Open thread weekend

Posted on July 19, 2013 by | 180 Comments

It’s your turn to introduce topics for discussion.

This entry was posted in Week in review. Bookmark the permalink.

180 responses to “Open thread weekend”

  1. Oliver Manuel | July 19, 2013 at 11:49 pm |

    Professor Curry,

    Comments on the message sent to the Space Science & Technology Committee of the House of Representatives would be appreciated,

    Here’s the link to the updated message that was first sent on 17 July 2013

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Creator_Destroyer_Sustainer_of_Life.pdf

    With kind regards, -Oliver K. Manuel Former NASA Principal Investigator for Apollo

    Sent from my iPhone

  2. R2Dtoo | July 20, 2013 at 12:02 am |

    Does anyone know if the NASA folks have ever run a scenario based on the earlier GISS data before all of the adjustments. I’m thinking that they got caught up in the unintended consequences of their own data adjustments. In their zeal to prove global warming, they may have ended up in a trap. Perhaps they couldn’t get the historical backcasting to match, or they just disregarded history to increase warming. With the 30’s eliminated they lost any semblance of natural variability, and thus the projections will never be correct. Fudging with data can be devastating.

    • kim | July 20, 2013 at 12:31 am |

      I believe, though I’m not sure, that the models are still fumbling with the pack of lies about UHI that Phil Jones published 20 years ago.
      ==================

      • Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 12:47 am |

        I’m not aware of any” pack of lies pack of lies about UHI that Phil Jones published 20 years ago.”

        Are you telling the truth?

      • Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 12:48 am |

        I meant just one pack.

      • kim | July 20, 2013 at 12:49 am |

        Only your Chinese hairdresser knows for sure.
        ==============

      • Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 1:01 am |

        Does that mean you may be lying, but you don’t want me to know for sure ?

      • DarrylB | July 20, 2013 at 1:08 am |

        I think that Kim and Max should go on a date and film the whole event!

      • kim | July 20, 2013 at 1:13 am |

        Typical marred couple.

        H/t R. Lardner, Papa.
        ==========

      • WebHubTelescope (@whut) | July 20, 2013 at 4:10 am |

        Oh, so you think they fudged the 33C discrepancy?

        The climate change skeptics and deniers still have no alternate theory for how the earth is 33C warmer than it should be without invoking GHG theory.

      • phatboy | July 20, 2013 at 5:45 am |

        WHT, you’ve got it wrong. Sceptics do not doubt the GHG theory, just question the wisdom of estimating climate sensitivity by invoking an imaginary state as if it were real.
        There has never existed a state where there was zero CO2, the average temp was -18C and all the water was frozen solid, so it did not require some multiple doubling of CO2 to bring the world out of its frozen state (where did the CO2 come from if that state existed?)
        There always has been water, water vapour, clouds etc, as well as eras when CO2 levels were extremely high.
        All those things have to be taken into account in the estimation of CS, not just the simplistic (2^n)*CO2 = 33C

      • WebHubTelescope (@whut) | July 20, 2013 at 12:08 pm |

        PhattieBoy, Water vapor is part of GHG theory. Instead of putting your spin on it, reference a textbook such as Pierrehumbert.

      • Bob Droege | July 20, 2013 at 3:47 pm |

        How many lies in a pack, maybe there is more than one pack.

        Some packs of liars believe that the UHI affects temperature measurements in Antarctics even.

      • phatboy | July 20, 2013 at 4:40 pm |

        Webbie boy, I’m not spinning anything.
        I have seen it stated many times, including by you if I’m not mistaken, that CS must be high because otherwise temperatures would not be high enough for water vapour to exist.

      • David Springer | July 21, 2013 at 4:25 am |

        What’s this noise about CS needed for liquid water?

        The equator gets 1000W/m2 at the surface at high noon. That’s almost enough to boil water to say nothing of melting ice. No CS required.

    • Walter Carlson | July 20, 2013 at 4:31 pm |

      R2…Prof. Muller, of BEST, has used about 1.2 billion data points going back to 1750 to confirm the ‘hockey stick’ model which clearly shows global temperatures continuing to rise. With over 36,000 observation stations reported, there could leave little doubt about global warming, and how it is linked to massive industrialization and population growth, especially after WW II.

  3. Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 12:21 am |

    According to an article earlier this month in the New York Times, “ the United Church of Christ became the first American religious body to vote to divest its pension funds and investments from fossil fuel companies because of climate change concerns.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/church-dropping-fossil-fuel-investments.html?gwh=1459E2D61C2D2670573E23B6FEB13BD2

    Divesting from coal I can understand, but divesting from oil and gas seems a bit extreme.

    The article goes on to say the divestment was “motivated by the 350.org climate change campaign, which is also urging colleges and universities to divest from fossil fuel companies.”

  4. Paul Vaughan | July 20, 2013 at 12:21 am |

    I sacrificed a day to refine earlier work.

    I can now confidently assert the following about global SST evolution:

    a) 78 to 97% is determined by solar activity.
    b) Less than 19% is at ENSO timescale.
    c) 3% is a monotonic increase (an undetermined proportion of which is natural).

    Illustration in the weeks/months ahead.

  5. Herman Alexander Pope | July 20, 2013 at 12:40 am |

    Pope’s Climate Theory (very short version)

    The sun warms the earth. Light comes in. Some light is reflected back into space. Green house gases and water in clouds radiate heat away from earth and cool the earth. Cooling by radiation has always cooled the earth. Water Vapor and Clouds most likely account for ninety some percent of the cooling. CO2 does a small fraction.

    Look at the Paleo Data. Radiation cooling is sloppy. It does not have a set point and narrow bounds. CO2 is a trace gas and a fraction change of CO2 will make small changes to the sloppy radiation cooling.

    The temperature of earth has gotten more tightly bounded over many years and the most recent years has seen the bounds get within plus or minus one degree C, most of the time, and within plus or minus two degrees C, all of the time for the most recent ten thousand years.

    Radiation cooling does not have a set point and could not have done this.

    What has changed? The continents drifted, the ocean currents evolved and polar ice developed.

    Ice and Water have a SET POINT. When oceans are warm and wet it snows more and does keep earth from getting too hot. When oceans are cold and frozen it does not snow much and the sun keeps the earth from getting too cold.

    It is just like a house in Houston. We could live without Air Conditioning, radiation would keep us in a livable range, but with a small amount of energy we can turn the Air Conditioning on to keep us from getting too hot and we can turn off the air conditioning off when we are cool enough.

    Earth does exactly that. It turns on the snowfall when oceans are warm and wet and it turns off the snowfall when oceans are cold and frozen.

    The temperature that Polar Water Freezes and Thaws is the Thermostat for Earth. Small changes in albedo can determine if we head toward a Medieval Warm Period or toward a Little Ice Age and keep us inside those bounds.

    Radiation does the most of the cooling for Earth, but it lacks a set point.

  6. Herman Alexander Pope | July 20, 2013 at 12:41 am |

    And by far, the biggest effect of the more CO2 is that green things grow better with less water. World green things are doing much better than the have in a million years. The actual data does not support temperature alarmism due to CO2. If we actually could and did reduce CO2 that would kill many green things and many of us.
    http://plantsneedco2.org/
    http://co2isgreen.org/

    CO2 started going up 5000 years ago and temperature did not follow. This data is from NOAA.
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page38.html

    Earth’s oceans are a huge carbonated drink and temperature does drive CO2
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page44.html
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page24.html

    Modern Temperature is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years.
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page27.html

    Manmade CO2 is tiny.
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page16.html

    Earth is spinning faster. Water is being removed from the oceans and placed on land as ice
    http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html

    Read my newest short version of Climate Theory.

    The answer is in actual data and not in flawed theory and models.

    Go to the Big Bear Web Page and look under Projects for Earthshine
    http://www.bbso.njit.edu/

    Earth’s global albedo, or reflectance, is a critical component of the global climate as this parameter, together with the solar constant, determines the amount of energy coming to Earth. Probably because of the lack of reliable data, traditionally the Earth’s albedo has been considered to be roughly constant, or studied theoretically as a feedback mechanism in response to a change in climate. Recently, however, several studies have shown large decadal variability in the Earth’s reflectance. Variations in terrestrial reflectance derive primarily from changes in cloud amount, thickness and location, all of which seem to have changed over decadal and longer scales.
    A global and absolutely calibrated albedo can be determined by measuring the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth and, in turn, back to the Earth from the dark portion of the face of the Moon (the “earthshine” or “ashen light”). For more than a decade we have been measuring the Earth’s large-scale reflectance from BBSO. The observations are now done remotely utilizing our earthshine coronagraph under the small dome appearing to the right of the NST dome in the Figure 1. To get full coverage of the Earth, we have installed a carefully calibrated copy of the BBSO earthshine telescope in Tenerife
    Earthshine data shows that Albedo is not decreasing. A new report is due out soon. I will send you information when I get it.

    Climate scientists have made forecasts for two decades that have always proved to be wrong and yet they lose very few disciples. In spite of no real supporting data and in the face of data that proves they are always wrong, you are a really loyal cult.

  7. Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 1:19 am |

    Sorry, Herman, about all that made sense to me was using air-condtioning in Houston.

    I’ll give you my theory on why the globe is warming. Satan is preparing the globe to house his guests. Because he sometimes gets tired and needs a break, the warming will pause now and then. Global warming contrarians are Satan’s helpers. They go around telling people a warmer world is a better world, which encourages sin, and adds to the guest list.

    • David Springer | July 21, 2013 at 4:28 am |

      Max_OK | July 20, 2013 at 1:19 am | Reply

      “Sorry, Herman, about all that made sense to me was using air-condtioning in Houston.”

      Given that you’re dumber than a bag of hammers I’m surprised even that bit makes sense to you.

  8. Girma | July 20, 2013 at 2:51 am |

    An unsteady ocean conveyor delivering heat to the far North Atlantic has been abetting everything from rising temperatures to surging hurricanes, but look for a turnaround soon

    With a longer view of climate history and long-running climate models, today’s researchers are tying decades-long oscillations in the Gulf Stream and the rest of the ocean conveyor to long-recognized fluctuations in Atlantic sea-surface temperatures. These fluctuations, in turn, seem to have helped drive the recent revival of Atlantic hurricanes, the drying of the Sahel in the 1970s and ’80s, and the global warming of the past few decades, among other climate trends.

    …there are growing signs that the conveyor may well begin to slow on its own within a decade or two, temporarily cooling the Atlantic and possibly reversing many recent climate effects.

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5731/41.full

    This literature shows IPCC’s prediction of 0.2 deg C per decade warming is wrong.

    • Girma | July 20, 2013 at 3:00 am |

      Most helpful would be an understanding of the AMO’s ultimate pacemaker. In the Hadley Centre model, report modelers Michael Vellinga and Peili Wu of the Hadley Centre in Exeter in the December Journal of Climate, the pulsations of the conveyor are timed by the slow wheeling of water around the North Atlantic. It takes about 50 years for fresher-than-normal water created in the tropics by the strengthened conveyor to reach the far north. There, the fresher waters, being less dense, are less inclined to sink and slide back south. The sinking—and therefore the conveyor—slows down, cooling the North Atlantic and reversing the cycle.

