by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Lessons from the dust bowl
From NPR: This drought’s no dry run: lessons from the dust bowl. Excerpts:
More than 63 percent of the country in the lower 48 states is experiencing drought, leading some to compare the summer of 2012 to the droughts of the 1950s and even the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.
“Certainly from a geographical footprint, it’s right up there with the ’50s and ’30s at over 60 percent,” says climatologist Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“But the ’30s and ’50s were multiyear droughts,” he says, “and this drought, so far for the majority of the country, is not a multiyear drought yet.”
North Carolina lawmakers have temporarily banned using a science panel’s recommendation to plan for rising sea levels, after the governor decided Thursday not to veto the measure.
The measure has been lampooned by comedians and has drawn the ire of environmentalists. It blocks the state from adopting any rate of sea level change for regulatory purposes until 2016, while authorizing more studies.
Gov. Bev Perdue’s decision means the bill becomes law, bringing temporary closure to the debate that began when the science panel warned that sea levels could rise by more than 3 feet by 2100 and threaten coastal areas. Coastal development group NC-20 rejected those findings and said the seas would rise only 8 inches.
North Carolina law makers need to read up on decision making under uncertainty. Here we have two scenarios: 8 inches or 3 feet sea level rise. The reality may not even be between those bounds (when you account for geological processes and land use).
Pielke Jr on evidence-based policy
Roger Pielke Jr has an excellent post entitled Evidence-Based Policy: Which Side are You On?. Excerpts:
We’d all like to think that policy makers consider evidence from experts in how they make decisions. Of course they do, but in case after case, such consideration takes a form far from that which might be considered ideal by most experts. Typically, a decision is made based on considerations that have little or nothing to do with evidence, and only then is evidence sought out to support that decision. Science in all of its glorious bountifulness is almost always compliant.
So where does this leave us if we’d like to secure effective evidence-based policy?
The best way to divide the world into two camps are to segregate those who seek science to confirm political prejudices and those who support effective and trustworthy science arbitration, wherever it may lead. The scientific community has at times lost perspective in all of this complexity and found itself in the former category rather than the latter, siding with political advocates whose interests in the integrity of science come second to whatever issue of the day they are championing.
Securing evidence-based policy with integrity requires a ruthless adherence to the ideals of effective science arbitration, even when uncomfortable and inconvenient. Perhaps most uncomfortable of all is the realization that those who would champion the political causes supported by most scientists themselves would not champion the integrity of science itself when its results do not conform to their prejudices. The championing of scientific integrity is a cause unto itself.
I think that this is exceptionally well said. The victim of all this is the integrity of science, which is the main issue that I have tried to champion.
North Carolina policy makers: please read Pielke’s article.
Climate skeptics as conspiracy theorists
And finally, if you don’t want to deal with the issue of scientific integrity, you can always call your opponents conspiracy theorists. From a post on the talkinkingclimate blog:
It might seem odd to lump climate change – a scientific theory supported by thousands of peer reviewed papers and hundreds of independent lines of evidence – with conspiracy theories like these. But new research published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found a link between the endorsement of conspiracy theories and the rejection of established facts about climate science.
In a survey of more than 1000 readers of websites related to climate change, people who agreed with free-market economic principles and endorsed conspiracy theories were more likely to dispute that human-caused climate change was a reality.
We can put all these matters to rest by openly addressing the experimental data and observations that were ignored, hidden or distorted after 1945
Modern observations, that we have no temperature or sea level that is outside the range of the past ten thousand years, has not been hidden. The just say the models show something else and we should believe the models over the observations, and many people do that. We all need to look at THE DATA. When Earth Data and Climate Model Output do disagree, guess which one is real. Model Output has had us warming since manmade CO2 was announced. Earth temperatures have not yet exceeded 1998. That is their data. Except for when they use a crooked hockey stick.
HA Pope: Scientific models are like the Emperor’s new suit of clothing:
http://www.hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html
“Their colours and patterns were not only exceptionally beautiful, but the clothes made of their material possessed the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.”
That is why world leaders endorsed climate models, and “elite physicists” have expressed so much appreciation for theoretical models of the cores of stars [1] and atoms [2] proposed shortly after the United Nations was established on 24 Oct 1945:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-720
1. Fred Hoyle, “The chemical composition of the stars,” Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society 106, 255-59 (1946); “The synthesis of the elements from hydrogen,” ibid., 343-83 (1946)
2. Hideki Yukawa, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (1946); Introduction to the Theory of Elementary Particles (1948) http://www.nndb.com/people/759/000099462
The Bottom Line:
a.) Constitutional limits on government, and
b.) Integrity in government-funded science
Have been been steadily disappearing since
c.) The United Nations was established on 24 Oct 1945, and
d.) Deceptive models of cores of stars [1] and atoms [2]
Were promoted with public funds to try to hide the energy source that is “Brighter than a Thousand Suns !“
See: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-720
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/party-is-over-for-alarmists/#comment-110162
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
“Data always beats theories. ‘Look at data three times and then come to a conclusion,’ versus ‘coming to a conclusion and searching for some data.’ The former will win every time.”
—Matthew Simmons, ASPO-USA conference, Boston, MA, October 26, 2006
“No amount of experimentation can prove me right. A single experiment can prove me wrong.” Albert Einstein
Dictionary of Quotations By Connie Robertson #3165
Why do you think there is a dearth of experiments in the field?
Hell, even data that doesn’t match the models is adjusted.
Yes, Doc, a lot of adjustments were made after the UN was established on 24 Oct 1945 and frightened world leaders decided to obscure the source of “nuclear fires” that destroyed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 Aug 1945.
We now know these “nuclear fires” are triggered by the sudden release of energy (E) stored as mass (m) in the cores [1] of heavy atoms (like uranium and plutonium), stars, galaxies and perhaps some planets.
Energy that is “Brighter Than A Thousands Suns !”
http://www.amazon.com/Brighter-than-Thousand-Suns-Scientists/dp/0156141507
The Epilogue of the above book (pages 335-341) describes the heavy involvement of scientists in politics after the Second World War ended.
“What should we do?” asked C. F. von Weisacker in the fall of 1945. “We have played with fire like children and it flared up before we expected it.” (page 335)
1. “Neutron repulsion,” The Apeiron Journal 19, 123-150 (2012) http://tinyurl.com/7t5ojrn
Lewandowsky is somewhat notorious in Australia – and is a frequent target for Andrew Bolt. Gosselin does a nice decomposition – see
http://notrickszone.com/2012/07/29/australian-psychologists-claim-climate-science-skeptics-are-the-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists/
http://notrickszone.com/2012/07/30/the-self-inflicted-delusions-of-australian-shrinks-on-climate-skeptics-and-conspiracies/
Ha! The first link trots out false claim after false claim. Eg:
“Forget that global temps have not risen in 15 years” FALSE
“and that 70% of the Holocene was warmer than it is today.” FALSE
The last one is extra false because even if 70% of the holocene was warmer today that doesn’t contradict AGW.
Indeed. You know who else trots out false claim after false claim? Moon landing conspiracy theorists. Funnily enough the first link is trying to disassociate skeptics from moon landing conspiracy theorists.
lolwot,
You are not at fault for being unaware of information that was purposely hidden from the public after the end of the Second World War.
But you are at fault for failing to study the above information that has now been pointed out to you.
That is the bottom line !
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-720
With kind regards,
– Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
Gosselin has also done some useful detective work: http://notrickszone.com/2012/08/07/epic-warmist-fail-modtran-doubling-co2-will-do-nothing-to-increase-long-wave-radiation-from-sky/
The Gold Standard of atmospheric IR physics, the USAF’s MODTRAN programme, which effectively computes emissivity as a function of composition, shows there is no change with change of [CO2] >=10% RH.:
This illustrates a simple fact, which is that when you have gas mixtures, particularly with other asymmetrical gases, the physical parameters may change compared with simpler mixtures.
Gosselin believes in ‘back radiation’, which is incorrect [can’t do thermodynamic work]. Instead the thermal IR band emission from the lower atmosphere reduces emissivity in those bands at the Earth’s surface, hence causing its temperature to rise, the real GHE.
Therefore, Hansen’s claim of runaway atmospheric warming from increasing CO2 is baseless: it seems he and his colleagues, hence the IPCC models, assume CO2 acts independently when it cannot. This appears to be yet more de facto evidence the IPCC pseudo-science was constructed to deceive.
Conspiracy theorists abound on both sides of the climate and enviro fight. A number of scientist policy advocates have long claimed that a conspiracy of “dirty fossil fuel interests” oppose action on climate change, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.
In fact, almost every scientific idea that may be profitable is lampooned by environmentalists as a conspiracy of “corporate interests” seeking to exploit the unwashed masses for personal gain. GM foods, coal export terminals and the Keystone XL pipelines are great ongoing examples. Opposition to Keystone and oil sands developments often uses the same language as the Old Testament prophets. It’s associated with ideas like the end of the world as we know it, environmental collapse as retribution for humanity’s arrogance (sins), etc.
Exactly. In fact, these days, an old conspiracy theory from the John Birch Society – that fluoridation of water is a communict plot – is being recycled by the green left as fluoridation of water as corporate plot.
The more things change, and all that.
“a conspiracy of “dirty fossil fuel interests” oppose action on climate change, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.”
I’d love to hear this evidence to the contrary. Various coal outfits that have given the Heartland Institute funding are just doing it by sheer chance?
I’m glad you are the type of person who asks to see the evidence.
Would you be kind enough to show us the evidence that man’s CO2 is causing dangerous global warming?
Of course, we both know:
1. Nature emits over 95% of the annual CO2 emissions.
2. CO2 FOLLOWS temperature in Al Gore’s ice cores.
3. Water vapor causes about twice as much greenhouse effect as CO2.
4. Unusual weather is NOT evidence of its cause.
5. Correlation is NOT evidence of causation.
6. Climate correlates better with solar cycles than with CO2 and over centuries.
7. Climate models are not evidence for a variety of reasons including the fact that they are considered poor by the top climate scientists in their own emails.
Thanks
JK
Sure see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Also check out the list of climate myths on the right. I spot a number of your points which are addressed in that list. 1,2 and 3 in particular.
Here’s a question. Which of the following two plots correlates better with temperature in the last 50 years?
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png
1. Nature emits over 95% of the annual CO2 emissions.
But what about the other 5%? Not just an extra 5% this year, but an extra 5% ( and rising) every year.
2. CO2 FOLLOWS temperature in Al Gore’s ice cores.
They aren’t Al Gore’s ice cores. The transition from glacial period to interglacial shows the climate to be quite unstable. A small forcing producing a large change. Yes CO2 was a feedback then but can also causes other feedbacks too.
3. Water vapor causes about twice as much greenhouse effect as CO2.
Yes but without CO2 there would be little water in the atmosphere. Its a feedback.
4. Unusual weather is NOT evidence of its cause.
You mean not proof. It is still some evidence though.
5. Correlation is NOT evidence of causation.
Again it is evidence but I would agree not proof.
6. Climate correlates better with solar cycles than with CO2 and over centuries.
Not true. Simply.
7. Climate models are not evidence for a variety of reasons including the fact that they are considered poor by the top climate scientists in their own emails.
These would be the same “top climate scientists” who say CO2 emissions are
7. Should be:
These would be the same “top climate scientists” who say CO2 emissions are a problem and need to be curtailed?
“1. Nature emits over 95% of the annual CO2 emissions.
But what about the other 5%? Not just an extra 5% this year, but an extra 5% ( and rising) every year.”
June 2012: 395.77 ppm
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Global CO2 is rising about 2 ppm per year Or
rising .5% per year. Or in 50 Years it rise by about 25%- maybe.
400 ppm is .4 parts in thousand. In 50 or 100 year CO2 will still
be a trace gas. Or less than 1% of the atmosphere.
And earth probably started with say 20% or more CO2 and mindless
microbial life reduced to below 1%. And Animals lived millions year with
higher levels than 1% CO2, and somehow fairly brainless creatures
so how survived. Why is it that people are less capable than bugs and animals?
“2. CO2 FOLLOWS temperature in Al Gore’s ice cores.
They aren’t Al Gore’s ice cores. The transition from glacial period to interglacial shows the climate to be quite unstable. ”
Unstable if one considers time periods longer than entire human civilization. And such “instablity” has to do with very slow changes in earth orbit.
“3. Water vapor causes about twice as much greenhouse effect as CO2.
Yes but without CO2 there would be little water in the atmosphere. Its a feedback.”
And warmest part of the planet is tropics and tropics can not hold a significant increase in water vapor. So any significant possible increase in water vapor must occur in non tropical regions [where water vapor tends to be more unstable] but if somehow the temperate zone gained more water vapor is would make the temperate zones be more similar to tropics- which isn’t really the end of the world.
“4. Unusual weather is NOT evidence of its cause.
You mean not proof. It is still some evidence though.”
It has presented as evidence and proof, but a serious examination
of this offered evidence or proof, should indicate slight warming of a planet doesn’t isn’t causal of any particular weather phenomenon.
That the main causal effects of cooling or warming is mostly increases and decreases of glacial ice in temperate zone. And if there is relationship, it as likely or more that cooling causes more extreme weather effects.
And the simple unavoidable condition is there cycles of warming and cooling at various scales [10,000, 1000, 100, 10 years cycles] and one has to have either cooling or warming periods. Or that we have to be warming or cooling, that remaining in condition of neither warming or cooling doesn’t occur on planet Earth. And generally it’s better in most respects if it’s warming rather than cooling.
The 95% figure was Jim Karlocks not mine. Levels of atmospheric CO2 have increased by about 40% since pre-industrial times from 280ppmv to the current level of 390ppmv. These figures may not sound much but they are significant. Small amounts of absorbing gas can make a large change to the transparency of the atmosphere. It’s like having a tank full of very clear water. You just need to add a couple of drops of dye and it’s no longer clear at all. If our eyes were able to see in the IR region we’d be able to exactly the same change in the atmosphere as GH gases were added in trace quantities.
On present trends CO2 levels will increase to 580ppmv by the turn of the century and is the basis for the IPCC’s forecast of a 3 deg global rise in temperatures if no mitigating measures are put in place.
Approximately half of human emissions, currently, are absorbed by the Earth’s forests and oceans but as emissions rise, and the oceans warm, there is some concern that this may change and the oceans could in fact become net emitters if they get too warm. Like a bottle of soda they hold more CO2 when they are cold.
“The 95% figure was Jim Karlocks not mine. Levels of atmospheric CO2 have increased by about 40% since pre-industrial times from 280ppmv to the current level of 390ppmv. These figures may not sound much but they are significant.”
Sure 40% increase is a significant increase. And perhaps greater than it might appear, considering one is suppose get about 1 C increase per doubling.
Meaning before 40% level one has slightly more than 1/2 of the warming should have occurred.
Or the increase 280 to 390 has more warming than will the 390 to 560 increase.
Or the more CO2 added the more is needed to get same increase in temperature- because it’s based doubling the amount to get 1.
If start doubling at say 100, then 100 ppm added gets 1. but at 200, you need 200 to get 1. [Or it’s 2 instead of 1- its same thing. start at 100, add 100, and get 2, from 200, need add 200 to get another 2.]
Or if imagine that CO2 rise has already caused .8 C, then by 560 ppm it will cause around another .8 C.
Of course the excuse is that 1: there delay in the warming [looks bad after 15 years of non-warming] 2: that natural variability would caused it to be much cooler without the added CO2. Which also is “bad for warmists, because it’s much better to be this much warmer than compared to being a lot more colder. Or the warming affect of CO2, has scorecard, of saving a few hundred million people from death.
The other excuse is version of 1. CO2 is mostly heating ocean [and explains why the atmosphere *failed* to warm more. The problem with the this excuse is why wouldn’t, then, continue warming the ocean and failing to warm the air. The result being air doesn’t warm much, ocean warms a lot, and might have some noticeable effect in couple thousand years [and help stave off the coming ice age].
And course there certainly a lot different theories for the “the settled science” which offer by the believers [not even including the wacky ideas of the heretics].
Some other believer and non-believer ideas are step increases. And CAGWer who believe one can make the Gaia Goddess angry. Or “One of these days… POW!!! Right in the kisser!”.
As to number 2 above. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
Yes, it’s referred to as CO2 outgassing with global ocean temperature variations. I replaced your scale with a derivative to see the in-phase correlation with temperature.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/derivative/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
The rate of CO2 outgassing is highest at maximum temperature variations and lowest at minimum temperatures.
This works at very many levels, including localized SST, because it is established physics and would only be surprising if it didn’t occur.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2012/03/co2-outgassing-model.html#SST_CO2
This is completely separate from the overall increase in CO2, as the majority of that is clearly not caused by outgassing.
Amazing. Hey lulz, when did you stop beating your wife/reindeer/boyfriend/dog?
In case nobody ever explained it to you, the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorist, not the conspiracy skeptic.
Has Harry Reid denied being a pederast yet?
“Reindeer” was supposed to be “girlfriend”. Google must be conspiring to change my comments.
“when did you stop beating your wife/reindeer/boyfriend/dog?”
can’t beat her anymore
Lolwot,
I think it’s “well established” that there is virtually no organized funding – through individuals, NGOs, or corporations – to discredit climate science. Nor has there been such an effort, at least for the last decade. Several individuals, including McIntyre and Watts, have maintained pressure on climate science through websites primarily funded by tip jars. Watts and others have, furthermore, demonstrated that many claims made by climate scientists that they are being harassed or threatened for their views were fabricated by the climate scientists.
That, my friend, is a conspiracy theory, one created and advanced by the climate scientists themselves.
Look at Inhofe’s funding:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005582&cycle=2012
Why would fossil fuel companies want to fund Inhofe’s campaign funding?
You are right they don’t need to fund WUWT and CA. But they jump in get their hands dirty whenever useless idiots aren’t doing it for them.
Also note that endangerment finding petitioners was Peabody Energy. How odd that the largest private coal company in the world would get interested in climate science….
And why would the Illinois Coal Association recently start funding the Heartland Institute?
The fossil fuel companies also get involved lobbying governments when they come under pressure. Like how eg Exxon put pressure on the Bush administration to remove the last head of the IPCC.
LOL, wot? You actually admit that you believe this conspiracy theory?
Aah….now I understand why you always reject established facts about climate science.
It is because of that
If you think fossil fuel companies have just been sitting on the sidelines indifferent to the subject you haven’t been paying attention.
lolwot
Various coal outfits that have given the Heartland Institute funding are just doing it by sheer chance?
Surely not – just as sure as government gives consciously selects and funds alarmism, since this is what will most advance the cause of (more) government.
The only difference is that whereas probably tens of $billions pa go into alarmism, compared to perhaps tens of $millions pa devoted to scrutinizing it. Hence the appearance of a consensus.
It takes a lot of money to advance knowledge.
It takes very little to enrich a few liars that seek to distort it.
I think the North Carolina lawmakers understand decision making under uncertainty pretty well. They rejected mandating a specific, and expensive, high value sea level rise for planning purposes, because of uncertainty. These planning numbers dictate today’s designs and restrictions. Locking in a high, uncertain value would be a big mistake.
My thoughts exactly as I read Judith’s account David. Mind you, if Dr Curry was advising all of them – not just the lawmakers but the science panel – I’d assume they’d all be in much better shape. And less able to be lampooned by lazy comedians to boot. Another opportunity for consulting prizes..
Agreed. You only commit to that kind of policy when the event to be mitigated is sudden. Sea level rise will never happen faster than the time needed to engineer mitigation, should it become evident in the future that it may be needed. Doing it now is like waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear.
If you wanted to be precautionary, it might be prudent to fund a study, and identify the major adaptations that may be needed for budgetary purposes. But actually spending money on something that might occur slowly in the distant future has to be compared to other things that might happen soon, and suddenly, like cyberattacks on infrastructure. Which is more of an immediate concern?
I agree. Constructing homes and infrastructure w/o consideration of the implications of significant sea level rise is the only prudent thing to do. It makes much more sense to locate new buildings and sewage treatments plants in areas that would be heavily impacted should sea levels rise significantly.
After all, they can always be moved after sea levels rise should they rise. I’m sure that some kind of barges could be used to move everything, since the new roads would also be under water.
Ever been to New Orleans?
Yes I have. Great food. Fantastic music. I also enjoyed visiting the swamps in the area and Lafayette, LA.
What is your point?
Point is, if you weren’t aware, that the French Quarter is something like 12 ft below mean sea level. They keep the area dry with levees and stormwater pumps. It’s a lot cheaper to install that than move a city.
Katrina wouldn’t have been much of a problem if the levees weren’t built in a defective manner due to crooked dealing with shady contractors. Which underscores a major problem with all of these mitigation schemes – they depend on honest dealing, which is something that has been sorely lacking in the green stimulus disbursements.
Which is why it would make sense to weigh, in your cost/benefit analysis attached to decision-making under uncertainty, elevating roads as you build them, location of sewage treatment plants where they’d be more secure should sea levels rise at the high end of estimates, etc.
I guess you didn’t realize that my suggestion that built environment be moved after construction was sarcastic?
New Orleans’ French Quarter is somewhat below mean river level, but is 5 feet above mean sea level.
Thus New Orleans is not exemplary of a city that is successfully coping with sea-level rise.
Please do not repeat these incorrect New Orleans sea-level assertions, PE! :) :) :)
There are other considerations. The WWTP is located where the sewers can drain freely to them. Raising a new plant even a meter may make it impossible to gravity drain existing sewers to them, resulting in a huge energy cost to pump from the low point to the plant. If you knew for an absolute fact that sea level would rise, it wouldn’t make any difference, because you’d still have to pump the effluent up into the discharge water. But if it turns out to have not been necessary, you’re wasting gigawatt-hours of electricity over the time span we’re talking about.
A wiser policy would be to build things to flow by gravity, and if the level rises, dike the plant and install an effluent lift station when it becomes necessary.
You do want to save energy, don’t you?
And please don’t be pedantic about river v.s. sea level. From an mitigation standpoint, it doesn’t matter. If the sea level rises, the river rises.
P.E.
How long should we play this game, where you construct straw men so you can demonstrate your knowledge on a subject, even though you aren’t linking logically, with what I said?
I said that consideration should be made for potential of sea level rise in decisions about the construction of built environment. I did not limit what should be considered. I added to what should be considered.
If it isn’t feasible to build a water treatment plant in a location that is likely to be severely impacted by significant sea level rise, there are a couple of options, broadly: (1) take the potential for sea level rise in how you build the plant, (2) consider the costs (in terms of energy or otherwise) of locating the plant elsewhere or, (3) consider legislation that restricts development so there will be no deed for the plant to begin with.
Simply saying it would be more expensive to locate the plant elsewhere, and leaving it at that, does not seem like a particularly prudent option.
Maybe, or maybe not. Perhaps the “wiser” decision (a rather subjective criterion) would be to not develop the area in such a way as to require more sewage treatment plants.
But if you don’t even consider the impact of significant sea level rise, then you will not have an inclusive decision-making process in the face of uncertainty. So then the question comes back to the obvious question – WhyTF would the legislature eliminate significant sea level rise from consideration?
