Why has Earth temperature stayed bounded in the same small range for ten thousand years?
Why is Earth temperature still well inside those bounds and why is Earth temperature likely to stay inside that same bound?
Earth has been in a warming cycle since the coldest days of the little ice age. Albedo was higher during the coldest days of the Little Ice Age than the albedo during the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period or the Modern Warm Period. When Earth is cold, much Northern Water is frozen. There is still a difference between winter and summer, but both have more ice than during a warm period, such as now. When the water is colder and frozen more, it does snow less and ice retreats, albedo decreases and Earth warms. When Earth is warm, much Northern Water is thawed. There is still a difference between winter and summer, but both summer and winter have less ice than during a cold period, such as during the Little Ice Age. When the water is warmer and wetter, it does snow more and ice advances, albedo increases and Earth cools. The oceans go up during the warming and down during the cooling. Days get longer during the warming and days get shorter as a result of the snowfall that causes the cooling.
Earthshine data does show that the albedo decrease has halted.
Temperature data does show that the albedo decrease has halted.
Leap Second data does show that the days have stopped getting longer.
Unadjusted sea level data does show that the oceans have stopped rising.
Days did get longer because of the rising oceans but that is over.
The data is overwhelming. We are at or near the peak of this warm period and we will soon show the start of the move back toward a Little Ice Age. Look at how much snow does fall each year after the warm ocean opens the Arctic; the more open the Arctic, the more the snow.
CO2 is still headed up, making green things grow better, but it is going alone, without its supporting cast, temperature and sea level.
Climate scientists make the Earth colder and increase albedo as a result. Climate scientists make the Earth warmer and decrease albedo as a result. They have this exactly backwards. Increasing and decreasing albedo does drive the temperature changes.
Ice and water have a set point. The temperature that ocean sea water melts and freezes is the thermostat for Earth. Warm and Open Ocean results in more than enough snow. A Cold and Frozen Ocean does result in less than enough snow. This turns the snow monster on and off
Earth does not have one stable equilibrium temperature that it can hold. Earth does have a stable temperature cycle that does go from one powerful boundary to the other powerful boundary. http://popesclimatetheory.com/
The tiny variations in temperature over the last 10,000 years make perfect sense if you believe that Arrhenius (1896) was wrong. Here is his hypothesis:
“The selective absorption of the atmosphere is……………..not exerted by the chief mass of the air, but in a high degree by aqueous vapor and carbonic acid, which are present in the air in small quantities.”
The hypothesis that the GHE (Greenhouse Effect) is caused by the “Chief Mass of the Air” fits observations much better than the Arrhenius theory. The tiny changes over the past 10,000 years may be attributed to factors such as water vapor, ocean currents, solar activity, aerosols, volcanic ash, CO2 and many more effects that are poorly understood.
I think you may be right. Ice and snow can drive a climate oscillation many decades or centuries in length. Warm and cool boundaries are established by the albedo change that accompanies phase change in water with high albedo on both sides ice on the low side and clouds on the high side with very low albedo of liquid water in the middle.
The theory of albedio changes affecting radiative thermal equilibrium temperature has merit.
So, some questions:
1. What drives the albedo changes?
2. What factors provide negative feedback to albedo changes??
Snow and ice. When Arctic sea ice decreases it causes more snowfall over northern continents. Greater snow cover raises albedo thereby less energy is absorbed by the system. Less energy entering the system is gradually reflected in lowered ocean temperature. Lower ocean temperature stops melting Arctic sea ice and it starts to grow again. More sea ice means less snow on the continents lowering albedo allowing more energy to be absorbed by the system which eventually raises ocean temperature and we are back full circle.
The slow response time of the ocean to rapidly temperature over land makes for overshoot in both directions which sustains the oscillation.
“2. What factors provide negative feedback to albedo changes?”
Ocean temperature. Mean annual temperature over land responds very quickly to albedo change from snow cover. That means more cold air flows out over the ocean but it takes a long time to cool it because of immense thermal inertia. Eventually it cools enough so Arctic sea ice starts increasing which reduces snowfall over land. Now warmer air flows off the continents warming the ocean which eventually increases snowfall again.
The most interesting part of Pope’s theory isn’t what drives the oscillation. It’s what stops the oscillation. He claims there is nothing to stop it and climate is locked in interglacial conditions forever. The reason is because usually Greenland’s ice is gone before the abrupt warming that ends the glacial epoch reaches a peak. He believes this last glacial ending was unique in that the Younger Dryas interrupted the warming because an ice dam broke early releasing buku cold fresh water into the Atlantic which temporarily halted the temperature rise and it allowed Greenland’s ice sheet to remain intact and without Greenland’s contribution to lower albedo the snowfall is limited and hence not as much overshoot.
Totally new subject, since we haven’t been given another Open Thread.
Moving Averages: two questions.
1. People love to do moving averages, I assume non-weighted (i.e. a rectangular window), but I’ve heard that this introduces distortions into the process. I’ve started doing moving averages after Hanning the values, to avoid edge-of-window effects. Is this an issue, and is Hann a good approach?
2. When I look at monthly temps, I’m really bothered by, say, a 3-year moving average, which smears all kinds of stuff together. So I’ve been experimenting with a different kind of moving average that I’m not sure there’s a name for. Perhaps a Seasonal Moving Average? That is, you (weighted) average each month with the month 12 months before, 24 months before, 12 months after, 24 months after, etc. So a particular July is representative that July and July’s from preceeding and following years.
You still get smoothing, but it also preserves seasonality which tells interesting tales. For example, you can see what years had narrow spreads of temperatures and which had wider spreads, or that warmer months peaked and leveled off sooner than cooler months.
Any merit to this thinking? Any name for the operation?
Consensus Climate Science has been running, roughshod, over Scientific Climate Science, way too long. It is way past time to kick the Consensus group aside and let them submit their papers side by side with skeptic papers and review them all by a group that is made up of people from many fields. This should be much like a review of NASA after a major accident. Decades of forecasts with no skill is way too long. They told us that the only way temperature could go is up. Now we have had seventeen years with no warming. The Emperor has no clothes on. What happens is real. What is forecast is smoke and mirrors.
Many main stream climate scientists do claim that they do have peer-review and consensus of 97% of climate scientists.
I have read the stories of boycott and intimidation of publications and editors who publish papers that disagree. I will give an example. http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/deja_vu_all_over_again/
This is an example of a dog pack frenzy and not responsible debate.
Each year that the lack of warming travesty extends, they get more desperate to get laws and rules in place to tax CO2 before the rest of the whole world knows they are on the wrong track.
Look at the Postscript from this posting. http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/01/lonnie-and-ellen-serial-non-archivers/
Postscript 2 – Ellen Mosley-Thompson has an interesting cameo appearance in the Climategate emails. She was the EOS editor who rushed through the Mann et al 2003 EOS article on Soon and Baliunas 2003. The article took about 10 days from being commissioned to being accepted. They giggled among themselves when Willie Soon inquired about the peer review process. The character assassination of this article has not been fully analysed. In one despicable email, Tom Wigley acknowledged that Soon and Baliunas might have a point that 20th century precipitation was not unusual (a theme revisited in AR5 Zero and First Draft), writing to Mann and others (2003-06-06 682.):
Mike,
Well put! By chance SB03 may have got some of these precip things right, but we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit.
Mann, Wigley and others accomplished this by misrepresenting the actual content of Soon and Baliunas. The Mann article was rushed through by Mosley-Thompson just in time to be used against Soon and Baliunas in a Senate hearing in late July 2003 – the hearing at which von Storch announced his resignation as editor of Climate Research.
The real travesty is that when the oceans are warm and the Arctic is open, more snow falls and that stops Earth from getting too hot and the consensus climate scientists don’t even suspect that this is what is happening.
What they pass off as peer-review and consensus is really better described as peer pressure and control.
The climate scientists who disagree don’t get counted because it is hard to get recognized when the consensus clique decides who is a scientist.
Science is always skeptic so consensus science is not really science.
The skeptic scientists are the real scientists.
Well, there’s good ol’ “coal death train”, “irreversible tipping point”, “meter high sea level rise”, “Venus runaway” James E, Hansen.
There’s good ol’ “the science is settled”, “7C rise by 2100” Sir Robert Watson
Oh, yeah, there’s the late “decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest” and “I don’t set very much store in looking at the direct evidence” Stephen Schneider
And we’ve got “2,500 scientists can’t be wrong”, “voodoo science and reincarnation believer”, novelist and train engineer, Rajendra Pachauri
And don’t forget writer George “Moonbat” Monbiot.
Just to name a few.
Max_CH
PS But this is a silly topic. We both know there are weirdos on both sides of this debate, so why belabor the point?
What does name calling and labelling bring of value?
Were I to point to environmental fanatics who spike trees and engage in arson, is that reason to ignore everyone with concerns about the environment?
And what exactly is crazy about Herman Pope? Is it the fact he’s prsenting a theory which sounds reasonable and plausible? Quick, bring out the labels, or as willard might say, let loose the squirrels.
What gave wings to global warming is what’s killing it. What’s news there? A bomb planted in a bus exploding in Peshawar Pakistan as it was driven through bazar is more news. That is also how a hoax dies — especially one that demonizes people who work for a living because their CO2 will flubber the climate 50 years from now.
Unfortunately Waggy you seem to get your news from a singular source. In regard to the killing of global warming, aka climate change aka climate weirding, it would be nice if the media coverage alone could make this issue go away, but alas, basic laws of physics won’t allow such wishful thinking to command reality.
Western academia knows us too well. Many of us folks appreciate being given any excuse for why we should not even try to invest ourselves in all of that work that is needed to form an intelligent opinion on any super complex issue — especially when the issue is about climate change research, which has been a huge hole in the ocean into which the federal government poured billions of dollars that have been stripped from the economy to feed the climatists that are supposed to answer any difficult questions we may have. Yes, Western academia knows all about us and formulated a simple plan: pretend there is a scientific consensus about global warming and bet on our glorification of idleness in the Disinformation Age to anoint their climate propaganda with an aura of reason.
Wow Waggy, maybe more reading and study for you and a step away from grassy knoll thinking. But I am certain, no matter what you read, you see exactly what you want to.
Your problem is that warming and climate is not dangerous and there are other descriptive words such as ‘history’ or ‘science’ that point to bodies of knowledge that previous civilizations previously used as handy tools to discern the truth from fiction hidden in the warp and woof of the sights and sounds that assail our senses. Other scientists in other disciplines are beginning to see that everything they know to be true is wrong if climatology is not a hoax so remaining silent is no longer a good option. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~George Orwell
Isn’t it the case that basic laws of physics tell us doubling CO2 concentration will result in approximately 1C of temp increase? After that you need models to get you into the rest of the stuff that’s suppossed to be so scary.
@R Gates In regard to the killing of global warming, aka climate change aka climate weirding, it would be nice if the media coverage alone could make this issue go away, but alas, basic laws of physics won’t allow such wishful thinking to command reality.
The reality is the law of physics are now stomping all over the CAGW dogmatists’ attempts to command reality, much the the dismay of gullible truebelievers like R Gates. This despite the continuing valiant efforts of the media to keep CAGW on life support.
Unfortunately Eddie, the data would not support your rhetoric. Amidst the background noise of natural variability, especially pronounced in the rather low thermal inertia of the troposphere, we see the planet’s largest non-tectonic energy reservoir, namely the ocean, continue to gain energy. All this as a direct result of the human CO2 volcano that has been erupting for several centuries now, with the eruption increasing in intensity over the past several decades. Actual physics and science versus the rhetoric such as you might find on Faux News creates some cognitive dissonance, eh?
Puttin’ on a layer of fat for the hibernation. The question is, can that heat be recruited when needed? Alas, I expect it will remain missing.
===========
Very rigorous multi-proxy approach paints a statistically sound perspective on the level of anthropgenic influence on current temperature extremes while also looking at the range of natural variabilty over six centuries.
This last line from the research abstract is, as they say, right on target:
“These and other recent extremes greatly exceed those expected from a stationary climate, but can be understood as resulting from constant space–time variability about an increased mean temperature.”
The end has nothing to do with the Journey…or, the Journey is the destination, or, the fool and wise man will both be dust one day, but how would you like to travel to the grave?
Thanks for the link. The researchers came up with a little hockey stick. No matter what anyone does on pre-instrumental temperature, the result is some kind of hockey stick. The denier/skeptics might sleep better if they just accepted the hockey sticks and moved on.
Not going to happen Max. The wagons have circled long ago and they will defend their flat Earth to the last bit of sea ice melting away in the Arctic, ever keeping the name of John Daly on their lips.
Hockey “shticks” got themselves a bad name, because of the Mann fiasco.
The flaws in the recent “super-shtick” study haven’t helped as earlier threads have shown.
The “shtick” is a hard sell, especially in view of all the many independent studies, literally from all over the world, using different paleo climate methods, which all confirm a MWP that was slightly warmer then today.
Then there is the actual physical evidence of a warmer period (Greenland farms buried in permafrost, carbon-dated tree remains recovered under receding alpine glaciers, etc.), in addition to a vast amount of historical evidence from all over the civilized world at the time (such as Tony Brown is researching).
The evidence is just too overwhelming.
This is a losing battle for those trying to frame the current warming as something totally unprecedented and hence caused by human influences.
Best idea: fuggidaboudit – and, instead, concentrate on getting a better understanding of what makes our climate behave as it does- especially regarding natural variability and forcing factors – rather than trying to sell a dubious pitch of “unusual warmth in 1300 years”.
When you talk of “circled wagons” and “flat earthers” defending their position are you referring to those few individuals out there who are still trying to sell the “shtick”?
If so, I’d agree with you that this is the way it looks (confirmed by Marcott et al.).
Max_CH, I don’t blame you MWP lovers for being peeved at Michael Mann, but why can’t you accept that the world is warmer now than it was back then. Even McIntiresome will not say Mann is wrong, and the MWP was warmer.
The hockey stick comes back at you again and again, and it’s not likely to stop. Expect researchers to find more hockey sticks in the future. It’s time for you to give serious thought to abandoning your MWP fantasy.