  9. wsutton17 | July 20, 2013 at 7:46 am |

    Judith, uncertainty monsters 101 for all?
    http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517181/sebastian-thrun-on-the-future-of-learning/

    Ga tech partnering with udacity for spring semester?

    • kim | July 20, 2013 at 11:55 am |

      Heh, ‘secret sauce’… from a big piece of artificial intelligence that sits there.
      =============

  10. rob bradley | July 20, 2013 at 10:34 am |

    Nice critical discussion of the “social” cost of carbon as applied by the Obama Administration before a Senate subcommittee. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/07/friday_night_vi_13.html

    And could the social cost of CO2 emissions be positive rather than negative with the developing lower sensitivity estimates?

    • jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 11:23 am |

      The “social” cost of CO2 is a fantasy number, made up out of whole cloth. It is a political tool, not a fact-based number. It is promulgated by charlatans who want to work their will on others. They should be sent to prison.

      • kim | July 20, 2013 at 11:46 am |

        The problem with ‘negative externalities’ is that they can also be imagined and exaggerated to deleterious effect, a social cost.
        ====================

    • Faustino | July 21, 2013 at 12:51 am |

      If accepted, the arguments of Murphy’s paper totally undermine the argument that costly emissions reduction policies are justified by a positive social cost. Murphy writes:

      The estimation of the SCC relies on computer simulations of the economy and climate system for hundreds of years into the future, and furthermore depends on many subjective modeling assumptions. As I will demonstrate, these assumptions can have an enormous impact on the final number, meaning that an analyst can generate just about any SCC he or she wishes by adjusting certain parameters. Perhaps more significant, when reporting various estimates of the SCC, the White House Working group explicitly disregarded two default guidelines provided by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for cost/benefit analysis. Had the Working Group heeded both guidelines, the officially reported SCC would be virtually $0 if not negative, meaning that there would be no justification for government restriction of carbon dioxide emissions. …

      The OMB writes instructions for federal agencies in regulatory analysis … It states that “a real discount rate of 7% should be used as a base case for regulatory analysis,” as this is the average before tax rate of return to private capital investment. Where the displacement of consumption is more relevant, a real discount rate of 3% should be used.

      The OMB says that impact estimates should be used using both rates. In response to arguments by Martin Weitzman and others in climate change academic literature that very low rates should be used in order to place future generations on a nearly equal footing with the present generation in policy analysis [a very strange thing to do IMO], the OMB’s 2011 primer concluded that:

      If the regulatory action will have important intergenerational benefits or costs, the agency might consider a sensitivity analysis using a lower but positive discount rate, ranging from 1 to 3 percent, in addition to calculating net benefits using discount rates of 3 percent and 7 percent. [“Regulatory Impact Analysis: A Primer,” p. 12.] … [The government ignored the 7% rate.]

      Murphy concludes that the American public and policymakers alike have been led to believe that the social cost of carbon is an objective scientific concept akin to the mass of the moon or the radius of the sun. However … estimates of the SCoC are heavily dependent on modelling assumptions. In particular, if the White House Working Group had followed OMB guidance on either the choice of discount rate or reporting from a domestic perspective, then the official estimates of the current SCC would probably be close to zero, or possibly even negative—a situation meaning that (within this context) the federal government should be subsidizing coal-fired power plants because their ctivities confer external benefits on humanity.

      The reason for this outcome is that some computer models show significant benefits of global warming through mid-century, and moreover the United States is poised to reap a larger share of the global benefits than the stipulated global damages from climate change. This is why following standard OMB guidelines — by at least providing an estimate of the SCC that uses a 7 percent discount rate and looks at only domestic impacts — would paint a completely different picture from the one that Americans have thus far seen.

      Clearly, the public and policymakers have not been fully informed on what the economics profession actually has to say about climate change. Before justifying economically damaging regulations by reference to “the” social cost of carbon, policymakers must realize the dubious nature of this concept.

  11. Yoram Bauman | July 20, 2013 at 10:42 am |

    Hello all: Back in May I posted for comment a first draft of Chapters 1-6 of my forthcoming Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, and I’m now posting and welcoming feedback on a second draft of those chapters (plus Bonus Chapter 7!) available on the wiki at http://cartoonclimate.wikispaces.com/home

    The new draft has updated material based on comments from Latimer Alder and others; see in particular the “awesome alien planet” line in Chapter 1, page 9: “estimate” instead of “measure” on Chapter 3, page 3; and a number of chapters in Chapter 6, including a more measured view of the success of past predictions (on page 7) and a new page on detective work and the “scientific consensus” that I’d like to think is fairly respectful to all sides (on page 9). Comments are welcome here on this thread or on the wiki, which also has details and downloads: http://cartoonclimate.wikispaces.com/home

    PS. I’d like to think that the new draft is reasonably responsive to comments from the first time around and consequently made those comments “worth your while”, but… you should be the judge of that. You can look back through the comments on the first draft from May at http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/04/open-thread-weekend-16/#comment-318749

    • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 11:38 am |

      Yoram Bauman | July 20, 2013 at 10:42 am |

      Very good to see progress on this project and the benefits of development influenced by social media such as Climate Etc.

      Have been pouring over http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_id=cfe32378-96a4-81ed-9d0e-2618e6ddff46&CFID=74835388&CFTOKEN=98093252 to understand better what is being presented on both sides to Americans today (sometimes for short term political gain and gameplay), so it is timely to take a break and understand what will be said tomorrow in your work for the purpose of explanation and education without politics.

      I have to admit, there is something on page six that sets my teeth on edge, from the point of view of someone with a background in development economics, not so much in terms of political correctness but of correctness. Much of the USA is in poverty at least the equal of the average poverty of less-developed Asian and African countries.

      Many American poor have over the same period as we have seen the jump in Asian and African (and other) lesser-capital-intensive consumption have increased their consumption every bit as much. In the 1990’s, the intense taste-altering campaign by manufacturers of SUV’s to shift preference for the most inefficient class of vehicles from more efficient vehicles with otherwise the same capacity and price was perhaps the most successful ever experiment in market manipulation. We may not wish to worry about Asia and Africa living more like America, but Asia, Africa and America living more like Edsel Ford in 1997 decided they should to maximize his margin between production cost and sale price. American standards aren’t the villain here: in 1990, the American standard was to strive for more efficient vehicles and more efficient homes and more comfort and safety because of striving for the better standard of our ambitions. By 2000, that standard had been advertised and product-placemented out of existence.

      On page seven, as one of the few denizens who has actually lived and worked in both southern and northern bear country, I’m wondering if perhaps clearer examples of endangered species than the iconic polar bear might be better?

      There are, after all, so many to choose from: one species of bird in eight, most amphibians, many butterflies and other pollinators, and the list just keeps getting longer.. Conversely, where southern bears are pushing northern bears out of their habitat, while sometimes the invasion is friendly (as we know grolars are beginning to occur more commonly), on the whole it is still an invasion as southern species are driven north by heat, losing their southern extent and upsetting their northern neighbors. And where timbering and land development once could be blamed for the majority of habitat loss, it is now really the climate that drives the bulk of permanent migratory shift, as measured by botanical zone and animal and bird sightings.

      I’ll turn more attention later as time permits, but on the whole I’m very impressed with what I’m seeing.

      • Yoram Bauman | July 20, 2013 at 12:23 pm |

        Thanks for the kind words, Bart.

        Regarding this: “Much of the USA is in poverty at least the equal of the average poverty of less-developed Asian and African countries.” What kind of evidence do you have for this? I’m thinking about things like access to electricity, running water, K-12 education, basic health care.

    • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 1:00 pm |

      Yoram Bauman | July 20, 2013 at 12:23 pm |

      I’d like to offer perspective from testimonial evidence, as the numbers themselves are easy to find once one frames the question:

      When I worked in Detroit, I used to rollerblade (to give an idea of how long ago this was, rollerblades were still in vogue) through its downtown. There was an area 30 blocks on a side where four out of five buildings were abandoned. I’ve been to Haiti, and Dominica, two cultures side-by-side on the same tiny bit of land with radically distinct conditions and qualities of life, and the difference between Haiti and Dominica was much less stark than that between Detroit’s abandoned blocks and the pinnacles of the regions’ suburban wealth. Detroit’s been getting worse for six decades, and it is now one earthquake away from Haiti-like condition in select neighborhoods.

      There are more homeless in the USA than there are people in some cities; the population in America without fixed address exceeds the population of some states and small nations; these Americans have the barest and most irregular access to electricity, running water, K-12 education, basic health care imaginable.

      One of the wealthier men in America today, Jim Carrey, grew up under these conditions: his family of four lived in a car for two years, even while his father held a job that did not pay enough to support a better quality of life. Did Jim Carrey at 11-years old have reliable access to electricity? Not always, despite living less than an hour drive from Niagara Falls. Running water in his home? Not always, despite living on the shores of one of the Great Lakes. Education? K-12 education? Yes, but imagine the struggle of attending school in winter while living in a car with your entire family. Basic health care? The trick of Jim Carrey, he was lucky enough to be growing up in Canada, where he was assured health care by a safety net that US citizens still struggle with today. Had he been born fifty miles further south, in the USA, the abject poverty of Jim Carrey’s family might not have been survivable.

      And the conditions of indigenous populations? There are more than a thousand cases in America today where chiefs fulfill the traditional role of “father of the tribe” by claiming to be the non-custodial parent for dozens or hundreds of children, for the sake of securing state aid through child support because of the dire poverty of families and the endemic levels of low education, insufficient housing and limited health care.

      The picture we have in our heads of Africa, for example, remains for many a caricature from the 1950’s. Much of Africa in 2013 is as advanced as much of America. The most advanced cities of the Pacific Rim are not the North American ones, but the Asian ones, and by far. The picture we have in our heads of America.. that’s a bit of an Ozzie and Harriet caricature, too, often.

      Yes, there is absolutely abject poverty in Asia. In Africa. In the USA, too. Yes, the average rate of consumption of goods and capital-intensity of Asia, of Africa, is moving up faster than the average of America.

      However, China’s official policy of adoption of solar and wind technology compared to America’s is five times the rate of build-up of fossil. China’s government investment in research in alternative and green energy? Five hundred times America’s.

      Averaging tricks the mind, when we look only at averages. It leads to false conclusions, blinds us to growing disparity and putting us in mind to use generalizations that do not serve us well. Is the USA really doing five times worse than China? Is US technology hamstrung by a factor of five hundred? That isn’t the whole story. Market forces in America, the drive to innovate, and entrepreneurship make it more of an even race.

      • David Springer | July 21, 2013 at 4:35 am |

        According to Bart’s logic the human race shouldn’t be here at all due to the fact that lack of electricity and health care isn’t survivable. Humans had neither for millions of years. Yet here we are. Wow. Maybe it’s an illusion and we’re really all living in the matrix.

    • Bart R | July 21, 2013 at 10:35 pm |

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

      Canada: 24th

      USA: 34th

      That’s over 30% worse.

      But then, it was about par the year Jim Carrey was born, so perhaps my point is undercu.. can I ask this question?

      What the heck is the USA doing with higher infant mortality than 33 other countries on the planet?!

      More than twice as bad as the Czech Republic!?

      24 places on the list behind Slovenia!

      A dozen places beneath South Korea.

      • captdallas 0.8 or less | July 21, 2013 at 11:04 pm |

        “What the heck is the USA doing with higher infant mortality than 33 other countries on the planet?!”