Building on low-lying land with the expectation that you will one day need to defend it is different from building and hoping.
In the latter scenario you may find that for geographical reasons you cannot later defend the land. Either the cost-benefit analysis fails, or people point out that defending your coastline will put at risk previously safe coastlines further down the coast, or special interest groups will point to the coastal resources that will be damaged by sea defences (birds, fish, animals, fossils, plants – you name it).
As an aside, if they have any sense, the insurance companies will undermine this Canutian law by escalating the cost of cover on South Carolina developments built over the next four years.
Yes, the French Quarter is above sea level… too bad only 49% of the city is. That leaves the other 51% below sea level.
Joshua and Fan, ever hear of the saying caveat emptor?
Perhaps we should leave it to those who chose to build in low lying lands what they should do in terms of mitigation.
P.E.
You and a good friend of mine would have interesting conversations. He’s a retired civil engineer from City of Austin Wastewater Divison. We both had boats at a local marina and were walking down to them to them from the parking lot. We walked past the septic field serving a restaurant and other marina facilities and I smelled raw sewage indicating a problem. I said something about the smell. He took a deep lungful and goes “MMMMMMMMM…. that smells like money to me.” Austin’s got a lot of hills and he knows every lift station and underground sewer main. Pretty complicated system when a some pocket of civilization is surrounded or semi-surrounded by higher ground or higher obstacle and you either have to lift over, tunnel through, or tunnel around.
Another time I was having a problem with the septic system on my houseboat and didn’t know how full the two holding tanks under the shltters were. So he says to me “whars yer sludge judge”. I said “Say what?”. He says “The stick you poke down into the holding tank to see how full it is.” I says I don’t have one. He says “You don’t have a sludge judge? Get the f*ck out of here. You don’t deserve to own a boat with a head in it.”
Sewer humor. Gotta love it.
It is far more prudent then restricting construction based on a 100 year computer forecast. We are talking about a lot of valuable real estate.
There is a gap between “restricting construction” and eliminating consideration of high end estimates.
No doubt. Which is why the influence of those who profit from marketing that real estate becomes something to consider.
David Wojick, thank you for providing yet another vivid example of the Good-Reuveny Effect’s key role in denialist cognition.
Oddly enough, there *are* folks who look and think farther ahead than the next election, or the next year’s profit-and-loss statement.
That’s a very good thing, isn’t it David Wojick? :) :) :)
Nobody’s eliminating anything. They’re deferring until a time when we have actionable information. Right now, we don’t have actionable information.
Actually I think it is the influence of those citizens that own the real estate, their homes and businesses in many cases, who do not want to see it suddenly rendered worthless because of some computer model. Like I say, you clearly have no idea what democratic decision making is about.
David –
<blockquote Like I say, you clearly have no idea what democratic decision making is about.
Attacking me and making these kinds of arguments by assertion, based on poor logic and no evidence, is not only poor form, but is inherently illogical. You are arguing on nothing other than self-invested authority, and nothing else, to make ridiculously broad and unfounded statements. Consider that if someone who talks frequently of his own advanced knowledge of logic and rational reasoning repeatedly makes those kinds of errors, it may be a reflection of the influence of motivated reasoning.
This, once again, is reflective of a binary conceptualization of a situation – a binary mentality which does not reflect my thinking although you insist in arguing that it does. Perhaps that is because you have a binary conceptualization of the problem and as a result project such a conceptualization onto me. I don’t know. But regardless, just because you seem to fantasize that I have a binary conceptualization of the problem, in fact I do not.
There are multiple influences. The fact that they are multiple in nature is not a reason in itself to eliminate any of them from consideration.
Joshua,
Read up on North Carolina flood insurance.
http://www.ncfloodmaps.com/pubdocs/grandfathering_letter.pdf
Adding 3 feet to the ‘flood maps’ sends peoples ‘flood insurance’ thru the roof. (The lowest rates for flood insurance are for houses where the lowest floor is at least 4 feet above expected flooding).
You can’t get flood insurance for ‘new construction’ below ‘expected’ flood level’. The difference in flood insurance rates for a $100,000 home built at ‘flood level’ and ‘flood level + 4’ is $1,700/year.
So there are already strong financial incentives in place to discourage building below ‘expected flood level’ + 4 feet.
As usual…various advocates neglect to point out facts like ‘what are the existing margins built into existing law’.
harry –
Actually, I’ve already read some about that. Are you saying that justifies the NC law?
Joshua, without an incremental cost comparison, it is hard, if not impossible. Even so, the assumptions such would be based on would need to be examined.IIRC, what the bill was about was high they were predicting and the timeframe. IOW, the legal aspect as pertains to insurance. In terms of development, mots of what people are discussing here and by advocates, do not reflect the proposed and current uses development. It is not for mines, industry, or similar, it is resendtial and commercial. North (not South) has had a virtual moratorium on NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System) at the coast since about 1990. I had several proposals, and treatment system designs in the coastal area of North and South Carolina. The infrastructure, the commercial, etc were, and are as far as my brother-in-law who got permits to develop in these areas in NC, were for homes or what it takes to support such. Perhaps those interested might want to discuss the reasons for beach loss that do not include sea level rise. But that might mean thinking about something outside of tribal areas. Beach areas are high risk, and yet development continues. Despite beach loss, houses can and are sold until they are condemned when the property cannot support a rebuild. To do otherwise is a taking per the SCOTUS as was determined former US Senator Hollings for SC in his suit when they tried to take his property after a hurricane destroyed his house. Hugo IIRC. What all the banging on appeared to me was an end run around takings and insurance profits. But then it is a money versus money fight, so I brought popcorn.
Oops. Mis-nested:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/05/week-in-review-8512/#comment-226051
David Wojick | August 5, 2012 at 11:38 am |
Which thinking throws into doubt your ability to contribute much to decision-making. It’s one thing to express uncertainty about a risk profile at its high end. It’s another entirely to pass a law banning using that informed risk profile for any use because some are uncertain about it.
This amounts to something akin to banning seatbelts and airbags because there’s uncertainty that they’re always beneficial.
It might have been reasonable for NC to pass a law advising the treatment of the high sea level rise projection as a risk at the far end of likelihood, but where NC went is simply bad decision rationale.
Let’s divide 100 years, 8″ and 3′ by four and put them in terms of a metaphor.
By your logic you would be comfortable to sign up for a 25-year mortgage where the rate will be prime plus a number between 2% and 9% at the whim of the lender. Even at prime plus 2%, it’s not a great deal. But NC’s law has banned the ability to consider in their calculations the part of the interest rate beyond prime, even though that interest is real and will affect their bottom line. No wonder NC’s budget is such a mess! http://www.osbm.state.nc.us/
I disagree, as I understand this it is not a binary decision here. They should look at multiple possible scenarios, and assess the robustness of the different elements of their current systems to the multiple future scenarios of sea level rise (and storm surges). They should look for no regrets options for improving the system so that it is robust across multiple scenarios. They should assess the cost of responding to the more extreme scenarios. And in the end they might decide to do nothing. But it would have been a more rational decision than thinking you are basing a decision to do nothing on ‘science’ (the future sea level and rate of rise will be the same as the recent past).
Sorry, but that is not how planning law works. Planning law is not about looking at multiple possible scenarios, assessing the robustness, etc. Planning law is not academic or scientific, far from it. It is about drawing lines on maps with one set of rules on one side of the line and another set on the other side. Planning law is government force personified.
This is where adaptation replaces decarbonization as the spear point of the Big Green Scare. (Did I mention that my first career was as a federal water resources engineer?)
Once again – a binary conceptualization. I have seen planning law implementation in action up close in a number of different situations. On each occasion, it was far from perfect, but in each occasion it involved academic and scientific processes in the determination of where to draw lines, and what kinds of lines should be drawn, with caveats and exceptions applying on the different sides of those lines.
It was as fundamentally democratic a process as I have ever seen, despite all the flaws: Citizens directly involved in civil society. And as a part of that civil society in action in a democratic process, in each situation that I’ve witnessed first-hand, was the influence of large contributors to political campaigns.
Planning law, at least sometimes, is both about looking at multiple possible scenarios and drawing lines on maps. It doesn’t have to be one way to the exclusion of the other, David.
How about we let those who own the land or want to own the land decide what they should do? If they want to build homes that are destroyed by sea level rise, why should we care? They take the risk, they take the consequences.
Not seeing who we are trying to protect here… people from themselves or people from the stupid acts of other people. Seems to me, it’s the former.
WisconsinitesForGlobalWarming | August 5, 2012 at 5:03 pm |
Which is why anyone ought oppose a law banning individual people from being able to take into account all the information available.
Seeing as, for four more years at least, nothing they say about their concerns regarding sea level is legally admissible.
This abuse of state power to interfere in individual decision-making is obscene.
Bart R, I think you’re confused… nothing stopping a private citizen from taking into account all the information. Only bans the state from acting o the information, as it should be. As I’ve said, caveat emptor.
Bart seems to spend most of his time making meaningless verbiage.
WisconsinitesForGlobalWarming | August 5, 2012 at 5:34 pm |
An opinion about property issues said as if by someone who has never been responsible for a parcel of land.
Sure. Never owned land, except when I have. Am sure to always understand the limits imposed on the land I purchase as well as knowing what surrounds the land and how it can be used.
Have served on the board of home owners associations which were involved in litigation as well.
Have passed on many wonderful properties because of uncertainty of the surrounding properties.
As I said, caveat emptor.
k scott denison | August 6, 2012 at 9:48 pm |
And you welcomed the government changing the rules and limiting your recourse to just and fair outcomes based on flummery and nonsense of well-connected developers?
You sound like Howard Rich.
Judy, imagine that you are like me and suffer from arthritis.
There are three options;
accept the pain and live where ever you want to.
accept the pain, but move to a local that minimizes it (i.e. Houston)
take the steroids, knowing they screw you up and are only good for 15-20 years.
The smart move, is the smart move, and to take the drugs at the latest possible time.
However, there is no right answer, or the answers are different for different people.
Ask a oncologist if they would follow the same treatment regime as they give their Grade IV tumors.
We elect our politicians, but not our scientists, so power to the people. They do have a track record of getting things right, eventually.
“…as I understand this it is not a binary decision here.”
The “binary decision” was made by the “science” panel that recommended a specific rise in sea level be incorporated into planning decisions now. It was the “scientists” who should have “looked at multiple scenarios” etc. They chose one scenario and made a recommendation that was intended to force incorporation of that “scenario” into regulations.
This was not an academic exercise. This was a political exercise intended to directly impact development policy.
What happened to uncertainty? Since when does uncertainty mandate the immediate implementation of policy? What happened to doing further research to better understand the science before policy is adopted?
Dr. Curry, do you also now favor implementing decarbonization as public policy? After all, the uncertainty there is no less than that of the sea level rise predictions by the NC science panel. And the risks are even greater, ala the precautionary principle.
Policy first, science later?
I agree with Judy, but it also seems to me that the major damage issue of storm surges during hurricanes (even without any sea level rise) has been a problem for coastal states with valuable real estate. The problem is that of moral hazard, meaning that if people build too close to where storm surges will occur, and don’t build to appropriate standards, and their home gets destroyed, the federal government pays most of the bill through flood or disaster insurance, and so rebuilding goes on where it shouldn’t. States like NC lose a lot of RE taxes and jobs if big vacation homes on the shore are restricted. If the feds pay for damages, it’s close to a free lunch, so they don’t zone as tightly as they should.
Before anyone flames me on this, I acknowledge that my understanding of coastal zoning law in NC and elsewhere might be a bit outdated. But unless there have been dramatic changes from a decade or so ago, I think the principle is still there — states will take chances with nature, if it will bring more construction and taxes, as long as damages are paid by someone else.
We who live in areas that can possibliy be flooded pay into the disaster funds that are supposed to help the ones of us that get unlucky. I do not hold a grudge against the people who collect. There are all kinds of disasters in many places. Coastal flooding is one of the many. If we don’t allow people to build on the coast then we should restrict people from building in the woods where there might be forest fires and in the pararies where there may be grass fires and in parts of the country where there might be a tornado or a lighting strike. Wait a minute, that might be almost everywhere. You can use building standards to improve your odds of cutting the loss if all goes wrong.
It would be great if the same people in charge of zoning were also on the hook to set premiums and pay insurance claims, or is that just too sensible.
It used to be build at your own peril. Now no one is responsible for their actions, so everyone pays for the idiots. There used to be “fish camps” in the high risk flood zones that you just hosed out and replaced the damage after a flood. Now the construction codes and building permitting require either mobile homes or mansions. Mansions seem to cost more to replace. Keep voting for more stringent regulations instead of common sense.
That would be fine if everyone could judge their peril on their own, but they might take non-scientific blog sites seriously and unwittingly increase their peril. Best to leave judgements to the professionals who know where to get their information.
Some time yes, some time no. The scientific experts with the Army Corps of Engineers drained a lot of wetlands and straighten out a lot of rivers changing flood plains. The scientific experts with the Army Corps of Engineers are restoring wetlands and putting the turns and twists back into rivers, changing a lot of flood plains. Experts, scientific or not, are not always right.
There are even experts that consider thousands of miles of levies, thousands of dams and 10s of millions of kilometers squared of land use changes inconsequential with respect to climate. Silly huh?
Judith said:
“But it would have been a more rational decision than thinking you are basing a decision to do nothing on ‘science’…”
_____
Respectfully to all concerned, rationality and the current operating mode of the U.S. political system from the state level to the federal level have nothing to do with each other. We can wish rationality had something to do with political decisions, but it just isn’t the case.
Whenever progressives lose elections, they always criticize the electorate.
Just as their debate opponents are all stupid and/or evil, the electorate that fails to elect their political patrons are dumb or infantile.
Which accounts for their fondness for authoritarian regimes like China. If we can just get away from those stupid voters….
@curryja
Who is “THEY”?
“They” are making WHAT kind of decisions for WHOM?
By your usage, I assume you mean THEY = some select planning commission. Government decisions by the unelected.
Isn’t there room for individual who may or may not choose to make their own decisions under uncertainty using their own value functions of risk and benefits?
+1. Since when has personal choices and responsibility been so out of vogue?
Here is a hypothesis: The operators and creators of large computer modeling programs are playing God and making dictatorial decisions within the virtual world of their making. That concentrated repeated behavior becomes ingrained in their thinking such that these same modelers cannot help but to recommend dictatorial public policy in the real world.
Turn the knobs on the computer screen.
Turn the knobs in Congress.
What’s the difference? /sarc.
This maybe an easy conceptual trap.
What climate model is based upon free will?
They are all about forcings!
Forcing CO2. Forcing Volcanos. Forcing the Sun.
Can forcing People be far behind?
For a “skeptic”’s critique of the North Carolina sea level report, see:
Science vs AGW Advocacy in North Carolina June 11, 2012 John Droz, Jr.
A different perspective Part 1 & Part 2: A Scientific Critique of the 2010 “NC Sea-Level Rise Assessment Report”
On that basis, I agree with the NC lawmakers to put a hold on exaggerated projections.
The Dutch provide the best example of design and protecting against sea level and storms. With 9 of 16.5 million inhabitants living below mean sea level, the Netherlands takes its dikes seriously. In 1953, 1836 people died when an exceptional storm tide of 5.6 metres (18.4 ft) above mean sea level overwhelmed Dutch sea defences. The country is divided into 53 independent administrative sections where protection standards range from 1/10,000 to 1/1,250 based on population and economics.
While the government has set 85 cm by 2100 as the high end of sea level rise, adaptation costs are estimated at 0.1 to 0.2% of GDP.
Adaptation cost in the Netherlands: Climate Change and flood risk management
The Dutch strategy even includes active flooding of upstream regions to protect downstream regions.
New Orleans is a poster child for how NOT to protect against sea level threats. Shoddy construction resulted in inundation from category 3 Katrina, when New Orleans is subject to Category 5 hurricanes.
IPCC models appear to strongly overestimate actual 32 year trends. Yet they apparently do NOT properly include climate persistence. Demetris Koutsoyiannis et al. at ITIA focus on evaluating Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics and uncertainty.
They find Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in long climatic proxy records
The development of hybrid crops that are better able to withstand heat and drought is one of the only reasons the Hildenbrands have a chance of a small crop this year.
The extra manmade CO2 did also help these crops grow better with less water than they would have without the extra CO2.
Food production and nature: The deadly paradox of a class-riven society
Chris Williams, Aug 3, 2012
I.e., Congress and Obama are starving the poor to buy farm votes.
Livestock farmers still seeking pause in ethanol production
I must say that “science arbitration” is a new concept to me. I did not know that science was open to arbitration. How could it be?
Beyond that, Pielke Jr clearly has no grasp of democratic decision making. Many scientists do not. Thus the threat of technocracy is ever with us.
Welcome to reality. There have been lawsuits for decades where the “finding of fact” boils down to dualling hired expert witnesses. If I sue you, claiming that your business is emitting dihydrogen monoxide, and can get an expert witness to convince a jury that I’ve been seriously harmed by your dihydrogen monoxide, I win, and get to take your money. Real scientific fact has nothing to do with it.
This practice from the courts, which has been going on for decades, is finally moving into politics.
No PE, the advocacy system has been central to both judicial and legislative practice since the beginning. America is based on it. There is no better alternative.
But – the fig leaf of science is new. People weren’t arguing cases (or legislation) based on supposed scientific fact 100 years ago. At lest not to the degree that that goes on now (I realize that the whole Aryan thing was supposedly science based).
The Greeks introduced scientifically based evidence into the body of law. They used a scale and water tower to measure the density of ‘gold’. Should the Archimedes principle show you passed off an alloy as gold, they killed you.
That’s different. That’s not pretend science based on an expert witness saying what he’s paid to say. In that case, there is in fact a consensus concerning the science. That’s simply forensics. We use DNA evidence, which is quite sophisticated, but it’s not seriously controversial.
That a very different thing from somebody with a baloney theory bamboozling a gullible jury.
PE – take a look at eugenics. It was the ‘science’ that propelled many a legislature to pass compulsory sterilsation legislation, some of which remained on the books until the 60s.
And if you read Kesten Green’s analysis of (I paraphrase) Great Big Catastrophes that Never Happened, you will find that perversely extending uncontroversial science in order to scare people into compliance has a long history.
http://kestencgreen.com/green%26armstrong-agw-analogies.pdf
Excellent point, David. it was only because of a clear understanding of decision-making under uncertainty that they passed this law. Being politicians, obviously, political considerations were irrelevant.
Also, obviously, another non-factor: The largest industry contributors to the campaigns of the politician who drafted the law
have been real estate agents and developers.
Why would anyone think that anything other than rational analysis of uncertainty would be motivating this law?
Joshua, you like Peilke Jr, and many others, do not see democratic decision making as a rational process. It is. It is not a simple process, but it is extremely rational, far more so than any decision algorithm, model or formal process proposed by scientists.
Someone sticking up for democracy? That will never do :)
Everyone hates democracy.
Not exactly. The losing side always hates it.
David –
I obviously can’t speak for Roger – but you are completely mistaken in your understanding of my views. Completely.
I completely support the democratic process that resulted in this law. I am also not ignorant of how vested interests influence the process. I do not view democracy from a binary perspective, as you seem to think I do. It is possible to have a rational democratic process that is also less than perfect.
I never said anything about the process being irrational, inferior to some “formal process proposed by scientists,” etc. That was all, entirely, a creation of your imagination.
People like you are why Cass Sunstein quit.
That’s a bit cryptic, P.E. Perhaps you could elaborate about what you mean by “people like [me]”?
Follow the threading. That was in response to David. See the little bars to the left? <<<<<
Ah. So that’s what those bars are for. I always wondered…..
To put it another way, Joshua, it is not that the lawmakers understand decision making under uncertainty, in the scientific sense. Nobody does. They do decision making under uncertainty. That is their field and they are experts. The political system is the decision system of democracy, and of society generally. Anyone who thinks the leaders are stupid is stupid. Your denigration of “political considerations” probably qualifies. But happily that stupidity is allowed, along with many others. Democracy is the collective wisdom of individual ignorance (HLM), yours included..
David –
You pride yourself in your expertise on logic. Surely, you see a bit of a problem here?
I never, even remotely, implied that “the leaders” are stupid. First, I’ve never met any of them and wouldn’t presume to pass judgement on their intelligence (even though you seem to think you’re qualified to pass judgement on my intelligence as you just did there. I wonder why you chose to add this to the list of personally denigrating comments you’ve made about me?). Second, I never linked “political considerations” to stupidity – again, that is entirely in your imagination. Entirely.
Political considerations are what they are. They will always exist in our political process, but the extent to which the exist can be exacerbated by certain variables, and the financial interests of people who directly finance campaigns is certainly one of those exacerbating factors. It would be a mistake to think that such influences could be completely eliminated, or that eliminating them is an easy task to achieve, but they exist. Obviously, such considerations were a part of the process of passing this law. To pretend otherwise would be naive.
A rational political process can be passing laws that benefit campaign contributors. That would be, entirely, rational decision-making.
Actually, I agree with Joshua. Leaders are stupid. Especially these old white guys like Joe Biden and Harry Reid. They make me embarrassed to be white.
Do you really want to go there? Type “Harry Reid” into google and see what comes up as the third suggestion. :)
P.E. –
Was that directed at me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Are you under some misconception that I think that Harry Reid isn’t subject to influence from campaign contributors?
Seriously, WTF are you talking about?
Josh, want to know the weight of an ox?
The Galton Method works
(P.S. Knowing how much you enjoy my asides; during my childhood I lived 2 miles from the Galton Ironbridge, that still works too)
My own pen-name “fan of *MORE* discourse” was inspired by the infamous open letter of former NASA personnel who sought (unsuccessfully) to close-down (for example) NASA-sponsored links to James Hansen’s scientific articles.
It seemed to me that climate-change called for *MORE* scientific discourse … not less … hence the pen-name.
In which regard, Judith Curry’s link this week to the Psychological Science article “NASA faked the moon landing – therefore climate change is a hoax: an anatomy of the motivated rejection of science” provides useful scientific insights into patterns of denialist cognition.
Even here on Climate Etc. there are posters whose rhetoric — and cognition too? — is restricted to the characteristic elements of denialism: ingroup/outgroup thinking, scapegoating, motivism, polarizing rhetoric, bad science, anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theories, personal abuse, and compulsive enemy-listing. Whew! ;) ;) ;)
All of which act to restrict discourse, not expand it, needless to say. :sad: :sad: :sad:
Rational climate-change skepticism is good and necessary; denialist cognition is harmful yet arguably inevitable (given human nature) and Climate Etc. is emerging as a terrific forum for learning about both.
Sincere appreciation and thanks therefore are extended to Judith Curry, for hosting a forum that *DOES* encourage more discourse and that *REJECTS* denialist patterns of cognition.