So Max_OK (whom I note won’t provide a real name), if we are warmer today than ever before, will you agree then that there are no traces of human activities yet to be found under retreating ice? And if so, then if there are additional traces found will you agree we aren’t warmer than ever before?
k scott denison, my real name is Max, but you have no need to know my last name, so I’m not giving it.
Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?
There are many independent studies from all over the planet using different paleo climate methods, which all confirm that the MWP was slightly warmer than today.
There is a historical record from all over the civilized world, which generally confirms this. Climate historians, like Tony Brown, are trying to extend the work done by Hubert Lamb, which also pointed to a slightly warmer MWP.
There is physical evidence, not only carbon-dated tree remains under receding alpine glaciers high above the present tree line but also medieval farm houses buried in the Greenland permafrost.
All of this evidence supports the “null hypothesis” of a MWP that was slightly warmer than today.
Attempts to falsify this “null hypothesis” (Mann, Marcott, and others.) have all failed so far.
Get used to it, Max. It’s not that hard.
(And it really doesn’t make that much difference, does it?)
Max_OK | April 13, 2013 at 6:20 pm |
k scott denison, my real name is Max, but you have no need to know my last name, so I’m not giving it.
Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?
———
(Again I note the need for Max_OK to remain anonymous. Wonder why?)
Answer: um, because it had to be warmer before the ice was laid down.
Unless, of course, you’re going to argue that it was selectively warmer back then. Yeah, right.
All of this evidence supports the “null hypothesis” of a MWP that was slightly warmer than today.
——–
Max_OK replies:
Why trust paleo-based studies that give you what you want and reject those that don’t? Why believe Greenland farm remains and tree remains uncovered by recent melting have to be from a warmer time than today?
I have never had a course in statistics, but my understanding is you need a statistically testable hypothesis to give meaning to a null hypothesis. I don’t see a statistically testable hypothesis here, so I don’t know why you are talking about a null.
Now, if we had hypothesis that were testable, it also is my understanding that I could choose your hypothesis, “the MWP is warmer than today” and the null would be “the MWP is not warmer than today.” In other words, neither of us has an exclusive on choosing the hypothesis.
No matter what anyone does, the result is some kind of hockey stick. When an algorithm is used that creates a hockey stick regardless of what data is used that should not come as a surprise.
Max_OK asked k scott denision: “Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?”
k scott denision answered: : um, because it had to be warmer before the ice was laid down.
———
No, it didn’t. You can do a simple experiment at home to see why it didn’t.
Fill an ice cube tray with water and deposit some small objects in the water. Grains of rice, BB’s, dried beans, or similar small objects wii do fine. Now, make note of the temperature in the room (write it down) and place the tray in the the freezer.
The following day, after the water in the tray has turned to ice, adjust the thermostat to make the room’s temperature the same as it was when you wrote it down the previous day. Remove the tray from the freezer and and set it on the counter. As the ice melts the small objects you placed in the tray will be uncovered.
Obviously, the ice turning to water doesn’t mean it’s warmer in the room than it was the day before. Need I say more?
Say, who woulda’ thought, in the history of weaponry,
that a hockey stick would become a weapon of mass
destruction …
$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ …ter the global economy.
“Very rigorous multi-proxy approach paints a statistically sound perspective on the level of anthropgenic influence on current temperature extremes while also looking at the range of natural variabilty over six centuries.”
durrrr. no. not very rigorous since they used bad proxies.
You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad.
Here is what the data collector wrote when she published the data
“In the 20th century the Lake Korttaja¨rvi record was strongly affected by human activities. The average varve thickness is 1.2 mm from AD 1900 to 1929, 1.9 mm from AD 1930 to 1962 and 3.5 mm from AD 1963 to 1985. There are two exceptionally thick clay-silt layers caused by man. The thick layer of AD 1930 resulted from peat ditching and forest clearance (information from a local farmer in 1999) and the thick layer of AD 1967 originated due to the rebuilding of the bridge in the vicinity of the lake’s southern corner (information from the Finnish Road Administration). Varves since AD 1963 towards the present time thicken because of the higher water content in the top of the sediment column. However, the gradually increasing varve thickness during the whole 20th century probably originates from the accelerating agricultural use of the area around the lake.”
Now. This proxy was also used by Kaufman 2009.
They were smart enough to not use the modern portion
IT GETS BETTER.. co author Tingley ALSO used the series in question in a recent paper and had the sense to cut it off at 1720
as the original data collectors stated
1. The original data collector warned that the 20th century period was contaminated. ( Tiljander)
2. Kaufman 2009. did not use the contaminated portion
3. Co Author Tingley did not use the contaminated portion in his seperate paper
4 Co Author Korhola ( on the second Tingley paper) has previously been critical is the mis handling of this data ( he’s from finland and I guess knows the original data collector)
Basically, Huybers and Tingley use the data to 1985
But Tingely and Korhola use the data to 1720 as the original data collector suggests.
Guess who else uses the contaminated portion of the data?
I notice that this study used instrument data too, and was not just a proxy study. Oddly the complaints from the blogosphere center on the modern part of proxies which surely don’t carry much weight when there are thermometers around. Since the authors provided all their data, I need to see some skeptics select the ones they like to come up with their own 600-year record rather than just complain about parts of two or three proxy lake records. I suspect they won’t because it will just show the same result.
I guess I fail to understand your criticism of the PaiCo methodology. The modern temperature proxy reconstructions, using the pair-wise multiproxy approach, very closely matches the actual measured temperatures, which only adds some validity to the approach. Going back even further, it shows the MWP to be warmer than found, for example, by Mann.
I raised the issue of BAD PROXIES in the Tingley Huybers article, an article which you found convincing.
YOU responded with doubt and suggested they might like to know.
“You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad.”
I responded by pointing out the bad proxy. IRONICALLY, Tingley
has used this proxy in two papers, the one you cite and the one I cite.
In the first, ( Tingley Huybers ) they use it to 1985. Which is WRONG
In the second Tingley ( when not publishing with Huybers) uses it to 1720, Which is Right.
NEVER in anything I wrote did I said Anything about the pairwise method.
You are Gish galloping my friend
Now. Lets test your honesty.
1. Did you or did you not write the following http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/13/open-thread-weekend-13/#comment-311444
2. did you or did you not write the following
“You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad”
3. Did I or Did I not provide you details on the Korttajarvi Lake Proxy?
You praised the paper without looking at the data.
When you look at the data you will see that my claim is correct.
Here is the clue R Gates. The planet is warming. C02 is the cause. We need to take action. GUESS WHAT? the first action we need to take is stopping bad science that uses bad data
I do however enjoy seeing good work. And on that score, Mosher has managed to pound the hell out of more than one person on these pages.
Note: I will refrain from using any terminology with ties to weapons or firearms, as that will require Bart R to mount his steed of moral superiority and toss snide remarks (along with the apparently obligatory charge of cherry picking) my way. I do wish someone would point out to Bart that the cherries he was referring to were picked by someone else. A Senator from California, I believe.
Moral superiority? Pfft. As if. Mathematical superiority. I could care less about whether you’re a saint or a sinner, if your math is just plain awful.
The mathematical case for assault rifle ban in particular and any gun control in general in the USA is debatable: Brazil has perhaps ten percent the gun ownership of the USA and far more firearms homicides as a ratio of population. Mexico has perhaps one eighth the guns per capita of the USA, and you see what an absolute basketcase it is. Perhaps 99.9% of gun owners are the right people to own guns; there’s next to no confidence except in the most extreme cases that any standard can say who is or is not the wrong person to possess such a tool, but then you wouldn’t want them driving or carrying hammers either. It does gun owners next to no measurable good to own one in perhaps 99.9% of cases, but who am I to substitute my judgement for anyone else’s about what’s good for them?
But none of that excuses either the cost born by the criminal justice system due the fad for putting tools into the hands of the gullible just so manufacturers can make a buck, or the atrocious innumeracy of claims like ‘hammers are used in more murders than assault rifles’. The firearms industry costs American taxpayers in terms of burden on the courts and police, and ought pay that burden. The moral dimension, I don’t have anything to say about. Square that with your own heart.
Which has nothing to do with the mathematical operation of finding the product of a number with itself.
WUWT has links to an article that shows that global warming over land is real. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/13/global-warming-over-land-is-real-cu-boulder-noaa-study/
This Compo et al. (2013) study is an independent method from station temperature data using just surface pressure records over the 20th century. It is an interesting method that can recreate upper and surfac e atmospheric weather states even before upper-air observations became regular, just using a GCM constrained by the surface pressure and sea-surface temperature. Their analysis can’t account for how fast some surface temperatures warmed in the 20th century, such as in the central US or Brazil, and its warming rate appears a little lower than station warming according to their maps, but still is 0.78 C since 1952, and 0.99 degrees since 1901. They admit their results are not perfect and look too conservative about warming in some specific areas. In fact their analysis shows the central US as one a few areas that is cooling since 1901, which is an issue with it, and they speculated on things such as land-cover changes or surface pressure data issues to account for the actual warming.
JimD, the big issues is the 0.78 versus the 1.18. With the long term ocean warming trend since circa 1900 being in some part due to recovery from the little ice age conditions, the difference between 0.4 C higher land based rise should be an indication of aGW amplification.
The “recovery from the LIA” was complete by 1950. What we have now is an overshoot into previously unseen temperatures in the record, and possibly in the Holocene. The study shows the way the warming accelerated in the last 50 years.
JimD, “Recovery from the LIA was complete in 1950”. That would be “unprecedented” confidence. It “may have” been completed in 1950. If it was completed in 1950, that would make AGW ~0.38 C . About half. Hmmm, maybe it did finish recovery in 1950 :)
capt. d., you seem to have trouble with the idea that two things may be happening at the same time. Maybe the pre-1950 recovery was boosted by CO2, for example?
JimD, Actually I am positive more than one thing is happening at the same time. Natural variability, that would include recovery, and Anthropogenic. The Antropogenic would amplify the natural variability. So instead of the “natural variability can produce 0.2 C of climate change that will average to zero over x number of years.” , I say Anthropogenic factors amplify natural forcing and variability and we have no friggin’ clue how many years it takes for natural variability to zero out.
Ironically while warmers here tend to denigrate blogs, over in the world of scientific communication there is a big movement arguing that commenting is superior to peer review and should replace peer review.
Blogs give readers the opportunity to correct researchers, which researchers should welcome. Blogs also give readers an opportunity to harass researchers, which no one should welcome. Do blogs have accountability?
It sounds like these are GCM dependent results not observations. If skeptics accepted GCM results we would not be here. So it sounds like what I call AGW science, which is science that assumes the AGW basis.
The basis is GCMs and whether they can reproduce current climate, including geographical and seasonal variations, and forecast global weather, as this one was designed to do.
This study is not about current climate, whatever that means. What does it mean anyway? Weather averages over the last 30 years? Decadal trends? They missed that boat for sure.
Rejection of GCMs is close to universal among skeptics because they are the speculative foundation of AGW. Surely you know this.
Rejection of GCMs has no foundation in fact. GCMs that are run for centuries can produce a climate that is accurate enough to show seasonal and geographical temperature ranges very well. Climate change signals are in fact quite small compared to the annual or global range, so they are within their operating range for climate change studies too. The GCM in this study is given the observed ocean surface temperature which removes one area of uncertainty. It is run in a mode similar to that used for daily weather forecasts that merges in observed data as it runs. I realize there is a prejudice against GCMs simply because they are used as one tool in climate-change studies, but this does not take into account how well they do with verifiable current climate, and that such GCMs are also used in weather forecasting. Isolate the GCMs from climate change and evaluate them on their own merits. I know such objectivity is hopeless, however.
The remark from David Wojick was very telling. GCMs are rejected _because_ they are the foundation of AGW (when actually they aren’t, but that’s a different story). From this logic, if they were not used for AGW studies, perhaps all the good results from GCMs would have been accepted as evidence that they work well.
Pekka, reasoning is not prejudice. CAGW is based on the GCM predictions so they have received close attention from skeptics and their problems are well documented. Calling your opponent prejudiced is not a valid argument.
I used the word ‘prejudiced’ because “skeptics” work back from results they don’t like (for political reasons, or whatever) to the science they decide not to believe, some of it very fundamental. It is not a forward progression from science to results, conclusions be where they may, which is the direction the consensus comes from.
I just answer in kind to simplistic counterfactual arguments.
Discussing the accuracy and and reliability of various methods is legitimate, but requires some understanding of the details. Dismissing outright what scientists have done for decades is nothing better than denialism.
Unfortunately, Pekka, and Jim D, the history of this particular episode looks remarkably like CO2 was settled upon as a control knob, and much of what has passed as climate science since then has been an extraordinary effort to support that idea and suppress others.
Yes, Pekka, this is what some ‘scientists have done for decades’. Truly, Pekka, you are just fabulous sometimes, especially when you get so earnest.
=============
Yes, kim, kind of like evolution, there is a lot of paleo evidence to support AGW, let alone physics facts that can’t be denied. Even you would probably agree that removing what little CO2 we have from the atmosphere would lead to an Ice Age, so if you think that, don’t deny the control knob.
You wanna touch that knob very gingerly with insulated gloves, because it is wired for a shock. If Anthro effect has pulled us out of the LIA, then where would we be without it? We would be way colder. If Man has not pulled us out of the LIA, then Nature can still aspire, for it shows its power, to something other than the depths of the Holocene and imminent descent out of it.
I haven’t answered the attribution question, and I suspect that climate sensitivity to CO2 has been badly estimated, accurate and precise measuring devices being in short supply. So Jim D, what you think I think, or what you think I might agree to, is founded in two vast pools of ignorance, yours and mine. Go fish.
================
kim, it is a good litmus test question for skeptics to ask themselves. What do you think an earth without CO2 in the atmosphere would look like? Would it be more like now, or more like an Ice Age or even snowball earth? This question is sufficiently removed policy to be just a scientific opinion, making it an effective evaluation tool for a person’s scientific reasoning.
Heh, with none, there would be little life as we know it. The more CO2, the greener the earth, and the better off all plants and animals.
So much for plants, who asked them anyway. Your other question is the attribution question, so far poorly answered.