        It is mainly teenage pregnancies. Kinda why some folks think Planned Parenthood is a waste and a more comprehensive program should replace something that doesn’t work. But then that would be taking on one of those iconic hot button programs.

      • Bart R | July 22, 2013 at 9:59 am |

        captdallas 0.8 or less | July 21, 2013 at 11:04 pm |

        What, there are no teenagers in France? You think the Swedes don’t fool around before their twenties?

        Do you have any data whatsoever to back up that absurd claim? The US infant mortality rate is over three times the average of the three best countries on the list.

        The US infant mortality rate, if you count only the population with the highest 50% of income?

        That’s much more like a first-rank nation, but that just means the rate among Americans with low to moderate income is more staggeringly awful.

      • Joshua | July 22, 2013 at 10:12 am |

        Thanks for highlighting that comment of Cap’n’s, Bart.

        I look forward to him coming back and trying to explain how his comment might have possibly made any sense – except as a complete non-sequitur to (illogically) complain about Planned Parenthood.

      • Joshua | July 22, 2013 at 10:16 am |

        That’s much more like a first-rank nation, but that just means the rate among Americans with low to moderate income is more staggeringly awful.

        Income disparity in access is one of the areas where (unfortunately) our healthcare system rises to the top.

      • Reny Madigan | July 22, 2013 at 10:48 am |

        Do you know if these compilations account for methodogical differences in counting from country to country?

        Countries in which it is more common to regularly attempt to maintain/resuscitate the life of preemies/”non-viable” babies would find these babies being registered as a ‘live birth’ (and part of mortality rate calculations) vs. other countries that would be prone to classifying these as stillbirths (and thus not show up in a mortality statistic)?

        I’m unable to tell at this point, but do you think this would be likely to have an influence on any list and should be accounted for?

      • captdallas 0.8 or less | July 22, 2013 at 11:09 am |

        BartR, “Do you have any data whatsoever to back up that absurd claim? ”

        You forget how to Google?

        CDC is a good place to start, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_08.pdf

        Since the US has the highest teenage birthrate of any industrialized country, there is a correlation. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/07/1973341/us-infant-mortality-rate/ if you would like lighter reading.

        Planned Parenthood is supposed to be the “solution” for teens with unwanted pregancies along with other support groups, but obviously the system is not working relative to the other industrialized nations. If you think the facts are absurd, perhaps you should get out more often.

      • Bart R | July 23, 2013 at 1:06 am |

        Reny Madigan | July 22, 2013 at 10:48 am |

        That’s a good question. Indeed, it’s one the wiki article I cited specifically addresses.

        Putting aside those maybe countries, few in number enough that we might dismiss the difference of 34th to 33rd or 32nd or even 29th in the US ranking, let’s take the most immediate and direct comparison: Canada.

        One tenth the population of the USA, yet the USA has 30% worse infant mortality.

        For every 10,000 infants in the USA, one a month every month dies more than in Canada.

        As far as I’m concerned, these are human sacrifices on the altar of politics and the religion that the US Constitution forbids from interfering in the matters of state, including this one.

        For every Congressman, every Senator, throughout their entire terms, how many babies does that add up to, that their inaction or their arbitrary and harmful action kills?

        I don’t promote a nanny state, by any means, nor think the government has business sticking its nose into the lives of children from the day of their birth or even before, but then I’ve been to Canada, and they don’t have that either. They just have twelve more babies who live for every ten thousand who are born.

        If the US teenage birth rate is somehow the cause of this additional mortality.. really? That even makes sense to people as a sentence?

        If it were so, then it is just more sign that the USA fails its young girls while they are still children having children.

        The solutions for these things are not more government, more handouts, more nosing about the lives of these children. We see in the USA more nosing about the private lives of citizens by far than ever in the country’s history, and far beyond what a teenager’s lifetime ago the USA would have ever dreamed acceptable. We see more government than ever in the history of the USA, in terms of spending and reach of law and incarcerations.

        What’s wrong that all this money can be spent on tightening the armored fist of tyranny in the name of the nation, and still these things get worse and fall short? It’s the taint of corruption, the stink of unfairness, in all things that makes the poor flee good sense and the middle class shirk and shrug and surrender to baser nature, seeing less hope than ever in the American Dream.

        That Dream is founded on fairness. A fair Market. Fair compensation for work and for the sale of their goods. An equal chance. The failure of the government to privatize the carbon cycle is just another example of that unfairness. Capitalism works. It’s how the dream takes fire. It’s what turns idle hands toward ambition and work and betterment.

      • Joshua | July 23, 2013 at 1:18 am |

        Planned Parenthood is supposed to be the “solution” for teens with unwanted pregancies along with other support groups, but obviously the system is not working relative to the other industrialized nations.

        What a weak analysis. Where is your evidence that things wouldn’t be worse absent Planned Parenthood? That PP doesn’t provide a “solution” to high rates of teenage pregnancy does not imply that it doesn’t have any beneficial influence.

        http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/10/04/abortion.rates.plummet.with.free.birth.control

    • Bart R | July 26, 2013 at 3:14 am |

      Yoram Bauman | July 20, 2013 at 10:42 am |

      Does the rest of the world want to be America?

      If you ask, a fair number would say yes. I know a great many would look at you as if you’d asked them if they wanted to be sent directly to Hell or some such, but that’s not the point.

      But what America do they want to be like?

      The same America as Americans by and large want to be like, I bet, the America of Madison Avenue and Hollywood: the projection of product-placed America by lucrative commercial interests.

      At the same time, very few people in the world want the Risk (which you call Threat) consequences your book nicely reminds. This ambivalence, this two-contradictory-value system, may be susceptible to doublethink more often than not, and it’s good that you firmly link outcome with action in your portrayals and narrative.

      I’m reminded. One form of business analysis involving Threat encapsulates it within the SWOT tetragram (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Though perhaps a bit dated as a structure, it might be good to remind people concerned enough with climate issues that they read your book of the strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities, too.

      For one, we can see that there are highly effective focused ways to reduce the risk behavior ( http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/sites/default/files/public/eco/eng/documents/1211e.pdf ) while plausibly building and invigorating the economy ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/07/23/bc-carbon-sustainable-prosperity-premiers.html ); a 19% per capita drop and a stronger resulting economy flies in the face of conventional claims, and that opportunity is worth knowing about, I think.

      We know from how effective the work of salesmen has been at positioning America to use more fossil fuel that taste-changing campaigns succeed, and they must be effective too in the other direction. The world ought want to follow America’s lead. It’s just America ought not lead to greater threat. America’s natural role is the land of opportunity.

  12. gbaikie | July 20, 2013 at 10:55 am |

    Practically everyone knows that if human being to lower to costs of getting into space.
    By which I mean the cost to leave Earth, is about the same or resembles the cost as flying around the world.

    And this is possible at current technology. It doesn’t violate physics as some are fond of saying. It no more violates physics then being able to fly with heavier than air vehicles [something once thought and said not to long ago].

    Rather than writing a lot of words. I will simply ask.
    How in the past, has costs been lowered. Keeping in mind that stuff like steel, used to be quite expensive and aluminum per lb was once more much more expensive than gold.

    • gbaikie | July 20, 2013 at 10:59 am |

      Oh, forgot the import bit. If you lower the costs of getting into space. You solve can all global energy problems related to not having enough resources for cheap energy. And you could control climate and weather- if this was wanted.
      Plus you have technology explosion of innovation and vast improvement in science in general. It would similar as development of electricity or the internet.

      • kim | July 20, 2013 at 12:04 pm |

        We may well find it economic to import energy from extraterrestrially via microwave once the ice begins to advance. Will we be mature enough to manage the geoengineering?
        ==================

      • kim | July 20, 2013 at 12:06 pm |

        By that I mean will our knowledge have matured to the extent that we could manage it? I know good and well that we’ll not be mature enough politically to manage it ideally, but I also know good and well that we’ll muck through it anyway.
        ============

      • gbaikie | July 20, 2013 at 3:12 pm |

        ” kim | July 20, 2013 at 12:06 pm |

        By that I mean will our knowledge have matured to the extent that we could manage it? I know good and well that we’ll not be mature enough politically to manage it ideally, but I also know good and well that we’ll muck through it anyway.”

        Well, it’s not matter of technical knowledge. It’s not a matter business knowledge [private sector]. But in terms political skill, the trend seems
        downward. And never was much hope in the political arena of actually managing it.
        So 1970s there were technical plans of how to do it. And such papers included a “political path” which was somewhat unrealistic. Part of it which was which unrealistic was that NASA could lower launch costs. And for it to approach being workable, launch cost had to be lower to about $100 per lb.
        But in 70’s it thought by some, the Shuttle could lower cost so as lower launch cost $25 per lb- which to say least, was extremely high hopes for the Shuttle program. Instead the Shuttle became the most expensive launch vehicle ever made.
        And maybe the best launcher ever made [SpaceX and Falcon 9]
        hopes it’s future Falcon Heavy [70 ton payload to LEO] can be about $500 per lb.
        It a market thing to get it below $500. Just as was a market thing to make the first “cheap” apple computer. Or PCs needed a killer app- so a market thing. Or if you made a dozen cars a year, the cars are going to be expensive. Market or specifically, the economy of scale affects costs.
        Of shipping solar panel into space to provide say a moderate size town with electrical power, is a long way towards giving this economy of scale. And providing say 1/4 of US electrical power is far more demand than what is needed- a instant huge potential in terms of economy of scale.
        But it’s impractical in numerous ways.
        One being that politicians would be managing it. Look at the crony capitalism to see where kind path leads. That is idea which some suggest, but I don’t think it’s workable.
        But generally, what I would suggest involves increasing US [or global] launch rate, as the path towards doing this.
        So related to this is space exploration. I support a path that leads to Lunar and Mars exploration which uses existing private sector launch capability and develop new private sector launch companies [try to get more SpaceXs- or Boeing making or improving their existing systems].
        Lunar exploration with purpose of discovering whether there minable water on the Moon [minable meaning profitable to make and sell rocket fuel [from the water] which is used in space] . And if one just a market for rocket fuel in space and have rocket fuel at lunar and lunar orbit [and L-points and GEO or high Earth orbit. Then this will use more earth launches [lower the cost much more significantly than merely from NASA manned exploration of moon or Mars or wherever.
        It’s the killer app.

  13. jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 11:44 am |

    Everything is fine.
    “Everything is fine, but the city of Detroit has just filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. It will be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history…

    Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history Thursday after steep population and tax base declines sent it tumbling toward insolvency.

    The filing by a state-appointed emergency manager means that if the bankruptcy filing is approved, city assets could be liquidated to satisfy demands for payment.

    Wait a minute, didn’t Barack Obama say that he “refused to let Detroit go bankrupt” less than a year ago?

    Everything is fine, but continuing claims for unemployment benefits just spiked to the highest level since early 2009.

    Everything is fine, but in the month of June spending at restaurants fell by the most that we have seen since February 2008.

    Everything is fine, but Google’s earnings for the second quarter came in way below expectations.

    Everything is fine, but Microsoft’s earnings for the second quarter came in way below expectations.

    Everything is fine, but chip maker Intel has reported revenue declines for four quarters in a row.

    Everything is fine, but the number of housing starts in June was the lowest that we have seen in almost a year.