Thank you, Professor Curry! :) :) :)
Seriously, mate, you’re just a rude bigot. I’m frankly surprised that you’ve got the temerity to even type the words discourse or science as you are the very antithesis of both.
A ploy used within days of Climategate, as I was reminded when Steve McIntyre pointed to the inconsistency of Phil Jones on whether he’d deleted emails the other day, leading to my re-reading one of my first comments on Climate Audit on 24th Nov 09:
Were those two RT presenters to be ridiculed, given what had been just been revealed? Or was I, as a viewer not prepared automatically to do so?
The problem with the way the CT label is used in most western discourse is that the person accusing another of being a CT-ist is then allowed to completely misrepresent and overplay the other’s views. Once you’ve been placed in that category you’re as mad as the maddest conspiracist the accuser can imagine. A barmy part of western discourse, not shared by the presenters out of Russia that day.
Interesting that crop insurance, especially for catastrophic cases, is largely paid by the government, not premiums. This is another potential use for a carbon tax/premium as an insurance against increasing instances of these events, and maybe coastal flooding later. Adaptation in action indeed.
Also interesting is Lewandowsky’s study showing a high correlation between those doubting the danger of climate change and believing free market solutions. The idea of wanting the government to have less power is consistent with the idea that AGW either requires government action (such as the above-mentioned crop insurance), or in the extreme case they think this is a way to get a world government which is their greatest fear.
The NC decision to postpone decisions on coastal mitigation till 2016 is related. At some point they have to plan ahead, but are banned from doing that for now. Again, the government mustn’t do anything about climate change, even if it is already happening, because that involves government spending, which free marketeers just don’t accept for any reason.
That is a good, thought-provoking post Jim D! :) :) :)
It is becoming strikingly evident that North Carolina’s land-use planning decision comprises a lucid example of the the Good-Reuveny Effect‘s key role in climate-change denial, for economic and strategic reasons that are set forth in a previous Climate Etc post.
More broadly, denialist cognition is itself becoming a well-respected focus of historical and scientific inquiry. And fortunately for everyone, there is perhaps no forum on earth that is better-suited to the study of denialist cognition than Climate Etc.
For which, thank you Judith Curry and Climate Etc! :) :) :)
I have been thinking about your philosophical grounding in both science and discourse, based on an analysis of your peppering your comments with links to pop- psychology, miss-informative analogies and the use of emicoms.
It has been nagging at me, like a lose tooth, just what style of discourse you have emulated. Today, out of the blue, it came to me.
When Calvin had to prepare a report on bats, he just winged it, but had a professional clear plastic binder.
http://www.thepoachedegg.net/.a/6a0133f0b2fdc2970b014e8b8ef55d970d-pi
Tying together some of the thoughts I mentioned. Is there a free market solution to catastrophic crop insurance, or would that be to let the farmer go under or sell his land? Over time we would then leave the farming to the states that don’t have climate catastrophes, who would benefit from reduced competition for the same demand allowing them to raise prices. Which brings up food production in general. Is there a government role in maintaining a national level of food production and its price?
My opinion is that calling crop insurance “adaptation” to climate change is inappropriate if the crop insurance is paid for by the government. It simply encourages people to continue to grow crops that are inappropriate for the changing conditions rather than to argue for either mitigation or more appropriate assistance to adapt.
Using carbon taxes to pay the insurance premiums is mitigation *and* adaptation as presumably the aim of the carbon tax is to reduce emissions.
I guess the farmer, having received his pay-off would take into consideration changing his crops next time, but I don’t know if they should be forced to, except by paying a higher premium for inappropriate crops. The government may also have to subsidize the water supply to these regions. I think my view of carbon tax as going to adaptation and not just mitigation is not a standard one, but it makes sense, otherwise where would the government get the increasing revenue needed for these things?
How very foolish of the farmer to dare to think that he knows his own business about what crops to grow on his farm better than a desk-bound climatologist/modeller half a hemisphere away.
The lower classes really are getting uppity nowadays! They should listen to their betters and do what they’re told.
/sarc
After he has had three droughts in six years, he might want to make a move towards cacti for example. They have a market. Or he could continue growing corn in the hope the government puts up with his poor decisions and keeps on with the hand-outs. Crop failures certainly mean less work around harvesting time.
Or we might even consider that he is more likely to know his business and his farm and his markets better than you, or somebody else does.
Same way the guy building a beachside house in NC might be expected to think about sea level a teensy bit. Do you not have ‘tides’ and ‘storms’ in that part of NA? Or have people been building there for centuries only to be amazed when the first winter gale got their feet wet?
Keep up, Latimer. We are talking about *subsidised* insurance. If the farmer is best placed to make the decision, why are the premiums subsidised?
“Keep up, Latimer. We are talking about *subsidised* insurance. If the farmer is best placed to make the decision, why are the premiums subsidised?”
The solution is rather simple, lower taxes to offset cutting the subsidized insurance program.
As it is the government is effectively lower the risks
by having this subsidy. Get rid of government interfere in the decision process related to risks. The insurance market will correctly assign riskes, the same way a bookie gives odds on a horse race. If a govenment reduces the odds on horse that have spots, then more money will be lost on spotted horses. But it does make it cheaper to bet on spotted horses, and if anything encourages more spotted horses to be entered in a horse race.
gbaikie,
The solution you have is indeed the correct one if you want to encourage farmers only to grow safe low risk crops. I suppose the inconvenient problem is that there are people to feed, so you sometimes might need to encourage the farmers to grow food in a situation where the best business choice would be to grow something else (or nothing).
“gbaikie,
The solution you have is indeed the correct one if you want to encourage farmers only to grow safe low risk crops. I suppose the inconvenient problem is that there are people to feed, so you sometimes might need to encourage the farmers to grow food in a situation where the best business choice would be to grow something else (or nothing).”
Is this any possible good reason to subsidize anything. Yes, probably or least it possible to have a reasonable argument about it. The main argument against it is government is too incompetent. And many people recognize this, but some leap to the conclusion that government can be competent [if you only could elect the right people or some silliness]. It much wiser to recognize the limits of how competent government can be, rather than have too much faith in them- better to regard government as somewhat childish, rather than assume they are grown ups and the people are the children.
Another element is the judgement of what is best to grow or whatever. As general rule it seems the citizens [including farmers] generally know what is more “valuable for society”- when has free market, the market informs what is most valued for the society. And one gets some problems when some individuals generally make the mistake that the market is not determining the right value. It could possible that some individuals could be correct, but it seems most of the time there are not correct.
It much wiser to recognize the limits of how competent government can be, rather than have too much faith in them- better to regard government as somewhat childish, rather than assume they are grown ups and the people are the children.
I think I’d rather have a government do the odd incompetent thing than depend solely on the market to ensure I get food on my table. At least we can vote them out if all we have to eat is corn syrup.
This is probably simplistic, but imagine it is easier to grow crops in Iowa than Texas due to differences in water costs and insurance premiums that increase with climate change. The free market would determine the price such that the Iowa farmers get rich while the Texas ones get poor if they can stay in business. Without some evening out by government subsidies, this would lead to a drop in crop production and increase in prices nationally as the Texas farmers decide to do something else.
“I think I’d rather have a government do the odd incompetent thing than depend solely on the market to ensure I get food on my table. At least we can vote them out if all we have to eat is corn syrup.”
You vote every daily with a market- you like, you buy. You don’t like, you don’t buy.
Without any government you get a very diverse market in foodstuff.
I think government tends to give less variety of stuff and in particular foodstuff. Government tends to limit small niche providers.
One could say an advantage of government is they may open foreign trade, but they also can limit it. So if government opening the world market, and there efficient transport, then that an argument that government can give a wider selection of products. But I don’t happen to know where I can get stuff from Africa- anywhere near me.
Basically cities historically have given wide selection of product. The cheap transportation since 20th century has given rural areas greater selection of a variety of different products. But if just want food, rural areas provide fair selection of whatever can grown in your particular climate- are doing that now, and has been always the case.
“This is probably simplistic, but imagine it is easier to grow crops in Iowa than Texas due to differences in water costs and insurance premiums that increase with climate change. The free market would determine the price such that the Iowa farmers get rich while the Texas ones get poor if they can stay in business. Without some evening out by government subsidies, this would lead to a drop in crop production and increase in prices nationally as the Texas farmers decide to do something else.”
Well the great equalizer would cheap transport. But some places would better places to grow stuff. And so it should be grown there. But everything can’t grown one area. So areas tend to grow certain things better, or things which aren’t worth growing at some premium growing area, could be more economical to growth elsewhere. So elsewhere one might need 4 acre, to grow same value a one acre in premium area. So poor area using more land- big deal.
So in above situation of optimizing farmland one could have situation where government *could* want something subsidized. Say they want local strawberry growers- because roadside strawberries are things people like. And the region isn’t a particularly good place to grow strawberries [for some reason]. I don’t think subsidize would work, though maybe there is something a government could do might work in this situation. But that is the general point of subsidies- market tends to optimize, government pushing back against such optimization.
But point wasn’t no subsidize should ever be done, it’s just such things are not usually well managed by government- generally it encourages corruption.
Steve Milesworthy | August 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm |
Adaptation does rather depend on who pays for it, doesn’t it?
In any case, adaptation is an imposed cost, caused by specific beneficiaries of burning carbon and received as an unavoidable expense by everyone in some way.
Which is a harm inflicted by negligence.
That’s a tort.
Normally, the parties who brought the need to pay for adaptation are sought out and made to pay; moreover they are assigned penalties for the neglegency of their conduct in creating a tort.
I became a ‘denier’ after I concluded there were 5 errors in IPCC physics. I may be mad, bad and deluded, but I want a second option because I’m a scientist who believes no-one.
1. Meteorologists imagine they measure ‘Downwelling LW’ with ‘pyrgeometers’ but failed to read the small print: http://www.kippzonen.com/?product/16132/CGR+3.aspx You need two to measure net flux because the shield behind one detector means it measures the temperature radiation field in line of sight. For a cooler body this is the ‘Prevost Exchange’ so does no thermodynamic work.
2. Physicists and engineers use the two-stream concept in calculations and it works because Prevost Exchange cancels out. However, climate science went horribly wrong when it messed up the boundary condition, assuming UP IR at Earth’s surface is the S-B level for an isolated black body in a vacuum. At equilibrium, the sum of convection, conduction and radiation cannot exceed incoming SW energy.
3. Direct thermalisation is quantum excluded. Simultaneous emission from a thermally activated GHG molecule restores Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium so GHGs are an energy transfer medium and thermalisation is indirect, mainly at clouds [explains their IR spectrum]; DOWN emissivity tends to zero above cloud level.
4. If we assume the 63 W/m^2 UP IR [2009 ‘Energy Budget’] is real, net IR warming of the lower atmosphere is 23 W/m^2. The imaginary 94.5 W/m^2 from incorrectly assuming DOWN emissivity at TOA = 1 increases it by ~5. During hind-casting this is offset by imaginary cloud albedo. Although this gives correct average temperature, the sunlit oceans evaporate much more, hence the totally imaginary positive feedback.
5. The final mistake was made by Hansen et. al. in 1981 when they claimed the Fourier estimate of present GHG warming, 33 K, is correct. However, Fourier did not know about lapse rate; take off 4 km x 6 K/km and real present GHG warming is ~9 K.
6. In reality, band-specific Prevost exchange from thermal GHG emission reduces emissivity of the Earth’s surface; more convection, more ‘atmospheric window’ IR. TOA UP IR is mostly self-absorbed thermal IR. Because CO2 self-absorbs by ~200 ppm there can be no CO2-AGW. The GHE is fixed by the first few 100 ppmV of water vapour.
As Sagan’s aerosol optical physics is wrong, it cannot be claimed the AIE is hiding AGW. No IPCC model can predict climate. Houghton’s treatise has major errors.
This is all gibberish word salad.
The boldest part is particularly egregious. Conduction and convection can not transport energy to outer space, save for infinitesimal amounts, and so radiation is the only player.
Grade: F-
Here we have two scenarios: 8 inches or 3 feet sea level rise. The reality may not even be between those bounds (when you account for geological processes and land use).
The reality will not be between those bounds. Sea Level is going down. http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
Look at the nist leap second data. Earth spin rate is faster than in the 1970’s and that does mean the oceans are lower than in the 1970’s. The dancer, earth, is pulling her water in and putting ice nearer the spin axis.
Dr Curry,
You may have added few lines about latest alarmist but ungrounded claim by NASA GISS that Greenland ice sheet was experiencing unpreceedented surface melting.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html.
Many papers in Western Europe have amplified this already largely exaggerated and misleading “breaking news”, claiming that 97% of the total Greenland ice sheet had disappeared in less than 4 day…
R. Pielke Sr had interesting comments on this “media hype” :
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/news-report-nasa-sudden-massive-melt-in-greenland-my-comments-on-this-media-hype/
Pielke is a fine one to complain. Wasn’t it only last week he over hyped the Watts paper we now know is fatally flawed?
‘fatally flawed’ ?
I am not so sure about that. Watts et al., have come up with an a prior list of sites which they believe will show different rates of temperature change, due to intrinsic site characteristics.
After an initial presentation, many people stated their analysis was naive and required an higher level of sophistication.
However, no one has come up with a robust criticism of the philosophy of the studies design; to paraphrase
” the vast number of sites give the wrong temperature trends due to factors, A, B &C, but a carefully selected sub-set will show the actual trend”.
Like it or not, Watts et al., have formulated a testable hypothesis. They have performed a test, but critics, rightly, demanded more data analysis be performed. Watts et al., have performed a lovely bit of science. Either the US temperature trends of the, adjusted (TOB) will be statistically different from the BEST derived trends, or they will not.
Note, the BEST analysis is based on a completely different intellectual approach: BEST attempts to make as much use of all the data that can be obtained, whereas Watts et al., see to find ‘purity’ amongst the crap.
I for one am unsure which approach is best, BEST makes me think of dog-shit and ice-cream, whereas Watts et al., cannot know if each of their pure as the driven snow sites didn’t have a wild time of it all in their teens.
What you are observing is two quite distinct brands of scientific investigation; one using sophisticated mathematics to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear and the other plucking pearls before the swine.
If the reanalysis of Watts is the same as BEST, we have an independent verification of this METHODOLOGY.
However, should the sites selected, a prior, show lower rates of warming, then we must suspect that the types of analysis previously used to monitor regional and global warming are at best, suspect.
I do not know if Watts et al., is going to be different from BEST, but I do know that either of these two outcomes are the most important results in climate research in the last decade:
1) Watts., = BEST
2) Watts., < BEST
What do you mean “we”? I think you mean “I believe”. There is a difference.
In simpler terms, speak for yourself not for me, thanks. You are not we.
“North Carolina law makers need to read up on decision making under uncertainty. Here we have two scenarios: 8 inches or 3 feet sea level rise. The reality may not even be between those bounds (when you account for geological processes and land use).”
So what would have been the correct decision under the uncertainty here? This looks like a pitch for the precautionary principle. Which is of course a mainstay of CAGW reframing. Is someone shifting from lukewarmer toward consensus, on the policy if not the science?
As we head into the new LIA [CO2-AGW is zero because of fundamental IR physics, sea levels will fall, perhaps significantly, over the next Century. Beyond that time it might rise again.
Is this the preface for a new fiction book? Because it sure doesn’t match the facts…
What facts? There is absolutely no experimental proof of any CO2-AGW [IR band absorption at TOA does not count because it can be explained by a combination of self-absorption of thermal IR and band blocking at the earth’s surface by GHGs in self-absorption. If I’m right, the latter means no CO2-AGW is possible.]
As for sea level rise, NOAA adds 3 mm/ year assumed to be due to post-glacial land rebound, Otherwise the sea levels are not rising . Envisat data show it falling over the past few years.
There are 5 major errors in the IPCC ‘consensus’ physics. Two of these are elementary, very embarrassing. The incredibly bad pyrgeometer mistake is from the meteorologists but the physicists should have told them the truth. The others [IR physics and cloud physics] are more subtle but are being looked at by people un-blinkered by dogma or grant seeking.
The absence of warming, sea-level rise and TPW rise is now very obvious. Something else is happening and my bet is it’s solar + cooling ENSO combining for the first time since the middle 17th Century.
I’ve read, since childhood, many speculations on the causes of the 1930’s Dust Bowl. Most agreed it was down to land use practices starting in the 1600’s and accumulating until in the early 1900’s the odds of feedback of particulates increased to the point a vicious cycle contributed to a longer and more severe drought even than would have happened otherwise.
Is this scientific fact? I’d say the science was never really settled. But it’s conventional to accept it as likely. The consensus tolerates this explanation.
Compared to that speculation about the special anthropogenic sources of the Dust Bowl, the solid scientific foundation of a now much more mature Climatology about AGW tells us we are seeing a real increase in odds of feedbacks and incidents contributing to longer and more severe droughts, and floods, and other extreme events.
Will this last? Who can say? It’s “odds”, “chance”, subject to variation and randomness. So the current cluster of extremes may break. We ought hope it does. However, our hopes are just hopes, and as such useless.
We can act to modify the influences on the risk factors. We’re even morally and ethically obliged, as self-interested individuals with concern for our own long-term wealth and the well-being of our families in the future, to do so.
If the science is wrong, then what will we have done? Cleaned up the world a bit, and ensured people pay for the benefits they get from the resources they extract from the Carbon Cycle. Both goods in and of themselves. If the science is right, and we don’t act, then we’re trebly compounded in our mistaken inaction and failure.
Bart R, it rained less. Annual CONUS Precipitation:
6 of the driest 25 years in the 1930s
Year/inches/rank/rank
1910 24.37 1 1
1917 24.44 2 2
1956 24.57 3 3
1963 24.77 4 4
1934 25.05 5 5
1930 25.09 6 6
1954 25.23 7 7
1988 25.25 8 8
1976 25.62 9 9
1952 25.63 10 10
1939 25.82 11 11
1925 25.94 12 12
1924 25.95 13 13
1943 26.07 14 14
1936 26.59 15 15
1901 26.63 16 16
1895 26.66 17 17
1966 26.67 18 18
1931 26.79 19 19
1933 26.80 20 20
1955 26.81 21 21
1904 26.84 22 22
1980 27.38 23 23
1899 27.43 24 24
1953 27.51 25 25
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
2000 made #26. Who could objectively argue it is dry in the 2000s compared to the 40s or 50s?
Let alone the 30s (which I meant)
In case you are wondering, 2012 Jan-Jun is 16th driest.
2011 Jan – Jun was 65th driest.
By the way Bart … 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956 are all in that list.
Band land use practices too? Are you planning on smearing the farmers of the 1950s too?
How does anything in what you’ve said contradict anything in what I’ve said?
The dust bowl was caused by 11 years of really, really low amounts of rain.
Well before CO2.
sunshinehours1 | August 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm |
Well before CO2? Huh. The Industrial Revolution started in 1750. That’s 160 years of CO2 [increase]. Not that I’m saying there’s a relationship.
The relationship in this case appears to be land use changes since the 1600’s contributing to patterns that might have compounded the ‘low amounts of rain’.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/graph/5/01-12
The 1900s and 1910s had much lower rain than the 1920s or 1930s in the USA. The Dust Bowl threw a lot of particulates into the air, and we know particulates have a profound effect. Like, in the case of the Dust Bowl, sometimes burying whole homesteads when it settled, and turning the sky black for days on end. It was clearly not just ‘low amounts of rain’.
Bart R, AGW started in ~1960. That’s the official consensus explanation. You can’t just move the goalposts like that.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/files/2010/05/natural_anthropogenic_models_narrow.png
http://c1planetsavecom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2012/01/GillettteFig1.png
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/global-warming-is-only-part-human-caused/image
…
On those graphs anthropogenic starts at the beginning of the graphs, 1900 on some and 1850 on others. If the graphs started ~1750, it would start then.
Farming practices of the times left the 1930s South Dakota landscape covered in black dust. Droughts now do not look like this. This picture was taken a few miles from my father’s 1960s ranch near Gann Valley, where a record high was set that still stands (120F).
Bart, that’s laughable. Read the IPCC reports, if you can’t read the graphs.
Edim | August 7, 2012 at 11:18 am |
You didn’t know when the Industrial Revolution started?
Hardly my fault if you don’t acquaint yourself with where the goalposts are by this late date. Or are you accusing me of changing the date of the Industrial Revolution?
Though always nice to see people brushing up on source data, and reviewing correlations on graphs.
Bart, here’s another graph from IPCC itself:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-spm-4.html
Can you read graphs? I don’t know about any official consensus attribution that states any SIGNIFICANT anthropogenic effect before ~1960.
BartR, Land use? Naw, has to be CO2
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/locations/20.09N-1.71E
Just because the regions with the most warming happen to over use land is not it. The Sahel albedo is much higher since the goats ate all the energy sucking vegetation exposing all that higher albedo sand.
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Lands_Campaign Khrushchev was born on a farm so I know he would never harm the land.
No it has to be CO2. What we could do is charge for fossil fuel use and give the money to the guys that use less because in our perfect world all that money would go just to the people that truly deserve it and they would wisely save that money for generations down the road to do something noble.
captdallas2 0.8 +0.2 or -0.4 | August 7, 2012 at 10:56 am |
And a semi-relevant reference to Unintended Consequences of state promotion of impractical enterprises that can’t stand on their own. A lesson it would be nice if the USA’s northern neighbor learned about its massive Syncrude subsidies starting in the 1960’s.
“Land use contributed to the Dust Bowl,” is a reported popular theory. I no more hold to it nor deny it than I do such impossible to define and prove hypotheticals as the MWP or the LIA. I’d say that science was never really settled.
Unlike today, when we’ve got enough data, enough observations, enough tools and proofs, evidence and knowledge, to warrant decisive action. Well, if by “today” you mean any time in the past 30 years or so.
Because in a Market that inspires the confidence of the buyers and sellers in the equity of dealings, there are fewer barriers to entry and participation, and higher net efficiency. You’ve spent too much time reading socialist agitprop, judging by your “truly deserve and wisely save” malarky.
Bart still feigning espousal of market economics, I see, to continue ‘backing up’ his pretense that fossil fuel is propped up by massive subsidies.
Tomcat | August 8, 2012 at 3:58 am |
And yet one notes distinct lack of espousal of any higher principle, ethic, model or aspiration from the pseudoneomercantilist crowd.
Bullionists like you really don’t have much interesting to say.
Whatever so-called pseudomercantalists, whoever you imagine them to be, are up to, is not an interest of mine. The pseudomarketism you advance, does though.
And bullionist ?? What have you been smoking?
This graphic will give you an idea of the temperature extremes experienced in the 1930’s. SInce this summer’s extremes have been compared with 1980 and 1988 and found to be smaller in damage caused, it should give you an idea of what happened in the 1930’s.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/weather-climate/heat-waves.html
Although farming practices may have contributed to the dustbowl period, without the horrific extent of the heat and accompanying lack of rain it would never have been given that name.
“the percentage of the United States affected by heat waves has also risen steadily since the 1970s (see Figures 2 and 3). The recent period of increasing heat is distinguished by a rise in extremely high nighttime temperatures.”