What warming effect can the small aliquot of CO2 that man can potentially release have? Don’t know yet, neither I nor anyone, but I do know that warmer is better than cooler, warmer sustaining more total life and more diversity of life, as seen in your latest paleontology record. I can suspect, however, that man’s aliquot will stop the next ice age if sensitivity is high, and delay it if is low. We could ask for more, but wouldn’t likely get it.
=========================
kim, so you are not saying it will be cold, just that all the plants will die. I see your reasoning here, and what you don’t want to talk about too is quite telling, almost a political dodge to keep your friends here happy.
You provide an example so extreme it is easy to dispense with.
You show no clue that you understood my reasoning about attribution and the temperature effect of Anthro CO2. Yet, you think you know what I am dodging. Please, I stand here open armed; throw the ball.
================
kim, why would removal of a 0.04% trace gas be so “extreme” in your words. Please tell the other “skeptics” who may not believe this point that you make as though it is obvious. Would turning it into 0.08% also be extreme?
Does this really need explaining? Well, I’ll condescend. Taking all CO2 is extreme because it is impossible and because all plants would die. Doubling a bare subsistence level, as it is now, is not nearly so extreme or absurd and would help the plants, derivatively the animals.
As to the temperature effect, and I note you dodge my reasoning yet again, we don’t know, do we? But, ponder the paradox, deliberate over the dilemma.
============
kim, it is a scientific question, a hypothetical. You state that you don’t know the temperature effect of removing all the CO2 or even whether it will cool much. If you don’t have a clue about this extreme case, why are you even trying to debate the science from a position of having no clue. It would seem to be a weak foundation you are standing on.
kim, as to your question on how much effect Man can have on CO2, let’s say we have evidence that some time in the distant past volcanoes raised CO2 fourfold and it warmed 10 degrees, what would you think of that? Coincidence? A cause without and effect and an effect without a cause? Then the CO2 gradually decreased with geological sequestration and it cooled those 10 degrees leading eventually to ice caps and Ice Ages. More coincidence? Nature has already done the experiment for you. You just have to see the results.
“Pekka, reasoning is not prejudice. CAGW is based on the GCM predictions so they have received close attention from skeptics and their problems are well documented. ”
Huh. CAGW is based on estimates of sensitivity that are greater than
3C.
You could disappear all the models today and there would still be concerns about CAGW from evidence that is better than models.
Nobody who believes in AGW believes in it because of models. Sadly, some folks in my camp have tried to make models into evidence of something. But they are largely irrelevant. Everything we need to know we know from first principles.
Most climate scientists admit they do not really know what would happen to global temperature if the ~400 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere were removed.
Based on theoretical physics scientists believe that without our atmosphere and its components the surface temperature of Earth would be colder by 33C.
But there is not much unison among climate scientists on how much of this theoretical warming is a result of the greenhouse effect from the so-called “naturally occurring” (i.e. pre-industrial) 280 ppmv CO2.
The major impact comes from water (vapor, liquid droplets, ice crystals).
Estimates for the total CO2 impact range from 4.6°C to 7.2°C, with a mean value of 6.2°C (Lindzen estimates 5.2°C, Hansen 6.7°C).
So there appears to be general agreement that CO2 has played a role in the net warming at the surface resulting from our atmosphere, but it isn’t the major role.
6°C lower temperature than today would push us into a new Ice Age, but we’d be dead from starvation long before that.
“CAGW is based on estimates of sensitivity that are greater than
3C.
Nobody who believes in AGW believes in it because of models. Sadly, some folks in my camp have tried to make models into evidence of something. But they are largely irrelevant. Everything we need to know we know from first principles.”
How do you get to an estimate of sensitivity to CO2 without the irrelevant climate models?
Agree with kim that you are blithering with your cherry-picked PETM example of rapid warming resulting from massive volcanic emission of CO2 and other gases.
It is estimated that up to 6,800 Gt of carbon were released into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane (CH4).
If half was CO2, this equals 12,500 Gt CO2
The other half would be 4,500 Gt CH4, with almost 20 times the initial greenhouse effect of CO2 (or 90,000 Gt CO2eq), diminishing as CH4 is slowly converted to CO2.
So we have 1600 ppmv CO2 plus 1600 ppmv methane, eventually resulting in 3200 ppmv CO2.
At an assumed starting concentration of ~400 ppmv this was a nine-fold increase with an added boost of the much more effective GH gas, CH4, which together resulted in a 10°C rise in temperature (assuming there were no other factors which contributed).
Kind of a weak “experiment”, Jim, which has nothing whatsoever to do with our current situation.
kim and manacker, I gave an example of the type of evidence that could convince most people: volcanoes, doubling and redoubling CO2, warming ten degrees, steamy forests covering mid-latitudes, no ice, etc. Nature did this experiment. The results are in. Look for them in paleoclimatology. There are some nice summaries around. Interesting subject to explore. Don’t hide from it.
manacker mentions 33 K. Good, yes this difference between no GHGs and current GHGs is explainable with radiative physics and the energy balance, and this leads to confidence that they know what doubling does because it uses the same physics that explains the 33 K that we have already. The CO2 and H2O combine to give the 33 K, along with albedo from ice and clouds that combines for the 30% albedo.
By the way, I wasn’t talking about the PETM. I was talking about the Eocene as a whole, and most of the last 50 million years in general. Yes, methane release is a danger too, but the long-term effects were CO2.
“How do you get to an estimate of sensitivity to CO2 without the irrelevant climate models?”
1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800’s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,
In fact Hansen argues that the best approach is paleo, followed by observational and models? models are a distant 3rd in Hansen’s view since they have incomplete physics.
You could just read Ar4 to see how models are not used to justify the range of values ( 1.5 to 6 ) models fall squarely in the middle of this ( kinda by construction) so they do not and cannot limit the uncertainty of the metric.
“kim | April 13, 2013 at 9:27 pm |
How daring of you. ‘kinda by construction’. Ooh, what you know and what I don’t know”
its the aerosol knob. by setting the aersol knob you also implicitly produce the sensitivity. plot how they set the aersol knob versus ECS and you basically have a straight line. Models show sensitivity from 2.1 to 4.4.. all basically “set” by how they choose to set the aerosol knob. more or less.
Manacker the Chemical Engineer can not figure out that a loss of non-condensing GHG gases such as co2 and ch4 will allow the h2o to reach a steady-state where it will exist mainly in a solid phase.
For shame on whoever taught Manacker the Chemical Engineer about thermodynamics and phase equilibria.
“1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800′s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,”
How do you “calculate” from any of these without a model? Reading Real Climate’s articles on estimating sensitivity, the proper method is to take into account all the other forcings. In fact, each article I read referenced the climate models used to come up with the estimate.
Not to mention, paleo-climate is irrelevant to CAGW as well. I know because Gavin Schmidt said so.
“1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800′s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,”
How do you “calculate” from any of these without a model? Reading Real Climate’s articles on estimating sensitivity, the proper method is to take into account all the other forcings. In fact, each article I read referenced the climate models used to come up with the estimate.
Not to mention, paleo-climate is irrelevant to CAGW as well. I know because Gavin Schmidt said so.”
####################
How do you calculate these without a GCM? easy. you dont use a GCM.
1. First principles. no GCM required, just the laws of physics..
so if laws of physics are “models” ( one could argue ) then
you need them. But My point was about GCMs.
2. Arrehius had no GCM. calculated it just fine.
3 Paleo. No GCM.. and gavin is not talking about the same thing.
Paleo gets you to 3C, and if we double C02 we get to 3C.
Thats CAGW according to you.
4. Observational data. No GCM in sight. Estimates of forcings dont
require GCMs. you get it from basic physics.
So. to repeat you do not need GCMs to get sensitivity. Period.
Has been for a couple hundred years as we have finally recovered from a period of harsher weather called the Little Ice Age.
And, although it seems to have stopped most recently and during the period from ~1945 to ~1975 (plus an earlier period until ~1910), there was significant warming over two statistically indistinguishable periods during the early and late 20thC.
And we’ve even got the BEST study to confirm it all.
Max, I for one do not believe these surface statistical models are credible, on mathematical grounds, not to mention possible heat contamination as Watts’s research has amply demonstrated.. If there has been warming it may well be due to the LIA cycle, but we do not know that it has the specific form you seem to accept and the community is vainly trying to explain. The satellite measurements indicate otherwise, contradicting the surface models. Thus the debate is far from over. But I have said this many times before.
by request, here is a Weekend Open Thread on Thatcher, who did much to kick off the CO2 global warming saga but later on became a sceptic and regretted her actions. My favorite quote (supposedly attributed to her) from Thatcher is about consensus:
“consensus is an absence of leadership”
So true.
Along the same lines, it is such a shame that the left treats her service so poorly by making an artificial push in song popularity, a false consensus if you will, to make “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” #1 in Britain so that the BBC will have to play it on BBC Radio1.
“Max, I for one do not believe these surface statistical models are credible, on mathematical grounds, not to mention possible heat contamination as Watts’s research has amply demonstrated.”
1. you are wrong. The surface models are credible on statistical grounds. Tested and Confirmed. Its called k fold cross validation.
2. Anthony has never demonstrated any heat contamination. His sole publication found no effect on Tave. Period. No effect.
Given the uncertainty a small effect ( < 0.1C /dec) may be real but not easily distinguished in the record. Its scietifically important but not policy relevant
“It sounds like these are GCM dependent results not observations. If skeptics accepted GCM results we would not be here. So it sounds like what I call AGW science, which is science that assumes the AGW basis.”
Lets see when Anthony published a paper that relied on the same model ( NCEP) you were SILENT.
your selective skepticism is showing and its not pretty. No one should trust a single word you write
moshe, such absolutes dismay, but it doesn’t mean I don’t trust a single word you write. Actually, I trust most of them; I’ve figured out what you don’t dare write.
==========
Herman Alexander Pope said on April 13, 2013 at 12:00 pm
“They told us that the only way temperature could go is up. Now we have had seventeen years with no warming.”
______
You may be misled by 1998 average global temperature being a freakishly warm year. Look what happens to the trend if we leave the 1998 average out, just using the UAH averages for 1979-97 and 1999-2013:
You see rising average global temperatures both in 1979-97 and 1999-2013, with the later having a sharper rise. “Just a minute,” you may protest, why leave the 1998 average out? Shouldn’t it count just as much as any other year?
I left the 1998 average out because it’s an aberration, and aberrations can be misleading. Suppose the averages in the linked graph represented deposits to your savings account, and you added an unusually large amount to that account in 1998 because you benefitted from an unexpected financial windfall. Would it be fair to say that you had not saved any better after 1998?
I see nothing special about 2000, other than it’s a nice round number.
You should be aware average global temperature was flat before and then continued to rise. Think about the rises and treads on an infinitely long stairway. Are you being like the blind man ascending those stairs who thinks each tread is the landing?
Max_CH, I did look at your woodfortrees graph. You used the wrong series. I use the sattelite-based UAH series, which is more high-tech and better than the series you used. The UAH shows global temperature rising from 2000 to 2013. Of course, it contradicts what you want, but that’s the way the cookie crunmbles.
But getting back to Max_CH’s attempt to pull a fast one, I should point out he discarded two-years of data (1999 and 2000), while I threw out only one(1998). I’ll let him throw out 1999 to make us even. Rather than use all four temperature series individually, I’ll use the handy woodfortrees index which reflects all four. Guess what it shows? An increase in temperature for the 2000 – 2013 period.
Max_Ch, like I said, you threw out the global temperature data for two years (1999 and 2000) while I only omitted the average for 1998. If that’s your notion of fair, your moral compass needs fixing. Besides, I omitted the 1998 average because it was an aberration, a freakishly high level. That’s a good reason. Oh, I know, you want to be able to say “in this century” and 2001 is the start of the century, but that’s not a good reason from a scientific standpoint.
When the head of the IPCC admitted that there has been no warming for seventeen years, he likely already thought about your trick about leaving out warm years to help his cause and must have decided that there was too many scientists looking at the data to allow him to get away with this.
Max_CH, be fair. Just because I omit one year of data (1998) , doesn’t mean you get to throw out two (1999 and 2000). I’ll give you 1999 (see my 5:51 PM post elsewhere for the rest of my reply).
kim what matters is what the data shows, not what Pachauri claimed. The data does not show a lack of warming for the last 17 years. To date I don’t think I’ve seen a single scientist claim it has either. It’s only cllimate skeptics who believe it, yet they like to pretend scientists have “admitted it”.
Climatists must attack skeptics (e.g., call them names like deniers, hacks, flacks shills, wackos) whenever skeptics tell a very different and mostly more plausible story that climatists find themselves impotent to prevent or counter. The risk of confusion is especially high when the very same methodology the global warming alarmists use to define the problem now says global warming stopped 16 years ago.
Some who identify themselves as skeptics probably are deniers. Others may be skeptics only about things they don’t like, which means they are affected by their bias. True skeptics are even-handed. True skeptics are rare.
Well, I’m here to say that Oklahomans are in general, a fine herd of humans, but as with many things, this particular exception proves the rule.
=========================
Once new a sweet gal from Tulsa that was one-eighth Osage Indian. (The other seven-eighths must’ve been Irish or Scottish, because she had long red hair.)
She got a royalty check each month from her tribe.
Don’t know if they still do that or if the oilfields on tribal lands have all played out.
You should read of the Osage in Paris a hundred years ago; they were spectacular. The tribe was shoved out of Kansas just over the border on to less tillable land. Oklahoma had adopted the Rule of Law by the time oil was found under that less tillable land, or they’d have been shoved further.
==============
I think that a true sceptic is someone who is not yet convinced either way. Once you start arguing from a position on the AGW you’re not a sceptic, and as far as my own brain cells are concerned, the jury is still out on the issue of CO2 build-up and its effect on CS but I am pretty sure that human activity is causing environmental damage.