    Everything is fine, but the number of mortgage applications has dropped 45 percent since May.

    Everything is fine, but the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years.

    Everything is fine, but the United States is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

    Everything is fine, but the U.S. economy actually lost 240,000 full-time jobs last month.

    Everything is fine, but the number of full-time workers in the United States is now nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.

    Everything is fine, but 40 percent of all U.S. workers make less than $20,000 a year at this point.

    Everything is fine, but robots are starting to take over fast food jobs. If working class Americans someday won’t even be able to work at McDonald’s, what will they do to earn money in the years ahead as the jobs disappear?

    Everything is fine, but the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has now reached $3.66.

    Everything is fine, but the number of Americans on food stamps has increased by almost 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House.

    Everything is fine, but the U.S. government is going to borrow about 4 trillion dollars in fiscal 2013.

    Everything is fine, but worldwide business confidence has fallen to the lowest level since the last recession.

    Everything is fine, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just told Congress that Obama is considering using the U.S. military to intervene in the conflict in Syria.”

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-19/everything-fine

    • kim | July 20, 2013 at 11:56 am |

      Oh, easy solution; Occupy Everything.
      ==============

    • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 12:13 pm |

      jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 11:44 am |

      Perhaps a better place for this comment so completely unrelated to Climate, Etc. might be a poetry slam website, or blogforwhiners.com, or doingnothingaboutit.org?

      Nice use of the rhetorical device of repetition, but it’s quite difficult to make a relevant comment on what you say here as it is so completely irrelevant to topics we discuss here.

      If you’re suggesting the Economy is hard? It’s hard. Which is why we are urged to stop subsidizing the very Free Riders who most undermine the economy, and why we are urged to abandon the “cheap energy” policy that makes energy, and everything else so much more expensive overall.

      Which is why the carbon cycle must be privatized.

      Which is why denialism and obfuscationism are so harmful to us.

      • jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 12:22 pm |

        What is it about Open Thread that you don’t understand, Bart?

      • jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 12:24 pm |

        Also, I think we do need a social safety net. It just needs to be simplified. And, the carbon cycle belongs to Mother Nature, of which the milk of Mother Nature – fossil fuels – are a part.

      • Tom | July 20, 2013 at 1:02 pm |

        …Which is why we are urged to stop subsidizing the very Free Riders who most undermine the economy, and why we are urged to abandon the “cheap energy” policy that makes energy, and everything else so much more expensive overall.

        Which is why the carbon cycle must be privatized.

        Which is why denialism and obfuscationism are so harmful to us.”

        Who is ‘urging’ you, Bart R? Who built and paid for the B.P.A.? US.
        Who do you feel should own the carbon cycle? You are in denial.

      • Tom | July 20, 2013 at 1:25 pm |

        These folks are going to be happy to urge us all,

        http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

        sleep well, sweet dreamers.

    • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 1:40 pm |

      jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 12:24 pm |

      I’d think the milk of Mother Nature would be milk.

      Petrochemicals are much more analogous to pus, don’t you think?

      Tom | July 20, 2013 at 1:02 pm |

      I’m urged by my wallet.

      I breath.

      I have a share in air. It’s being trespassed on.

      I can’t prevent lucrative dealings from trespassing on my share, but I can demand compensation for the trespass.

      The claim of a citizen for compensation, for a dividend from lucrative use of the privatized carbon cycle is superior to the claims of a citizen for cell phone companies to pay royalties in the privatized bandwidth market. Yet there are royalties and bandwidth is privatized.

      Why the latter, and not the former?

    • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 3:07 pm |

      jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 2:06 pm |

      Funny attitude.

      Do you want to burn these petrochemicals, or wear them? You can’t do both.

      You can’t both make them into fertilizers to grow food and feed them to your car to drive to the grocery store or the truck that transports the food from field to grocer.

      You can’t both burn oil and make it a process chemical for industry.

      You can’t make pharmaceuticals from the same petroleum products as you make into gasoline or diesel.

      Which are you in favor of?

      These clean applications of petrochemicals, or the pustulent ones that deliver CO2E lucratively (for free riders) into the atmosphere without compensation to we who own the air?

      And really, refining raw materials into better ones is nothing to be ashamed of. “Mother Nature” has no say in refined products, they don’t belong to Her any more once they’ve passed through human designed processes and the fruit of human ingenuity. You give Her too much credit, and deny too much glory to human engineering. Nylon, carbamide, petroleum jelly and aspirin are refined, non natural products of our ingenuity, as artificial as tar sand distilled octanes are.

      In other words, you’re denying plain fact.

      • jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 3:10 pm |

        Funny attitude Bart. Humans are a product of Mother Nature also. So anything Humans do is perfectly natural. You are suffering from antropocentrism.

      • Bart R | July 20, 2013 at 9:03 pm |

        jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 3:10 pm |

        A disingenuous reply, meant to circumvent a point by denying there can be anything man-made at all. If you redefine everything to be Natural, then no one can make any point discerning human action of greater or lesser degree affecting Nature in any sense. Which while it’s convenient for denial of human influence on Nature, is the opposite of the regard for Nature it pretends.

      • jim2 | July 21, 2013 at 9:33 am |

        Not disingenuous, Bart. Throughout the history of the Earth, organisms have transformed it. We are one such organism. You have no proof that CO2 will cause CAGW, and if it does, it will be net harmful. And yet, you want the government to step in with carbon regulations. I will give you that a carbon tax is simpler than Obamacare, and in that sense is more libertarian in nature. However, you are jumping the gun.

      • Bart R | July 21, 2013 at 10:49 pm |

        jim2 | July 21, 2013 at 9:33 am |

        CAGW?

        You know I’m not a CAGW kinda guy.

        I have, and you have too, all the proof necessary to deem human causes the agents leading to jet stream patterns, heat, zone shifts and what must be accompanying microbe shifts, and many other trends that would not have happened with either the rapid rate or intensity absent human-caused forcings, and with costly impacts.

        I don’t need catastrophes to be injured by the trespass of fossil fuel burning. I don’t need warming. My pocket is picked by the costliness, by the increase in insurance rates. My pocket is picked even earlier, by the subsidy and gifts and favors of governments to free riders. My pocket is picked by the lucrative overuse of the common resource of the carbon cycle by free riders, without my consent and without compensation to me.

        The fact that there are catastrophes when and where and of the nature predicted by the most parsimonious, simple and universal explanation, that is to say AGW due GHE, that’s kinda hard to not call valid evidence favoring the hypothesis. The most accurate, therefore most very nearly true, hypothesis, the one you don’t like?

        It’s the only one with proof that stands up.

        But that’s not my issue.

        My issue is that I want to be paid my money. I don’t see my money in my hand where it belongs. Therefore, someone’s stolen from me, and you’re defending them. That you also lie about Science? Not the thing about you that aggrieves me.

  14. Tom | July 20, 2013 at 2:18 pm |

    Naked & Afraid…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOVNvWNAhCA

    That’s a show… with a very small carbon smudge. Have fun everyone.

  15. pokerguy | July 20, 2013 at 3:30 pm |

    So was Dr. Spencer invited by the dems to testify because of his toxic views (from a PR standpoint) on evolution? Who came up with the list if invitees?

    • David Wojick | July 21, 2013 at 9:39 am |

      Normally the minority party gets one speaker per panel so the Reps probably picked Roy.

  16. pokerguy | July 20, 2013 at 3:30 pm |

    crap. “of”

  17. David L. Hagen | July 20, 2013 at 4:34 pm |

    Bjorn Lomborg: Cool it – The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide To Global Warming

    It is a groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental concerns. . . .Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world’s temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply-which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.

    The Cornwall Alliance similarly argues for first caring for the poor.

  18. Walter Carlson | July 20, 2013 at 5:16 pm |

    I keep wondering whether there is a CO2 ‘tipping point’ beyond which the Earth and the human race cannot recover?? The Earth, for the past million years, has had an amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that was relatively stable. Ice core samples going back more than half million years have CO2 levels at around 200 ppm with interglacial periods getting up to around 300 ppm. Since man’s growing industrialization and population has disturbed that stability, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing.to around 400 ppm. With the coal power plants and steel plants burning cubic miles of coal, while autos, ships, airplanes, trucks burn billions of gallons of petroleum, how could CO2 stability be maintained. Especially with major forest reductions worldwide. Check out Wikipedia discussions on these topics.
    So, I ask again, could there be a level of CO2 above which global warming could be unstoppable, and temperatures rising so as to make Earth uninhabitable by most, if not all, species?? Should WE not be concerned that such ‘tipping point’ could exist, then take positive steps to prevent it??

    • R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | July 20, 2013 at 6:26 pm |

      Walter,

      You’re new here, so hopefully people will be kind. Your question related to tipping points is not an unreasonable one on the surface. The climate has shown the ability in the past to rapidly shift into a new regime, meaning that something “tipped” it.

      Could the human carbon volcano, now erupting for several centuries with increasing vigor, be enough to tip the climate? Since we have not found this rapid of a build-up in greenhouse gases anywhere else in the paleoclimate record, it is hard to say. We do know that the last time GH gases were around these levels was several million years ago during the Pliocene, when things were much warmer globally:

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/09/meteorite-crater-global-warming

      This is an example where paleoclimate data strongly matches models and strongly matches basic physics of increasing GH gases in the atmosphere.

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 7:07 pm |

        Oh for God’s sake – the last time CO2 was at this level was the last glacial termination. Read some real science Walter.

        http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309074347

      • Jim D | July 20, 2013 at 7:18 pm |

        CH, what do you think about this? I would say most people would consider this to be how it has looked since the last glacial. Did you find someone who says not? 400 ppm hasn’t been seen since before the Ice Ages started.
        http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/20000yrfig.htm

      • R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | July 20, 2013 at 7:59 pm |

        Jim D,

        This is where Chief Hydro strays a bit from “real” science and begins posting links to research having nothing to do with the topic. It’s an interesting routine.

      • Jim D | July 20, 2013 at 9:20 pm |

        CH, I prefer ice cores to stomata, because they are away from any local vegetation that can influence CO2 levels so more likely represent global values. If you are going to believe in part of Sweden’s stomata values, you probably need to find how much they correlate with somewhere else in the world, preferably as far away as Australia, before assigning them to a global value. Things to think about for you. Don’t diss the commenters when you are armed with such lousy cherry-picks of your own.

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 9:46 pm |

        Of course you do – you have not a clue about contrasting and comparing data and merely reject that science that doesn’t gel with your simple memes.

        The ice cores of course have a problem with smoothing and diffusion. The stomata records represent in fact the average levels of CO2 over a period as stomatal densities change – and show higher values and more variability.

        ‘ It has been suggested that stomatal proxy records reflect atmospheric CO2 more accurately than ice coredata, for instance by comparing modern air flask measurements of CO2 to both types of datasets (Kouwenberg et al., 2003;Finsinger andWagner-Cremer,2009).It has furthermore been suggested that CO2 values derived from air bubbles in ice cores under estimate the true palaeo CO2 (e.g.Berner and Kothavala, 2001;Kouwenberg et al., 2005;Van Hoof et al., 2005). The general agreement of the several stomatal proxy studies that have previously been published covering the interval studied here also sup-port the finding that CO2 was higher during the last termination than previously believed (seeFig. 9and Section5.2). The absolute ppm values for CO2 during the last Termination may be very difficult to determine with certainty, but increasingly evidence is pointing towards higher concentration and more dynamic behavior of atmospheric CO2
        during this important interval.’