UHI … A/C units pumping warm moist heat
sunshinehours1 | August 5, 2012 at 5:19 pm |
Is this a medical condition? UHI Reflex Syndrome? If someone mentions something, regardless of how remotely connected, the urge to bring up (the discredited and statistically shown to be minor compared to GHE) UHI effect?
You may want to get that looked into.
You are funny when you are flailing (which you do a lot).
Thanks for that link Bob, I have never seen that particular graphic before. I had not realized how unusual the ‘dust bowl’ period was.
“Although farming practices may have contributed to the dustbowl period, without the horrific extent of the heat and accompanying lack of rain it would never have been given that name.”
One also needs to factor in abandonment of farms- because they were not economical.
In modern era, if you couple bad climate conditions and farmer simply ceased to farm [and providing irrigation, mainly] one has an effect which is worsened.
So in these times of poor economy, one also consider what effects a even worse economy have have on the weather.
I find this graph a bit more informative: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/graph/5/01-12
And the page lets you produce so many variations on the data.
(Caveat, the final data for some recent years not yet fully quality controlled.)
Jo Nova posted an interesting and thoughtful piece on scientific integrity today.
http://joannenova.com.au/
Echoing some stuff above on NC, if you were deciding on putting any new expensive building or infrastructure near the current coastal waterline, would you have to ignore any possible sea-level rise in its placement or design? That seems like poor decision-making to me.
Eight inches is the average rise in the 20th century, but the evidence is that the rate in the later part was 50% higher. One meter might be a prudent allowance for the new water line. It can’t cost much to place new infrastructure that much further inland.
As I stated above.
The difference in flood insurance costs for a building built at ‘expected flood’ + four feet is substantially less then lower levels. As much as $1700 per year per $100,000 in value.
So there is already a very strong financial incentive to build with a margin of 4 feet.
The North Carolina discussion is whether or nor the ‘base flood’ level should be raised to take into consideration climate change. Given the fact that strong financial incentives are already in place for a 4 foot margin reasonable people might say that the existing margins are adequate given current scientific knowledge.
Future changes in flood insurance should be a cost-benefit consideration in placement. Four feet now may be one foot later. On the other hand, there may be people willing to sell land in the future flood plain more cheaply.
Realistically, if you have a property on the waterfront, you have to be concerned for all manner of variations on flood. If you have a location where ships pass, the high tide can be 2 feet below the ground level, and a wake can come up and wash your house off its foundation. You have to evaluate each situation separately. No general safety margin will account for all of these unique local conditions.
If you’re really worried about flooding, most of the Oregon coast is at serious risk from a tsunami from a 9.0+ quake. If you have a beach place on the Oregon coast, nothing short of putting it on stilts like they do on the Texas coast will protect it from that.
I wonder what the insurance on an Oregon beach place is?
If you have a beach place on the Oregon coast, nothing short of putting it on stilts like they do on the Texas coast will protect it from that.
Like putting a house on stilts will somehow help survivability in a 9.0 Earthquake?
There is very little development along the Washington and Oregon Coast.
Coos Bay residents would disagree. The whole Coos Bay area is in mudflats that would be demolished by a serious tsunami.
P.E. | August 5, 2012 at 6:33 pm |
Coos Bay residents would disagree.The whole Coos Bay area is in mudflats that would be demolished by a serious tsunami.
The population of Coos Bay hasn’t change much since 1970.
It is also true that the NC coast is mostly sand which shifts and erodes like crazy. The Outer Banks are particularly active, and the passages through to the sound come and go regularly. In addition, the banks are frequently hit by hurricanes which speed the action.
The issue of sea level rise is just the continuation of an old argument. The waterfront is owned by people that want to build homes, hotels, and restaurants. There is another group that doesn’t want the sea side owned by anyone. They oppose dredging, beach replenishment, construction, private ownership – you name it. If they can get ordinances or laws against coastal construction, it speeds them towards their goal. Getting scientists to argue over how much sea level rise there will be in the next one hundred years suits them just fine. It offers the promise of another way (beside law suits) to stop private use of coastal resources.
All along the east coast from NC to Florida, the owners of the property know well the risks of building next to the coast. The ones I know don’t expect thier properties to survive for the next one hundred years. They just want a few years with their families at the beach.
Ah yes, the marvelous federal flood insurance program. We built a house on a lot to code, the base of the foundation was 1 ft. above the 100 year flood line. It was above the level of a major flood in 1972(Hurricane Agnes) by about 2 ft. The year we moved in we had record flood, 16 ft. on the nearest flood guage. Even so we could have gotten flood insurance for $300 a year. Then last year tropical storm Lee stalled over the watershed of the river that runs by the back yard. It was a confluence of weather conditons, the jetstream and a midwest high pressure center kept the storm from following the usual track up the Mississippi. A hurricane(formed after the tropical storm) stopped just off the coast of New Jersey blocking the storm from going east, the other usual path. It dropped 18-24 inches of rain in 36 hours. The flood guage reached 28.2 ft. They couldn’t even calculate a likelihood such as a 100 or 500 year flood rating. Now suddenly we are in the worst classification of flood insurance and it would cost somewhere around $2300 a year. That is an added cost for anyone wanting to buy the property.
So, we are in the process of contesting the property value for taxes. Due to the flood insurance cost it is worth about 20% less. The tax savings wouldn’t even pay 1/3 the insurance cost.
My whole point is that it is ludicrous to try and make predictions such as a 3 ft. rise in sea level over 100 years. That kind of prediction is some sort of average of ill-suited models(none of the global climate models make accurate local predictions) and could easily be off 100% in either direction just due to local weather at any point in that 100 years. There is no basis for long range planning.
Look up the facts on economic forecasting. When the uncertainty is high the best forecast to use is “no change”.
Hmmm. I kind of remember something happening over at wuwt.com this week but it couldn’t have been important since we all forgot about it.
Good point. Something about NOAA fiddling with the temp data, wasn’t it? Doubling the warming? I forget. There is so much fiddling going on it is hard to remember the tunes.
Yeah, it was (yet) another baseless claim.
So many, it’s hard to keep track of them all.
Just a reminder that even a three foot rise in sea level is only the depth of one standard Brrtish housebrick every eight years (4 inches per housebrick, 12 per 3 feet). It isn’t a big deal, and certainly not worth having reams of legislation about. If anybody is foolish enough to build their property that close (unless it is a beach hut)), it will rapidly be unsaleable.
Unless there are hordes of proto-bureacucrats itching to be sea-level rise imspectors.. Even watching paint dry or seeing the grass grow would seem to be a more stressful and enthralling occupation.
Imagine the inscription on the gold watch ‘Mr T Erribly Dull served the Department of Sea Level Enforcement without trace for 25 years and oversaw a rise of 9 inches. For this truly pointless work, we thank him’
http://www.whatprice.co.uk/prices/building/bricklaying-wall.html
11 meters long 1.2 high 7 pilars at 700 high 9inch wide wall £2,150 item/job Newcastle 2012-04-15
£2,150/11m ~ £195/m
But throw in the overhead of government emergency management, expropriation of private lands required, maintenance (you’ve seen what happened to Hadrian’s Wall without maintenance, right?), we can easily say the price will be at least £300/m.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090604040643AATBrkU
The mapping authority for the UK, the Ordnance Survey, records the coastline of the main island, Great Britain, as 11,072.76 miles rounding to 11,073 miles(17820kms). If the larger islands are added the coastline, as measured by the standard method at Mean High Water Mark, rises to about 19,491 miles (31,368 km).
The fractal dimension of a coastline from km to meters is approximately 2.4; that is to say, if you measure in kms, then compare it to sections measured in meters, the ratio is characteristically a bit under two and a half times, due the extra length of conforming the measurement to finer details.
31,368 km x 2.4 ~ 7,528,320 m
7,528,320 m x £300/m = £2,258,496,000/100 years for a shoddy insufficient brick wall. An actual sea wall would be up to an order of magnitude more expensive.
£22,584,960/year.. I have no idea what that works out to in terms of real US$, but “It isn’t a big deal, and certainly not worth having reams of legislation about,” just to maintain the status quo appears to be wildly irresponsible, if government did decide to act to retain the land Britons stand on. And if they decline to take such a measure — let’s face it, not like the UK can afford it, has enough skilled labor to perform the bricklaying, and lacks the know-how to run such a project — and instead lose the land?
That’s http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-PN-363.pdf which says, “In total, it is estimated that there is £120 billion worth of infrastructure and resources at risk from coastal flooding and a further £10 billion at risk from coastal erosion.”
So while it might be worth undertaking such a project in terms of the adaptation would cost less than the loss, it’s not possible to undertake such a project, and the losses will be greater than the UK can afford without substantial degradation of the — sorry to say — already shoddy standard of living there.
JFI £22 million pa is about $40M. Less than we spent on the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
The sea level around UK has been changing since before humanity arrived here. And in our 2000 years of continuous habitation we have got reasonably good at understanding and adapting to it. After all we are a small island with a relatively long coastline. And lots and lots of maritime experience.
If there is a sudden acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical norm. we will still be able to adapt to it. It will still be measured in millimetres per year. We are fortunate that, though we have a very high tidal range, tsunamis are rare. 3 feet in a century would not be a big deal.
$40 million here. $40 million there. Or up to an order of magnitude more. Pretty soon, you’re talking real money.
Compare with £120 billion plus £10 billion over 100 years, for £1.3 billion pa, or $2.4 billion pa. Remediation is one sixtieth the cost of the loss. Both are such enormous numbers as to beggar the once proud and formerly mighty UK, that used to have maritime experience.
Now, as much as I’m loathe to stick my American nose into some other country’s business, knowing as I do I’m not from there, don’t have to feel the sting of the outcomes of stupid decisions based on ignorance and idiocy, and therefore can keep myself out of other people’s policy, as a mere example of how things will work out in even more sensitive American states like Florida or the New England region, this is illustrative. Please take nothing I say about Olde England in any other sense than to inform how the New World acts.
http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget2012_complete.pdf
Total Managed Expenditure (TME) in 2012–13 is expected to be around £683 billion.
Sea level rise will add £1.3 billion pa; one 525th part. Doesn’t seem like so much. A mere 1% of the Health budget of the UK every year.
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx
“Around 3 million people are treated in the NHS in England every week.”
30,000 treatments a week is 1% of the Health service of the UK.
To you, the equivalent of 30,000 medically necessary health care treatments “..isn’t a big deal, and certainly not worth having reams of legislation about.”
Because that money has to come from somewhere in the budget.
well, it can’t come from US DOE, they’re out $500m on Solyndra…
jim | August 7, 2012 at 2:19 pm |
Those who don’t follow or understand neomercantilism’s relationship to protectionism don’t understand that Solyndra is just another symptom of the same bad thinking as contributes to the ‘cheap energy’ subsidized fossil error that plagues the Economy and distorts the Market.
Au dear….. Bart still pretending fossil fuel is subsidized ….
Tomcat | August 9, 2012 at 11:46 am |
Au dear….. Bart still pretending fossil fuel is subsidized ….
Don’t forget, I also pretend corn ethanol was subsidized, too. And that the Earth isn’t Flat, the Moon isn’t made of green cheese, and 2+2=4.
”
And in our 2000 years of continuous habitation…
”
Stonehenge was built sometime between 5,500 and 4,000 years ago.
By people who lived there.
History didn’t start on Jesus’ birthday.
The rest of your comment is equally informative.
BartR
Having been involved with the UK environment agency for 9 years who are responsible for maintaining defences against the sea and inland flooding, I am pleased to confirm that the overwhelming majority of the British coastline does not need protection, a good part of it is rising not falling and much is made of tough granite. The shale and loose sandstone cliffs of parts of the country, especially the east of England, have been eroding for centuries and will continue to do so.
Much of the British flood defence works is aimed at combating inland flooding from rivers and much of it is due to inappropriate development allowed by councils who do not realise that areas abutting roads with such names as ‘ waters edge’ or ‘ ford end’ might give a clue that development here is not wise.
With a rapidly rising population who like the idea of living next to water but won’t tolerate the idea of any water entering their homes newly built on land that has been a flood plain for centuries, the scene is set for episodes of flooding more related to inappropriate development or lack of maintenance of existing defences rather than any notable sea level rise due to climate change.
Tonyb
That’s nice to hear. Shows my ignorance of the UK has some impact on my reasoning, and all the more reason to be skeptical of it as it applies to the UK.
What percentage of the rocky coastline is steep cliff and thus less impacted by sea level rise (other than accelerated erosion)? Not really important to me.
For Florida and New England, however, the land is much, much more susceptible to SLR considerations.
And, of course, it’s not like we’re talking about a bathtub. The world and its water levels are massively complex. Very too oversimplified estimates and predictions are not really sufficient.
Barter
You are right, the complexity of the sea can not be distilleed into a few words which is why I wrote a major article on the subject carried here last year, ‘ historic variations in sea levels part 1 from the Holocene to the Romans.’ you will be pleased to hear I am currently working on part two
Tonyb
Bart R
Sorry, my iPad constantly changes your name to barter! No offence intended
Tonyb
climatereason | August 5, 2012 at 4:14 pm |
Sorry, my iPad constantly changes your name to barter! No offence intended..
As “Barter” and “BART.R” (Bayesian Additive Regression Trees in R) are two of the puns that led me to choose the name, it’d be hard for me to be critical of such a slip. :D
climatereason | August 5, 2012 at 4:13 pm |
..the complexity of the sea can not be ..
This is an important question. In Chaos Theory, in Complexity Theory, sometimes the process of simplification can distill a complex system into a general principle.
A sparrow and a cannonball are both ruled by the same Physics in flight; there is no question the path of the one can be described and prediced to great accuracy (but not perfectly) by Newton’s Laws; the sparrow? Not so much.
With a mere three centuries of Newton’s tools and brilliance to guide the entirety of human thought, we can even now _explain_ the path of the cannonball, based on the discovery of a particle that is probably the Higgs Boson. The work of CERN, and others, put together, gives us evidence for that explanation.
How much evidence, and of what quality, do you think that is? Compared with the evidence for AGW? The evidence for CO2E’s influence on global temperature, and on many other effects besides? One percent? One tenth of one percent? Less? Yet the Higgs Field explanation for gravity is fairly well tolerated by most.
But back to Complexity. When can we Simplify a Complex system into such parameterized formulae as Muller et al produced? As Hansen et al? As Mann? In general, when it works, but not when it doesn’t.
The correlation of CO2E with temperature isn’t perfect. Aerosols complicates the connection. Yet with only a handful of factors we can see a probable explanation for global temperature that actually works, and that works through manifold ridges and changes, which forms a ‘fingerprint’ in graphical terms. Experience tells that fingerprints of this sort are very powerful persuasive instruments. The Simplification done by Muller is plausible, over 95% of the time. Where there are excursions, they tend to be about 2:1 warmer rather than cooler than the CO2E, but to still have plausible explanations for the most part.
Are these excursions in the 20th dodecile Complex? Yes. Dr. Curry will be right in that 1/20th of the climate. Might there be a super-tipping-point that will wipe out the correlation of CO2E and temperature? Sure, could happen; but it’s not like that’s something to desire, because those sorts of breaks in Complex systems always involve extraordinary increases in the Disorder of the system.
Just a side remark. Higgs field does not explain gravity, only the inertial mass. In a recent interview Higgs did present the hope that additional particles would eventually be found in accordance with theories of supersymmetry. Here from a the interview:
Pekka Pirilä | August 8, 2012 at 3:49 am |
Agreed. I spoke with irrational exuberance, and exaggerated the strength of the conclusions one could draw from CERN yet, or perhaps ever.
With the Higgs Field and evidence of a particular Boson with appropriate properties, we can only explain the inertial mass of the cannonball, but not fully account for the mechanism of gravity specifically.
Still, we don’t go about trying to repeal the law of gravity because of it; North Carolina, I’m looking at you and your Pi Act.
It costs the government 25 million pounds a year to use disposable instruments in tonsillectomies.
The total cost for altered surgical practice following th vCJD ‘epidemic’ is 2 billion pounds a year.
DocMartyn | August 5, 2012 at 7:45 pm |
Yeah.
And the expense of handwashing!
That’s huge too.
I bet that Listeria stuff isn’t even a real thing.
Latimer, for someone who lives on an island you’re remarkably ignorant about coastal erosion!
@bart r
We already have to spend money on coastal defences…we have been doing so every year for the last 1200 years at least (*). Whether each year needs to accommodate another millimetre or not doesn’t substantially alter the cost…as you point out the fixed overheads of building a sea wall are much bigger than the cost of materials. And so an extra bit here or there doesn’t matter.in the big scheme of things.
But you also point out that the expenditure is about 1/500th of our total public expenditure. You cannot have it both ways,,,either sea level rise is such a big problem that we have to go and do lots of very expensive things to ameliorate it, or it is just a small part of the expense of running the country. Hence my remark that it is not a big deal. There is little public interest in the topic, save in some very lowlying communities and cliff erosion makes for better headlines. Our capital city, London, is protected from tidal surges by a barrier built in the 1980s and after a recent review, it has been concluded that it will be sufficient for at least another 40 years (well beyond its original design expectation).
*Last week I was in Wareham whose defences were built by King Alfred in about 890, and are hardly changed today.
Sorry ..above comment somehow misplaced
Latimer Alder | August 5, 2012 at 4:44 pm |
This is clearly a case of cultural differences. In the USA, 1/500th the US federal budget is considered pretty big, and suggesting an increase of 1/500th in spending negligently caused for a century of committed liability is a pretty big deal. In socialist Europe, 1/500th the national budget is no big deal for some reason. Fascinating the cultural differences.
Of course, the UK is an archipelago with a history of sinking and loss at sea, so perhaps it’s used to losing.
America, not so much.
Perhaps the difference is that most in the UK can retain a sense of proportion. A quality seemingly lacking in some citizens of the USA.
Ingrates. Balked at paying a fair share of colonial security costs and whined about representation.
============
So Latimer, spending Federal money on costal defense in the form of the Corp of Engineers is quite different than the Coast Guard?
Defense isn’t defense?
In the US, very little of what the Army Corp of Engineers does has any military purpose. They’ve always been mostly about big civilian infrastructure projects.
@doc martyn
‘defense isn’t defense?
Correct, The word is spelt with a ‘c’. Defence.
Uppity colonials.
Absolutely, Latimer,
What’s £900,000 here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4635683.stm
or there:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-15747651
Just a storm surge in a tea cup.
@Dr T Erribly Dull
Ignorant of coastal erosion? I don’t think so. I sail pretty often off the South Coast and we have a huge variety of towering cliffs (The Needles, IoW). estuaries (Southampton Water) and mudflats (Portsmouth Harbour) together with sand and sandbanks and shingle and longshore drift all within 30 miles. So I think I see the effect of quite a few different landscape types and their interactions with the sea. As well as some of the biggest tides in the world and twice as many of them as normal.
But coastal erosion goes on whatever the sea level. Another inch here or there doesn’t really affect a 300 foot cliff that is shedding bits of itself as the roaring briny rips at its base.
I do hope you are not from the US, Steve, because I refuse to take any sealevel lessons from a nation that puts it Sealevel research centre in Boulder Colorado, over 1 mile high up in the Rockies and about as far from the sea as it is possible to get anywhere. But that’s climatology for you…keep as far away as possible from the actual stuff you are ‘studying’. Just write papers about it and pontificate from a distance…….
No, recently moved from a low lying town where surge/spring tide combos brought the sea up through the drains.
I do think though that neither our distant predecessors who built our coastal towns with sound buildings designed to last for centuries, nor Alfred contemplated rising sea levels. If Alfred’s defences against the Vikings are now doing stirling work against the ocean that is despite of sea level rise not because of Alfred’s foresight. I shall take a look next time I go for a paddle in the Piddle.
That is a good question PE! :) :) :)
Per the Oregon Insurance Advisor: “Federal flood insurance is the only available guarantee of protection for your home.”
Posters like Latimer Alder are (for some reason) very eager that these non-market government-substidized insurance rates remain very low, despite rising sea-levels.
From a rational point-of-view, and in the light of present scientific understanding, Latimer Alder is advocating an increase-without-limit in the government subsidy of a carbon energy economy.
Thus Latimer Alder is showing us yet another example of the Good-Reuveny Effect’s key role in present-day climate-change denial.
PE, what is your next question? :) :) :)
If that’s true, we agree. Offering (presumably subsidized) government flood insurance (or any other kind of insurance) is counterproductive no matter what the risk is. Taking skin out of the game is never a good idea, unless it’s based on sound actuarial principles.
@A Fan
It is always a matter of some surprise to me how badly you can read my mind.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I do not believe that I have expressed any opinion at all about either of the topics you raise.
Though I am sure that the way in which citizens of Oregon get their insurance is a matter of great interest in that state, my own well-known and much-admired polymathery has not yet allowed me time to contemplate their system and so pass an opinion. They – and you – will have to wait a little longer before I am ready to do so.
And finally, if you don’t want to deal with the issue of scientific integrity, you can always call your opponents conspiracy theorists.
Some folks deal with facts that can’t be easily reconciled by citing gods will, others will fill in the blanks with a conspiracy, others will just discard facts that don’t fit.
Breaking news – the human mind likes ‘orderliness’.
The human mind, like all mammal minds, wants (and needs) certainty. No animal will survive long if it’s too uncertain to do anything. Animals who do nothing die.
The problem is, that leads to a lot of really counterproductive behaviors when you take it out of the natural context.
Just in: Hansen updates his loaded dice ideas to the current US heat wave.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/story/2012-08-04/heat-waves-climate-change-james-hansen/56794570/1
Peilke, Jr. has an unintentionally humorous remark near the end “Just because people understand a fact that doesn’t mean people will act on it,” he said
Jim D, why does Hanson and his acolytes like you pretend the 1930s did not exist?
I think it is not a coincidence that 1910-1940 was a warming period (possibly at least half solar, half CO2). The difference is that this time it is sustained and accelerating over land if you look a BEST.
Nope.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/best-usa-tmax-fell-off-a-cliff-on-west-coast/
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/best-usa-5-years-averages-fall-off-a-cliff-continued/
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/best-usa-where-is-the-current-5-year-period-ranked-in-terms-of-tmax/
But you know … if your code warms all data after 1960 and cools data before 1960, you CAN CLAIM that the earth has warmed after 1960.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/best-minus-noaa-wow-best-has-cooled-the-pre-1960-data-and-warmed-the-post-1960-data-for-alabama/
Did you notice the last 12 months were the warmest 12 months ever in the US, or haven’t you stepped outside?
I did the calculations fro May (I’ll update for June if I have a chance).
19 of the 48 states had their warmest 12 months start in 2011.
21 of the 48 started in the 1930s.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/noaa-12-warmest-consecutive-months-continental-48-as-of-may-2012/
Considering how much adjusting NOAA has done …
Hansen’s Washington Post Op-Ed from Aug. 3rd.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here–and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html
Or maybe the link from here works
http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/pnas-lifts-embargo-early-on-hansen-et-al-extreme-weather-climate-change-study-after-he-publishes-wapo-op-ed-on-it/
To connect this to Steven Mosher’s post on deadlines, Roger Pielke Jr has taken the side of Normal Science vis a vis Post-Normal Science.