At last week’s British Sociological Association conference, I presented some initial observations from my research on climate change scepticism. My starting point was that climate change scepticism – or as it is often inaccurately described, denial – is not monolithic. Those people typically labelled as sceptics vary in their arguments. Sometimes may employ many different arguments, some may focus on only one or two. Often these arguments overlap with each other. In my presentation I highlighted writers and commenters on two prominent UK sites: Bishop Hill and Climate Resistance (there are many other examples)
Gavin Schmidt in the comments …
I agree that this is close to how ‘sceptics’ see themselves, but examination of the arguments shows they are made of straw.
True, true we are skeptical. Lo, these many years climate scientists have been hell-bent on putting their math where our mouths are. While we have been fully occupied in the business of living (did you notice your taxes went up for 2012?) the Left and new government employees are busy blaming us for putting food on both our tables.
Here’s how the Telegraph’s star blogger James Delingpole, also featured in the Spectator as a writer on climate science, starts his latest blog:
Should Michael Mann be given the electric chair for having concocted arguably the most risibly inept, misleading, cherry-picking, worthless and mendacious graph – the Hockey Stick – in the history of junk science?
Should George Monbiot be hanged by the neck for his decade or so’s hysterical promulgation of the great climate change scam and other idiocies too numerous to mention?
Should Tim Flannery be fed to the crocodiles for the role he has played in the fleecing of the Australian taxpayer and the diversion of scarce resources into pointless projects like all the eyewateringly expensive desalination plants built as a result of his doomy prognostications about water shortages caused by catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
It ought to go without saying that my answer to all these questions is – *regretful sigh* – no.
This sort of tripe is becoming increasingly typical for Delingpole.
Recently, he compared wind-farms to paedophilia. In 2010 he posted the name and address of a constituent who wrote an email to his MP, which led to the constituent getting threats.
James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books, including his most recent work Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future, also available in the US, and in Australia as Killing the Earth to Save It. His website is http://www.jamesdelingpole.com.
Beth +1 for your witty and well researched post on windmills. It was a trifle long winded for an old bloke like me who is suffering from dementia and a fear of the unknown and of change.
You may need to back that statement up in a Court of Law. I know exactly where that nonsense came from and it wasn’t a direct statement from Delingpole. I would suggest that you request that the mods amend your comment as I have informed Delingpole of this comment.
Below is a link to Deligpole’s wind farm article. He quotes a NSW sheep farmer saying “The wind-farm business is bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”
> If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.
You bring proponents of pedophilia into the courtroom? Sure, everyone’s entitled to defense. Circumstances might mitigate. Are windmills falsely accused?
==============
Examining the idea that wind power is “good” for the climate.
Beth Cooper
So what about the idea that wind power is ‘good’ for the climate? Well, whether
or no CO2 is the perpetrator of out of control climate change …which seems unlikely, Say, where’s the empiric data, hot spot, feedbacks, albedo evidence … let’s just take
a walk on the wind side, see what’s happening in the wind energy industry.
From the four corners of the world, wind farm technology’s been going up while
green groups and governments keep hoping that CO2 will be going down. Seems like there’s a lot of enthusiasm from government bureaucrats and environment advocates … out there. Vilma Radvilate of the ‘European Energy Programme for Recovery,’ the ‘E E P R,’ love those acronyms, believes wind energy projects are an ideal way
to stimulate economic growth, improve energy security and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (1) Hmmm …so let us examine those claims about wind energy as we accompany a certain old fashioned gentleman on his travels …
In a village in La Mancha lived an old fashioned gentleman who, when he had nothing to do, which was most of the year, passed his time reading books of knight errantry, so that, after a while, he began to lose the use of his reason. Don Quixote, which is what he called himself, now thought it necessary, as well for the increase of his honour as to be of service to the public, to turn knight errant and roam through the world, redressing all manner of grievances …
So picture your typical modern wind farm. Towers more than 200 feet high that support a turbine housing, or nacelle, the size of a bus. (2) Sweeping the sky,
three rotor blades, 100 to150 feet long, … say, listen to that thrumm!.
An Australian Study analyses the engineering in one of these large turbines in windy Esperance, Western Australia, the kind of tower proliferating around the world. Its electric power is generated in the nacelle behind the propeller. The generator can’t be too large though, or it couldn’t be mounted off the ground, so units most commonly in use only generate about 3/4MW power output. The gear box of the unit is designed to hold the turbine at one speed, to produce maximum power and operate in wind speeds between 8/16 MPH. At speeds below 8 MPH the blades don’t turn, above 16 MPH they are designed to lock down so they won’t be destroyed by high winds.You could say intermittency is a constant problem. In the United Kingdom, BBC weatherman, Paul Hudson, reported in 2011, that in three consecutive winters of intense cold, there was little or no wind to generate electricity. (4) On December the 21st, 2010, coal and gas generated 45,000 MW of electricity, compared to wind generated electricity of 20 MW. This is not surprising, since prolonged cold weather is usually associated with the calm conditions of high-pressure weather-systems.
You could say insufficiency of supply is a massive problem. Bob Graham, the Chairman of Highlands Against Wind Farms criticized the proposed installation of 400 plus wind turbines on the Thames Estuary. Operating at an estimated capacity of 1.3GW, even with a generous load factor of 30 %, average output would only be
390 MW, enough to provide 5KW electricity to 78,000 homes, ‘about enough to power an electric kettle and a toaster.’ (5) Bob Graham’s estimate could be a best-case scenario. Number Watch, UK, argues that these figures underestimate the case, as for 80% of the time the turbines would produce no power at all. (6)
Globally, wind power’s popularity
is
going
. down …
In the year 2000, Denmark, wind capital of the world, cancelled three off shore wind farms. In 2002, the Netherlands decommissioned ninety turbines. At the Searsburg Plant in Vermont, USA, wind energy output
is
declining
exponentially,
expo … nent … ially.
In 2006, the Spanish Government put an end to wind subsidies. (7) …
Crossing the plains of Montiel, the knight and his squire discovered some thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote had spied them,
he cried out: ‘ Fortune directs us better than I could imagine. Look yonder, Sancho, here are at least thirty terrible giants whom I intend to encounter, and having deprived them of their lives, we will partake of their spoils, for in knight errantry, these are lawful prize.’
Partaking of spoils, hmmm …so what’s happening in western developed economies?
You could say renewable energy costs are going through the roof while productivity’s
going
through
the
floor
In order to meet the GHG emissions set by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, developed nations in the west are implementing carrot and stick policies to shift economies from fossil fuels to reliance on renewable energy. Governments hope to meet CO2 emissions targets through the mechanisms of renewable obligation policies, hefty taxes, cap and trade permit schemes, subsidies for solar and wind energy and tariffs designed to feed unused renewable energy into the grid.
A CIVITAS Think Tank Study in the UK used Government commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity to calculate the efficiency of fossil fuels and renewable technologies. (8) The main conclusions drawn from the report are, that excluding carbon costs, coal is the cheapest form of energy generation. When carbon costs are included, near-term, gas became the cheapest option, while medium-term, nuclear energy is cheapest. Although on shore wind looked a relatively attractive proposition in the commissioned report, once other costs are added on, including back up generation, on shore wind becomes the second most expensive option. (9) Off shore wind-farms are always inordinately expensive. Another study, by Economics Professor Graham Hughes, calculates that UK and EU policies favouring wind turbines incur additional costs of 120 billion English pounds for turbines and backups. Open cycle gas plants could generate the same amount of electricity for 13 billion. (10)
Cost are up and productivity
is
going
down …
In 2003, in Denmark, windmill capital of the world, the country’s 6,000 turbines provided only 3.3% of its electricity. In 2003, 84% of Western Denmark’s wind energy was exported … at a loss. (11) In Germany, utilities buy renewable energy at up to ten times the cost of conventional power. (12) In the US, the proposed off shore wind-farm at Massachusetts, for the same instillation cost as Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, will deliver only one third of Diablo Canyon’s output, 7 1/2 hours out of 24, compared to nuclear, 24/7/365. (13) In Spain, in 2005, utilities began refusing new wind power connections. (14)
‘What giants?’ asked Sancho Panca.
‘Those whom we see yonder, with their immense extended arms.’ replied Don Quixote. ‘ Some of that detested race have arms that reach two leagues across the land.’ Couching his lance and protecting himself with his shield, Don Quixote rushed with Rozinante’s utmost speed upon the first windmill he came to, running his lance into the sail. The wind whirled with such force that his lance was broken into shivers and knight and horse hurled away with it and flung a good way into the field.
So then, are giant wind farms ‘good’ for the climate? Do they reduce CO 2 emissions? Well you’d have to say there’s a problem with ‘on – again, off – again,’ back – up technology standing in for ‘on – again, off – again,’ wind technology. A recent Dutch Study criticizes the energy models that sold wind power to the Netherlands’ Government because the models neglect factors that increase fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.(15) One such factor is the process of ‘cycling’ or ramping up conventional plants connected to stand in when the wind isn’t blowing, and ramping down when it is. Both processes increase fuel consumption and increase CO2 emissions. The study included an analysis of wind data at Schiphol Airport on an average windy day, 28/08/11, and found that back up ramping over 21.5 hours of low winds, increased gas input by 47,15O m3, adding 117,9 ton of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.(16)
Two other studies reveal similar effects from ramping. An internet analysis of data from EUR Grid, Ireland’s Grid operator, show increased CO2 emissions. (17) A study in Colorado / Texas, where coal fired plants operate with wind turbine connection under government mandate also show increased emissions of SO2 and NOX. (18)
Then there’s the factor of extra energy needed to build and install huge steel wind turbines, energy needed for cabling and replacing the systems after 15 years, in the UK, a subsidy regulation. (19) The Dutch Study also analyses the efficiency factor in back up generation. Coal and nuclear technologies are slow to ramp up and down, as are Steam Enhanced Gas Turbines, (CCGT,) which are twice as energy efficient as Open Cycle Gas Turbines, (OCGT.) Because OCGT are well suited to rapid ramping, however, the less efficient technology becomes the preferred option as back up. (20)
So wind technology is not so good for the climate and it’s not so good for the environment either. We know about the noise… there’s more. Wind farms sure take up a lot of land, could be crop land. Off shore wind farms take up lots of space too.
Picture the proposed off shore wind farm in the UK covering over 1002 miles of the Thames Estuary.(21) And what about the wild life? A 2002 study in Spain estimated that 11,200 birds of prey, some of them endangered species, 3,000,000 small birds, and 350,000 bats are killed every year by wind turbines and power lines. (22)
Wind farms can be messy too. In Valencia, Spain, (23) operators of the giant wind installations mention the dripping and flinging off of gallons of motor oil, cooling and cleaning fuels…tsk, tsk.
‘Heaven send us better times, ‘cried the knight, ‘there is nothing but plotting and counter mining in the world. I can do more.’ Then raising a fixed eye upon two near by water mills Don Quixote said, ‘My dear friends, immured as you are, I cannot rescue you from your confinement; that adventure is reserved for some other knight.’
And so, weary but not wiser, Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their mules like
a couple of senseless beasts, and went upon their way …
Hmmm … it appears that wind technology is not what it seemed. Alas dear reader
and dear Vilma Radvilate of The European Energy Programme for Recovery, the
E E P R, intermittent, inefficient and uneconomic wind technology is not ‘good’ for the climate. The dream is not the reality.
Reference List:
(1) EU Offshore Wind Program Creates 4,000 Jobs Since 2009, 2012, commentary on the ‘Mid-term evaluation of the European Energy Programme for Recovery – Final Report. December 2011’, viewed 18 April 2012, . p. 1.
(2) Rosenbloom, E 2006, A Problem With Wind power, 5 September,
viewed 12 March 2012, . p. 4.
(3) TonyfromOz 2009, The Limitations Of Renewable Power (Part 3), PA Pundits, Viewed 30 March 2012,
. pp. 2-3.
(4) Lea, R 2012, Electricity Costs: The folly of wind-power, Report by CIVITAS: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, registered in England and Wales, viewed 7 April 2012 See Hudson, P.
p. 15.
(5) Brignel, J 2006, Kami-kaze – the god of wind, 23 December, Number Watch, viewed 29 March 2012, . See Graham, B, Chairman, Highlands Against Windfarms, Orton, Moray. p. 11.
(6) Brignel, J 2006, Ibid. p.11.
(7) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Op Cit. pp. 1-2.
(8) Lea, R 2012, CIVITAS. Op Cit. Executive Summary, and pp.6-7.
(9) Lea, R 2012, CIVITAS. Ibid. pp. 11-12 and Tables pp. 13-23.
(10) Orlowski, A 2012, The true cost of British wind power, The Register, viewed 18 March 2012, .
See Hughes, G 2012, Why is wind power so expensive? An economic analysis, p. 2.
(11) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Op Cit. p. 1.
(12) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Ibid. p. 3.
(13) ‘TonyfromOZ’, Papundits, Op Cit. p. 4.
(14) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Ibid. p. 3.
(15) le Pair, C 2009, Electricity in The Netherlands: Wind turbines increase fossil fuel consumption & CO2 emission, viewed 9 April 2012, . pp. 1-13.
(16) le Pair, C, Ibid. Table p.13
(17) Lusvardi, W 2011, Windmill-Gate Scandal Storms Into CA, Calwatchdog,
viewed 9 April 2012, . p. 3. See Udo, F, The Smoking Gun of the Windmill Fraud.
(18) Bentek Energy 2010, How Less Became More: Wind, Power and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market, 20 April, viewed 9 April 2012, . pp. 1-4.
As my own Amen, I just received my Hydro One electric bill for 1 kilowatt hour: $0.07. Delivery charge: $70.48 (which will rise in cost by $3.08) and Ontario Clean Energy Benefit $8.06 all Canadian Dollars of course. All of this compliments of the Green Energy Act, written into legislation by the Green Party as a way to make Ontario Canada a beckon of virtue (not that an act of Parliament could confer such an arrangement.)
In summary: I get my 1 kilowatt hour electricity from Bruce Nuclear down the road a piece for $0.07 and I am awarded a Green windmill subsidized additional feel good expense for the measly cost of $8.06 CnD.
Now this is feel good climate impact change. Ahhhh, I feel better already.
Love your well-researched, witty but tragicomic treatise on windmills, noble knights, dead raptor birds and jackasses.