        Really Jim – I introduce science and you behave like a boor and an idiot. That seems typical space cadet behavior.

      • Jim D | July 20, 2013 at 9:51 pm |

        CH, OK how many stomata locations and how far apart have to correlate before you will believe them? Sounds like one is sufficient for your complete belief in it. How about if direct measurements of CO2 in ice from Greenland and Antarctica agree with each other and some indirect inference from stomata in Sweden say otherwise? You prefer the indirect stomata plant physics for some reason. Looks crazy to me.

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 10:20 pm |

        But then we have the evidence that stomata reflect air flask measurements better than ice cores. Did you bother reading the passage? Did you check the references? But we are talking about greater variability and a higher value than shown in ice core records – shown again and again.

        ‘The high-resolution, single-species based CO2 record presented here, together with pre-viously published Last Termination stomatal based CO2 records, clearly show that ice core-based CO2 records may significantly underestimate both the actual CO2 values during this period, but perhaps more importantly the dynamic behaviour of CO2, particularly at transitions between climate intervals (seeFigs.8 and9). Plant stomatal densities changed as a direct response to CO2 (which is well-mixed and globally distributed) and are thus an ideal proxy for Last Termination CO2.’

        But of course you prefer to pull it out of your arse.

      • Jim D | July 20, 2013 at 10:29 pm |

        CH, but why is it only for a small part of Sweden? Don’t you even ask yourself that? Is this rigorous enough for you? Forests can have high CO2 values locally, so have they accounted for that? Could the stomata be responding to something else?

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 10:40 pm |

        Read the study – it is Betula nana and we are talking about variation. Reference some science – have some idea of what you are talking about think – and don’t simply repeat idiot points that you have pulled out your arse. You are nothing but a persistent pest with ad hoc rationalisations.

      • Jim D | July 20, 2013 at 10:44 pm |

        I looked at it. There is a very telling comparison with other proxies at the end, and even close-by Norway doesn’t show this century-long spike. Perhaps one of them did it wrong, or it really is just local.

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 11:05 pm |

        ‘Fig. 9. Comparison of previously published CO2 records to the Hässeldala Core 5 record. The three previously published stomatal proxy-based CO2 records spanning both the GI-1/GS-1 (Allerød/Younger Dryas pollen zone) boundary and the GS-1/Holocene (Younger Dryas/Preboreal pollen zone) boundary, in relation to the new Hässeldala Port Core 5 record. The records are compared by synchronizing GS-1 for each. The previously published records show some differences and some similarities to the Hässeldala record (see Section 5.2).All records show dynamic behaviour of CO2 through the studied time period, in particular across the climate change boundaries.’

        See section 5.2. I’d suggest some attempt at serious analysis – but I suspect it is beyond you. Paleo-climatic data all suffers from the same problems of uncertainties and errors. But you accept some unthinkingly that fit your memes and reject others out of hand with specious pull it out of your arse reasoning.

        What did the NAS say about paleo data?

        ‘Now imagine that you have never seen the device and that it is hidden in a box in a dark room. You have no knowledge of the hand that occasionally sets things in motion, and you are trying to figure out the system’s behavior on the basis of some old 78-rpm recordings of the muffled sounds made by the device. Plus, the recordings are badly scratched, so some of what was recorded is lost or garbled beyond recognition. If you can imagine this, you have some appreciation of the difficulties of paleoclimate research and of predicting the results of abrupt changes in the climate system.’

        The bottom line suggests that ice cores have their problems – being less variable and lower than other records suggest. That was clearly stated in this study. So unless you have some actual science that suggests otherwise I will feel entitled to call you a serial pest with nil credibility.

    • R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | July 20, 2013 at 7:23 pm |

      Walter,

      Chief Hydro, also known as Robert Ellison, is a very knowledgeable person who is a bit set on a certain perspective of things. If you do as he says, and actually do some real science, you find that my statement is quite correct– GH gas levels have not been this high since the Pliocene. The human carbon volcano has been quite active!

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 20, 2013 at 8:35 pm |

        The NAS 2002 report – Abrupt Climate Change – Inevitable Surprises is a balanced and still quite useful account the new climate paradigm written by a dozen or so leading climate scientists. It is by no mans as categorical as your typically loosely grounded narrative.

        ‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. We place strong emphasis on using isotopes as a means to understand physical mixing and chemical cycling in the ocean, and the climate history as recorded in marine sediments.’ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2246

        Most everyone expects a slowdown in THC – with the prospects of abrupt change.

        Pre quaternary speculations seem quit useless. In the quaternary – it is by no means certain that abrupt climate change will be to the warm side.

        ‘… the future evolution of the global mean temperature may hold surprises on both the warm and cold ends of the spectrum due entirely to internal variability that lie well outside the envelope of a steadily increasing global mean temperature.’ ftp://starfish.mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/pub/ocean/CCS-WG_References/NewSinceReport/March15/Swanson%20and%20Tsonis%20Has%20the%20climate%20recently%20shifted%202008GL037022.pdf

      • Walter Carlson | July 22, 2013 at 12:38 pm |

        So, SKEPTICAl, thanks for the heads-up about Chief Hydro. When bloggers here try to assess current global warming relative to what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, I think it ignores the effects that man’s industrial and population growth have contributed. Like the cubic miles of coal and billions of gallons of petroleum that have been ‘burned’ over the past century and a half. Some of this has recorded by Charles Keeling since 1958 and his CO2 measurements correlate well with BEST determinations.
        As for Chief Hydro…I think he is insulting and I intend to ignore him.

      • climatereason | July 22, 2013 at 12:48 pm |

        Walter

        In my article here

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/

        I examined CET against co2 concentration.

        Cet has a close relationship to BEST and seems a reasonable proxy for a much wider area than Central England. Temperatures have been rising for some 350 years, well before any effect by man. They have started dropping sharply again.

        A temporary Blip? Have we reached the effective logarithmic limit of the co2/temperature relationship?

        None of us knows. But its certainly not black and white.
        tonyb

      • Tom | July 22, 2013 at 12:54 pm |

        There is so much to ignore today Mr. Walter Carlson,…

        http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-backs-630000-study-into-how-to-control-global-weather-through-geoengineering-8724501.html

        let the NAS take care of our weather in future and let the CIA watch everyone else just like it has always been, to be safe.

  19. R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | July 20, 2013 at 6:04 pm |

    More evidence of the potental effects of the Human Carbon Volcano:

    Increasing frequency of nighttime heat waves:
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-094.1

    Given that the period researched covers many periods of ENSO fluctuations, and multi-decadal ocean cycles, it seems something else is altering nighttime temps. Oh yeah, that was indicated in GCM’s years ago as a consequence of the Human Carbon Volcano.

    • Tonyb | July 20, 2013 at 6:18 pm |

      R gates

      A much more detailed source is the camuffo /Phil jones book where they examined seven early European instrumental sources from before 1700 . Interesting that the upturn in night time heat was evident 300 years ago. They also examine uhi in some detail. Recommended.

      Tonyb

      • R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | July 20, 2013 at 6:29 pm |

        Hi Tony,

        Link or further hint as to what exactly you’re talking about?

      • Tonyb | July 20, 2013 at 6:47 pm |

        R gates

        Sigh. It’s the longest book title in the world and now you are forcing me to write it.

        It’s called ‘ improved understanding of past climatic variability from early daily European instrumental sources. ‘p 65 is especially interesting. The research was funded to the tune of 7 million euros.

        You might also check out some of the roman historians who recorded the rise of Rome to a city of 1 million people and it’s attendant problems with overheating.
        Tonyb

    • David Wojick | July 21, 2013 at 9:45 am |

      “Human Carbon Volcano”? You have my vote for the Great Green Hype award.

      • kim | July 21, 2013 at 9:48 am |

        Yeah, he calls himself a skeptical warmist and he’s as frightened as the rest of the sad pack of alarmists.
        =======================

      • R. Gates the Skeptical Warmist | July 23, 2013 at 12:00 am |

        The only thing that frightens me is the scale of human ignorance.

        The rapidity with which humans have altered the GH gas concentrations of the atmosphere is exactly akin to what a volcano would do that had been erupting for several centuries. Indeed, calling it a “human carbon volcano” puts it into a more precise geological and paleoclimate perspective in terms of scope of effect. Moreover, nothing else in the geologicial record can be found that matches how fast greenhouse gases have been rising. The closest analag is the PETM extinction event (perahps a troubling indicator), and even that wasn’t as fast as the Human Carbon Volcano has been dumping GH gases skyward. If this inconvenient truth bothers certain folks and the terminology bothers certain folks…good.

      • R. Gates the Skeptical Warmist | July 23, 2013 at 12:03 am |

        Cooling Kim, seems you’ve indicated on many occasions here how worried you are about the next big chill. Now exactly who’s frightened here?

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:03 am |

        Belching, yeah, and the globe isn’t warming. Doesn’t that tell you something? Furthermore, pick a sensitivity that frightens you, and calculate how much colder we’d now be without anthropogenic input.
        ========================

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 23, 2013 at 12:04 am |

        Except that the most significant climate effect of a volcano is in the SW.

        It doesn’t bother it is just misleading, clunky and stupid.

      • R. Gates the Skeptical Warmist | July 23, 2013 at 12:06 am |

        Precisely define “globe” Kim. The Earth system, which can be precisely defined in terms of a comprehensive energy system has been gaining energy for many decades. So Coolling Kim, exactly what is this “globe” of yours that is cooling or that you are in such fear of cooling?

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:06 am |

        I said many years ago that if we are wrong-footed into mitigating a warming that isn’t happening instead of adapting to a cooling that is happening, then there will be Hell to pay.

        And I’m not frightened that we’ll not survive a cooling period. It will just be much more difficult than to survive a human caused warming episode.
        =======================

      • R. Gates the Skeptical Warmist | July 23, 2013 at 12:15 am |

        Chief Hydro said:

        “Except that the most significant climate effect of a volcano is in the SW.

        It doesn’t bother it is just misleading, clunky and stupid.”

        _______

        The hundreds of millions of tailpipes and smokestack spewing out carbon everyday around the planet collectively represent a sizable carbon volcano and the fact is they are human caused. How is this misleading, clunky, or stupid?

        It’s not, but you simply hate to see things for what they actually are apparently. Also, natural volcano both cool and warm, with the warming lasting longer as the carbon remains longer after the sulfur washes out. This is not dissimilar to the human carbon volcano.

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:19 am |

        RG, you may precisely define, but you haven’t precisely observed. And have you noticed a pause, some say drop, in tropospheric temperatures, a significant part of the ‘globe’ for humanity?

        But you are missing a point, RG; years ago, when I first started writing ‘The globe is cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know’ it was considered so outrageous that it needed no critiquing. Now that future cooling is becoming a more mainstream concern, critics come out of the wall. Thanks for the compliment.
        ===========

      • Jim D | July 23, 2013 at 12:19 am |

        “Skeptics” have to deny that volcanoes cause warming events in the Triassic and Eocene, because they see that admitting that, they are one move away from checkmate in the CO2 effect. It is very shaky ground for them talking about paleoclimate, so they tend to stay away from it.