Post-Normal Science, meet Post-Normal Politics.
Politicians have begun to expropriate and apply the rules (or lack thereof) of PNS to their conduct in office. Or is it the opposite? Science applying the rules of Post-Normal Politics to itself? Or maybe it’s just Politics infecting Science.
Regardless, we are in an age of exceedingly corrupt politics and science in my view.
PNS is not coherent with any solar, lunisolar, or geophysical variables. We can move on.
“The championing of scientific integrity is a cause unto itself.”
–
“I think that this is exceptionally well said. The victim of all this is the integrity of science, which is the main issue that I have tried to champion.”
—
Blind science is bad science Dr. Curry, even if its romantic.
The word “science” now takes on a strongly negative connotation in the context of climate science, where upon discovering an unknown landscape, only a few transects were run before it was decided that looking under the rest of the stones wasn’t necessary.
Too many automatically & unquestioningly assume science is the path we need to follow. The fallacy is assuming that current awareness is sufficient to do meaningful science.
We’re actually at the stage of building adequate awareness through exploration. Looking for the keys under the lamp post where there’s light just wastes time & resources since the keys aren’t in the light.
It’s proper exploration (& cataloging) that needs championing at this stage.
If that’s not politically salable, then maybe consider finding a way to nobly subvert a corrupt funding system if you believe in exploratory integrity as well as the naive &/or deceptive hallucination of scientific integrity in the absence of clear exploratory vision.
–
How climate “science” looks right now:
An inquisitive mind asks:
Is there some reason why we haven’t looked under those stones?
Authority responds:
Yes, don’t touch them.
–
Best Regards.
‘Blind science is bad science’ ?
Biomedical and clinical scientists are not morally worse or better than scientists in other fields. However, when they screw up, they cost lives. Bitter experience has show that bias is a intrinsic part of the human condition. Scientists are human and are linked to their work via Locard’s exchange principle; we alter ourselves based on observation and alter our observation based on us.
We have evolved many techniques, as a result of trial and error, to limit our contamination of data with bias. The double- blind study, in all it’s various forms, is the gold standard of scientific investigation.
Researchers in other fields would do well to examine why, astride every courthouse, is the blindfolded Justitia.
Alright Doc…
You order up the extra Earths (for replication) and I’ll design the experiments!
[ :
By the way, I looked under some of those stones I was told not to touch (hope they don’t arrest me and send me to room 101 for this…)
==
As simple as the desynchronization I experience in my sea-kayak in between wave sets, where destructive interference breaks entrainment…
units = years
JEV cycle = Jupiter-Earth-Venus cycle = 11.06
JEV envelope ~= 125
decadal-extent annual-grain LOD power envelope = 13.44
(13.44)*(11.06) / (13.44 – 11.06) = 62.5
125 / 2 = 62.5 (resonance cycle)
JSUN envelope ~= Lunisolar Envelope ~= 180
180 / 2 = 90 (resonance cycle)
180 / 3 = 60 (nearest-harmonic beat)
(90)*(60) / (90 – 60) = 180
(90)*(62.5) / (90 – 62.5) = 204.5
(62.5)*(60) / (62.5 – 60) = 1500
A more precise calculation gives ~1470 years (Bond & Dansgaard–Oeschger Events).
Solar cycle frequency entrainment & wave sets:
The trick is in realizing that resonance fades in & out TWICE per envelope since resonance can be off by timing being EITHER too fast OR too slow.
Say there’s someone swinging on a swing and someone else pushing quite effortlessly in good timing. There are TWO (not one) ways the pusher can move to suboptimal pushing frequency: down & up – i.e. too slow, falling increasingly further behind optimal timing with each cycle – or too fast, advancing further ahead of optimal timing with each cycle.
The trick is in recognizing that the resonator receives quasi-stationary drive that varies both above & below optimal frequency over an envelope cycle, which makes the resonance period HALF the envelope period (on average).
Traditional unwindowed temporally-global frequency-hair-splitting algorithms won’t be able to detect such resonance. In sharp contrast, a paradigm based on leveraging Central Limit Theorem to tune multiparameter windows to focus on statistical properties of infinite populations of collectively constrained infinitesimal oscillators easily detects such resonance with clarity.
Example: Solar-Terrestrial-Climate Weave = http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png = cross-ENSO average solar modulation of westerlies from LOD via thermal wind relation, Central Limit Theorem, & Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum.
The 13.44 year annual weave can be similarly illustrated.
Other supplementary illustrations may be volunteered if & when time & resources permit. For example, I suspect most readers here are totally unfamiliar with the 125 year JEV envelope (calculated from NASA Horizons online ephemerides). It’s a trivial exercise to derive the quasistationary 62.5 year resonance cycle by accumulating wavelet cycle-length anomalies.
As a minimum requirement for establishing credibility to (a) comment on climate with any kind of authority and (b) criticize this material, commenters should first demonstrate competence at isolating the solar-terrestrial-climate weave, which is a fundamental component of climate, robustly observed using any one of dozens of methods.
==
update:
JEV Cycle =
http://i48.tinypic.com/2hzn2ti.png
= Jupiter-Earth-Venus Cycle
No phase bulldozer.
Just subtle frequency resonance.
==
I’ll add the 13.44 year graph when I can find time.
How seriously do I take this JEV stuff? It’s just a curiosity. Am I prepared to make a final ruling on JEV? Absolutely not.
Do I take the LOD stuff seriously. You can bet my family on it.
Paul Vaughan,
Can you comment on this a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delta_T.jpg”>LOD chart?
This LOD chart?
“The measure has been lampooned by comedians and has drawn the ire of environmentalists. It blocks the state from adopting any rate of sea level change for regulatory purposes until 2016, while authorizing more studies.”
Oh, the horror, preventing more regulation for 4 years. Oh, this so terrible, this stops everything which ultimately important.
Why it’s some kind violation of the fundamental right of bureaucrats or something.
Yeeks!
If we are to take scientists seriously, they should take their work and promises seriously. Perhaps Dr. Muller should spend less time in interviews and more time getting his code and methods fit for public consumption. Or is the whole point of this that we should bow down in fear, serf-like, to Muller because he is a physicist?
Regarding North Carolina, looking at NC-20’s web site, they represent the 20 coastal county governments who are opposed to regulations accounting for 1 meter sea-level rise by 2100. This opposition, they say, is because they disagree with the science, but it seems they benefit financially from not having to elevate their new roads, etc., so there may be other motivations to their beliefs. This is a clear case of precaution versus cost-savings.
I feel sure that if the coastal governments felt flooding was a certainty they would be doing something about it.
They appear to have been motivated only to find scientists with a more convenient view for their budget, but they don’t have any scientist who puts their name to their ideas, which is unfortunate for accountability.
So you are saying they want to kill a good number of their constituency?
I am saying they are looking irresponsible at this time, and it made the news because of that appearance.
Jim D, who will make money from the lies being told about a 1 meter sea level rise by 2100?
The two sea level trends from this site: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml show 3.15mm/yr and 4.09mm/year.
330 years and 240 years for 1 meter.
Oops. Those were South Carolina.
All 4 NC tide gauges were in the 2.xx mm/year range.
Sunshinehours1, please be aware that the CU Sea Level Lab is reporting one centimeter sea-level rise in the past year. :eek: :eek: :eek:
Recognizing on the one-hand that this rate fluctuations, and recognizing on the other hand that Arctic and Antarctic ice-melt is accelerating dramatically, multi-meter sea-level rise this century is scientifically plausible.
Conclusion North Carolina taxpayers can save a *LOT* of money by prudently hedging against the likelihood that James Hansen’s predictions are 100% correct.
Ain’t that plain common-sense, Latimer Alder? :) :) :)
I see from the graph that the 1 cm rise this year just about exactly cancels the 1 cm fall last year to keep the graph back on track as it has been for the last twenty….at about 3mm per year (1 foot per century).
Come back if and when it shows 10 cm in a decade and we’ll talk. Until then we have nothing to suggest that sea level is doing anything other than BAU.
That ocean-rise acceleration in the coming decade is precisely what Hansen predicts: first we’ll see ice-mass loss in GRACE, then ocean-warming in ARGO, then their integrated consequence as sea-level rise in JASON-2 … all of sufficient magnitude that the rise in global temperatures and sea-levels will be common-sense evident to ordinary folks.
Isn’t it lovely that you and James Hansen are destined to agree, Latimer Alder? :) :) :)
@A Fan
Like I said. Come back if and when it happens.
I long ago stopped putting my faith (and my money) in people who claimed to be able to foretell the future. Mystic Meg, Gypsy Rose Lee, The Tipster (in the Sporting Life) or Jim Hansen……………they’re all the same to me
Latimer
As always it is necessary to check the links that fan provides as they are often very selective. Just look a little way down the chart linked to and you will see a line ‘Seasonal signals retained’
Going to this will show the levels around the same as 2007, of course without understanding what it all means this is as selective as the one fan provided and without context it is as meaningless. On fans link you might enjoy reading josh Willis telling us the reason for the unexpected drop in sea levels in 2010
Tonyb
Steve Milesworthy, your reply is very thoughtful. In particular, it’s clear that many factors cause short-term fluctuations in the rate of sea-level rise … fluctuations that cherry-pickers use to (meaninglessly) “prove” any point they want.
Hansen’s strategy is different. His main physical idea is energy conservation (solid physical foundations), his main measure is energy balance (a well-chosen measure), and his main observational data are the redundant trio of mass-loss (GRACE), ocean temperature (ARGO), and sea-level (JASON-2), and his main medium-term prediction is “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade“.
These data-sets are redundant in that any two of them predict the third … this povides is an invaluable consistency-check (and a solid defense against denialist quibbles).
Thus Hansen’s overall game-plan is clear. Supposing the predicted “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade” is seen — as the science predicts — then it will be game-over for rational climate-change skepticism by 2020 or so.
As for irrational denialism, this variety of cognition is always with us, so much so that denial is a much-studied phenomenon in all branches of science.
So there’s really nothing “post-normal” about modern-day climate-change science, is there Steve Milesworthy? :) :) :)
fan, I did say a couple of days ago that the drop in the rate of sea level rise was being attributed in part to heavy on-land precipitation by GRACE observations. Random google:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/26/sea-level-rise-has-slowed-temporarily/
The rapid rise (back to the 3mm trend line) therefore seems likely to be due in part to the rivers running off the excess.
That may not be the full explanation – lets hope that in the future it will become easier and easier to attribute changes in the trend so short term accelerations and decelerations are given an appropriate level of interest.
Steve, your remarks are excellent, and this reply was intended to them … sorry for the wrong nesting! :) :) :)
Colorado Sea Level is not particularly believable. I love the excuse for the huge drop: “it rained more than usual”.
Tide Gauges show no danger to NC taxpayers even while CU is making stuff up.
NC got it right. Chicken Littles have been predicting that sea level is gonna rise … and day now … ok 20 years from now … ok, we really mean it now …
Yes and when it rises, it rained less than usual. Excuses…
The local governments know that roads built on the coastal sands of NC don’t last for 100 years. Building them to that criteria is a waste of money.
From the ReadMe file dated 10/20/11 on the BEST web site in the program download section:
### Analysis Code README ###
The files included in this code collection provide a MATLAB implementation
of the Berkeley Earth averaging process.
Core code is included as BerkeleyAverage.m under the Code/Analysis directory
and files called from there. In order to run this, the package will
need to be placed in a Matlab directory and temperatureStartup.m will
need to be edited to specify the target directory structure. In addition,
one will also need to download a Matlab format dataset such as provided by:
http://download.berkeleyearth.org/downloads/PreliminaryMatlabDataset.zip
It is also possible to use the included files to explore this dataset.
Many functions presented here are functionsal. However, not all of the code
included here will necessarily work. In some parts there may be work product
that reflects development paths that were subsequently abandoned. In other
cases there may be routines that depend on other code / data not included in
this release. The current code is intended mostly to allow people to review
the core underlying algorithms used by Berkeley Earth and is not necessarily
ready to facillitate independent research programs. This code is simply
provided as is.
During the next couple of months the Berkeley Earth group intends to move to a
more user friendly distribution platform with online SVN, dedicated installer,
and better examples and documentation.
The hope is that this future version will be more directly useful for other
research programs.
Gavin’s take on some events of the last week, including a certain event that has gone very much quiet away from it’s origin.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/let-the-games-begin/
The link on Real Climate to Rhodes work is broken.
Earth is the water planet,
All its great continents shifting
In a world awash with seas,
Crested waves rifting its shores.
Noah’s flood is with us yet,
Its opal waters inundate the land
With mirrored pools.
So if you live on a floodplain take out insurance.
You are so right. Let’s go a bit further. Since we know about floodplains (e.g.Mississippi system), how about no insurance whatsoever if you insist on continuing to populate them? Why pay for persistent folly in the face of mother Nature? (BTW, I live on the beach in FLL. The comment still applies. But I really enjoy the insurance subsidies from all those who don’t live here. Which defines the issue rather nicely and precisely.)
Classicly, it’s not been the presence of insurance that has overpopulated flood plains, it’s been dirt, specifically crikbottom dirt.
Three areas are prone to this effect, the urge to eat. River deltas, see that of the Bengla, where typhoon surges regularly drown people. River valleys, see the Yellow and most recently the Indus, where floods regularly drown people. Edges of deserts, see the Sahel, which regularly starves people as climate changes.
These are matters which can be helped, once understood properly.
========================
Because the edges are where the growth occurs.
People prosper in flood plains and coastal regions. That prosperity fuels a great deal of the economic activity of the inland areas.
Reposted because original was lost in cyberspace.
Alexander Biggs | August 5, 2012 at 7:40 pm | Reply
“A new release from Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
Posted on July 29, 2012″
The data presented to the US Senate by Christy shows a clear flattening off of the average global temperature as measured by satellites after 2000. The Berkeley group needs to explain why their new data does not show a skerrick or any sign of this flattening. Does their procedure automatically select ground measurements when they are in conflict with satellite? Do they have some other reason to ignore satellite data? If so they should tell us.
On the effect of aerosols on Climate Sensitivity
The uncertain strength (and even sign) of aerosol forcing allows the climate modelers to use aerosols as a tuning knob (aka fudge factor) in making their models produce warming more-or-less consistent with past observations. Using an assumed large aerosol cooling to cancel out the GHG warming allows the modelers to retain high climate sensitivity, and thus the fear of strong future warming if those aerosols ever dissipate.
http://bit.ly/xFCmnL
Unless the effect of aerosols is removed from climate models, the effect of CO2 on the climate will remain exaggerated.
Exaggerated Climate sensitivity => about 3 deg C for doubling of CO2
True Climate sensitivity => about 1 deg C for doubling of CO2
Sea level rise by 2100.
IPCC climate sensitivity => 3
Actual Climate Sensitivity => 1
IPCC estimate of sea level rise => 3 feet
As a result, the correct estimate of sea level rise is to divide by IPCC’s exaggeration factor of 3, which gives a sea level rise estimate of only 1 foot by 2100.
It won’t be 1 foot. Sea level is plateauing too.
Please explain for the rest of us exactly what Ms Oreskes has ‘explained’.
As far as I could tell she just wittered on about ‘tobacco strategy’ and the George C Marshall Institute. But as I haven’t smoked since about the time global warming was just an idea in John Houghton’s head, and I have never heard of the Institute, I fail to see your point.
It is a big big mistake to assume that ‘global warming’ should be seen only through the prism of parochial USA politics. The 98% of humanity who do not live in the US are pretty indifferent to the details of those petty squabbles.
LOL … Latimer Alder, it’s peculiar that you should so harshly criticize an Australian interview with a researcher whose roots are Australian! :) :) :)
Tell the truth, laddie … did you listen to that Naomi Oreskes interview?
Heck, everyone knows that denialist posting requires only an “enemy list” and a “talking points list” … which spares the effort of thinking, avoids the responsibility of engaging, eh Latimer Alder? :) :) :)
One man’s dust in the wind is another man’s crickbottom mud.
h/t Heraclitus and Hegel.
…those who would champion the political causes supported by most scientists themselves would not champion the integrity of science itself when its results do not conform to their prejudices.
Agree.
That is why the INVENTED Post Normal Science!
New paper in Nature related to future droughts and climate change: The full paper is here:
http://ht.ly/1lQcTP
And here’s a very interesting actual climate model chart from the paper. Well worth studying. Notice the frequent periods when the temperatures actually are level or even decline slightly, but the long-term trend is clear:
http://ht.ly/1lQcTP
Sorry, actual CMIP5 chart is here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/images/nclimate1633-f5.jpg
I notice another editorial by James Hansen in the Washington Post. What is interesting is the deafening silence. Does anyone take him seriously anymore?
James Who?
David,
The deafening silence means that Jim Hansen has been right all along.
The skeptics are starting to become more objective (e.g., Muller).
It is beginning to feel silly to be a denier.
A Lacis
You got climate sensitivity of 3 deg C by including aerosols.
The effect of aerosols on the long-term climate is negligible, giving you the true climate sensitivity of 1 deg C for doubling of CO2.
You don’t introduce a new variable into the climate system as its pattern has not changed since record begun 160 years ago as shown => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
Your AGW is not supported by the data.
Girma, your trendology has grown tiresome. Physics describes what nature produces. Heuristics describes the shape of a curve, nothing more. You do the latter and not the physics. Best leave that to Lacis and others that have proven that they can handle physics.
WHT
A basketball player does not need to know the physics of motion of projectiles to shoot a ball into the basket. Experience teaches him how to do it.
Similarly, I don’t need to know the physics of the earth climate system to estimate what is happening to the global mean temperature.
Experience shows the following result:
http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
Which shows no change in the global mean temperature pattern for the last 160 years.
Which means there has not been any change in the climate forcing in the last 160 years.
Why introduce aerosols starting from the 1950s into the climate models?
Girma, A basketball player applies heuristics. You lose.
”
I don’t need to know the physics of the earth climate system to estimate what is happening to the global mean temperature.
”
Without physics anyone can “estimate” anything.
Math-turbation is very popular.
You want to maintain an ignorance of thermometers, pyrgeometers, radiosondes, and satellite sensors – but nevertheless feel you are qualified to render an opinion on global temperatures…
The question is:
Why is your estimate better than pulling rabbits out of a hat?
Google News statistics:
• “James Hansen” 4030 stories (96%)
• “Anthony Watts” 165 stories (04%)
Yeah, *someone* is at-risk of not being taken seriously. :) :) :)
Perhaps the main difference is that Hansen actually *finished* his study?
Whereas folks have a feeling that it may be awhile before Anthony’s team finishes theirs, eh?
These considerations pretty solidly account for the 96%-to-4% bias in favor of news coverage of Hansen’s article, eh?
Yep, people love to read about Hansen getting arrested. Makes for another one of those “touching” stories the press loves so much.
Jim2, because your post is wrong-on-the-facts, please let me correct it.
• There is a large number of James Hansen news stories that focus upon the science, and emphasize that Hansen’s science is strong. Hansen’s protest record is generally not mentioned.
• There is a small number of Anthony Watts news stories that similarly focus upon the science, and emphasize that Watts’ science is weak. Watts’ relations with the Heartland Institute are generally not mentioned.
This is a reasonably accurate reflection of the facts, is it not Jim2? :) :) :)
Hansen is an environmental activist. That’s a reasonably accurate reflection of the facts, is it not?
“North Carolina lawmakers have temporarily banned using a science panel’s recommendation to plan for rising sea levels, after the governor decided Thursday not to veto the measure.”
Maybe they should investigate the science panel for confirmation bias. This would be a good case study for a journalist who specializes in scientific findings.
PNS is an acronym for Post-Normal Science. But it could also stand for Politicized Normal Science.
From the surfer forum:
:) :grin: :lol: :) :grin: :lol: :) :grin: :lol:
Fanny, I think you’re confused. You’re confusing the real rocket scientists with GISS.
And BTW, where’s the “dirt” in the Gulf? Show me some that’s here and now. Not a computer model that says it’s there, but real live schmutz.
OK :eek: :sad: :cry:
What is your next request
BP/Tony Haywardlittle “discord”? :sad: :sad: :cry:November 2010, Fanny? Can’t you do better than that? Here. I gots one for you.
Little “discord”, your posts show plainly that you are no Simpsons fan :cry: :cry: :cry:
The championing of scientific integrity is a cause unto itself.
Beautiful.
That is what we skeptics are doing in our spare time.
Girma, a common mistake of climate-change denialists is to conflate the championing of integrity with the championing of certainty.
The former is an key objective of every branch of science.
The latter is provided by no branch of science.
That is why, in every branch of science, denialists have historically viewed themselves (irrationally!) as seekers after certainty.
So if you think about it, the denialist quest for certainty is not any kind of rational objective, but rather provides an enabling excuse for ignorance, inaction, and isolation.
Girma, what else would you care to learn about denialist cognition? :) :) :)
A fan …
The following:
Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a longer – 10 year – period [IT IS 14 YEARS NOW!] of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you might expect from La Nina etc. Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also. Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.
From the climategate emails.
More:
I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate.
More:
Whether we have the 1000 year trend right is far less certain (& one reason why I hedge my bets on whether there were any periods in Medieval times that might have been “warm”, to the irritation of my co-authors!
Even more:
The fact is that in doing so the rules of IPCC have been softened to the point that in this way the IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results. The softened condition that the models themself have to be published does not even apply because the Japanese model for example is very different from the published one which gave results not even close to the actual outlier version (in the old dataset the CCC model was the outlier). Essentially, I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes.
The Tipsterr in The Sporting Life, Latimer, could be the most reliable. Good tipsters do thorough studies of ‘State of track, horse’s recent record, winsand distance run, time taken, weight carried, jockey’s experience, starting stall draw, not as many variables and suppositions as yer git in climate science modelling. :-)
Dingo science, Michael, as in the dingo ate my data ? I like it!!
Thread jump, tsk! The dingo comment is for pns thread, I have an erratic computer!
Must be the dingos messing with it. Dingos wreak havoc with computers.
So beleif in cospiracy theories AND endorsing free market principles is correlated with AGW skepticism. I’d like to find evidence of one person who endorses beleifs in Koch brothers conspiracies is willing to entertain or can articulate uncertainties in AGW,
You forgot the Merchant of Doubt. Big everything IS out to get them, it is a self fulfilling prophesy.
This just in from the “Conservatives Can Be Stupid Too” desk.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/06/the-push-for-lame-duck-global-warming-tax
AEI pushing to save the CAGW agenda before the 2012 election?
I can understand crony “capitalists” slitting their own throats, as long as their competitors’ throats are slit first, but AEI?
Heh, frack-o-matic. I can hear it all the way over here.
==========
Capitalists love AGW. Easy money.
I have a question for the convinced. Is this with the so-called pre-industrial atmospheric CO2?