In Switzerland the environmentalists complained for years about a high tension power line that crossed the Jura mountains, spoiling the otherwise pristine landscape.
Finally they got it removed!
Only to be replaced a few years later with a bunch of even uglier windmills (that evil race of long-armed giants your noble knight fought so bravely).
Referring of course to those bad citizens not gullible enough to take government-funded climate ‘science’ at face value, when government has such a huge and obvious stake and vested interest in fostering alarm. And not gullible enough to overlook systemic, unrepentant fraud and malpractice such as seen in Climategate, in the ranks of government climate ‘science’.
Max_OK’s links would not be worth checking out because the first one is paywalled if you want to read the whole Delingpole article while the second link is the Press Council’s review of an unrelated article.
Well, if you have Delingpole’s job, you may have to write crazy stuff to keep your crazy readership. He’s not the only one pandering to nuts. Still, that’s a hell of a way to make a living.
I’ve said some nice things about the great state of Oklahoma and it’s institutions and famous inhabitants, as well.
Just to name a few there are dude ranches, oil wells, rodeos, oilfield service companies, rolling hills plus drifter, songwriter and guitar picker, Woody Guthrie (+ his son, Arlo) and good ol’ Senator Inhofe plus his junior Senator Coburn.
He should tend his garden of rigs. What’s Switzerland got but tough terrain and marginal living from the land. Oh, Zurich grows garden gnomes, for at least the last millenium.
=========
> People focus on notable differences, excluding those that are less conspicuous, when making predictions about happiness or convenience. For example, when people were asked how much happier they believe Californians are compared to Midwesterners, Californians and Midwesterners both said Californians must be considerably happier, when, in fact, there was no difference between the actual happiness rating of Californians and Midwesterners. The bias lies in that most people asked focused on and overweighed the sunny weather and ostensibly easy-going lifestyle of California and devalued and underrated other aspects of life and determinants of happiness, such as low crime rates and safety from natural disasters like earthquakes (both of which large parts of California lack).
Here’s D’s quote, this time in the original op-ed:
> If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.
The truly ringing comparison, which clangs all bells, is the treatment by Penn State of Michael ‘Piltdown’ Mann, and that other famous liar from there.
============
You’ve got to agree with Delingpole that, despite the scientific skullduggery of Mann with his “shtick”, he should NOT “get the electric chair”.
It also makes sense that George Monbiot should NOT “be hanged by the neck for his decade or so’s hysterical promulgation of the great climate change scam and other idiocies too numerous to mention”.
Nor should Tim Flannery “be fed to the crocodiles for the role he has played in the fleecing of the Australian taxpayer”.
I agree completely with Delingpole that these punishments are much too severe for the misdemeanors allegedly committed.
Back in the lawless days of the Old West, an exposed “snake oil” cheater was NOT hanged by the neck until dead, but simply tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on the rail.
Today they are rarely prosecuted (unless the skullduggery has resulted in significant loss to others), but simply discredited.
For some ego-driven types, this is even more painful than being tarred and feathered
Oh, they’ll get their’s alright, but whether it is in this life or later, well, I guess you just have to depend upon a God in Heaven.
=================
Delingpole’s neat way to solve a rhetorical problem is known since the Antiquity:
Paralipsis (παράλειψις), also spelled paraleipsis or paralepsis, and known also as praeteritio, preterition, cataphasis (κατάφασις), antiphrasis (ἀντίφρασις), or parasiopesis (παρασιώπησις), is a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer invokes a subject by denying that it should be invoked. As such, it can be seen as a rhetorical relative of irony. Paralipsis is usually employed to make a subversive ad hominem attack.
The device is typically used to distance the speaker from unfair claims, while still bringing them up. For instance, a politician might say, “I don’t even want to talk about the allegations that my opponent is a drunk.” A political advertisement may say, “Vote for Smith for sober leadership”, implying that Jones, his opponent, is an irresponsible drunk.
Heh, willard’s blind to the irony, but from his viewpoint it would take a genius to see it. With his skills, it’s ‘hardy’ and ‘metally’.
==============
Kinda weird how scientists enter the political arena and expect the rulz of the academy to prevail. Kinda arrogant actually. Isnt fair political fight an oxymoron?
Ninjas follow roolz for their own sake.
MiniMax’ courageous Gish gallops
Are still only Gish gallops, and worse they are
Written forever and ever on the Internetz.
Uncertainty and Decision in Climate Change Economics
Geoffrey Heal, Antony Millner
Uncertainty is intrinsic to climate change: we know that the climate is changing, but not precisely how fast or in what ways. Nor do we understand fully the social and economic consequences of these changes, or the options that will be available for reducing climate change. Furthermore the uncertainty about these issues is not readily quantified and expressed in probabilistic terms: we are facing deep uncertainty or ambiguity rather than risk in the classical sense, rendering the classical expected utility framework of limited value. We review the sources of uncertainty about all aspects of climate change and resolve these into various components, commenting on their relative importance. Then we review decision-making frameworks that are appropriate in the absence of quantitative probabilistic information, including non-probabilistic approaches and those based on multiple priors, and discuss their application in climate change economics.
Willard, potentially interesting, I’ll purchase the paper as soon as SSRN processes my membership application. I used to have access to NBER papers, which are generally excellent.
Well, they’re simply wrong. Uncertainty in this case implies enough ignorance to postpone policy action. The science cannot even guarantee future warming, let alone catastrophic warming, of this earth, and that is necessary for any policy mitigating AnthroCO2.
Now sure, I can think of immediate policy action, like increasing the effort to understand climate, before attempting to manipulate it, and risking taking entirely the wrong step.
==============
“Now sure, I can think of immediate policy action, like increasing the effort to understand climate, before attempting to manipulate it through continued CO2 emissions, and risking taking entirely the wrong step.”
So far, lolwot, the hand of man on the climate is so light as to be unweighed, and your alternative steps are 4C up and 10C down. Look before you leap. Also, weigh this: 4C up sustains more total life and more diversity of life, 10C down, well lots of things aren’t sustained.
===========
Kim, on the point of “knowing that it is a serious problem that requires immediate policy action,” the authors are straying from their field of economics into one in which they are not qualified, climate science. But at first glance their work as economists is interesting. I’ve e-mailed them suggesting that they or I do a head-post on CE, given Judith’s interest in uncertainty and many CE posters’ interest in soundly-based policy.
Yes, F, I too was intrigued by the promise of the first part of the abstract. And then they throw in that utter foolishness at the end. Were they actually unaware of how bad it is, or are they surrendered?
=============
Heh, look at it this way. I am neither a climate scientist nor an economist, and I can pick out the glaring flaw in the paper with a glance at the abstract.
Something is very wrong about that, and you can smell it all the way over there.
=================
“So far, lolwot, the hand of man on the climate is so light as to be unweighed”
You don’t trust the scales so you can’t claim to know it’s light.
“and your alternative steps are 4C up and 10C down.”
4C up is the only credible step.
10C down, apart from confusing polar temperatures from ice cores with global temperature, is a type of “orbital”-driven change that is understood to not be feasible in the next 100 years. So it’s an invalid step.
“4C up sustains more total life and more diversity of life, 10C down, well lots of things aren’t sustained.”
Yet 10C down from current levels has happened dozens of times over the past few millions of years. 4C up has not.
Another thing you haven’t considered is the timing. The 10C down you are thinking of took place over thousands of years. The 4C up is going to happen over hundreds.
Life, if it can adapt to 4C up, may not be able to do so in time if it happens in mere hundreds of years.
The paper echoes my concerns about the impossibility of making serious economic and social predictions given the level of uncertainty. I’ll try to draft a head-post on it.
My undergraduate student, Tae Yen Kim, and I jointly developed a statistical method to assess the uncertainty of the rankings. Based on data from 1897 through 2008, we found that the probability that 1998 — the warmest year on record for this time period — actually was the warmest, is about two-thirds, but 1998 could have been as low as the fourth-warmest year ever. Instead of 1998, one of the years of 1921, 1934 or 2006 may have been the warmest with a probability of one-third.
So what about 2012? When we originally wrote our paper, the data for 2012 were not yet complete, but are now available. We have applied our statistical method to the series including the years 2009 through 2012. This process involves simulating 100,000 series with the same uncertainty characteristics as the historical record. In each of these 100,000 series, 2012 was the warmest! In other words, there is so little uncertainty in the ranking that we can say — in spite of the uncertainty in the actual value of the 2012 temperature — that we know 2012 was the warmest year in the historical record of continental U.S. temperatures.
Did they show that it was colder than most of the Holocene? Even Marcott, manufactured bit of false ikon that it is, showed that.
Besides, we all know it is warmer than during the Little Ice Age. The question, need I remind you, is what caused the warming. If man caused it, we should thank our ancestors and ourselves, and prepare for the coming cold, which would have been here already but for the effect of man. If Nature caused the warming, we can be thankful that we didn’t drop out of the Little Ice Age into the Big One. In either case, much gratitude for the present, but everchanging, climate.
Are we glad? Well I am. Some are overcome with fear, guilt, and doom. Whassa matta wid ’em?
================
Frankly, it’s pathological, and likely terminal. Was it pessimists who first worshipped bodies bulging with babies? Circumstances shed doomsayers, and the despondent, and those depending upon fear and guilt for their existence.
=================
@manacker
An engineer, a chemist, and an climatologist are stranded on a deserted island. They are starving, when miraculously they find a box filled with canned food. What to do? They consider the problem, bringing their collective lifetimes of study and discipline to the task.
Being the practical, straightforward sort, the engineer suggests that they simply find a rock and hit the cans until they break open. “No, no!” cry the chemist and climatologist, “we would spill too much food and the birds would get it!”
After a bit of thought, the chemist recommends that they start a fire and heat the cans. The pressure in the cans will force them open and the food will conveniently already be heated. But the engineer and climatologist object, pointing out correctly that the cans would likely explode and splatter the food all over the beach.
The climatologist, after carefully studying the cans and reading the labels, starts scrawling a series of equations in the sand, which eventually cover the entire beach. After much pondering, he excitedly announces, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” as he points to the final equation. They ask him to explain, with their visions of finally getting a meal causing them to regard the climatologist with a new sense of respect.
The climatologist clears his throat and begins, “First, assume a can opener …”
I don’t think you all give climate scientists enough credit. A good enough climate scientist could simply apply a new statistical analysis to the dimensions of the can and prove thereby that it is already open. Anybody got a fork?
Not being a Brit I can only comment from the sidelines.
At the time of PM Thatcher I spent a considerable amount of time in the UK on business, so I got a glimpse of the general opinion at the time.
During Thatcher’s long term as PM the UK pulled out of its post WWII malaise and the economy started surging again. The coal miners’ union’s stranglehold was broken as much by the North Sea oil and gas discoveries as it was by the will of the “Iron Lady” at 10 Downing Street. The re-privatization of moribund state enterprises, which had been nationalized under previous Labour governments since WWII, undoubtedly also helped the UK recovery. The brief but decisive Falklands war gave Britons renewed self-confidence. And her role (along with US President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev) in ending the USSR and its hegemony over eastern Europe liberated millions (who are still thankful today).
So I’d say the plusses outweighed the minuses – but there are still some on the left, who hated her so much that they shamefully celebrated her death.
A pity.
No doubt, she was a great lady and powerful leader.
” but there are still some on the left, who hated her so much that they shamefully celebrated her death.”
Its not just the left that had a problem with Mrs Thatcher. Most leaders make some effort to relate to all sections of society , and not just those groups where their support may be strongest. Not Mrs Thatcher though. She was fond of phrases like “not one of us” and “the enemy within”.
That approach may have been OK in her SE England power base, but it didn’t go down well in the English regions or Scotland. Just speaking English slightly differently to her clipped upper middle class accent was enough to be classed as “not one of us”.
In Scotland the Tory party, or Unionists as they used to be known there, historically enjoyed a large measure of popular support winning about half of all seats. That all evaporated after Thatcher. The Tories have just one parliamentary seat there now. There is a strong movement for independence which, if it comes about, will mean Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, will no longer exist as a political entity. It’s only the British Labour party which is in any position to maintain that union. The Tories are just about finished north of the border. Their lack of support there cost them an overall victory in the 2010 UK elections and they now can only realistically hope to form government by entering into coalition with one or other of the minor UK parties.
So, next time you are reading how bad the UK was before Thatcher and how marvellous is after her, just take a look at how close the UK is to not existing at all. That’s the real legacy of Thatcherism.
1. Of course it is the Left that hates Thatcher – she slowed the totalitarian drift somewhat, and saved the country from militant unionism.
2. Why is it bad or a failure if Scotland gains independence ?? It necessarily results in more democracy all round, ie both Scots and English/Welsh/N Irish get a government more to their own liking, don’t have to compromise with the other party.
@manacker
This is one of the key reasons she always got my vote and I’m a real working class Brit;
“The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.” (May 1983)
Yes I’m not happy that people are celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. She was 87 after all and hasn’t been able to exercise any personal influence for 20 years or more now. It would be better if they were celebrating the death of Thatcherism, but that’s likely to carry on for a little while longer yet. Unfortunately.
Scottish independence not a question of success or failure. That’s for the Scots to decide. My family backround is a mixture of both Scottish and English and I, personally, would like to see the Union maintained. There’s really no logical reason why the Scots and English can’t be considered to be equals and live in the same country. I don’t believe the Scots have a problem when it’s the Labour Party in office but when its the Tories turn, they feel like they are treated as second class citizens. That’s why there is a push for independence. But I won’t get a say in the matter!
The Conservative party did , at one time, rate the integrity of the Union very highly. The present day party doesn’t, and probably largely agrees with you. They’re very contemptuous of Scotland, and the Scots, for having the temerity to disagree with their political view and force them into negotiating with the Lib Dems in order to be able to achieve government.
Its not too late to be fixed. IMO. The Conservative Party needs to show that they are a party for the whole of the UK and not just SE England.
There’s really no logical reason why the Scots and English can’t be considered to be equals and live in the same country.
There is an extremely logical reason – the Scots are quite leftwing, England is more middle-ground. No single government can satisfy both. Only if they separate can they both get what they want.
