that NEVER happened before all at the same time like this year. Also, the connection is clear between more intense hurricanes and warmer oceans due to global warming.
Really. Dig your head from the sand my Ostrich-like fellow human beings I share this planet with… you are hurting me by slowing progress towards the very sane goal of at least STABILISING emissions [better yet, reduce them] because CO2 emissions are still increasing – what a nutball race we are.
Ellin Callvis
Yeah. Bart R tells us “damage done by CO2 = $3 Trillion”, but he has no way of backing this up. It is a number extracted out of a dark spot where the sun never shines.
Stern, Nordhaus, Tol, etc. are all based on dicey assumptions and questionable cost/benefit analyses.
To date it is most likely that the net impact of increased CO2 concentration has, itself, been beneficial for humanity. Certainly the net impact of having a reliable source of low-cost energy has been extremely beneficial, so that the net overall impact has undoubtedly also been beneficial.
Why should this be any different in the future?
Bart R cannot back up his claims with any reasonable analysis of the pros and cons of additional increases in the CO2 concentration. It’s all just hot air.
Don’t fall for it.
Max
manacker | May 27, 2013 at 8:37 pm |
I agree the $3 trillion is specious. While it _is_ backed up by formal analyses, you must recall that I called out exactly that type of analysis as suspect when Bjorn Lomborg submitted it to Congress.
See, just because I don’t believe in such analyses doesn’t mean you might not. If you believe Tol and Lomborg. Though if you confuse Tol and Nordhaus, you’re on less firm ground. Since Nordhaus’ analyses are not as invalid as Tol’s, which again are not quite as off-the-wall as Lomborg’s.
I was just pointing out the argument, for those who do subscribe to such reasoning.
However, your claims of ‘most likely’ net beneficial are a gossamer of utter nonsense, scam, outright fraud, spin, and various like Idsoist practice.
“a few billion equals “?????
A few billion ?
Mankind has spent, so far, several HUNDRED billions on schemes that have acheived exactly zero mitigation (or reduction of emissions).
Myles Allen is correct on this point.
Jacob | May 28, 2013 at 4:54 pm |
Could you list these schemes? Preferrably with the costs?
Not that I dispute your claim, but facts put a face on handwaves.
Ellin, You are commenting on an old thread, I guess hoping no one will notice. The question of “damage” from fossil fuel consumption is a contentious issue and there are responsible people on both sides of the argument. My own take is that disaster mongering is usually quite wrong and exaggerated.
DeSmog is a propagandist site. Their characterization of Judith is no different than the grossly inaccurate negative advertising we see every 2 years. Smears and lies and nothing more.
HOW TO COME OUT OF THE UNCERTAIN SITUATION?
Myles Allen:
”Last week, I was part of a group of academics who published a paper saying that the faster, more alarming, projections of the rate at which the globe is warming look less likely than previously thought.
That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.”
Arno Arrak; http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/26/myles-allen-why-were-wasting-billions-on-global-warming/#comment-326265 :
”Your Myles Allen is an example. After 15 years of no warming at all these guys have decided that maybe, just maybe, the warming is not as bad as they thought at first. Well, yes, but that is not how it is. It is zero, zilch, none, But he does not under stand that the game is over.when he goes: “That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.” For him, nothing has changed, the game goes on and IPCC rules.”
curryja:
”Roger Pielke Jr. has a provocative article in the Guardian entitled Have the climate sceptics really won?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2013/may/24/climate-sceptics-winning-science-policy
David Wojick; http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/24/open-thread-weekend-19/#comment-325659 :
”It is just the usual muddle. He thinks that if greens can just find a painless path to a prosperous low carbon economy the people and policy will follow. That might even be true but no such path exists and many people have looked for it, for forty years or more. This fact is not some spell cast by skeptics, as he claims. There is no spell just reality. Our civilization is still based on fire.”
I regard the comment of David Wojick as proper. I appreciate his openmindedness and appropriate scrutiny concerning all over the history of recent climate change.
As I see ‘the usual muddle’ derives its origin from general lack of experience to solve multidisciplinary problems like a climate change. Experts who are confining themselves one-sidedly to single disciplines seem only coincidentally to reach a working solution to any multidisciplinary problem. And without any relevant cross-disciplinary approach there is difficult to achieve a solution working well enough. For instance the results of imaginary climate models adopted by IPCC are only deeply uncertain hypotheses which can not be proved by empiric observations.