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:22 am |

        And I’m reminded that but for volcanos, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would be so low that plants wouldn’t survive.

        I think you have the capacity to get it, RG; you are saying it yourself.
        ===================

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:25 am |

        How about ‘Human Carbon Cornucopia’. The plants all voted against ‘volcano’.
        ============

      • Jim D | July 23, 2013 at 12:26 am |

        kim, everyone is agreed that we are done with the Ice Ages. We may also be done with a glaciated Greenland and Antarctica, if that makes you even more cozy, but mind that water lapping at your feet.

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:34 am |

        Hah, Jim D jumps the iceberg.
        ==========

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 23, 2013 at 12:47 am |

        A ‘carbon volcano’ now is it? The clumsily posed metaphor doesn’t get less clumsy.

        ‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation.’ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2246

        I would be much more interested in the quaternary than earlier – and I don’t think that surprises have been ruled out of order. Although Jim seems to think – I think it is just a lack of imagination. A dinosaur with not quite the brain power to step through the doorway the new climate paradigm.

        ‘Large, abrupt climate changes have repeatedly affected much or all of the earth, locally reaching as much as 10°C change in 10 years. Available evidence suggests that abrupt climate changes are not only possible but likely in the future, potentially with large impacts on ecosystems and societies.

        This report is an attempt to describe what is known about abrupt climate changes and their impacts, based on paleoclimate proxies, historical observations, and modeling. The report does not focus on large, abrupt causes—nuclear wars or giant meteorite impacts—but rather on the surprising new findings that abrupt climate change can occur when gradual causes push the earth system across a threshold. Just as the slowly increasing pressure of a finger eventually flips a switch and turns on a light, the slow effects of drifting continents or wobbling orbits or changing atmospheric composition may “switch” the climate to a new state. And, just as a moving hand is more likely than a stationary one to encounter and flip a switch, faster earth-system changes—whether natural or human-caused—are likely to increase the probability of encountering a threshold that triggers a still faster climate shift.’
        http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=R5

      • Jim D | July 23, 2013 at 12:58 am |

        CH, take a look at Alley’s rock thermostat mechanism. Volcanoes increase the temperature via CO2 and chemical and plant processes decrease it via reducing CO2 on geological time scales. He was an author on this short-term local climate variability you keep quoting, so see what he thinks about global paleoclimate and CO2.

      • Chief Hydrologist | July 23, 2013 at 1:10 am |

        Silicate weathering is just one mechanism amongst many. And when the discussion involves hundreds of thousands of years to eons – this is hardly short term or local. Although the shifts are regional and encompass timescales of years to many millennia.

        ‘Just as the slowly increasing pressure of a finger eventually flips a switch and turns on a light, the slow effects of drifting continents or wobbling orbits or changing atmospheric composition may “switch” the climate to a new state.’

        I am always surprised when people can’t read or process the simple language presented – and come back with something that has little connection with the text.

    • mwgrant | July 23, 2013 at 2:29 am |

      Mt. Carbomanjaro?

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:02 pm |

        Sayonara Carboyama.
        =========

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:16 pm |

        Uh, oh, there’s a lot of carbon and a lot of volcanos. Carbatubo, Pinacarbo, Carbuveus, Carbarat, Mauna Carbo. Stop me! I like Raincarb.
        ========

  20. Alexander Biggs | July 20, 2013 at 7:50 pm |

    The ‘heat island’ effect: Why don’t we have a clearer idea of how bad it is? Why does not someone publish a list of the major cities of the world together with their avrerage temperatures above their sorrounds?.

  21. jim2 | July 20, 2013 at 8:30 pm |

    “Would you trust thousands of low-level Federal bureaucrats and contractors with one-touch access to your private financial and medical information? Under Obamacare you won’t have any choice.

    As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.”

    http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/

  22. angech | July 20, 2013 at 10:38 pm |

    Walter may be a stooge for r gates (Dorothy DIxer).
    B droege arctic going your way, nearly
    sea acidification the ph of the sea reflects the substrate that forms its base the floor of the oceans ,the earth. The ph is stuck at 8.1 plus or minus 0.3 because that is the ph of the earth all the h2co3 in the world is just neutralised to the standard ph of the earth and water for the last 3 billon years else no life

    • Bob Droege | July 21, 2013 at 12:40 am |

      Not so nearly, I went pretty far out on a limb. I still think the last 2 million square kilometers will go in the blink of an eye, but this year is still unlikely.

      Looks like there is another cyclone stirring up north, it could be dramatic.
      Go to Neven’s blog, it is starting to get lively, lots of cool animations being posted there.

      • Jim Cripwell | July 21, 2013 at 9:21 am |

        sarc on/ CO2 is still working it’s magic in the Arctic. Temperatures north of 80 have been below normal for most of the time they are, on average, above 273 K. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php At the same time, this same CO2 is causing a supposed massive melt of sea ice. I wonder how it does it What is the physics? Maybe someone has written a pal reviewed paper on the subject, or maybe there is something on Neven’s wonderful blog. sarc off/

      • Bob Droege | July 21, 2013 at 3:06 pm |

        Jim, every year the DMI numbers do the same thing they are doing now, June, July and August always close to 273.

        I never do sarc tags, but hows that Arctic ice recovery going for you then?

      • Jim Cripwell | July 21, 2013 at 3:19 pm |

        Bob, you write “Jim, every year the DMI numbers do the same thing they are doing now, June, July and August always close to 273.
        I never do sarc tags, but hows that Arctic ice recovery going for you then?”

        To answer your question, I have no idea. I have to wait until September. My guess was based on hope, only.

        You missed the point of my message. Sure, temperatures north of 80 are around 273 K at this time of year. But this year they are consistently below the average, established since 1959. How does CO2 produce temperatures north of 80 which are BELOW average, and at the same time cause massive quantities of Arctic sea ice to melt? I dont understnad the physics of this at all, and no-one seems to be coming up with any suggestions as to why it is happening.

      • Bob Droege | July 21, 2013 at 9:07 pm |

        Jim, I dont think you can read a graph, the DMI shows that the daily mean temperature north of 80 is above average about an equal number of days as below average.

        The newer saltier sea ice also melts at as much as -2c, the older fresher ice needs a bit more heat to melt. And looking at the graph, the average temperature has been above 0 C for a while now.

        I can’t help you with the physics, try reading Hansen.

      • Herman Alexander Pope | July 21, 2013 at 9:13 pm |

        CO2 is a trace gas. It can easily melt a Trace of Sea Ice. This trace is lost in the uncertainty.

      • Jim Cripwell | July 22, 2013 at 7:30 am |

        Bob, you write “Jim, I dont think you can read a graph, ”

        As I read the graph I gave reference to, the temperature north of 80 has been below average since approximately the 125th day of 2013. I understand what is happening. As with Steven Mosher, when the warmist “physics” says something different from what the actual data shows, then, somehow, anyhow, the warmists, like yourself, claim that the actual physics is not what is seems to be; the warmist version of the “physics” correct. In the Arctic, north of 80, average temperatures have been below average for months, but at the same time we are supposed to believe that more CO2 in the atmopshere causes a massive melt of Arctic sea ice. And Antarctic sea ice remains well above average.

        Sorry, Bob, no sale.

      • Bob Droege | July 22, 2013 at 9:22 am |

        Jim, just for once, can you try to keep your story straight?

        The warmists say the ice is melting and the data shows that it is warm enough north of 80 to melt the ice, where is the discrepancy between theory and data?

        You seem to keep mentioning the Antarctic sea ice extent, with no attempt to understand what is going on there either. It might not be inconsistent with the AGW narrative. You know that the Antarctic ice sheets are melting, adding more fresh water to the southern sea around Antarctica, making sea ice easier to form. And winds and ozone. There is not much in the way of multiyear ice around Antartica, so that’s another reason not to expect the two sea ice regions to be doing the same thing.

      • Jim Cripwell | July 22, 2013 at 10:05 am |

        Bob, you write “The warmists say the ice is melting and the data shows that it is warm enough north of 80 to melt the ice, where is the discrepancy between theory and data?”

        My point is that, this year, temperatures north of 80 are BELOW average. I thought the idea was that CAGW warmed the Arctic, causing massive melting. How can the Arctic be warmed by additional CO2, if this year’s average is BELOW normal? Sure, the temperature is above 273 K, which is consistent with melting. But not massive, abnormal melting.

        As to the Antarctic, the data as to whether the land ice is increasing or decreasing, is to say the least, unproven. Sure there was Steig et al, but he confused warming on the Antarctic Penisnular with the Eastern Antarctic. So, there is no conclusive evidence that land ice on Antarctica is decreasing; or increasing for that matter.

      • Bob Droege | July 22, 2013 at 4:13 pm |

        Jim,
        Look at the graph again, it looks to me like, for the year overall, it has been slightly above averag, to my eyeball, the areas above the curve look larger than below.

        As fro the Antarctic, Steig et all 2009 was about temperature, you should check out the results from the GRACE satellite data.
        http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/6/3703/2012/tcd-6-3703-2012.html

      • Jim Cripwell | July 22, 2013 at 4:45 pm |

        Bob, you write “Look at the graph again, it looks to me like, for the year overall, it has been slightly above averag, to my eyeball, the areas above the curve look larger than below. ”

        As I noted earlier, warmists will claim black is white in support of CAGW. Who cares what the average is over the whole year. What matters is what the temperature is during the MELTIN G period. Sure it was warmer when the ice was FREEZING, but the maximum ice area was still not much different from expected. It is during the MELT season that the temperature is supposed to be high enough to cause a rapid ice melt. In fact the temperature is BELOW average during the MELT season. How dumb can you be!!

        If you cannot understand simple physics, then I am clearly wasting my time trying to explain things ot you. Incidentally, there is no sign that the melt in 2013 is going to catch up with 2012. It still could, of course, but there is no sign yet.

      • Bob Droege | July 23, 2013 at 3:46 pm |

        Jim,
        You think the average temperature north of 80 is the only thing that affects the annual minimum and you call me stupid! And a warmist!

        Let’s see what the cyclone does, after what matters most is the weather for the next month and a half.

  23. maksimovich | July 21, 2013 at 1:28 am |

    The central region of NZ is experiencing significant earthquake swarms
    the largest recent being 6.5

    http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/region/wellington/felt

  24. Jim Cripwell | July 21, 2013 at 9:22 am |

    A couple of numbers caught my eye. Today the preliminary SOI was around 40 – yesterday 20. http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/seasonalclimateoutlook/southernoscillationindex/30daysoivalues/ I am not Bob Tisdale, so I wont attempt to guess what this means. But it certainly does not look like we are going to get an El Nino in the near future.

    NCDC shows global temperatures for Jan to Jun 2013 as 7th warmist on record. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/6 Still no sign that the rate of rise of global temperature has returned to levels required by CAGW.

  25. tempterrain | July 21, 2013 at 11:15 am |

    I used to think that the main obstacle to effective climate action was due to the right wing denier types who are well represented on this blog. Now I think its more from those who push the idea that solar and wind energy can be effective solutions and significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Significantly is not just a question of few percent. Believing in the renewables, to this extent, is like believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

    Ever wondered why the big fossil fuel companies haven’t mobilised against wind and solar energy? Some, like BP have even set up ‘green’ divisions to their business to promote the idea. They are smart enough to know that while countries like Germany spend their resources on solar roof panels, and close down their nuclear plants that they can continue to supply fossil fuels as always. Its business as usual for them.