While you are essentially right, Mr B, what you overlook is that those of a more left/totalitarian persuasion invariably want those who disagree with them, to still be forced into paying for leftist policies. The very LAST thing a leftist want to happen, is that those he wants to plunder escape his grasp. Which what would happen if England no longer had to subsidise Scotland via the Union.
The other issue is that with Scotland independent, the Labour party in the remainder of the Union will be massively reduced, perhaps even terminally.
Actually, the more freedom-minded English should declare independence from the Union. The Scots, Welsh & Northern Irish could do the same or club together, as they wish.
There is an extremely logical reason – the Scots are quite leftwing, England is more middle-ground.
Have you any evidence for this assertion? From my experience, there’s no reason to assume any difference in political attitudes between the average Scottish or English person.
The problem is of very recent origin and has co-incided with the ascendancy of the Thatcherite tendency within the Tory party who have been far too quick to dismiss the opinion of those who live, not just in Scotland, but the English regions too. It’s not just a left/right issue.
The evidence that the Scots are more leftwing than the English, is that they vote for Labour far more than the English do. And the Scottish Nationalists are pretty leftwing too.
England moved on from the old totalitarian/left thinking that the Scots (and the EU for that matter) still cling to. And Thatcher was part of that, sure.
What are these allegedly anti-Scots sentiments you imagine exist in the Tory party ?
The sentiments of the present day Tory Party aren’t so much anti-Scots as pro-Surrey, Pro-Essex or Pro the Home counties and pro the English middle class. If they want to be a national party of the UK, as a whole, they have to be seen as pro the regions, and pro the people who live there, too.
They have decided not to, for whatever reasons they may have. That’s not the way the old Tory party chose to go, and that’s why they managed to keep the UK together as a political entity, at least if you don’t include Ireland, and why it’s quite likely that the present day Tory party won’t.
You again fail to show that there is anything other than a pro/anti-freedom divide. The English/liberals want more freedom, the Scots/left want less (want others to have less, more precisely). This is reflected in their voting patterns. There is no England-Scotland divide per se, beyond the abovementioned.
The evidence that the Scots are more leftwing than the English, is that they vote for Labour far more than the English do
I haven’t checked the figures but let’s just go with that statement for now. It’s a mistake to assume that everyone who votes Labour in Scotland is particularly left wing. The Labour party pick up a lot of votes there from those who would like to register their support for the Union. Who else can they vote for? Obviously not the Scots Nats. Almost equally obviously not the Tories either. Most English Tories would like to see the end of the Union.
Nonsense? Hardly We know official Tory policy is for the UK to continue, but as that likely means no more Tory governments in the foreseeable future many (most?) individual Tories have concluded that it may be better if it doesn’t.
Your own earlier comment: “No single government can satisfy both. Only if they separate can they both get what they want” was precisely along those lines.
TempTerrein
I do so much wish for you to be right and me to be wrong. But the stubborn Tory hierarchy just won’t countenance “losing” the Union territories.
The suggestion of a more decentralized form of government in the UK has been brought up here.
Not being a Brit, I can only discuss what works elsewhere, where I am familiar with the system.
Switzerland is a strong federal union of historical cantons, which are quite diverse in culture and language, but still have a strong sense of unity.
Many issues are settled locally and regionally, rather than on a federal level.
I realize that the history of Great Britain is quite different, but could some sort of system like the one in Switzerland work there?
This would mean that the “federal” Parliament and PM would still exist, but their importance would be diminished as local legislative bodies and governors take over a more important role.
Taxes could also be levied more at the regional than at the federal level.
Of course this sort of thing would have to be settled by a plebiscite and only implemented if supported by a clear majority.
Yet her achievements cannot be gainsaid. She reversed what her mentor, Keith Joseph, liked to call “the ratchet effect”, whereby the state was rewarded for its failures with yet more power. With the brief exception of the emergency measures taken in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-08, there have been no moves to renationalise industries or to resume a policy of picking winners. Thanks to her, the centre of gravity of British politics moved dramatically to the right. The New Labourites of the 1990s concluded that they could rescue the Labour Party from ruin only by adopting the central tenets of Thatcherism. “The presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector,” declared Mr Blair. Neither he nor his successors would dream of reverting to the days of nationalisation and unfettered union power.
Yes, Girma, rewarding error with power goes against nature.
Re Scotland’s separation ftom England, there’s a brilliant
book written by a German , Arthur Herman, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment,’ that is, itself enlighteningconcerning the
Scottish invention of the modern world, which is his claim,
David Hume, Adam Smith et al coming out of the education
system of the repressive Scottish kirk as an unexpected
consequence of its literacy program, a literate society.
The harsh environment was still against economic progress
but the union with England, commercial treaties, advantages
on the high seas, kick started the economy. Sad ter think
Scotland has moved from the thinking of its ‘great generation,’
but then, many of its bolder citizens emmigrated.
I was not immediately enamoured of Thatcher (having been a long-term UK Labour supporter), but over the years have come to appreciate what she did. As a Pom who left England in late-79, I don’t think that the then desperate state of the UK could have been addressed by a gentler and less committed approach, there were too many entrenched interests and attitudes to be overcome. Essentially, Thatcher saw value in individual self-reliance and initiative, and faced a culture in which those virtues were not valued.
Those who knew Thatcher seemed to find Streep’s portrayal offensive and demeaning.
I agree with all you say in that comment (I haven’t read the link).
The following is not addressed to Faustino (he may not agree with me)
I think the behaviour of the Thatcher haters is disgusting. The people who hate Thatcher, are part of a breed of haters (all of Left ideology). The same people hate John Howard (past Prime Minister of Australia) and Tony Abbott (hopefully the next PM of Australia). They also hate rich people (like Australian mining magnates, including Gina Reinhardt, the world’s riches woman), they hate …. the list of who they hate is long.
Past head of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, called the Murdock Press the “Hate Media”. But it is not the Murdock Press that fans hatred. Hatred is fanned in Australia by the Left wing MSM – including the taxpayer funded ABC and SBS.
Faustino — yes it’s a good piece. When I first went to Britain in 1964 I too was puzzled by some of the supposed working class sentiments I found there. I was used to working-class people who were doing their best to leave it! Yes, Australia had trade unions and all the rest, but a widespread assumption was that if you could you did. My grandparents were Scottish/ English working -class people (a miner and a railway blacksmith) but all their children moved ‘upwards’ into the middle class. It was possible and desirable. But not obviously in the pre-Thatcher UK.
You’ve got this the wrong way around. The big change in British society and the increase in social mobility started after WW2 and lasted well into the 60’s and 70’s.
Thatcherism sought to reverse all that and has largely succeeded. In the league table of social mobility the UK is now well down the list. The US isn’t much better. Norway and Denmark show how it is still possible though.
Great Britain, pioneer, like Pericles’ Athens, of opportunity
fer all, Scottish Enlightenment, “liberal” underpinning of
economic and political freedom, hopes fer a goddam
better world, tempt, England was going down the drain
pre Thatcher, from goddam union regulations on productivity.
H/t me dad, entrepreneur- innovator…Wealth comes from
what is produced. Context, goddamit, yer can’t get blood
out of a goddam stone. Don’t just listen ter ivory tower
academics, school teachers, et al, .. I was one but yer
can listen ter me. So many of them put their faith in top
top down hand – outs from the public purse. And – when –
the – goose – that – lays – the – golden – egg – is – gone –
it’s – back – ter – the – golden – age – and – out, – O U T –
go – the – lights
> In 461 BC, Pericles achieved the political elimination of this formidable opponent using the weapon of ostracism. The ostensible accusation was that Cimon betrayed his city by acting as a friend of Sparta.
The lady had the courage of her convictions and the apparent schism between those who love her and those who loathe her is a hangover of the British class system, which served this country so well over so many hundreds of years.
The new social order appears not to be serving the British cause anywhere near as well and a decline in international influence is reflective of the lack of clear underlying values by its political leaders.
” the British class system, which served this country so well over so many hundreds of years.” Did it really? Many people loathed it and still do.
You comment illustrates an interesting difference between American and British history though. America was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment. Democracy , or representative Rupublicanism if you prefer, was enshrined in the US constitution. There wasn’t the same struggle to establish democracy in the USA. (Although there was the struggle to extend it of course). There was no Chartist movement. Protesters weren’t put to the sword in the streets, or deported overseas. British history, over the last couple of centuries, shows just what class struggle has been about. Its not between people and government, but the peoples’ right to choose a government, rather than it being the privilege of the aristocracy or wealthy classes..
The British Empire was arguably the greatest and most enduring of all and even today the sense of order that this class system provided still serves well in almost all of its former colonies, which generally fared better than the former colonies of other European powers.
Another aspect of the difference between a monarchy based on birthright and rank and that of a Republican Presidency is that of stability and order that seemed to percolate right down.
Democracy tends to produce socialist governments because of one vote one value but socialism fails to address many of the pressing problems of effective economic reforms in businesses, workplaces and in family life in those times.
I’m not quite sure what point you are trying to make. Yes the link shows, reasonably accurately I would say, what British society was in historical terms.
If there’s a lesson to be learned, it should be for our American friends. They might want to look back on this and learn what the relationship was in previous centuries between the powerful and the rest of society. Their history didn’t start with their declaration of Independence or the writing of US constitution, but I’m not sure they would agree with that comment.
The British class system certainly suited those who ran the country. It probably still suits those who run it today. But it doesn’t suit everyone.
The point is that the class system was supported by all levels of society. Even the serfs and villeins found comfort in knowing that their lives were stable and well ordered.
The servants of the manor houses were much more rigorous in their adherence to these rules than their masters, who seemed to be much more casual about it all.
In regards to your thoughts on the power of the ballot box going to the plebs instead of being the preserve of the privileged few, in the US, the main problem in an election today is to encourage people to get off their butts and vote!
“…………….in the US, the main problem in an election today is to encourage people to get off their butts and vote”
The TV pictures showed very long queues at US polling stations last November. Was this typical? Or just in the big cities? Was it easier to vote in the wealthy more Republican areas?
What is the general opinion on using internet voting? The usual objection is security but there are ways to safeguard against fraud just like there is with internet banking. Its not an insuperable obstacle.
The long queues would certainly discourage voter participation TT. It would be interesting to see if there is any evidence of poor distribution of polling places discriminating against voters likely to vote against incumbents.
The Australian system is probably up with World’s best practice in that it is run by a separate commission and that electoral boundaries are reviewed regularly to ensure that representation is fairly weighted between districts.
Max OK writes: “You may be misled by 1998 average global temperature being a freakishly warm year. Look what happens to the trend if we leave the 1998 average out, just using the UAH averages for 1979-97 and 1999-2013:”
Laughable. When James Hansen predicts (wrongly of course, and seemingly every other year), another super el nino, do you suppose he’s talking about “natural variability.”
Nor were any alarmist climate scientists back in 1998 saying, oh don’t worry about this dramatic warming this year, it’s only a freak el nino, nothing to do with Co2…
You guys can’t have it both way, though it never stops you from trying..
pokerguy, if you leave out the warmest year (1998), you are still left with a warming trend. If you cherry-pick a period since 1998 when temperature was flat, you can find an equally long previous flat period without going back very far in years.
Suppose we see another 1998 – 2013 record in temperature. Would you ignore the sharp rise, and say temperature has been about the same for 15 years now, and a little ice age is just around the corner?
Whatever James Delingpole’s style, he happens to be right about the windmills. They are totally useless climate-wise, and cause a ton of damage to people and the environment.
A typical outcome of the warmist hysteria.
Baloney! Windmills are fine. People imagine windmills are harmful. People imagine frogs cause warts. People imagine Obama was born in Kenya. People imagine a lot of things.
Of course, if you were a bird, you wouldn’t want to fly into a windmill. I’lll give you that. Birds don’t belong around airports either.
Regardless of how much money the Chinese government throws at windmills, if they were viable they would not need to be propped up by subsidies (which necessarily make the public as a whole poorer).
‘Wind turbines kill far fewer birds in general each year than do many other causes linked to humans, including domestic cats and collisions with glass windows. But wind power has a disproportionate effect on certain species that are already struggling for survival, such as the precarious US population of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis).
“The troubling issue with wind development is that we’re seeing a growing number of birds of conservation concern being killed by wind turbines,” says Albert Manville, a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Arlington, Virginia.’
So we have an expensive technology that – because of the intermittent nature – stops questionable amounts of emissions and is environmentally damaging?
> Crude oil is a mixture of many different kinds of organic compounds, many of which are highly toxic and cancer causing (carcinogenic). Oil is “acutely lethal” to fish, that is it kills fish quickly, at a concentration of 4000 parts per million (ppm)[1] (0.4%). Crude oil and petroleum distillates cause birth defects.[2]
They thought by erecting the sacrificial monuments they would pacify the Gods. But the Gods love birds, and even cats on good days.
======================
‘◾Although wood smoke conjures up fond memories of sitting by a cozy fire, it is important to know that the components of wood smoke and cigarette smoke are quite similar, and that many components of both are carcinogenic. Wood smoke contains fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide and various irritant gases such as nitrogen oxides that can scar the lungs. Wood smoke also contains chemicals known or suspected to be carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxin.
◾Wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It also increases children’s risk of lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
◾Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways.
◾ According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), toxic air pollutants are components of wood smoke. Wood smoke can cause coughs, headaches, eye, and throat irritation in otherwise healthy people.
◾ For vulnerable populations, such as people with asthma, chronic respiratory disease and those with cardiovascular disease, wood smoke is particularly harmful— even short exposures can prove dangerous.’
Dioxins are water soluble so they enter waterways after bushfires and accumulate in the food chain over long times. But fire is also critical to many ecosystems.
I don’t think we should argue that oil and coal are benign – simply that they should be managed appropriately. And still then it may be problematical.
It is not the same thing at all as arguing that windmills are benign. They are expensive, environmentally damaging and of questionable worth as mitigation.