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
If yes, how do the fluxes change after the doubling of CO2? They all must change. What are the percentages after the doubling? This must be known among the convinced, if they are so certain.
Depends how fast the doubling is
The new steady state
The new steady state would mainly be 1-2% more radiation being emitted from the surface, it being about 3C warmer. The radiation leaving the atmosphere would be pretty much the same once steady state is achieved.
whoops off by a factor of 2. 3C warmer would be about 3-4% more radiation emitted
.. but not as net value. The net radiation from the surface might actually go down as the strongest increase is probably in evaporation/latent heat transfer.
The new percentages please! Otherwise you don’t know. No handwaving.
Let me just run my personal GCM that Edim clearly thinks I have to get the changed %s….
Obviously if *I* don’t have a GCM then *No-one* has one and Edim wins this silly little game.
That’s my point lolwot. The heat transfer problem at Earth’s surface is not solved properly. Evaporation is the king there. At TOA there’s only radiation. What does it tell you?
Really you admit your train of logic was that if lolwot doesn’t own a GCM then no-one in the world owns a GCM?
GIGO lolwot. The only tool they have is GHG. GHG in, GHG out.
“GIGO lolwot.”
Can’t we leave Anthony Watts out of this?
I must add i’ve always disliked that % energy budget diagram. It’s unintuitive as hell. 6% radiated directly into space? 6% of what? It takes a while to figure out that all the %s are relative to the amount of energy coming in and leaving the atmosphere and there are lots of little gotchas like the fact the figures are net flow.
In contrast the Trenberth version with absolute amounts (http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/images/earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_1997_big.gif) makes it easy to calculate all kinds of things. Eg 40wm-2 / 390wm-2 = approximately 10% of the energy emitted from the surface goes directly into space.
6% of the incoming solar. That’s the window.
The 15% would go up due to more CO2.
The 6% would go down by a corresponding amount.
The 64% would go up by a corresponding amount.
The surface would be warmer.
Those are my cowboy hunches.
JCH, the 6% is roughly in parallel with the 23% latent and 7% conduction. If there is no spectral broadening, they would all proportionally increase with the decrease in the roughly 15% radiant impacted by additional CO2. That gives a quick and dirty 1 to 1.2 C increase in surface temperature without going through the whole DWLR rigamarole. Since the surface is 70% water at a higher temperature, 0.8 to 1 C and broadening is likely to be a negative feed back (stimulates upper level convection).
Seems I read somewhere about a water vapor thermostat thingy :)
I take the 6% to be the radiation that makes it all the way out without hitting a GHG. If that is wrong, I stand corrected. But if there are more GHG, there would be more collisions, which would up the 64% and the 15%.
JCH, the 64% would initially decrease to 63% because even with more CO2 it radiates from a colder level effectively. Later it would return to 64% as the surface and troposphere became warmer. I don’t expect the 6% to change much because the window region is not much affected even by the broadening CO2 band, but it may decrease a little meaning the other part has to exceed 64% (even more warming) to compensate.
JCH, the 6% is the estimated free space, that should increase except in the case of broadening, the 15% is what would decrease, but the 64% would stay the same or decrease depending on the 6%. Remember the total ORL 64% plus the 6% ~ 238 Wm-2 is supposed to remain the same. So you are right except for the 64% increasing.
Remember though that the atmosphere absorbs 19% of solar and water/water vapor is responsible for the majority of that absorption. With more latent, that would increases slightly. So there would be virtually no change in any of the values as whole number percentages. You need another decimal place.
capt.d., there seems to be no reason for latent heat flux to increase as a percentage of the surface solar flux. However, the equilibrium water vapor for warmer temperatures will be higher enhancing the GHG effect of CO2, which you can call a positive feedback.
The radiation directly from surface to space is absorbed a little more by the atmosphere but the higher surface temperature has the opposite influence. Thus telling which way it changes is not clear without a full calculation by MODTRAN or an equivalent tool.
Concerning the latent heat flux we know at least that with increasing temperature we will higher absolute moisture content. That changes the ratio of sensible heat convection and latent heat transfer. It raises also the total energy content of air making energy transport more effective. It’s likely that this will reduce the share of net radiative heat transfer near the surface.
JimD, “capt.d., there seems to be no reason for latent heat flux to increase as a percentage of the surface solar flux. However, the equilibrium water vapor for warmer temperatures will be higher enhancing the GHG effect of CO2, which you can call a positive feedback.”
No the latent, conductive and atmospheric window flux would increase proportionally with the increased surface temperature. As Pekka, points out, you need MODTRAN to verify broadening, but as estimates go, it is pretty good.
To determine if water vapor is actually a positive feed back you need more than just MODTRAN. As an estimate though, the 70% ocean coverage would be less likely to have significant water vapor feed back than mid and upper latitudes land surfaces or land well separated from the oceans. With water vapor increasing, likely for a global average, solar absorption in the atmosphere would increase slightly. Increased convection, wherever and whatever the cause, is a negative feed back. “Sensitivity” is non-linear.
JCH | August 7, 2012 at 3:48 pm |
“I take the 6% to be the radiation that makes it all the way out without hitting a GHG”
It’s called the infrared window. A transparent region where no GHGs in the atmosphere have absorption bands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_window
6% through it is utter bullsh!t. The flippin’ window is centered in the average emission frequency of the earth. The generally accepted range for it (it will vary by exact temperature of the emitting surface) is 15%-30% (see below).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Broadening is mentioned here several times. I don’t think there’s much broadening for the individual peaks as the pressure does not change, but there’s certainly the effect that the relative strength of the side peaks rises. This is an essential factor in maintaining the logarithmic dependence on CO2 concentration. This effect influences significantly the transparency of the atmosphere for radiation from the surface.
Again, don’t use words when you don’t know what they mean. Climate sensitivity is always represented as a nonlinear function. “Nonlinear” is a mathematical term and not a magical pixie dust of unknowability, as you seem to think.
Pekka said, “Concerning the latent heat flux we know at least that with increasing temperature we will higher absolute moisture content. That changes the ratio of sensible heat convection and latent heat transfer. It raises also the total energy content of air making energy transport more effective. It’s likely that this will reduce the share of net radiative heat transfer near the surface.” Exactly.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/EdimsEnergyBudget.png
That is really a much simpler way of looking at the situation. We increase the temperature of the atmosphere, the surface temperature will increase. BUT, where the temperature of the atmosphere is increased is an important consideration. The higher up it warms, the less surface impact it would have.
The K&T cartoon was the worst thing possible to explain the GHE. Thanks that cartoon, the loonitoons are out in force.
capt., with latent heat being only 25% of the upward IR, I expect most of the change to be in the IR percentagewise. Solar absorption by water vapor would not be much compared to its IR effect (where do you get your info from, or is it homemade?). There may be increased convection, but that is not a negative feedback. High clouds radiate less IR, but reflect more solar, so the effects largely cancel.
David Springer, ” The 6% is bullshit.” Kinda. NASA’s estimate is based on true IR directly from the surface. With water in the atmosphere, the “window” would be from some point above the true surface. Which it the main problem, what is the “surface” that should be used? The tropopause is convenient, but not a very solid frame of reference.
JimD, with the K&T cartoon, of course you would.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/EdimsEnergyBudget.png
With something that makes sense, you wouldn’t. The atmosphere has a temperature. You change the temperature of the atmosphere, you will change the temperature of the surface. It is real complicated :)
So capt., which number in K&T don’t you believe to be close to correct? Remember it is balanced at the top, bottom, and in the atmosphere, so you would need to offset any change with at least one other.
JimD, “So capt., which number in K&T don’t you believe to be close to correct? Remember it is balanced at the top, bottom, and in the atmosphere, so you would need to offset any change with at least one other.”
The 40Wm-2 IR window. That is an upper troposphere value not a surface value. Because of that he missed the ~20Wm-2 IR interacting with the atmosphere that does impact the surface. They really should have used two drawings or left the drawing out. If you use the values shown on their drawing you actually get a lower impact as Monchton, Lindzen and Kimoto all found out.
Oh, and the 0.9 +/-0.18 was just priceless :)
captdallas2 0.8 +0.2 or -0.4 | August 7, 2012 at 4:49 pm |
The clear sky window is 30%. Water vapor has no absorption bands in the IR window. Cloudy sky window is smaller. Keep in mind clouds aren’t water vapor they’re small drops of water. Water is absorpbtive in the window frequencies therefore clouds are absorptive in the window frequencies. But clouds are seldom on the surface so the surface emission of IR is indeed 30% range but on average that’s not direct to space. If clouds intercepted 100% of the window then they would bounce 50% of it back at the source making cloudy sky emission to 15% instead of clear sky 30%. The reason the range is so large is because nobody quite knows how many clouds are in the sky or how thick they are. So 15% is the lowball dense clouds all the time everywhere and 30% is no clouds ever. Pick some point in between with a dartboard. The 6% still remains a bullsh!t number in any case.
The main change would be the red arrow to the right which is more radiation from the (warmer) earth to the (more absorbing) atmosphere. The incoming and outgoing at the top would would not change much.
Please list the percentages after the doubling. This must be known. Otherwise, we don’t know the sensitivity.
The lower part of that arrow doesn’t have a percentage, but that is the one that changes along with the yellow one that says absorbed by the atmosphere. The change would be that associated with a Planck black body change of a few degrees, perhaps 4% on this scale. The original K-T diagram is much better as it has numbers for all the arrows.
No, this one is much better.
That’s easy then. These percentages don’t change. It’s only the internal transfers that change. Perhaps, as Pekka says above, the latent heat would change, but only if net rainfall increased globally, and I think the amount of that is still not certain when you look at the IPCC projections.
That’s handwaving. If nothing changes, the so-called sensitivity is zero.
Radiation absorbed by the atmosphere doesn’t change (orange, 15%)? Isn’t that the consensus GHE?
Edim, yes that absorption does change, but this particular diagram didn’t assign a number to it in the first place, same with that emitted from the ground, so how can I say how much it changes. This is why I prefer K&T which has numbers for these.
Jim D, all the percentages are shares of the incoming solar (100%). I really don’t see the problem. It’s clear as it gets. Again, if consensus science claims doubling of CO2 will warm the surface (whatever amount in K), it must be well known how the fluxes will change. If it’s not known, how can I believe it?
Seeing that 15+6=21% is the net IR flux from the ground (as they don’t separate upward and downward IR streams at the surface like K&T do), a lot of the upward flux increase due to the warmer surface would be canceled by the downward flux from the warmer atmosphere, so these numbers won’t change in a significant way. K&T would have 18% instead of 21%, so there is a debate about that 21% too, but I would go more with K&T.
I should have said ‘warmer and higher-GHG atmosphere’ obviously.
Of course you would, since it’s misleading. Upward and downward separated doesn’t matter – only the net flux counts.
I am still waiting for someone to list the percentages after the CO2 doubling. If this is unknown, then the heat transfer problem (at the surface) is not solved and the surface temperature after the doubling is unknown too. Everything else is handwaving.
And it doesn’t really matter: you can take 18% instead of 21% before doubling and you can distribute the net radiative flux (between the surface and atmosphere) into upward and downward if you like. Where’s the solution?
By distribute I mean divide.
Edim, these diagrams are derived from observations that are not global and not known enough for an accurate annual average. These numbers can be obtained exactly from model outputs with and without doubling, but you seem to be asking for one based more on observations. Because these observations don’t exist yet, you argue that there is no workable theory, correct?
Edim,
Your schematic is no good because it completely misses out the “greenhouse effect” which is basically an increase in flux between the surface and the atmosphere. In your diagram “solar” is 100%. In the Trenberth diagram you will see that surface emissions are *higher* than the Solar number – ie more than 100% (this really *really* pees off the dragon-slayers).
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/images/earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_1997_big.gif
In the Trenberth diagram you would get (for, say, a 3C warming) a rise from 390 to 406 radiation from the surface and a matching rise of 324 to 340 from atmosphere to surface. This is because both surface and atmosphere are a bit warmer.
Other numbers depend on the cloud feedbacks – eg. more clouds might reflect more solar, but might absorb more of the surface 406. But for there to be more clouds there would also be a bit more evapotranspiration for example. Exactly what feedbacks occur are therefore all interlinked, and indeed they also affect whether it is a 3C rise or a different rise.
If you absolutely don’t want hand waving, you could pick a model from the CMIP5 archive and calculate some example numbers yourself.
These are global, annual averages. Estimates. You can take different ones if you want, but it must be known how the fluxes will change after CO2 doubling (with the feedbacks or not). It doesn’t have to be accurate. Which will increase and which will decrese?
Edim,
First of all it’s obvious that rapid change in forcing changes the energy flows significantly and that one of the changes is an overall imbalance that disappears with subsequent warming. When the overall imbalance disappears also the components return close to the original values. There will certainly remain some changes in details but determining them requires a complex calculation. It’s quite possible that nothing less than a full GCM tells even the summary changes of that graph realistically as the net changes are formed true partial cancellation of opposite effects.
The most recent thread at Science of Doom contains several comments related to this issue and the answers that I got to some questions that I presented there a few days ago tell, how complex this issue really is. Climate scientists cannot include all the details in any single analysis. The large GCM’s are too crude to describe the effects directly from first principles but the analysis must proceed trough a combination of analyzing the small scale effects by other means and using the results of those analyses in creating parameterizations that are used for each cell of the GCM.
As the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity is not known accurately at all it’s not surprising that details of what’s behind this poorly known number are not known any better. It’s to be expected that the details are known less well than the totals.
Steve, it’s not mine – it’s from NASA. It doesn’t miss the GHE – the alleged GHE is a decrease in the surface radiation to space (and atmosphere) and therefore a reduction in the surface radiative cooling rate.
So the problem is not solved and doubling of CO2 (assuming it’s possible without changing climatic factors) may warm, but it also may cool, significantly or not.
The surface is cooled predominantly by evaporation/convection and the atmosphere is cooled exclusively by atmospheric radiation – the cooling effect is more likely, on the face of it. The observations suport it too – global climate shifts from warming to cooling at CO2 peaks and from cooling to warming at CO2 minimums.
What is known is doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% decrease out of the top (64->63%) initially. This can’t be sustained of course because it leads to a net accumulation of energy equivalent to 1% of the solar input, which really would warm the earth steadily with time, so what happens is that there are internal adjustments, including getting a warmer surface that increase that output back to 64% in equilibrium.
Sorry Edim, I re-read my post and it sounded like I was attacking you. What I mean is that the image you have pointed to is no good for expressing the numbers you want, because the key numbers that change are not shown properly. And in fact the way they are shown completely prevents the greenhouse effect being shown.
The NASA image is the energy budget between the earth, Sun and space – so little to do with the greenhouse effect.
When the earth is in equilibrium, the numbers will be roughly the same. The effect of the Greenhouse effect is to change the budgets between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere (mainly). However, if you doubled CO2 tomorrow, then the NASA figure would show a 2% drop shared between the 64% and 6% figures on the right. This 2% would gradually warm the surface, atmosphere and ocean till equilibrium is reached again.
What I wrote above can be said also:
If the changes in that graph would be known accurately we would also know the climate sensitivity rather accurately as that would require that also the feedbacks were known well.
My latest comment and Steve’s latest comment may seem to conflict, but they don’t really. The NASA presentation is indeed rather insensitive to many effects, but my comments on accurate knowledge of the changes in the presentation refer to the level of accuracy where the effects do show up.
Edim, you deserve your own energy budget :)
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/EdimsEnergyBudget.png
The blue box is all the energy absorbed by the atmosphere, ~218Wm-2 , the green box with 174Wm-2 is about how much the surface absorbs from the sun. What the Earth absorbs from the sun and the atmosphere is approximately the surface radiant energy, 392 to 396 Wm-2. Notice that about 20.5Wm-2 from the surface is not absorbed by the atmosphere. That is likely the true atmospheric window energy direct from the surface, not the 40Wm-2 Trenberth pulled out of his model’s arse.
What will change is the 218Wm-2 due to partial closing of the 20.5Wm-2 atmospheric window and some restriction of the 218Wm-2 to space from the atmosphere in the spectrum of CO2. If that blue box moves up 100 meters on average, you probably would not see any change in the numbers unless you add significant digits.
That is about all the information you can get out of a cartoon.
Jim D | August 6, 2012 at 6:07 pm |
“That’s easy then. These percentages don’t change. It’s only the internal transfers that change. Perhaps, as Pekka says above, the latent heat would change, but only if net rainfall increased globally, and I think the amount of that is still not certain when you look at the IPCC projections.”
Pekka “The Weasel” Pirila is seldom wholly wrong or wholly right. That’s how weasels work and why I call him that. The mix truths with half truths and exagerations, rely heavily on obfuscation and sleight of hand.
When surface temperature rises more energy leaves through all free paths. Imagine you have a barrel of water with holes in the bottom of various sizes. If you raise the level of water inside the barrel it will leak faster. Each individual hole will leak faster. The increase in leakage through each hole is proportionate to its size. In general this works with fluids under pressure, electricity in a circuit, and transmission of infrared through the atmosphere.
The complicating factor here, one I harp on constantly, is that as long as there is water available for evaporation and the latent channel is the biggest hole in the atmospheric barrel. So over the ocean when when DWLIR goes up from an increase in greenhouse gases the majority of that energy leaves through the latent hole. The thing about latent heat is it won’t register on a thermometer until it becomes sensible again. That happens when it condenses in a cloud. So in effect we get zippo increase in surface water temperature. The clouds get higher by about 150 meters for every CO2 doubling. The environmental lapse rate diminishes and water vapor has to rise higher before adiabatic cooling causes it to condense. This is pretty well known by climate boffins. It’s the explanation behind the notorious GHG “fingerprint” which is more increase in temperature as altitude increases – the tropospheric “hot spot”. Presumably our satellites, which take the average temperature of good chunk of the lower troposphere – fromt he surface to thousands of meters, should show a higher temperature anomaly than the surface measured by a thermometer just 1 meter above the surface. Surface observations are so sketchy it’s difficult to determine if that’s the case or not. Pencil whipping of the uncertainties and inhomogeneties in USHCN raw data can make it show anything you’d like because we’re dealing with hundredths of a degree per decade average temperature.
David Springer, as I mentioned to the captain, latent heat only accounts for 25% of the IR flux leaving the earth’s surface. The IR would be the biggest hole in your terms.
Conversely, where there’s no water available for evaporation, like when the surface is bone dry or frozen, the latent path is not free. In that case increasing DWLIR translates into a higher surface temperature which drives out energy faster through the remaining free paths remaining (infrared window and conduction). So instead of getting a 1C temperature increase at the cloud deck we get a 1C increase at the ground surface. More non-condensing GHGs mean the temperature has to go up on *some* radiating surface so it’s either gonna be a cloud surface or a hard surface of something that doesn’t evaporate in response. That probably makes me a luke warmer of some sort. I figure over the entire earth’s surface a CO2 doubling probabily raises the temperature about 0.3-0.5C because the oceans throw most of the DWLIR right back up into the clouds. The oceans are warmed by sunlight not infrared light. Water doesn’t heat in response to LWIR. It evaporates in response so long as the air can hold more water and it almost always can. If it saturates at the surface it’s called fog. The ocean is foggy sometimes but not all that much.
Dave,
I must return the compliment and notice that you get often something right as well.
The bucket with holes is, indeed, a rather good analog. Increasing the temperature over oceans does make the hole of latent heat transfer larger. That makes also the total flow larger for the same water level in the bucket and it will allow the water level get lower in a bucket filled continuously at the same rate. The analog of this for the temperatures and energy transfer is that the temperature difference between the skin and and the atmosphere at some fixed altitude is reduced.
What happens higher up in the troposphere is more complicated as the simple adiabatic description cannot describe quantitatively what really goes on. That’s affected by all the complex weather phenomena that take place. They are certainly pretty different from a smooth adiabatic process of zero dissipation that’s required for the simple formulas to be valid.
Dave, the electrical analogy is the way to go. The Earth energy budget can be represented as a thermal circuit with thermal resistances. This could provide us with a good deal of guidance in the solution of the Earth’s surface heat transfer problem, which is obviously not solved properly.
Jim D | August 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm |
“David Springer, as I mentioned to the captain, latent heat only accounts for 25% of the IR flux leaving the earth’s surface. The IR would be the biggest hole in your terms.”
That’s dead wrong and every introductory course covering surface heat budget so states:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-7.htm
Compare Q-lw (longwave radiation) to Q-l (latent) in this ocean heat budget. You can see by eyeballing it that over the ocean the area enclosed by the latent curve is about twice the area covered by the radiative curve. Radiative doesn’t become dominant until, like I said, the evaporative window closes above 60 degrees north and south latitude. Very little of the total energy flux takes place that high anyway.
Ocean covers 70% of the earth’s surface so this heat budget applies to 70% of the earth’s surface and applies in large part to tropical and subtropical land covered by transpiring vegetation year-round.
“More non-condensing GHGs mean the temperature has to go up on *some* radiating surface so it’s either gonna be a cloud surface or a hard surface of something that doesn’t evaporate in response. That probably makes me a luke warmer of some sort. I figure over the entire earth’s surface a CO2 doubling probabily raises the temperature about 0.3-0.5C because the oceans throw most of the DWLIR right back up into the clouds.”
Dave, how will more non-condensing GHGs affect the emissivity of the atmosphere, in your opinion? Will it radiate to space with less resistance?
David Springer, I have seen you make the argument before that GHGs cause the atmosphere above the ocean to warm without the ocean needing to warm, but that doesn’t hold up because we see the ocean warming at least as fast as the atmosphere above it, otherwise convection would have ceased because it is driven by that temperature difference.
While looking at the total radiation is useful in many ways the approach of looking at the net radiative transfer is better in many other ways.
When we consider the surface energy balance a very large fraction of IR represents energy transfer between the surface and very low levels of the atmosphere. This has a really similar role as evaporation ans also convection. The radiation as just one of the many parallel paths of energy transfer over short distances and it helps greatly to consider it at net basis.
Even the Stefan-Boltzmann law (or Planck’s law) is not very useful as the strength of the net radiative transfer is controlled more by the temperature gradients than by the absolute temperatures.
Edim | August 7, 2012 at 5:11 pm |
“Dave, the electrical analogy is the way to go. The Earth energy budget can be represented as a thermal circuit with thermal resistances. This could provide us with a good deal of guidance in the solution of the Earth’s surface heat transfer problem, which is obviously not solved properly.”
Climate boffins already do that. They’re crafty and duplicitous and have no problem applying the maxim “the ends justify the means” by cherry picking, pencil whipping, censoring, and other underhanded practices more characteristic of politics than science but they are generally not stupid people.
They talk about CO2 being a control knob. That’s a direct reference to a potentiometer. It also not simple DC either but AC with harmonics at all kinds of frequencies. And pulse width modulation too. Glacial cycle is currently about 100,000 years of ice and 15,000 years of melt. It’s pretty much a 15% duty cycle square wave. God only knows how the harmonics play out from that. PDO and AMO are probably third or fourth order harmonics. LIA and Roman warm period maybe second order harmonic. There are probably longer cycles and cycles interfering with other cycles like orbital parameters and solar magnetic field waxing and waning. The major volcanoes and asteriod strikes and nearby supernova throwing all kinds of random ripples into the system.