    Its just a pity that those who know there is a climate problem are effectively siding with Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Coal Tar Sands etc.

  26. Herman Alexander Pope | July 21, 2013 at 11:23 am |

    Look at actual data. The most recent ten thousand years has had temperature bounded in a new, very tight cycle. Radiation cooling using the water vapor and clouds does most of the cooling. CO2, as a trace gas, helps a trace with the cooling. This cooling is powerful but sloppy.
    The Major thing that is different now than when temperature cycled in larger bounds is that we have the Modern Polar Ice Cycles. This controls the ice on earth and the reflective cooling. This cooling has a set point. Every time the oceans get warm and wet, it snows more and puts more ice on Land. Every time the oceans get cold and frozen, it snows less and the ice on land does melt.
    If you disagree with this, you should explain what other cooling of earth suddenly developed a set point and how it works. The temperature that Polar Sea Ice Melts and Freezes is part of the only temperature control forcing cycle for earth that has a set point.
    http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/19/open-thread-weekend-25/#comment-347642
    http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/19/open-thread-weekend-25/#comment-347644
    Every time the earth gets warm, the snow machine is turned on.
    Every time the earth gets cold, the snow machine is turned off.

    • kim | July 22, 2013 at 4:44 am |

      This old fogey has grandchildren who are ashamed of its naive simplicity.
      ============

      • kim | July 22, 2013 at 2:35 pm |

        Oops, betting’s on Arrhenius, now. I’d call it Ockham’s Model, but have an ugly feeling my ignorance is leading me into an inapt analogy.
        ============

  28. jeffn | July 22, 2013 at 2:16 pm |

    The warm apparently didn’t fare too well on the BBC show Sunday Politics. The usual suspects made the usual replies in the Guardian- earning this wonderful smackdown in reply from the BBC Sunday Politics show:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23405202

    Judith Curry is cited several times.

    One of my favorite lines: “At the Sunday Politics we are also used to public figures who try to change the metric when the one they’ve put their faith in does not behave as expected. We try not to let that happen.”
    Words to live by.

    • GaryM | July 22, 2013 at 2:23 pm |

      From the article:

      “There is hardly any purpose in presenting evidence which supports the interviewee’s position – that is his or her job.”

      and

      “Taking an opposite or challenging position from the person being interviewed is pretty much standard practice in long-form broadcast interviews.”

      If this is intended as a description of the norm for “interviews” on progressive media like the BBC, it is delusional. If it is intended as a goal to which at least this one program on the BBC aspires, then it is good news indeed.

      • kim | July 22, 2013 at 2:33 pm |

        The article is fabulous and the fifteen minute interview is well worth the watch(I hate watching video). Andrew Neil is amazingly objective about the science because his question is about the policy, and whether or not it should be reviewed.

        Bully for the BBC and bully for Andrew Neil, but one wonders what took so long when the need for policy review has been imminent for as long as policy has been maddeningly panicked.
        ================

      • jeffn | July 22, 2013 at 5:25 pm |

        ” If it is intended as a goal to which at least this one program on the BBC aspires, then it is good news indeed.”
        A skeptical – heck, just a curious – media would be a wonderful thing. I wonder if this is going to be an interesting year. We know the media is political, we know the IPCC is political. We also know that, suddenly, Europe has a political need to dial back climate policies – the unsustainable spending on the ineffective – and the US has a need to continue on with fracking.
        Nice thing about life, demand is usually supplied.

    • GaryM | July 22, 2013 at 2:45 pm |

      “The warm apparently didn’t fare too well on the BBC show Sunday Politics.”

      “The Warm…” I like that. Like the Borg. But it should be capitalized.

      With minor edits, we could even use the Wikipedia entry for the Borg:

      “The Warm are a collection of species that have been turned into internet blog commenters functioning as drones of the Climate Collective, or the hive.”

      “We are the Warm. Lower your intellect and surrender your skepticism. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your economy will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

  29. Sparrow | July 22, 2013 at 3:59 pm |

    Don’t look now but congress is de-funding EPA in a big way. Huge cuts in anything related to climate science or renewable energy. This includes the Interior Department, U.S. Forest Service, the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Geological Survey.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/republicans-propose-limiting-obama-climate-plan-in-budget.html
    Add this to the cuts in the Dept. of Energy last week and you can be sure there will be trickle down cuts coming to universities and schools who are doing climate research.
    Maybe Dr. Curry’s students should be advised to seek new careers in a profession that has a future. Climate science looks like a dead end to me.

  30. Faustino | July 22, 2013 at 6:49 pm |

    The Australian has reprinted the following Times article:

    Politicians go cold as global warming debate loses spark
    Tim Montgomerie, The Times, July 23, 2013 12:00AM

    SEVEN years ago, pulled along by huskies, the present British Prime Minister David Cameron visited a Norwegian glacier. Vote blue, he implored, and go green. One year later, Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia after identifying climate change as the “greatest moral challenge of our time”. Climate change campaigners interpreted his victory as one of seismic importance and governments across Europe rushed to pour money into the renewable energy sector. Then in 2008 along came Barack Obama. The wicked George W. Bush was replaced with a US president who promised to stop global warming. Hurrah!

    Super-Obama’s great opportunity to save the planet came in 2009 at the Copenhagen climate change summit. He was at the height of his political powers. His Democratic Party controlled Washington: the presidency, the House of Representatives and Senate. And yet Copenhagen ended in the same way as almost every other climate change summit of recent times: in failure. Having failed to persuade members of his own party to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Obama also failed to persuade the governments of New Delhi, Beijing and Brasilia.

    The writing may have been on the wall in 2009, but the green movement has soldiered on. Theirs, they believed, was a moral mission of such importance that nothing would or should get in their way. Whatever the economic, social or political price they were determined to succeed. The doubts of sceptics like me could always be ignored, but when the politicians who once championed green politics are in retreat it is perhaps time for even ecological diehards to get real.

    And in the past 10 days one of the greenest of green politicians has to all intents, constructions and purposes given up. Last week, Australia’s green movement suffered a defeat at least as big as those of the country’s cricket and rugby teams. Rudd announced he would ditch the carbon tax that had threatened to consign his Labor Party to one of the worst defeats in its history.
    Throughout the world green politicians are presiding over similar climbdowns.

    From Washington to London, shale gas rather than any renewable technology is seen as the future. Even nations such as Germany and Spain, which led the march to green energy, are slashing unaffordable subsidies to the renewables industry. British Conservative Nigel Lawson has claimed that the average share price of companies in the renewable sector has fallen by 80 per cent over five years. “One renewable company after another is going bankrupt,” he declared. The heavy cost of green energy policies might have been justifiable if they had delivered results, but they haven’t. Since the Kyoto treaty on climate change, global emissions have continued to rise. Since 1990 they have increased by about 50 per cent. China’s increase in emissions has been 25 times greater than the reduction by the EU’s core nations. In so far as Europe has actually met its environmental obligations, it has only done so by exporting industrial capacity (and jobs). Once the environmental impact of imported goods has been added to its carbon footprint, Europe has clearly failed to keep its environmental promises.

    One commentator, Bjorn Lomborg, spelt out the futility of Europe’s unilateral environmentalism. Germany’s efforts to combat climate change might, he calculated, just possibly delay a rise in global temperatures by 37 hours, but that delay will have cost German taxpayers and consumers more than $US100 billion in the form of renewable subsidies and higher electricity costs. That’s about $US3bn an hour.

    Green enthusiasts are kidding themselves if they blame the global economic slump for the failure of climate change policies. Their policies were always an attempt to defy economic gravity. No half-decent politician in any part of the developing world was ever going to delay economic progress by embracing expensive energy sources. Any policies that prevent a clinic in India from being able to refrigerate medicines or a student in China from being able to read at night were always destined to fail.

    I am not one of those people who deny that the climate might be changing. I don’t feel qualified to question the majority of scientists who insist that warming is both real and man-made. My objection to global warming policies is more practical. They aren’t succeeding in cutting emissions and they aren’t going to succeed until so-called clean energy is similar in cost to conventional energy. Until then – and we should be investing in green technologies in the meantime – the demands of millions of wealthy green campaigners will continue to be overwhelmed by the demand from billions of poor people for economic growth and the social justice that it affords them.

    Two decades of green policies haven’t just failed to stop global warming. Old age pensioners in developed countries have been forced to bear electricity bills inflated by renewable subsidies. Blue-collar workers have lost their jobs as energy-intensive manufacturing companies have relocated overseas. Beautiful landscapes have been ruined by bird-chopping wind turbines.

    There have also been huge opportunity costs. What could world leaders have achieved if they hadn’t spent the past 25 years investing so much money and summitry on global warming? In a brilliant book, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, Lomborg has documented how politicians could have been tackling more pressing problems facing the world’s poorest people. Action on HIV/Aids, for example, the provision of micro nutrients to hungry children, the control of malaria, guarantees of clean water and the liberalisation of trade would all have been better uses of politicians’ time and taxpayers’ money.

    Many politicians – notably British Chancellor George Osborne – know all of this. But outside of last week’s welcome but overdue encouragement of fracking, Britain’s statute book is still creaking under the weight of yesteryear’s laws and their commitments to invest in expensive green energies. Until those laws are repealed, businesses and consumers will be paying a very high price for no earthly benefit.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/politicians-go-cold-as-global-warming-debate-loses-spark/story-fnb64oi6-1226683380244

    • kakatoa | July 23, 2013 at 6:30 pm |

      +1

    • kim | July 23, 2013 at 6:39 pm |

      F, it is my opinion of Kobenhaven that China and the other BRICs expected to shakedown the developed West with reparations for carbon crimes, and when that failed they were able to cover their chagrin over the loss by charging, correctly, Obama and other Western leaders with neo-colonialist machinations and intentions.

      China, and the BRICs, emerged the strong horses from that key summit; the West, with its precious carbon conceit, exited the gate knock-kneed, swaybacked, palsied candidates for the glue factory.
      =========

  31. jim2 | July 22, 2013 at 7:59 pm |

    “The Heretic
    by Richard Bean
    Auckland Theatre Company
    Maidment Theatre
    Until August 10

    We don’t get many politically incorrect plays but playwright Richard Bean (One Man. Two Guvnors), who admits to being something of a climate change sceptic, takes pot shots at the debate with The Heretic.

    It’s a play which mocks both the climate change deniers and the liars, scientists who know how to work the system and scientists who abuse it.

    It is a riotous roller coaster of laughs deploying cynicism, scorn and humour on one of the world’s more serious issues.

    Dr Diane Cassell, a “gas-guzzling planet racist”, is a major research science in the earth sciences department of an English university. Her research – measuring the sea levels on the Maldives, which are purported to be sinking – shows that it is not the case.

    With her findings at odds with her university and one of the department’s major funders she is warned not to submit her paper on the controversial issue.

    She does and she is fired by her boss, Prof Kevin Maloney, who is a friend and a lover from many years ago. He may also be the father of her anorexic daughter Phoebe (it is never stated, but one never knows with scientists).”