As far as I have understood, the main objective of discussions here in the Climate etc is to learn to understand what is the real role of greenhouse gas emissions from man-made sources. Only thereafter you are able to see what kind of potential actions are needed, and which ones of them are working or not.
Even from Wojick’s comment above it appears that there is no proper evidence in reality, according to which athropogenic CO2 emissions could have caused the recent warming. This is supported by the views stated by me, too, according to which the recent increase of global CO2 content in atmosphere has dominantly followed warming and not vice versa, and according to which the share of anthropogenic CO2 in the total increase of CO2 in atmosphere is only about 4 % at the best.
In a way or another, we have to be able to remove the ‘deep uncertainty’ concerning the hypothetic anthropogenic warming. Otherwise there is no way to reach any working solution. As to my view of the issue there is only one way to get over the difficulties: you have to learn to understand that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have not dominated the recent global warming; look e.g. at comments http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 ; and http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#comment-287036 . Thus it is easy to understand that a curtailment of anthropogenic CO2 emissions can not be taken into consideration as any essential factor to control global warming.
Lauri Heimonen
+100
OK.
The POTUS has “called out” members of Congress who do not agree with him on the CAGW threat and need for immediate “policy action”.
Good.
Now let’s see how many of these representatives get re-elected to see how the voting public of the USA feels about it.
Oh-oh! This ended up on the wrong site.
Assuming anybody’s interested in compromise any more, you know, that old American tradition, Here’s a possibility: There’s a battle brewing over Huge shale deposits in Monterey, California. One possible compromise is that leases that include “fracking” rights could be granted subject to the sort of sequestration scheme being discussed here. That would get the ball rolling, while allowing California’s politicians to benefit from a boom without making all the environmentalists too unhappy.
One perceived problem with “fracking” is the enormous amounts of water it requires. But why not require “frackers” to use water from the Gulf of California (Mar de Cortés), pumped (and purified if necessary) by solar power? A very good use for solar power, since pumping and purification can be intermittent, and a good way to develop the market for its hardware.
And for those concerned about the cost, it’s not a problem. Would-be “frackers” will take their projected costs out of their bids. The only “loser” would be the US Gov, which won’t get any money at all if the logjam isn’t broken.
The Precautionary Principle as the Left defines it is that nuclear energy is so dangerous, preventing the construction of nuclear power plants should be made as easy for the Left. And doing what is required to construct a nuclear power plant — any power plant — must be devilishly expensive and nigh unto impossible for a market-based energy industry to bring off. Can you imagine getting the Hoover Dam constructed today?
Judith [I think] agreeing with Myles Allen:
I agree as well, we are absolutely doomed, what ever the Earth’s climate actually does, if our current approach to political and economic policy is that the very first thing ANY policy MUST do is serve the vested interests of those in control of the political, economic, and legal power structures [mostly the same three people].
Policy and policy makers can spin on a dime, but first it must be demonstrated conclusively how they can make a buck on it or further their personal quest to impose their will [political agenda] on everyone else. Policy makers will trip all over themselves to enact policies that will cause economic and cultural suicide, but they will ensure that they and their own get the golden parachute or the golden meal ticket first.
I wish I could be less cynical, but this appears to be the truth of the matter, that the people who are in the position of making policy either do not have insight into their own motivations – how self serving they are – or do not care.
W^3
“And to those on the other side who think that solar and nuclear will someday become so cheap we will choose to leave that coal alone, I’m afraid you have some basic physics working against you.”
Chinese PV seems to be problematic,
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-05-30/next-shoe-drop-shoddy-solar-panels-china
The biggest problem was cost-cutting on inspecting their purchases.
While a modest tax would be good for turbine-builders and the Treasury, in the short-term it will not promote the technology we need to solve the problem.
Where Allen goes badly wrong here, is in failing to see that if there is indeed any merit in any given technical approach to reducing CO2 emissions – eg his his favoured sequestration – then economic incentives that reward CO2 reduction would lead to that same technical approach being adopted.
If economic incentives don’t lead to a given approach – eg sequestration – that would indicate that that approach is not as good an idea as its supporters would have us believe it is.
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Yes, please, do tell – what are some of those costs, exactly? I hear that Trans-Canada Pipelines has spend a billion dollars on global warming… but on WHAT? They never say.
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