I rather stick with holes in a barrel of water to be quite honest. ;-)
“Compare Q-lw (longwave radiation) to Q-l (latent) in this ocean heat budget. You can see by eyeballing it that over the ocean the area enclosed by the latent curve is about twice the area covered by the radiative curve. Radiative doesn’t become dominant until, like I said, the evaporative window closes above 60 degrees north and south latitude. Very little of the total energy flux takes place that high anyway.”
Q-lw is net longwave emission, not absolute longwave emission. Ie it’s surface IR emission minus absorbed IR backradiation.
Absolute surface IR emission from the ocean surface is much greater than Q-l (latent).
By the way, your text book diagram only shows net longwave, not that emitted by the surface. This would be in excess of 450 W/m2 in the tropics (calculate Planck radiation for 300 K) which rather dwarfs the latent heat loss.
The analogs may help understanding and they may bring new ideas but they should not be overcharged. Analogs cannot be used to derive new results, they must be derived by studying the real system. Analogs can be considered valid only as far as they have been compared with the real system and found to agree.
Pekka, I prefer to keep these streams separate as they depend on different things. The upward stream depends on surface temperature, while the downward one depends on the atmospheric profile, GHGs and cloud cover and varies quite differently. Taking the net conflates independent mechanisms.
Jim D | August 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm |
“David Springer, as I mentioned to the captain, latent heat only accounts for 25% of the IR flux leaving the earth’s surface. The IR would be the biggest hole in your terms.”
I’m being charitable and assuming you meant to say that latent heat accounts for 25% of total energy flux. Latent and IR are two different flux mechanisms. But it’s still wrong by a longshot. Latent flux is twice IR flux over the tropical and subtropical oceans and that’s where most of the incoming and outgoing flux happens.
Holes in a barrel of water is good as well. Heat transfer has several extremely important analogies in other kinds of physical behavior, of which the electrical circuit analogy is only one.
Jim,
I understand that point but then you must pay very much attention on what happens at lowest altitudes, how much of the downwelling radiation comes from the lowest meters and tens of meters and how large the temperature gradients are in this range.
The temperature gradients are in turn determined by the “holes in Dave’s bucket”. That connects the net radiative transfer to other net energy transfers at and near surface. These must me considered together to avoid misjudgments.
Here’s a good diagram here depicting the importance of backradiation. Without that 324wm-2 IR absorbed by the surface (including the oceans) there would be a massive shortfall and the oceans would cool.
Conversely then backradiation must be warming the oceans and an increase in backradiation would warm it further.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-6.htm
lolwot wants his backradiation back!
David Springer, yes latent heat is 25% the size of the IR flux from the surface. There is also a downward IR flux that is comparable with the solar flux and increases when you add GHGs. IR is how the water loses most of its energy in response to these downward forcings. This is even more obvious for land at night.
Pekka, I think we’re going to differ. I consider the downward IR like solar as part of the forcing (inflow to the bucket). The response ‘holes’ include upward IR, latent, and sensible heat fluxes, plus downward heat transfer to the deeper ocean. The responses are the parts the ocean controls while the forcings are given.
absorption spectrum of liquid water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_absorption_spectrum.png
JimD, “Pekka, I think we’re going to differ. I consider the downward IR like solar as part of the forcing (inflow to the bucket). The response ‘holes’ include upward IR, latent, and sensible heat fluxes, plus downward heat transfer to the deeper ocean. The responses are the parts the ocean controls while the forcings are given.”
JimD, I think you need a bigger bucket :)
What happens at the surface consists of a huge number of micro level events. In calculating balance they can be grouped in almost infinite number of ways, most totally useless but pretty many useful for some purpose. As long as they agree when used in calculations they are equally correct. One may be better for one purpose than another and some people understand some ways better. None of that is a reason to dismiss other ways that agree on the level of real physics.
Pekka, I am not saying it is easy to know the exact fluxes for a specific instance, but relative sizes in a global annual mean are well known, and that doubling CO2 won’t change these relative amounts would be quite certain too, which is what this discussion is about.
lolwot, K&T 1996?
JimD,
There are several ways of looking at the energy balance. Since you prefer radiant,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/anotherperspective.png
You will note that the blue atmosphere block has 296K potential temperature. Energy is required to maintain the potential energy of the atmosphere. Based on the NASA data, 218Wm-2 of that potential energy is felt at the average surface. The 218Wm-2 can represent a radiant layer temperature of 249K degrees or you could use the equivalent potential temperature. This has a slight advantage because the 218 potential versus the 218 cooling tend to indicate that a maximum entropy model might be useful.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~hakim/tropo_sh/tropo_sh.html
That is a chart of the potential temperatures of the southern hemisphere tropopause. As you can see, the tropopause is not a very stable reference.
A better way might be to use the Moist Static Energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moist_static_energy
Both though have the disadvantages of having to either consider a pressure or moisture envelope since the atmosphere is kind of chaotic. Something that some people seem to like to avoid.
There is more than one way to skin a catfish and sometimes you have to try several to find out which is the best.
“They all must change.”
Not necessarily. 100% of the solar energy in, and 100% out (eventually.) That equation will ultimately balance, although there are some delays (i.e., the oceans.)
The essential question is, How much energy leaves as a function of reflected/re-radiated energy, and how much as a function of blackbody radiation?
The ultimate safety valve to balance ingoing and outgoing radiation is the Stefan–Boltzmann law: radiation varies directly with temperature to the 4th power.
It’s natural to focus on what is happening at the bottom of the atmosphere, but it’s easier to understand what is going on if you focus on the top. Energy in must balance energy out, or you end up with an impossible amount of energy, just as even a slight acceleration in a vacuum, maintained over a long period of time, results in a very high velocity.
GHGs, changes in albedo, etc., reduce the amount of energy reflected or re-radiated out to space. The Stefan–Boltzmann law is like a safety valve that ensures that energy imbalance doesn’t end up in the final tally. But the only way to increase the blackbody radiation is to increase the temperature. Hence the extra energy trapped by AGW heats the climate until, and only until, the extra heat creates an additional quantity of blackbody radiation that bring the outgoing and incoming radiation into balance.
It’s analogous to the concept of terminal velocity, where you fall faster and faster until the increase in air resistance matches the pull of gravity, with an opposite sign. The trapped energy (like gravity) warms the planet, until that warming (like velocity) increases blackbody radiation (air resistance) and new reach an energy equilibrium (or terminal velocity).
I agree, not necessarily. But please liste the percentages after the doubling (including feedbacks).
Well Robert, what about all the biotic potential energy gradients that are held at disequilibrium steady states?
Wander why we have so much oxygen in the atmosphere? What about all that hydrocarbon buried underground? You think the composition of the atmosphere and the oceans is a matter of luck?
What color, and what albedo, did the land have before the evolution of water splitting bacteria? The clue is that tars and sulfides would have been at redox equilibrium with the atmosphere. About the same time the oceans were full of protons and dissolved transition metals. The worlds waters would have absorbed ever solar photon in the first mm. Just about every rock formation and ore body is the result of life.
Some small fraction of the energy input is stored as carbonates, hydrocarbons and in the oxidation of newly emergent vulcanic (reduced) species.
Amazing.
Pekka, we know that the oceans were acidic 2 billion years ago.
Every water molecule has two protons. The positive ions are not free protons either and their protons not a significant addition to the other protons.
Every water molecule has two protons!
A water molecule is a neutral species, it has no protons.
There is an equilibrium between water and hydroxide and a proton.
The oceans were acidic as the Earth is chlorine and sulphur rich. In the early atmosphere H2S gets zapped uv and makes H2, which goes off into space. The sulfur gets oxidized and makes sulfinic and sulphuric acid. The acids etched the rocks and liberated the metals, releasing more H2, which also made its way to space.
Over geological time spans, the ability of sulphide to take two aquatic protons and generate an extraterrestrial H2 molecule changed the over all pH.
You fail physics forever.
In the interests of fairness, this is a howler too. You’re off by a factor of five.
“Every water molecule has two protons!
A water molecule is a neutral species, it has no protons.”
Madness. neither are right.
H20. H has one proton. 2H = 2 proton.
O has 8 proton. So water molecule has 10 proton.
But this somewhat irrelevant. Maybe electrons might have
some bearing. So also 10. And because the protons and
electrons equal in number one called something like a
“neutral species”. It’s neural in terms charge [10 of each + and minus charge].
But water is normally not as simple as H2O.
Your comments will be more useful if you limit yourself to words you know the meaning of.
While it is of course a truism that not all those who wander are lost, I prefer not to.
1. No.
2. Do you have a point in there somewhere? Besides that one should not mix a freshman biology course with a lot of pot?
In all fairness, Robert, I don’t see the protons bound in the O zipping around the volume of water to any great extent. There are only two protons on a water molecule that can participate in hydrogen bonding. And studies show those protons can propagate quit speedily.
Yes Robert but the surface that heats up in response isn’t necessarily at the surface/atmosphere interface. Presumably you’ve heard of the CO2 warming “fingerprint” which is greater warming at altitude than at the surface. This because the response from the ocean surface to increased downwelling infrared from increased CO2 is to evaporate more water which carries the energy insensibly upward until it condenses into a cloud when it then becomes sensible heat. The result of this is that the cloud layer of the atmosphere shows a greater increase in sensible temperature than the layer of air closest to the ocean.
If some mechanism other than CO2 were at work, such as an increase in incoming shortwave energy from the sun, then the surface would show the larger increase in temperature rather than the cloud layer.
This is not controversial among climate boffins and I am not contesting it either. The only people who contest this are those that don’t understand how the surface responds differently to changes in shortwave input vs. changes in longwave input.
Dave,
The additional evaporation is due to higher surface temperature.
What the forcing is that makes the surface warmer is not relevant for the argument. DLW is not any different in its influence in comparison with other potential forcings. It’s not directly linked to evaporation but only trough a change in temperature.
It’s true that the surface temperature is not as sensitive to the strength of forcing as it is in arid land areas because the evaporation leads to reduction in the temperature gradients near surface and also higher up (i.e. the lapse rate is reduced), but without warmer surface there would not be more evaporation.
Nature Editorial on Scientific misconduct.
http://www.nature.com/news/the-time-is-right-to-confront-misconduct-1.11085
And in the real world of heat transfer:
Here the point is that nowadays engineers routinely accomplish what many climate-change skeptics dogmatically assert cannot be accomplished: predict the heat-transfer characteristics of multiscale turbulent systems.
And in other breaking news: Neven predicts massive Arctic ice-loss this week. In response, Intrade odds of record-low ice extent for 2012 yesterday jumped from 30% to 50%.
Yeah, it looks like James Hansen’s prediction of “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade” is coming true. Which is good news for science. And good news for rational skeptics. Sobering-but-necessary news for CEOs and policitians.
Bad news only for denialists, eh? :sad: :cry: :cry:
Fanny. That simulation is for a fluid layer bounding on a solid. Different problem from the atmosphere, where the transport is radiative and convective.
Do you ever even read this stuff you post?
No, he obviously doesn’t. He throws out the title of something he hasn’t read where the title might seem to support the point he wants to make. He has not read the work and presumes that you will not read it either.
That tactic is called “The Literature Bluff” after the poker bluff. It’s rather common.
Yeah, it looks like James Hansen’s prediction of “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade” is coming true.
Is that a joke?
Current sea level rise => http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Since when is “decleration” mean “accleration”?
Who is the denier?
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-262
So it rains a whole bunch over land, and sea level drops. Then it flows back to the sea. What is your point? Do you think we’re gonna keep it on land by getting the second strongest La Nina since WW1 every year?
Recently you posted a segment from a climategate email in which the author was contemplating truncating a graph so the bad news at the end would not be seen by the audience. He was contemplating doing that for you, a person who is completely fooled by short-term trends. You made him do it.
Excuse me for interjecting some facts into your dissertation.
La Nina means big time drought where I live. Wish it meant water for land but not here.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/la-nina/
It’s not La Nina rains, which is an oxymoron, putting more water on land that accounts for shrinkage in sea level. It’s thermal contraction of the cooler water.
Yes, Texas, the center of the earth.
Why don’t you then tell me exactly how the cooler water surface during a La Nina produces more rainfall?
JCH, which previous La Nina’s have shown up in the tide gauge records?
None.
Why has only one La Nina ever shown up in the satellite record?
Because it wasn’t a La Nina. That was just a stupid excuse fro something they couldn’t explain.
So evidence is a silly excuse? You’re lost.
raincan fall on the oceans and it can fall on land
JCH, has there ever been a similar drop caused by “more rainfall” that is documented anywhere?
Or is this some magic one time occurrence.
Once I took my family to Australia. We stayed a day at a place called Toowoomba. I remember it because there was a poster on a telephone pole for a country music festival. The poster mentioned a Texas band. Texas music reaches Toowoomba. I wonder if the Texas La Nina drought reached it.
Girma, my own over-under is an acceleration of sea-level rise to 5-6 mm/year by year 2012, for for the fundamental science-and-engineering reasons that Hansen predicts.
The surprising fact that sea-level has risen one centimeter in the past twelve months is perhaps the beginning of Hansen’s predicted surge (although we all know that some fluctuations in this rate are natural).
Girma, you are correct that no-one looking at the past 20 years of sea-level data would predict such a surge. Which is why the event of such a surge … if it happens … will make Hansen look like a scientific genius, eh? :) :grin: :lol:
Given the events that Neven is reporting in the Arctic, and the accelerating ice-mass loss that GRACE is seeing in the Arctic and Antarctic, it seems (to me) that James Hansen’s chances of scientific validation are looking excellent! :) :) :)
You got the polarity wrong on that recent sea level change, John Sidles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Mean_Sea_Level.svg
Dave Springer, it is suggested that you consult the most recent 12-month data record of CU Sea Level Research Group 2012_rel3 (which is CU’s most up-to-date data).
Remember, Dave Springer, Wikipedia often is out of date! ) ) )
Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice weblog also is terrific this week! ) ) )
Dave Springer, it is a pleasure to slake your thirst for knowledge! Well done Dave Springer! :lol: :lol: :lol:
rel3 = fabricated adjustment #3?
Sunshinehours. please pick the explanation that is most natural:
• CU Release 3 includes two months more satellite data than release 2
• CU Release 3 is a fabrication of the Illuminati climate-change conspiracy.
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Yet another literature bluff from John Sidles. I love it! I’m calling it.
His literature which he claims supports a 1 centimeter rise in 2012:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2012_rel3/sl_ns_global.txt
Now the actual entries for 2012 (in millimeters):
2012.0174 50.074
2012.0446 51.242
2012.0717 56.084
2012.0989 54.702
2012.1260 53.676
2012.1532 49.891
2012.1803 45.511
2012.2075 50.761
2012.2346 56.283
2012.2618 54.432
2012.2889 52.382
2012.3161 51.102
The beginning measurement is 50.074 millimeters above baseline.
The most recent measurement is 51.102 millimeters above baseline.
Perhaps John Sidles does not know the difference between millimeters and centimeters? According to his cited literature sea level increased by 1 millimeter from the beginning of the year to the most recent measurement.
Thanks for playing, John. It’s been real.
“adaptation in action” JC
Really? If Ms. Curry follows her own link, she might see that this makes the agri-economy massively government–dependent; and that her fellow Americans will pay out 10 billion dollars. If she reads her own link, it might even register that smaller and/or newer (younger) farms are at risk of going under and that there is no such protection for other kinds of farmers or for import-dependent countries and the millions impacted.
That is an interesting system of ‘adaptation’ that she prefers over, say, mitigation with adaptation for economic growth.
Since food prices will be significantly higher, it is an excellent illustration of how it is adaptation for those who have the cash to ‘adapt’. Of course, that was already well-understood.
Those who wish to further promote these consequences and this kind of government-dependence, can go right ahead. We can see what happens. It will be historically interesting, I suppose, to weigh this kind of ‘adaptation’ against what else was/is possible.
Breaking News Climate-change denialists increasingly are abandoning the denial of science, for the simple reason, that the factual evidence of climate-change no longer is rationally deniable.
Therefore denialists increasingly are turning to nutty economic ideologies! :) :) :)
Gosh, isn’t The Oil Drum — not Climate Etc. — the appropriate venue for denialist economic ideologies? :) :) :)
Fanny. TOD is run by Kevin Drum, who moved over to Mother Jones. That’s your tribe.
Little “discord”, your posts are faithfully illustrative of Characteristics of Demagoguery: Polarization / Motivism / Personalizing / Stereotyping / Bad Science
Thank you, little “discord”, for consistently providing near-perfect examples of denialist cognition! :) :) :)
Fan’s score card
1. Polarization: Fan +1. This is defined as
“Polarization
This is one of the two most important qualities of demagoguery. To polarize is to divide a diverse range of things into two poles. Thus, a demagogue breaks everything into two camps: the one s/he represents (what people call the in-group), and evil (the out-group). ”
Fan routinely divides the debate into an “in crowd” and the “denialists”
which we all recognize is rhetoric designed to demonize the other side.
What get’s lost in this are those people in the middle, called lukewarmers, and people of good faith on all sides who don’t see
the world in his black and white manner. In his world, his enemies
are merchants of doubt, funded by bad big industry. Of course, his black and white thinking results from being in a state of panic,
or what Jones referred to as a “bunker mentality.”
2 In group/out group thinking. Well, those of us in the middle see this
on both sides. Perhaps I should quote some climategate mails…
3. Slipperiness on key terms: Example? Denialist
“Demagogues rely heavily on certain terms that are conventionally accepted and not very clearly defined. Because they’re used so often, and so rhetorically powerful, these terms can seem clear to an audience as long as the audience doesn’t stop to think exactly what the rhetor mean.”
4 Demonizing, Dehumanizing, and/or Scapegoating the Out-Group, Especially on Racial, Ethnic, or Religious Bases
Luckily fan doesnt do much of this, except the scapegoating.
5. Simple Solutions
Lets see. 350.org. can you say simple solution? I knew you could
6 Motivism
Motivism is the assertion that people don’t really have reasons for what they do, but they are motivated by something else—a lust for power, for instance. Rarely demagogues assert that everyone has base motives (including themselves); more often they assert that the out-group has base motives, while they are motivated by something admirable or at least complicated.
Those of us in the middle see one side calling the other side denialist and merchants of doubt, mentally defective, while the other side calls the Fan’s side socialist, etc.
Neither side wants to admit to being in a PNS situation where values and motives ( stakes) are in conlfict
7 Entitlement, Double-Standard, Rejection of the Notion of Reciprocally Binding Rules or Principles
This would bring up an entire discussion of climategate.
WOW FAN, thanks for this link!
8 Martyrdom of Rhetor, Personalizing of Criticisms, Rhetor is Synecdochic of Larger Group.
Fan, look up Synecdochic ( rhetoric was my favorite subject to teach) understand that this is what you consistently do. Both sides use this trope.
9 Apocalyptic, Eschatalogical Metanarrative (Holy War, Jihad)
Yup, the planet is doomed. And how do people portray themselves?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/caped_climate_crusader1.jpg
wow,, just wow.. very interesting for both sides.
Of course, I’ve said much of this before..
Steven –
In this scorecard you focus on the players. I would suggest focusing on the game.
These attributes exist in all of use, to varying degrees. “Lukewarmers” are certainly not immune by virtue of their position within the climate debate constellation – but they employ similar methodology of a slightly different flavor: The reason being the underlying causality – motivated reasoning that afflicts us all. “Lukewarmers” have an identity to protect just like anyone else.
It stands to reason that on average, the outcome of this game will be a tie unless people stop personalizing the problems and focus on the game. I heard an interesting expression the other day: every time you point your finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
Steven Mosher, your post raises many good points, and in particular, examples of demagogic rhetoric are readily found on both sides of the climate-change debate.
What is striking (to me) is the extent to which James Hansen’s recent works have taken scrupulous care to avoid demagogic rhetoric.
This is particularly evident in the broad range of co-authors in his most recent work Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to Protect Young People and Nature
For their exemplary, gracious, and scrupulous renunciation of demagogic rhetorical methods, this Climate Etc appreciation and thanks is extended to James Hansen and his colleagues! :) :) :)
Steven Mosher, take note! :) :) :)
A fan of *MORE* discourse | August 7, 2012 at 12:43 pm | Reply
“Little “discord”, your posts are faithfully illustrative of ”
Yours are illustrative of a swish with delusions of significance.
JC Delete: speculation about the identity of anonymous posters is in violation of blog rules
Google Fanny’s real name, and look at his web page. It’s a hoot. He has a favorite word. The word is “quantum”. Probably drives a VW Quantum with vanity plates that say “quantum”.
What’s his real name?
I might have thought it was strange that a picture of Elton John shows up in the following Google Image Search. But it makes perfect sense now.
https://www.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4LENN_enUS461US461&q=john%20sidles&tbm=isch
So he’s giving the “death cars” shtick a rest for a while? Just wait.
Davy illustrates why it is unwise to do without a handle when interacting with cowardly thugs like him. Denialist trolls are interested in getting personal information so they can troll and harass. Pathetic and boring, but also potentially dangerous, given their proclivity for threats and violence.
Davy? You take up Josh on his bet yet? Or are you still too much of a coward?
fan,
“What is striking (to me) is the extent to which James Hansen’s recent works have taken scrupulous care to avoid demagogic rhetoric.”
really? surely you Jest!
Do you get the allusion to Jesters?
http://climateaudit.org/2007/08/20/computer-programming-and-the-destruction-of-creation/
Shall we go through hansens writing and look at the rhetoric, look at all the tropes. I like rhetoric.
Hansens Scorecard. All 2012 sources
1. Polarization: +1
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120127_CowardsPart1.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
2 In group/out group thinking. +1
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120127_CowardsPart1.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
3. Slipperiness on key terms: Example? Denialist +1
4 Demonizing, Dehumanizing, and/or Scapegoating the Out-Group, Especially on Racial, Ethnic, or Religious Bases +1
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120127_CowardsPart1.pdf
5. Simple Solutions +1 350.org. Its just a number!
a simple honest solution
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
6 Motivism +1
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
8 Martyrdom of Rhetor, Personalizing of Criticisms, Rhetor is Synecdochic of Larger Group.
He’s got this one LARGE, note the photos of him in hand cuffs.
Being “silenced” by Bush.
9 Apocalyptic, Eschatalogical Metanarrative (Holy War, Jihad)
Note the mushroom cloud photo in his recent work
Should I go on?
Thanks for the link to the score sheet for demagogery.
motivism
corporate greed?
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100112_PeopleVersusCap.pdf
Shall I go on?
“Denialist” is not a slippery term. It has a very clear and well-understood meaning. Cf., for example, “warmist.” Not clear at all. -1.