    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/heretic-mr-beans-play-about-climate-change-deniers-and-climate-change-liars-143148

  32. Jim D | July 22, 2013 at 10:34 pm |

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/due-to-global-warming-end_b_3628981.html
    Interesting and wide-ranging article here by Eric Zuesse. It ends with a discussion of discounting the value of things in the future for cost-benefit analyses, and, in the context of sea-level rise, basically says that current methods, e.g. 3-7% per year are discounting human lives the same way as property, which is not necessarily a good assumption.

    • Pekka Pirilä | July 23, 2013 at 4:09 am |

      Discounting is a complex issue. Assuming perfect knowledge (or good knowledge of probability distributions) allows for stating

      “Implicitly, the policy problem is phrased as ‘how much are we willing to pay to buy a better climate for our children?’ Alternatively, the policy problem could be phrased as ‘how much compensation should we pay our children for deteriorating their climate?'”

      as Richard Tol notes according to a quote in the paper.

      The uncertainties on the future are, however, so large in many ways, and valuing human lives or human well-being involves so complex issues that the quote tells only a small part of the story. (I have discussed these issues on my site, some further points can be found there).

      One of the most important justification for discounting is that resources can be used to create further resources. Spending money now does not always take off from future, it may add to to the future. These effects are, in principle, taken into account in the calculation separately from the discounting, but due to the uncertainties these issues get badly mixed. We need discounting in our economic calculations to justify a sufficient use of resources in development important for future, but of a nature that makes direct inclusion of these activities in the economic analysis difficult or impossible.

      Reducing present use of resources may in many cases actually make our children poorer rather than better off even when all environmental issues are taken into account. I don’t believe that any environmental economist can give good guidelines for deciding when present spending makes future poorer and when better off.

      We must remember that all the development and all the adaptation to changing circumstances has occurred as an attempt to improve well-being in near future, not planning 100 years to the future or discounting guesses that extend far beyond our ability to project the future. Thinking also about the long term future is prudent and may be essential, but think, how well the present world could be imagined 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago.

      • Peter Lang | July 23, 2013 at 4:31 am |

        Pekka,

        As with most of your comments, this comment is just a pile of arm waving and says absolutely nothing.

        You don’t seem to recognise that spending (wasting) money on useless schemes (like renewable energy) will leave future generations worse off. They are not going to thank us for that.

      • Pekka Pirilä | July 23, 2013 at 4:46 am |

        Peter,

        Why do you think it worthwhile to respond to my comments – or even to read all that arm waving?

        I write often on issues for which no clear answers exist. I do that to counter comments that appear to claim that a particular answer is right, while I consider that.answer highly suspect.

      • Peter Lang | July 23, 2013 at 6:11 am |

        Pekka Pirila,

        Why do you think it worthwhile to respond to my comments – or even to read all that arm waving?

        I write often on issues … to counter comments that appear to claim that a particular answer is right, while I consider that.answer highly suspect.

        As your comment makes clear, you seem to think you are an expert and what you consider is correct and important.

        However, we have demonstrated on numerous occasions that you don’t know what you are talking about. In the past you have claimed your assertions are “clear facts” but could not substantiate them. Rarely do you provide any substantiation to back up your opinions.

        So, I respond to your comments to show that you do not know what you are talking about (in many cases on energy matters), your opinions and assertions are usually unsupported, and many of them are nothing more than ‘arm waving’, obfuscation, and distractions. They add nothing constructive.

        Importantly, you are unable to admit when you are wrong.

        I also respond to your comments to demonstrate that, (using your own words) I consider many of your claims to be “highly suspect”, often baseless and often wrong.

        I trust that answers your question.

      • kim | July 23, 2013 at 12:03 pm |

        My arm humbly admires the waving.
        ========

  33. Chief Hydrologist | July 23, 2013 at 1:18 am |

    The other – other – global warming problem.

    http://news.msn.com/science-technology/california-has-a-problem-gulls-gone-wild

    • jacobress | July 23, 2013 at 4:34 am |

      This problem (gulls gone wild) has a simple solution: shotguns. No need for windmills, though windmills are also useful as bird choppers.

  34. tonyb | July 23, 2013 at 4:23 am |

    Chief

    Your link led to here

    http://news.msn.com/world/seagull-attacks-a-soaring-problem-in-england

    It concerns a gull explosion in our part of the world in south west england.
    Living on the coast I can confirm gulls are a big problem here made worse by the influx of tourists who think the birds are cute and insist on feeding them the remains of their fish and chips.

    there is undoubtedly a correlation with the rise of fast food and inadequate disposal in public bins and also that the gulls are protected by law as they are laughably supposed to be rare.
    .people are hospitalised by these creatures and the only action that can be taken is gull contraception.
    tonyb

    • David Wojick | July 23, 2013 at 7:29 am |

      Large oscillations in natural populations are the norm, just as with climate. The gull cause need not be anthropogenic nor due to climate. Human action is not required and is unlikely to be effective but no doubt it will be taken anyway. We are like that.

      • Jim Cripwell | July 23, 2013 at 10:54 am |

        Thanks, David, for the links; which I have been searching for. There seems to be nothing new; the reports are mainly spin. They seem to be propaganda to suggest that the current data on what is actually happening, does not require any changes to the conclusions of the non-validated models.

        The one major omission, which is to be expected, is that the Met. Office still refuses to agree that climate sensitivity has NEVER been measaured. They are still operating on hypothetical, meaningless guesses, with no idea how accurate these guesses are. I really did not expect to find anything else. So there is no real science in the three reports; just spin and propaganda.

  35. climatereason | July 23, 2013 at 10:18 am |

    Judith

    three new papers from the Met Office including one on the pause in global warming. Their words not mine

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/7/23/your-ship-is-sinking-will-spin-help.html#comments
    tonyb

  36. David L. Hagen | July 23, 2013 at 10:33 am |

    The impact of global warming versus cooling on food production and their impact on the wealthy versus the poor.
    The Arrogance of a Well-Fed Society

    . . .letting a few people starve to death wouldn’t be a terrible thing, but instead would actually make the planet a safer, richer and more sustainable place . . . the arrogance and callousness of a well-fed society toward those who are less fortunate always leaves me stunned.
    . . .The Left repeatedly insists that climate change is the world’s #1 problem, and this has distracted us from the world’s actual #1 problem: Poverty. About 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity, meaning they also don’t have adequate access to food, healthcare or the Internet. Essentially, such communities are condemned to a life of indefinite poverty. Providing them with cheap electricity is a compassionate, progressive thing to do.

  37. Beth Cooper | July 23, 2013 at 11:58 am |

    See me Edishun on Food and Famine.
    Bts
    http://beththeserf.wordpress.com/

  38. Faustino | July 23, 2013 at 4:41 pm |

    The phenomenon of groupthink has often been raised as a factor in CAGW consensus. Here’s an article from The Australian which addresses it and also shows why many Aussies come to sites such as this.

    Writers festivals an echo chamber of opinions
    by: Michael Sexton The Australian July 24, 2013 12:00AM

    The Sydney Writers Festival in my time had a mixture of public funding, corporate sponsorship and private donations. Any public funding carries, of course, some responsibilities. Gerard Henderson has pointed out that there is not a great deal of diversity in the social and political views of the writers and media commentators appearing at recent Sydney Writers Festivals. This is largely true, as it is for the Melbourne festival. I have not examined the programs for other festivals around the country, but I imagine that a similar criticism could be made in most cases.

    In explaining this phenomenon, as opposed to defending it, it needs to be remembered that institutions are a product of their societies, and literary festivals in Australia are a product of a part of Australian society – publishers, writers, bureaucrats and the media – that largely shares a common view on most social and political questions. There are quite a number of people in all of those groups who hold sharply different views but they represent a minority position. There is not much doubt about the fact of this consensus but the reasons for it are more difficult to divine.

    When I was at university in the late 1960s – seemingly some time ago but not long by historical standards – most corporate managers, senior bureaucrats and lawyers together with a good proportion of academics and journalists were sympathetic to the US’s role in the world; to the actions of the police and other law-enforcement bodies in dealing with crime; to policies designed to secure the country’s borders; and to some limits on government regulation. Those groups now largely hold almost exactly the opposite opinions. They are still, of course, at the heart of the establishment but somehow see themselves as a moral minority.

    This was a development identified by Nick Cater in his book The Lucky Culture, published earlier this year. The turnaround does explain the programs at literary festivals. This is because, as I have already suggested, literary festivals are organised by a relatively small segment of our society. The views I have referred to earlier are not widely held in the general community but they are held by those groups that occupy Australia’s cultural worlds, one of which, using the word in its broadest sense, is the media.

    Having said all that, it has always seemed to me that even these groups would have more fun at festivals and other events if there were sometimes real debate on social and political questions; that is, some robust disagreement between the presenters, with the audience able ultimately to join in and express their opinions.

    This is not, of course, just a problem for literary festivals. If it ever did, Australia certainly does not now have the tradition of vigorous public debate that has always existed in the US. There are plenty of criticisms to be made of the US political system but there is a much wider range of ideas open for discussion than in the relatively narrow spectrum of Australian politics. And the same can be said about a wide variety of social and economic issues about which it is difficult to spark any real debate in Australia.

    To give one example: over the past year or so, there has been some criticism of legislation at the federal and state level in this country that criminalises expressions of opinion offensive to individuals. The criticism is that this is a serious limitation on freedom of speech. I have written two or three newspaper articles putting forward this view and various other commentators have made the same argument in the media and at conferences. There has never been, however, any response to these arguments. This is not because there is no one who holds the contrary view. The fact this kind of legislation exists at the federal and state level indicates that there were powerful groups that persuaded governments to enact those statutes. But those groups obviously feel no need to defend their position or any desire to engage with their opponents in public debate.

    It is hard to imagine this kind of silence in the US – or even Britain – from one side in a contest about freedom of speech.

    It might be said by those organising literary festivals that most of their audiences do not want to be challenged in their views. And there is some truth in that. My observations of audiences over 10 years at the Sydney Writers Festival suggested that most shared the social and political views of the presenters and were not particularly interested in hearing a contrary opinion. That is, however, no reason audiences should not sometimes be confronted with contrary opinions. As I have already suggested, quite apart from the value of public debate, it is simply more fun in my experience to get an argument going on the stage and in the audience.

    But, as I say, this is not now, if it ever was, part of the Australian tradition.

    This is an edited version of a talk on literary festivals to be given this evening at the Sydney Institute by Michael Sexton SC (barrister), who was on the board of the Sydney Writers Festival from 2001 to 2011.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/writers-festivals-an-echo-chamber-of-opinions/story-e6frgd0x-1226683971711

  39. donald Rapp | July 25, 2013 at 11:36 pm |

    The world’s population is growing. Energy demand will increase by at least a factor of 4 to 5 by 2100 if the world is prosperous. The only way to reduce future carbon emissions is through widespread global poverty. The nations of the Western World are implementing a plan to achieve this by excessive borrowing. When the international currency system breaks down and the world debt reaches unmanageable proportions, fossil fuel consumption will take a big hit. That might happen before the sea ice disappears.

  40. Beth Cooper | July 26, 2013 at 1:31 am |

    Hey, what’s the BIGGEST scare story?
    List in order of SCARINESS.

    A harmless exercise in catharsisis
    fer frantic Alarmists. Get it off yer chest.