Two barrels of water are required to extract one barrel of oil; every day as much water is taken from the Athabasca river as would serve a city of a million people. Although the water is extensively recycled, it cannot be returned to the rivers, so it ends up in man-made “tailings ponds” (tailings is a catch-all term for the byproducts of mining), which are also visible from space. According to the US Department of the Interior, the dam holding back Syncrude’s pond is the largest, by volume of construction material, in the world. Four of the projects haven’t started production yet, so their tailings ponds haven’t begun, but theirs, too, will soon be full of sand and what Schindler calls “dead water” because, he says, they’re full of carcinogenic hydrocarbons and toxic trace metals such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic, all topped off, in Syncrude’s case, with an oil slick.
Gaze at the torrent of guilt willard spasms horrifically under. Try tap dancing, as in dance over to the tap. What kind of motel are you running around here? Abate your fearful nuisance.
=================
A new study follows other recent rigorous scientific studies that have found ecological effects that had been missed by the industry’s monitoring.
The forested part of Western Canada, where tar sands oil is produced, is so rich with the thick, asphalt-like stuff that you can actually see it coming out of the ground all over the place. That’s made it easy for industry to claim that contaminants in waterways could have gotten there naturally.
Don’t do the stupid thing BP did and the environmental authorities okayed in the Deepwater Horizon disaster (save a few bucks by not installing a fail-safe blowout prevention system in a deep-water offshore well)
Despite BPs monumental PR campaign to portray themselves as “green” (“beyond petroleum”) and the major efforts they are actually undertaking in Alaska to actually be “green”, this one cock-up resulted in the death of 12 rig workers plus cost BP billions and ruined their “green” reputation for a long time.
I think BP, the rig service company Transocean and the permit authorities have all learned a lesson: make absolutely sure large quantities of oil do not leak into the ocean as a result of a blowout in a deep-water offshore well.
days after the spill on the afternoon of March 29, 120 workers had descended on the town, a number that would eventually swell to more than 600 from across the country, including company doctors, communication specialists and wildlife experts.
Now, nearly two weeks after the 5,000-barrel spill occurred on Good Friday, a picture has emerged of a giant oil company thrust into a small blue-collar community, intricately managing not just the cleanup of a major spill, but also using its large check book to try to win over the townsfolk and seek to limit the fallout.
At stake is not just the reputation of the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, but the spill’s impact on a fractious national debate about the effect of shipping increasing amounts of tarry Canadian crude across the United States.
Twelve people killed, untold treasure shoveled into the deep, and uncountable billions of micro-organisms fed. Gaia is chuckling over the good deal she got.
=============
willard’s got a brand new fright. Check out the environment where the Captain of the Exxon Valdez secured immortality and the birth of a useful though phony meme.
===============
A major spill in Michigan in July 2010 shut an Enbridge Inc. crude pipeline for two months, and the cleanup still isn’t complete. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month directed Enbridge to perform more dredging in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River as part of a cleanup from a July 2010 rupture of a 30-inch pipeline that also carried heavy crude.
Exxon was fined $26,200 in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for failing to regularly inspect each point where the Pegasus line crosses under a navigable waterway. PHMSA specifically cited the line’s crossing under the Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois.
The Respiratory effects of woodburning stoves reporting begins in the 1980’s. Infants carried on the backs of mothers into cooking huts developed permanent airway injury is reported from Papua New Guinea, Katmandu Nepal, and the Navajo Hogans in the desert Southwest USA.
Of all the chemicals and carcinogens that wood smoke and woodburing stoves emit, it is the aldehydes: formaldehyde and especially acrolin that attach to the respiratory mucosa lining resulting in coagulated mucus, cilia immobility, and cell death. The fine respirable particles <2.5 microns carry attached toxins to the lower respiratory bronchioles.
Burning biomass for fuel results in the same air pollution as wood stoves. Advocates for biomass as fuel should think about what is causing the sweat smell of a wood fire; aldehydes. The only colorless and odorless compounds from these fires are CO2 and Carbon Monoxide.
When first going outside, I know precisely from which direction the wind is blowing as I can smell the sulfur dioxide from the coal fired power plant five miles away.
I can tell my neighbor's gas furnace is on by the steam trickling from their chimney.
We as a developed society have achieved cleaner air by moving from biomass burning to coal, and now to nuclear and gas.
During the gentle snowfall this morning, the wind wasn't blowing and the wind turbines weren't turning.
Wind turbine energy can't exist without subsidies and back-up energy source.
This study was conducted in an effort to assess the toxicity of fluid emanating from potential sludges produced as a result of the “hot water extraction process”; employed in extracting oil from tar sand deposits in Alberta. A further attempt was made to identify specific components and/or properties which might be responsible for any toxicity observed in the emanating sludge fluid. Fluids emanating from 14 different potential sludges resulting from various proposed treatment processes were considered. All emanating fluids were observed to be highly toxic to the green algae, Selenastrum capricornutum, with an average lethal concentration (LC‐50) of 25.8% (by volume).
Aw c/mon. Willard doesn’t care a hoot for the millions who die annually from respiratory problems resulting from indoor burning of (renewable, yeah!) wood and dung.
He certainly doesn’t want them to have access to a reliable, low-cost supply of energy based on fossil fuels (boo!).
Ya gotta sacrifice someone to save the planet and bring those horrible oil and gas companies to their knees.
And as long as it isn’t Willard, himself, he doesn’t believe the sacrifice is too great.
Ground Level Ozone: A toxic component of smog, ozone triggers asthma attacks and makes existing asthma worse. It may also lead to the development of asthma in children. Ozone is produced at ground level when tailpipe pollution from cars and trucks reacts with oxygen and sunlight. Ground level ozone is a big problem in cities with lots of traffic, such as Los Angeles, Houston and New York City. In 2004, according to the American Lung Association, 136 million people lived in areas that violated ozone air quality standards.
Sulfur Dioxide (SO2 ): A respiratory irritant associated with the onset of asthma attacks, sulfur dioxide is produced when coal and crude oil are burned. Coal-fired power plants, particularly older plants that burn coal without SO2 pollution controls, are the worst SO2 polluters. One in five Americans lives within 10 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Oil refineries and diesel engines that burn high-sulfur fuel also release large amounts of SO2 into the air.
Particulate Matter: This term refers to a wide range of pollutants — dust, soot, fly ash, diesel exhaust particles, wood smoke and sulfate aerosols — which are suspended as tiny particles in the air. Some of these fine particles can become lodged in the lungs and could trigger asthma attacks. Studies have shown that the number of hospitalizations for asthma increases when levels of particulate matter in the air rise. Coal-fired power plants, factories and diesel vehicles are major sources of particulate pollution Around 81 million people live in areas that fail to meet national air quality standards for particulate matter.
Nitrogen oxide (NOx): A gas emitted from tailpipes and power plants, nitrogen oxide contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone and smog. It also reacts with other air pollutants to form small particles that can cause breathing difficulties, especially in people with asthma.
The environmental impact of the coal industry includes the consideration of issues such as land use, waste management, and water and air pollution caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals.
There are severe health effects caused by burning coal. According to the reports issued by the World Health Organization in 2008 and by environmental groups and 2004, coal particulates pollution are estimated to shorten approximately 1,000,000 lives annually worldwide, including nearly 24,000 lives a year in the United States. Coal mining generates significant additional independent adverse environmental health impacts, among them the polluted water flowing from mountaintop removal mining.
There are 1200 coal plants in the planning stage worldwide, predominantly in the BRICS. These are not people trying to dirty their environment, but clean it, following the US model. They are optimistic, and steadily gaining power, but losing the power of water buffalo dung.
=================
Now here’s a rhyme from Kenyon Cox that kinda
en – cap -su – lates what we’re on about here, cats.
giant wind turbines, beau – rock – racy :
I love Octopussy
his arms are so long,
there’s nothing in nature
so sweet as his song.
“Tis true I’d not touch him – –
no not for a farm.
If i keep at a distance
he’ll do me no harm.
Using the bidding prices of participants in China’s national wind project concession programs from 2003 to 2007, this paper built up a learning curve model to estimate the joint learning from learning-by-doing and learning-by-searching, with a novel knowledge stock metric based on technology adoption in China through both domestic technology development and international technology transfer. The paper describes, for the first time, the evolution of the price of wind power in China, and provides estimates of how technology adoption, experience in building wind farm projects, wind turbine manufacturing localization, and wind farm economies of scale have influenced the price of wind power. The learning curve model presented includes several important control variables, namely, wind resource indicators and steel prices. The results indicate that joint learning from technology adoption and learning-by-doing through cumulative installed capacity, wind turbine manufacturing localization, and wind farm economies of scale comprise the three most significant factors associated with reductions in the price of wind power in China during the period under consideration. The two types of learning investigated are associated with a 4.1%–4.3% price reduction per doubling of installed capacity, providing an estimate of the evolution of the price of wind power, a technology widely used in other markets, which in China has benefited from technology leapfrogging, established supply chains, and operational experience in other countries. Because of the change of bidding rules in 2007, our estimates can be interpreted as the lower bound of the true joint learning rates. Our model also indicates that most learning about the installation and operation of wind farms was common to the whole industry (i.e., we found little evidence for intra-firm learning). The policies that have contributed to the growth of the Chinese knowledge stock through the promotion of technology adoption are also discussed.
It is with regret that due to recent changes in my personal life I will not have the time available to update this site until sometime in the future.
I have made provisions to keep the site running so you can read the 10,000+ articles
I hope the name “Climate Realists” remains a prominent irritation to supporters of AGW and that it is used by you wisely
I bid you all farewell and look forward to the day when the supporters of AGW admit their mistake.
There has been NO warming of the Earth due to “Man Made” co2. The warming can be atributed to 50 years of higher then average solar activity on the Sun that started in the 1950’s and ended around 2006.
There WILL be more changes to our climate in the future due to our Sun becoming less active. This change is destined to make the Earth cooler, and NOT warmer. The reason AGW supporters have been misinformed about this issue is from political madness and the abuse of science
In short we have seen extended Summers due to an active Sun and now face extended Winters due to a less active Sun….Pass it on!
I Love you all …..please keep up the fight by calling yourself a “Climate Realist”, the term “Climate Skeptic” is not correct, as there is nothing to be skeptical about! It’s the Sun stupid;)
Girma,
Take care, I look forward to you resuming posting when you
can. You have a lot of friends here who respect yr knowledge
and integrity.
Best wishes,
Beth
‘This paper provides an update to an earlier work that showed specific changes in the aggregate time evolution of major Northern Hemispheric atmospheric and oceanic modes of variability serve as a harbinger of climate shifts. Specifically, when the major modes of Northern Hemisphere climate variability are synchronized, or resonate, and the coupling between those modes simultaneously increases, the climate system appears to be thrown into a new state, marked by a break in the global mean temperature trend and in the character of El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability. Here, a new and improved means to quantify the coupling between climate modes confirms that another synchronization of these modes, followed by an increase in coupling occurred in 2001/02. This suggests that a break in the global mean temperature trend from the consistent warming over the 1976/77–2001/02 period may have occurred.’ Swanson and Tsonis – has the climate recently shifted?
There is no doubt that the ‘character of ‘El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability’ changes after 1998. You can see for yourself.
La Niña dominant to 1976, El Niño to 1998 and La Niña since. These are expressions of global patterns of internal climate variability that change abruptly in response to relatively small changes in forcings. The system is acted on by forcings – energy in vs. energy out – and the system responds with changes propagating though powerful mechanisms.
Currently the Southern Annular Mode has been positive for a couple of months suggesting a warm, dry winter for Southern Africa, Southern Australia and South America. A strong polar vortex is pushing Southern Ocean water through Drakes Passage and keeping cold water well to the south. A negative Northern Annular Mode is still pushing storms into the US and Europe – although that can hardly be news. It has gone strongly more negative in the last month. The NAM has been positive since 1995 – but clustered around a few years at the turn of the millennium. The SAM peaked positively in 1998.
There is very cold sub-surface water rising in the Humboldt Current – the thermal origin of La Niña – although it is still too early to tell La Niña is favoured in this phase of the ‘character of El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability’. The seesawing pattern of shifts in atmospheric mass influences and is influenced by tropical and subtropical patterns of ENSO, the PDO and others.
The control variable – the small change in forcing – for the changes in atmospheric and coupled oceanic processes may have a lot to do with solar UV/ozone interactions in the stratosphere and may create cooler conditions over the next few centuries as solar intensity declines from a 1000 year grand maxima.
Although the direction of causation may not be as simple as Tessa Vance imagines – tying together the systems in simple salt content measurements at the Law Ice Dome is compelling data.
‘ENSO causes climate extremes across and beyond the Pacific basin; however, evidence of ENSO at high southern latitudes is generally restricted to the South Pacific and West Antarctica. Here, the authors report a statistically significant link between ENSO and sea salt deposition during summer from the Law Dome (LD) ice core in East Antarctica. ENSO-related atmospheric anomalies from the central-western equatorial Pacific (CWEP) propagate to the South Pacific and the circumpolar high latitudes. These anomalies modulate high-latitude zonal winds, with El Niño (La Niña) conditions causing reduced (enhanced) zonal wind speeds and subsequent reduced (enhanced) summer sea salt deposition at LD. Over the last 1010 yr, the LD summer sea salt (LDSSS) record has exhibited two below-average (El Niño–like) epochs, 1000–1260 ad and 1920–2009 ad, and a longer above-average (La Niña–like) epoch from 1260 to 1860 ad’.
It suggests that there may be much that is unprecedented in the past 600 years – but perhaps less so in the past 1000. It is definitely not a hockey stick. The problem with space cadet climate science is that there is far too much real science that is left unexplained.
The 1998/2001 climate shift is associated with cloud changes. The 1998/2001 change is a dragon-kind – or noisy bifurcation ( http://eprints.port.ac.uk/3527/ ) – being extreme fluctuation between La Niña and El Niño states in this case. Similar to the 1976/1977 ‘Great Pacific Climate Shift’. The two events added most of the recent warming to the temperature record. The shifts last 20 to 40 years – so cooler conditions seem with us for a while yet from 2002.
OK, this is not climate related. But the majority of commenters here live in the NYTimesWashPostABCCBSNBCMCNBCCNN bubble and are either progressives, moderates, independents or libertarians of one stripe or another. So you probably wouldn’t hear about this anywhere else. And you should. (Don’t worry, the post is to a link to a Huffing and Puffington Post article – by a Fox News progressive – so you won’t get culture shock going to an actual conservative site.)