Also -1 for 350.org. A simple goal is not the same thing as a simple solution. I will consider partial credit if you can show him arguing that getting to 350ppm is simple or easy.
-1 for this one, and an additional -1 because the pdf does not support your asssertions at all.
Given that three of your accusations have proven to be bogus, I’m going to toss out your allegations against Hansen until you can make a more substantial and specific case.
Steven Mosher, we have to wonder, whether you have read the links that you provided?
For this reason: James Hansen’s essay “Cowards in Our Democracies” criticizes not the thuggish tactics of denialism, but rather the cowardice of citizens who yield to denialist thugs.
Steven Mosher, would you prefer a democracy in which thuggish denialism dominates public discourse?
Common sense tells us that public cowardice is no service to the public discourse upon which Jeffersonian republican democracies depend utterly.
Steven Mosher, in this regard I am confident that you, and James Hansen (and even Dave Springer) agree entirely.
Isn’t that correct, Steven Mosher? :) :) :)
Yes, joshua,
You have pointed at me.
You also neglect that unlike some others I readily admit the motives at play in the game. My suggestion?
I know of one mechanism that tends to minimize the bias: release your code and data. Guess who fought that? Guess who violated the law, and only escaped via statute of limitations.
Steven –
Not you, per se. I’m simply saying that someone being a “lukewarmer” doesn’t inherently tell you anything about the degree of motivated reasoning (that manifests as propaganda, demagoguery, etc.) You seemed to be saying that structurally, lukerwarmers are inherently less biased. I don’t agree. I see “lukewarmers” and “honest brokers” banging on their agendas just like everyone else.
I agree that (perhaps within certain limits) releasing code and data are excellent checks against motivated reasoning. I commend you for holding on to that focus.
As to “who fought that, who violated the law, who escaped via statue of limitations,” sorry, bro, but that looks like mommymommyism to me. Everything that either side does takes place in the larger context; the context is the game. The players are (well, mostly) a distraction. Hatin’ on players attracts player-hatin’. So what else is new?
“Guess who violated the law, and only escaped via statute of limitations.”
The hacker who stole the e-mails from the UEA?
“Guess who fought that?”
I’m guessing only (some of) the people on the side of the argument who have code and data. Hardly a fair comparison. Who fights more against showing their boobs at Mardi Gras, men or women? Moral: you gotta have before boorish morons will harass you for it.
Martho-O-Dial Tears.
==============
If only cAGW proponents would abandon their denial of uncertainty, we’d be halfway to a rational conversation on the topic.
An odd question, Fan, do you shake your pompoms after each set of emoticons and cheer “go Team!”
The why don’t you ask the denialists who invented the fake theory of “cAGW” to work on that?
In the meantime, you could acknowledge that the scientific theory of AGW is proven, and your denial of it was a mistake.
Evidence tells us that the overwhelming majority of published studies are flawed. Evidence tells us that experts are unable to predict the future. Evidence tells us that climate scientists are notorious for rejecting any type of quality model for their work. Evidence tells us that experts regularly fall victim to their own hubris to predict gloom and doom which doesn’t come to pass. History is littered with them.
Based on the evidence of deliberate fraud found in Climategate e-mails, the evidence of flawed studies, the evidence of history, the evidence from psychology and sociology, and the acknowledged failure by climate alarmists to come up with a theory of climate that explains the past, the EVIDENCE screams that any rational person should reject the hype of Hansen, Mann and the rest of the Chicken Littles.
That is, if anyone really cares about the evidence.
Robert, with sincere respect, please let me say that the assertions of your post would have been more accurate had it omitted the phrase “cowardly thugs.”
Readers of Climate Etc. are invited to verify for themselves, by careful reading, the remarkable fact that James Hansen’s statements distributed as “Cowards in Our Democracies“ (Parts 1 and 2) do not in fact contain the word “coward” anywhere in them.
To the extent that Hansen’s statements condemn cowardice in any sense, they condemn the cowardice of scientists who permit themselves to be silenced by “trolling, harassing, pathetic, boring, threatening, and potentially dangerous” thuggish agents of denialism.
Therefore, it seems to me that Robert is factually correct to describe denialist rhetoric in general, and here on Climate Etc in particular, as characteristically “trolling, harassing, pathetic, boring, threatening, and potentially dangerous” (perhaps “thuggish” or “vicious” is sufficient?).
The term “coward”, however, should be reserved solely for those citizens who permit themselves to be silenced by the vicious tactics of denialism.
Summary Denialist thugs should not be called “cowards” because this term should be reserved to citizens who yield to them. ;) ;) ;)
Fan
This ‘thuggish’ behaviour occurs on both sides in many forums but has been especially bad here the last few days by a number of sceptics. They are intelligent people and hopefully they will review the material they have written here and realise it is inappropriate. You have my apologies at least for the poor behaviour displayed here by some that shows rational sceptics in a bad light.
tonyb
The Bish has Part II of Bernie Lewin’s portrait of the betrayal of science, Madrid, 1995.
=================
Seven ten anno
Cicada, hot potato.
Scielence! all fall down.
================
World leaders and their pet scientists are feeling the heat now.
We had a primary election here in Missouri today, amid rumors that politicians are buying votes:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/deferred-action-program-could-legalize-1-8-million-221839009.html
Apropos climate science and conspiracy theories, conventional analysis has it completely back-to-front.
Since
– climate science is funded by the state, and
– the state stands to massively benefit from a finding of alarmism
Then
far from it being or requiring a conspiracy for a finding of alarmism, it is business-as-usual for state climate science.
In fact it would be most surprising if they ‘concluded’ anything else – indeed for that to happen would really need a conspiracy; government scientists would have to secretly agree to act honestly instead of advancing the interests of their paymaster and ideological home*, the state. Which, as Climategate shows, is exactly the opposite of what is actually going on.
—
* Studies show a large majority of climate scientists have a strong totalitarian bias, as evidenced by their voting Democrat.
Agree 90%. Now apply your reasoning to the Democrat/Republican dichotomy. It is business-as-usual for state to divide and rule. In fact it would be most surprising if they did anything else – indeed for that to happen would really need a conspiracy; politicians would have to secretly agree to act honestly instead of advancing their interests…
Yes the only real conspiracy theory in town, is the Consensus notion that government climate science is basically objective and honest.
Surely if it was up to the “state” they would find the most convenient outcome, which is that nothing is happening that needs any of their money to cure. Some elected officials believe that to this day. This is why Gore called it the inconvenient truth, because global warming is going to be costly even just for adaptation, and many would rather not face those costs.
Their money? How naive! Global Warming is not costly for Gore – au contraire! He thrives on it!
Ah, the conspiracy theory. This is where it starts. Gore led the whole thing with his cronies like Hansen and all the AGW scientists looking for a windfall in their non-profit government and university wages. I see.
Not the conspiracy! BAU and COI. Some of it maybe even unconscious – he may even believe it, but he knows what’s ‘good’ for him, like Pavlov’s dogs.
So Gore is the leader of all this. I see.
No, Gore is only the ‘leader’ in the story spun by those using the tired old conspiracy strawman.
So it is a conspiracy without a leader. I see.
No leaders. Just people acting in their own interests (fame, money, power, control, feeling good about themselves…). We all do.
Yes, our Jim just needs to invent the implication of CAGW ‘leaders’, to try and prop up his wilting conspiracy strawman.
But they got together a tight scientific case as a by-product, and they probably also manufactured the hilariously weak cases against it put forth by Heartland, etc., just to make them look good.
The most convenient outcome for the state, is the one that justifies expanding itself – more taxes, more bureaucracies, ie more power and money. Hence the Convenient Lie that Gore so masterfully misrepresents.
Do you see how contrived that is? Invent global warming to expand government power. Why not invent a more obvious threat that the public would understand more easily?
What could be more simple and clear than the ‘CO2 control-knob’ to scare the public with ?
And you simply repeat the ‘conspiracy’ blunder – can you not see how contrived you are being? It would require a conspiracy (of integrity) for government (and its scientists) to NOT have a finding for CAGW.
And it wasn’t so much a question of setting out to come up with a government-enhancing idea, more a question of recognizing and boosting the CAGW idea once its politics implications were recognized.
Obviously the public aren’t sufficiently scared because the ramifications are a few decades away, and so would be the costs. This is a very inefficient ruse. Who thought it up? It must be someone young enough to benefit from such a long-term scheme.
A related strawman of Jim D’s that needs to be retired, is the idea that the CAGW story needed to have been planned, or started by one or just a few peolple.
Rather, when it emerged, it was taken up more widely by parties who saw how they could exploit the powerful scares it provides – like politicians and others with totalitarian leanings, and grant-farming scientists.
And the scares have certainly worked, if not enough from the scare-mongers pov.
And further, the fact that the costs (if CAGW turns out to be true) would only be experienced in decades to come, is irrelevant. Noone actually doesn’t care what kind of world they leave to their descendents. Even a fraud like Hansen.
Government and university scientists earn the same whether there is global warming or not, yet they decide in favor of global warming to a significant degree. The IPCC work is not even extra income for them. The basic ideas have been known long before it became political, and now observations are consistent with what was expected decades ago.
Government and (government-funded) university scientists who preach CAGW have better career prospects, since they offer more to their employer. Exactly like scientists working for tobacco companies who said smoking was safe, had better career prospects there.
That IPCC work is unpaid is beside the point. It still enhances their alarmist image.
There is an irony in these discussions. The basic issue is the politicization of climate science. The political system, that is the democratic decision system, is just as complex as the climate, if not more so. Yet while we have detailed technical discussions of climate science, the discussions of the political system are simple minded at best.
Perhaps time to launch a new theory – Catastrophic Global Political Warming
O/T Ahemm, Tony b … Olympic gold medals? No need fer condolence emails to yer sister. Sally Pearson and Anna Meares gold medal wins, Oz chicks save the day :-)
Beth
The fact you are so happy about two medals speaks volumes. What has happened to Oz sport, iyts not what we expect from one of the greatest sporting nations in earth? As for Anna-she illegally shoves and Pendleton gets disqualified. Hmmm.
Tonyb
Now Tony, don’t let yer British wins go ter yr head, we down under are doing ok, jest gearing up with silver, (fer a change.)
Tony, I’m giving yer fair warning, about Anna Meares, DON’T GO THERE!!! )
In regard to this week’s Climate Etc theme of exposing denialist thuggery, a particularly instructive survey is provided by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) historical survey Surgeons General: Defenders Of Public Health.
This case history describes the numerous occasions upon which outspoken Surgeons General have served the public well by speaking inconvenient truths … and as their reward, been attacked by “thuggish agents of denialism.”
The lesson-learned for climate-change science is simple: when today’s “thuggish agents of denialism” — we all know who they are! — demand the firing of scientists like James Hansen, that’s a good time for citizens to speak-out in appreciation of good science clearly and bravely presented.
Be It Resolved Your science is appreciated and your courage is respected, Dr. James Hansen! Thanks especially for your staunch stand against denialist thuggery!
LOL … for sure, the denialist thugs are gonna be more-and-more furious at each new scientific paper! GOOD! As Richard Feynman famously said “This is gonna be TERRIFIC!” :lol: :lol: :lol:
At WUWT we see Pat Michaels’ editorial against the PNAS paper, except from reading it he is talking about droughts which wasn’t even the subject of that paper (it was only temperature shifts not rainfall). Anyway, despite not understanding the paper or complaining about any of its actual conclusions, Michaels goes ahead and asks NASA to fire Hansen. Unbelievable what Watts puts up with over there, but Michaels has his usual cheerleaders there of course, who also haven’t noticed he was off target. The idea followed now both by Watts and Michaels over there on the PNAS paper is that if you can’t attack a paper for what it says, attack it for what you can convince your readers it had said, hoping they don’t actually study the papers themselves (which is usually a safe bet). Less than one in ten have said “wait a minute”, but the rest are like pigs to the swill.
It isn’t Pat Michaels, but rather Anthony Watts himself who relentlessly pushes for firing and pledges to “continue to do so”.
With plenty more Hansen and Hansen-style scientific articles in the pipeline, and with the magnitude of AGW accelerating relentlessly — to such an extent that ordinary citizens see AGW plainly — denialists are falling-back on thuggery as their sole option.
Fortunately thugs lose comically when citizens stand against them! :) :) :)
“with the magnitude of AGW accelerating relentlessly”
FAN refers of course to the flatlining of average global temperatures of the last 15 years or so.
Fan, yes, Michaels only asked for an ethics investigation not a firing, and then Watts added the firing stuff based on his own misunderstanding of the paper that was previously documented for us on his other thread on the PNAS paper. This tangled post by Watts also regurgitates the astronaut letter to NASA as a kind of appeal-to-authority.
Jim D, the public was scared by the cAGW convenient lie but thx to the internet, climategate, plateauing temperatures and the implications of big new carbon taxes the message now seems less convincing. Apocalypse now … tomorrow … a hundred years from today? Well, show us the definitive evidence why don’cha.
AGW is well understood and visibly occurring. The c part is going to be quite selective, and preparations would depend where you live or what you care about in terms of water, energy and food supplies, or maybe if you care about ecosystems and sustainability you have to be concerned. Maybe you don’t care, and only want your government to know how to plan for it, and that’s fine too.
“AGW is well understood and visibly occurring”
It is only “visible” to those who mistake correlation for causation, and curve fitting for understanding and measurement.
It was predicted to happen too, don’t forget.
Just as geocentric adherents ‘predicted’ the sun would keep rising.
Jim D
No. I want my “government” (i.e. the politicians) to keep completely OUT of it until the “scientists” have some conclusive empirical evidence a) that AGW could represent a real and serious threat to me and the rest of mankind (i.e. the “c part”), unless human GHG emissions are drastically curtailed , and b) that a curtailment of human GHG emissions will, indeed, change our planet’s future climate perceptibly for the better . That’s all.
So far this is the piece that is lacking.
Max
Feigning ignorance is also a policy as we saw with example of the North Carolina decision to ignore any long-term sea-level rise in planning. Is that going too far in the other direction, or do you like what they’re doing? You can imagine such ideas being applied to water, agriculture and energy planning decisions assuming a steady-state climate.
Here is a nice recap of the facts…
http://news.investors.com/article/621357/201208071855/hansen-global-warming-claim-doesnt-hold-up.htm?p=full
eveyone is aware of them except Jim D, and a few other wonks.
Watts also asked why didn’t Hansen show the 2000’s when he did, but this article realized that mistake and left it out. Progress since yesterday, I guess.
Tom, the IBD editorial you linked to is so hilariously stupid in its reasoning, and so fact-free in its content, and so imperviously denialistic in its misunderstanding of science, that no-one at IBD even dared to sign it! :) :) :)
” AGW is well understood and visibly occuring’ Jim, is jest not, no way
d – e – f – i – n – i – t – i -v – e evidence Jim. Unless the community of climatology can show us, not jest the tree rings of twelve selected trees, but d- e – f – i – n – i – t – i – v – e evidence and the code, settled science
it ain’t.
It was predicted to happen too.
Neven Sea Ice weblog shows unprecedented melting happening *TODAY*. It’s climate-change history in the making. :eek: :eek: :eek:
Advice to thuggish denialists: You’re going to need more thugs. :) :) :)
A fan of *MORE* discourse
The fact is that in doing so the rules of IPCC have been softened to the point that in this way the IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results. The softened condition that the models themself have to be published does not even apply because the Japanese model for example is very different from the published one which gave results not even close to the actual outlier version (in the old dataset the CCC model was the outlier). Essentially, I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes.
A ClimateGate Email
Girma, why are you quoting, out-of-context, from a single 12-year-old email, that was cherry-picked from among thousands?
Effective denial of *today’s* accelerating AGW reality requires stronger measures: thuggery not cherry-picking! :) :) :)
Because IPCC’s AGW is not based on the assessment of published science, but on production of results.
Fan you write “It’s climate-change history in the making. ”
We have been over this before, twice. The Antarctic shows that sea ice extent is well above the average of early satellite readings. There is no science to show that the CO2 molecules can differentiate between the north and south poles. You have produced no peer reviewed study that shows why the Arctic and Antarctic are different. The best anyone has produced is a non-peer reviewed piece on the web site skeptical science; any this had very little science, just hand waving.
Where is there a peer reviewed reference that proves that CO2 treats the Arctic and Antarctic differently?
“It’s climate-change history in the making.”
SNORE
Andrew
Hey fan,
This pathetic worm-like “blip” in Arctic sea ice is supposed to be “”unprecedented melting” and “climate-change history in the making”?
Sounds like a bit of hyperbole (aka BS) to me, fan.
Max
“It’s climate-change history in the making.”
Fan,
Please commetn more Chickenlittleisms. Each one is funnier than the next. ;)
Andrew
Global warming?
I can’t view this video in my office, manacker, but we have convincing empirical evidence that the violent death of the Sun’s precursor star five billion years (5 Gyr) ago [1-5] gave birth to Earth and the rest of the planetary system that remained in orbit around the pulsar on which the Sun reformed.
The rest of the story: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-720
1. O. K. Manuel, D. D. Sabu, Roy S. Lewis, B. Srinivasan and Edward Anders, “Strange xenon, extinct super-heavy elements, and the solar neutrino puzzle”, Science 195, 208-210 (1977)
2. Peter Toth, “Is the Sun a pulsar?” Nature 270, 159-160 (1977) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v270/n5633/abs/270159a0.html
3. R. V. Ballad, L. L. Oliver, R. G. Downing and O. K. Manuel, “Isotopes of tellurium, xenon and krypton in the Allende meteorite retain record of nucleosynthesis”, Nature 277, 615-620 (1979)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v277/n5698/abs/277615a0.html
4. P. K. Kuroda and W. A. Myers, “Iodine-129 and plutonium-244 in the early solar system”, Radiochimica Acta 77, 15-20 (1997)
http://tinyurl.com/cm85xw2
http://www.omatumr.com/Data/1994Data.htm
5. Oliver K. Manuel, Barry W. Ninham and Stig E. Friberg, “Super-fluidity in the solar interior: Implications for solar eruptions and climate,” Journal of Fusion Energy 21, 193-198 (2002).
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/d6731c1a227916888486d7ab.html
In accord with James Hansen’s long-term prediction, and in accord with Neven’s short-term prediction, Arctic Sea-Ice Extent has just now dived into record-low territory.
And the consensus says it’s headed lower. :eek: :eek: :eek:
Good on `yah, predictive science! :grin: :grin: :grin:
Denialist response Quick! More quibbles! More crackpot theories! More slogans! More thuggery! More abuse! ;) ;) ;)
What denialists forget is simply this: “Nature cannot be fooled.” Which, if you think about it, is a mighty good thing, eh? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Armed with nothing even remotely resembling an explanation, the alarmist consensus says arctic ice will continue to drop.
Mindless alarmists everywhere applaud.
Today the Arctic sea-ice volume’s “death spiral” accelerates … :sad: :sad: :sad:
Nature cannot be fooled. I agree 100%.
Oknow Mr. bill…
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-shredded-star-cry-20120803,0,2245446.story
please tell us mo.
But fools lie to pretend they speak for nature.
Nature is doing a great job of ignoring alarmist claptrap.
I wonder if nature also finds fan and the other trolls entertaining?
Or, Fan of MORE Alarmist Flames.
Maybe Fan should change his name to ‘A fan of *MORE* Unsubstantiated Claims?’
Has a certain panache to it. ;)
Andrew
Fan, you write “Denialist response ”
This denialist response is that there is no science to prove that the melt in the Arctic sea ice is caused by CO2. Once again, would you provide a peer reviewed reference that proves that CO2 molecules can distinguish between the north and south poles? This is the second time of asking.
Is it too much to ask, if you really are a science progessor at a prestigeous university, that you base your cliams on science, and not on wishful thinking, like Jim Hansen, and Harry Reid?
go team MXD</a.
There’s no proof but the evidence points to man
Sell natural variation; buy sulphate aerosols:
Further, results indicate that less than 10% of the long-term historical increase in global-mean near-surface temperatures over the last half of the 20th century could have been the result of internal climate variability. In addition they indicate that less than 25% of the total radiative forcing needed to produce the observed long-term trend in global-mean near-surface temperatures could have been provided by changes in net radiative forcing from unknown sources (either positive or negative).
“Neven’s short-term prediction”
Neven?
Never.
Andrew
fan oh fan@9.47am, was it only yesterday you and i were discoursin’, recitin’ Frost’s sweet poetry and now….? Here’s some Roethke ter make yer smile. )
‘I knew a woman lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them:
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods could speak,
Of English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus cheek to cheeK.)
…’
Excellent and beautiful poem, Beth! :) :) :)
Here’s a passage that blurs the boundary between poetry and prose:
Beth Cooper, that long view, which some folks have and others not, is one common-sense reason why some folks care about climate change and others don’t.
Nice division into an in group and an out group. +1 .. a fan of more demagogery
Steven Mosher, you will find that the “long view” community is warm and welcoming … because having kids carries us halfway to this community … having grandkids carries us the rest of the way! :) :) :)
Did you ever have to make up your mind?, Steven Mosher! ;) :grin: :lol:
Enter and be welcomed! :) :) :)
I have 3 grandchildren. I don’t want them leading a life of energy poverty due to a liberal pogrom on CO2 which is nothing more than a power-grab to nationalize private sector energy. There’s no good science behind any of it. It’s pure FUD and I won’t stand for it. The number of voters who agree with me are on the rise. Cry about it, swish boy.
fan, It is widely recognized by denizens here at Judith’s site, that climate changes. Ice ages, Inter glacial warming, including mini ice ages and medieval warming, variable regional weather in the historical record, Tony B’s Long Thaw . Global warming, on again off again . And La Nina, El Nino seesaws in a complex, coupling, nonlinear climate system. Clouds not clocks. Hey, can’t yer hear those beating wings, black swans on the horizon …
Arctic sea-ice
Good riddance. We need the open water for shipping and offshore oil rigs. I hope the alarmists are 100% correct. Sea level won’t rise an inch if all Arctic sea ice melts. I don’t see the downside. Polar bears will adjust just they always have. The earth doesn’t normally have permanent ice caps on EITHER pole. Ice ages like the Holocene are rare events in the earth’s history.
North Carolina sea level change will not be anywhere near a meter. The best estimate for sea level change per century is 24.6 centimeters. I get that from the article of Chao, Yu and Li which appeared in 11th April Science in 2008. They found that sea level rise, after correcting for water held in storage, was 2.46 millimeters per year. At the time, the rise had been linear for more than eighty years. That basically agrees with satellites which even today report about 3 millimeters per year. I think Chao Yu and Li are probably most accurate because anything that has been linear for more than eighty years is not going to change anytime soon.
One possible thing they could do in North Carolina to keep SLR well below the IPCC prediction would be to include an olympic-sized swimming pool on the food stamp cards of poor North Carolinians. Building a huge swimming pool in the backyards of NC’s poor people would impound a lot of water.
Yeah, but then you would raise the surrounding land elevation and depress NC. It would be better to put all the pools in the Wisconsin area where the water used to be stored :)
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