Jack of clubs
James Inhofe
Senator for Oklahoma
Inhofe is the senior Senator for Oklahoma. In 2003 he delivered a speech to the Senate called The Science of Climate Change, in which he said: “The claim that global warming is caused by manmade emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science … With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it”
They have been lying about warming for the last 17 years, and have finally admitted it. And then carry on business ponzi scheme as usual. What will it take to stop this juggernaut crushing unwilling or ignorant victims?
Inhofe is 78 years old. As people age, they resist what’s new and cling to the past. I guess that makes some sense, since they don’t have much future ahead of them.
Preemptive action is the secret ingredient to Inhofe’s stamina, researchers find:
> Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said that the United States should be prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike “right now” against North Korea, warning that its “deranged” president Kim Jong Un could attempt a nuclear attack on America.
Apologies need from those who thought power from the days of ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ would constitute human advancement. Whatever gave them that devilishly stupid idea. I think a God somewhere just wanted to torment load dispatchers.
As for your apology, Beth, please. This way I read and glad of it.
==================
To the days of nasty, brutish, and short, we may soon return if we get cold enough. This fetish over a few degrees more warmth is the very height of human folly and ignorance.
Almost any warming man can do would be Paradise. Almost any descent into glaciation will be a Hell beyond our imagining. Notice the use and unuse of the subjunctive. And yet, we’re stampeded into fearing warming?
A madness of the herd. We’ll get over it.
=============
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
Perhaps this warm, in-depth (and occasionally funny!) interview will help climate-change skeptics to a better appreciation of the immense effort, scrupulous care, and talented craftsmanship, by which complex simulation codes affirm (or disconfirm) simple thermodynamics models of AGW.
Best wishes for enlightened discourse and mutual respect!
So this is when we expect peak solar flares and if had been paying attention to anything serious you might have heard dire warnings – which are always to be ignored – months or even years in advance.
Noise or some coherent signal of the music of the spheres? Does it matter? There is only one way and that is down. I would opt for music of the spheres – it has a nice ring to it.
Happy to put you straight – again and again and again. Some time or other you might like to check your assumptions before making an idiot of yourself again and again and again – aye Miss Fombs? .
Weather has been known to be chaotic since Edward Lorenz discovered the ‘butterfly effect’ in the 1960’s. Abrupt climate change on the other hand was thought to have happened only in the distant past and so climate was expected to evolve steadily over this century in response to ordered climate forcing.
More recent work is identifying abrupt climate changes working through the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the Artic Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and other measures of ocean and atmospheric states. These are measurements of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressure over more than 100 years which show evidence for abrupt change to new climate conditions that persist for up to a few decades before shifting again. Global rainfall and flood records likewise show evidence for abrupt shifts and regimes that persist for decades. In Australia, less frequent flooding from early last century to the mid 1940’s, more frequent flooding to the late 1970’s and again a low rainfall regime to recent times.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
Cooling from 2002 for 20 to 40 years.
A cooling influence for hundreds of years as we pass from the Grand Solar Maxima.
True, true, Nikola Scafetta forecasts a stabilized climate “or cool until 2030-2040,” the result of such ‘physical mechanisms’ and the ‘collective synchronization of coupled oscillators,’
Everyone should know what global warming is all about. It’s not about the weather but about who rules your life.
Max Not Ok and lolwot are the last remaining holdouts when it comes to the pause. You guys are like those Japanese soldiers who refused to believe world war 2 was over. I think a few of them were still around in the 1970’s. So don’t feel too badly. There’s a precedent in the annals of human folly.
Max not Ok, if the heat isn’t missing, why is trenberth looking for it?
pokerguy, there have been pauses and even declines in temperature during the overall upward trend. Apparently, you have identified one you like. Please let me know exactly what period your pause covers and why you think it’s different than any previous pause, and I will be glad to address it.
The missing heat was seen by Trenberth in CERES – part of the problem is that the record is so short it missed the critical 1998/2001 period. The other problem – for Trenberth – is that it was all in SW.
If there was a stand of Siberian larch that was known to put the issue of global warming rest once and for all the Left would be out there flicking kitchen matches into the forests to destroy the evidence.
There was a time when a certain tree in the Maldives had to go…
Now they’re not so sure about drowning isles and underwater cabinet meetings. The luxury market billions were better than the climate millions. You gotta go where the money is.
Anti wind-energy comments here claim it’s a failure or has no future. I’m skeptical of their claims because the Global Wind Energy Council tells a different story.
“The Global Wind Energy Council’s 2012 market statistics show continued expansion of the market, with annual market growth of almost 10%, and cumulative capacity growth of about 19%. A record year for US installations and a slower market in China mean that the two countries all but tied for the top spot in 2012.”
For more 2012 market statistics on wind energy, see
The wind industry survives on subsidies. We are sceptical that subsidies are long term an effective way to behave. that much happens in the way of carbon mitigation – especially where baseload coal plants are involved or there is much other renewables such as hydro or beyond a relatively small penetration – that it doesn’t kill birds and bats and that it isn’t a blight otherwise pristine landscapes.
The success of subsidies in the crude sense of having installations happen is not in question.
If pristine landscape is your concern, you might not like drilling rigs and strip mining. If wildlife is your concern, you might not like offshore drilling.
As for subsidies, the railroads that opened the American West for development were subsidized, and that worked out very well. We have subsidized farms, airports, roads, schools, etc. So I have no objection to subsidizing wind-energy.
And of course when something is subsidized, all that happens is that you get more of it (wind-energy, unemployment, etc). Because the money to do this grows on special subsidy trees, so no other goods and services have to be cut back to enable this. There are no costs, only benefits.
Sign here
……………………………………….
Mining and industry are fairly intensive – and rehabilitation can be done poorly or not at all. It is best to return it to a stable landform and with native veg. There are some horrible examples of mines around where I live. This is one of new interests and I actually have an old coal mine to play with. They give you a gas mask when you enter the site because of the toxic fumes generated from the old dumps. But it is intensive and theoretically transient if done properly. I have seen modern mines restored beautifully as they go. Not much oil but gas in abundance – many thousands of drill heads – but they don’t kill birds and bats.
As an environmental scientist – many things are my concern.
Many things are possible in wealthy democracies. From the perspective of that doyen of enlightenment liberal thought – HA Hayek – government exist to supply services that the market cannot or will not provide. If you decide you want expensive and inefficient energy and you can get the support of enough citizens – well that is democracy.
I think your money would be better spent meeting your Millennium Development Goals commitment or else western governments are just frauds, liars and cheats. But what’s new? We also think that we should be putting $100 billion a year – globally – into energy research rather than subsidising technologies that are obviously limited, expensive and nonsensical. Just like you aye – Max. No wonder you like it so much.
About pristine land:
drilling rigs count into thousands, winmills into tens of thousands (more than 100 thousand globally).
Wind mills are necessarily located on mountain ridges (where the wind blows), so, they are more visible, and also destroy virgin forests with their access roads. They also drive away wildlife (and human beings) wuth their low frequency humm.
But, above all – they are useless. Their contribution to reducing emissions is negligible, and cannot be otherwise.
Did you take note of the name of the organization you link to? A reasonable person might conclude that such an organization is highly likely to publicize positive numbers on wind generation.
I meant to add that one has to look deeper into the issue. Investment in wind generation is being primarily driven by two factors. The first is mandated “renewable” percentages in utility generation portfolios. The second is economic incentives, such as tax credits and subsidies for kW’s generated.
I can’t speak for the entire US, but in the PNW, construction of new wind generation is starting to taper off. For one, the renewables targets have been met or exceeded. On top of that, I believe California recently rewrote their regs, tightening up how they allow for renewable “credits”. (Meaning if your generation is not directly tied to the CA grid, it don’t count.)
The outlook for continued subsidies is also becoming less firm. Congress added what? – a one or two year extension? Without that, incentive for developing wind dries up quickly.
I don’t believe there is a current wind project on the books for WA. We’ve put the 2nd and 3rd phases of our most recent project on hold. OR still has something like 3 projects which still might get built. But thermal is also getting looked at in the mix of new generation.
Poor analogies, Max_OK . in fact, jest not OK.
Roads, railroads, airways take yer somewhere, transport
stuff we need, like food, are the backbone pf commercial,
global, open society. I totally love global. )
Wind turbines, on – again – off again, inefficient, veeeeery
expensive technology, back – ter – the – so – called –
golden – age- closed – societies – of -magical – thinking –
unquestionned – cohesion – weltanshauung, ( love that
word ) that keeps the serfs in their place, Tsk!
One – of – the – serfs – who – became – a – free – cowgirl –
of – the – prairies .
Beth, I disagree. I’m all for seeding wind-power with subsidies. I don’t want the U.S. to fall behind China and European countries in developing this alternative source of energy. I reject the notion if private capital can’t be attracted the thing ain’t worth doing.
I disagree with you on this. There is nothing wrong with trying to jump start new technologies. Do you really think we would have had an internet if the US had not developed DarpaNet? I work in wireless. Would my job exist without the money put into developing combat communications systems using cellular technology? (Government money.) Previously I worked in nuclear. Once again, an industry which received considerable governmental support to get started.
The issue should not be whether research dollars, subsidies and other incentives should be allowed or not. It should be on how these get decided upon and managed.
Where you start to have a point is when a field or industry has been subsidized to the extent that market forces should begin to be felt. At this point wind has been subsidized to having reached sufficient critical mass. If it it isn’t drawing capital, then maybe we need to look at why that is.
Bethsheba
Just because something (eg food) is important, is no reason to subsidize it. People can just buy it themselves – as opposed to the government seizing their money, buying it, and then giving it to them.
Memphis, I am, not in favour of subsidies meself, but
some infa – structure building, a road, a bridge, has a
wealth producing aftermath, subsidizing on again off
again windmill technology does not …in fact, the
opposite. Say, Memphis, are you from Tenessee?
Bethany
Road and bridges get subsidized on the grounds that there is no easy way to charge for their use (technology is changing that though – toll roads, gizmos in your veehighcle so see where you drove, etc).
Not the case with ‘tricity though, it is very easily metered.
The other question – ‘fraid ya’ll haf ta ahsk Long Distance Information…
PS I know that another famous investor from Oklahoma, T. Boone Pickens, was hot on windmills a couple of years back, because he knew they required gas-fired backup plants for the 75% of the time they don’t work and he had a substantial chunk of natural gas. His plan also included shifting a lot of US transportation fuel from imported petroleum to domestic natural gas.
Well, actually I do. One need only do the math on how frequently the wind blows and where to understand this. It’s a lot like investing in a scheme to sell ice to Eskimos. It can be done, of course, but with such simpler and cheaper solutions available why would one?
Yes, agriculture has been successful. These days mainly to something called *irrigation*. Assume you’ve heard of it WHT. (Are you suggesting we ban irrigation??)
Amazing how man adapted to be able to grow more food in the absence of predictable rainfall. Solved that problem with logic and technology. Now we have reliable food production. Yes!
How about we do the same with energy… oh wait, we have. It’s called burning fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro. Time we just recognize that wind speed and location don’t line up well with the times and places we want to use electricity. Just as we shouldn’t and won’t ban irrigation, we shouldn’t ban reliable sources of energy.
k scott, we used to have a windmill on the farm for keeping the stock watertank filled. It worked fine. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have used it. I no longer live in OK.
Ran the whole farm on it, eh? LOL. And I’m assuming you’re evading answering the question means you don’t power your current home with a windmill. Wonder why? Is it because you’re someone who believes in “do as I say, not as I do?” or is it just that wind power doesn’t get the job done?
Oh, and Max_I_don’t_want_anyone_to_know_who_I_am_OK, plenty of people use to keep their water tanks filled with a good old-fashioned animal-powered pump. No why do you think they went to something, um, more modern.
BTW, I love how you say you *used* to have a windmill… not there anymore? I think a lot of farms had windmills but have since replaced them. Wonder why? I mean, the energy was free and reliable, right?
Applying simple thermodynamics can lead to some very interesting ideas. There are many more where these come from a needs only curiosity to find out what lays in store.
‘The atmosphere is not rivalrous – there is no practical limit to the ability to contain any amount of CO2 that we could possibly put out in the foreseeable future. My ability to exhale does not inhibit your ability to breath – there is nothing exclusive about the atmosphere at all. What we have instead a Tort claim. A claim of injury of some kind that exists outside of a breach of contract.
The claim of injury from CO2 emissions appears tendentious at the very least. It depends on a chain of unproven assertions – and occurs in the nebulous future. It demands a compensation now for an injury that might or might occur. It is an injury that is moreover entirely avoidable with proper planning and foresight – and something I have discussed many times here.
Proper, pragmatic, multi-objective approaches with properly directed resources would better serve the needs of people than frivolous and fraudulent claims of injury and demands for compensation from quasi criminal conspirators. Properly directing resources for such things is the proper role of government – even if they are rarely very good at it.
It is suggested that if injury occurs from CO2 that it is with a great deal of contributory negligence from pissant progressives.’
Bart R
What you say about the atmosphere being not rivalrous, hydrologists have been saying for years about the Great Barrier Reef.
Want to dump outflows and silt by the bargeload every second? Go ahead, the Great Barrier Reef is so huge it can absorb it all with no practical limits.
And really, it’s too big to exclude every little paddle-boarder from, hydrologists were given to say.
And now we have half the Great Barrier Reef that was there a mere four decades ago, thanks to these failures of hydrology that left the reefs vulnerable to predators and weather that never before dented them in one percent the way they do today.
Conservation farming primarily is the answer to this. About 50% of grain farmers in Queensland are conservation farming and all cane farmers. I have shown the data to you before – merely repeating yourself and your wild claims is a little wearing. It takes a little time to work through and in the meantime crown of thorns starfish are being harvested manually.
CO2 takes so long to weather out of the atmosphere that in effect no CO2 emitted today will have its influence removed in the lifetime of its emitters’ children. In this sense, the Carbon Cycle is rivalrous.
Restricting ourselves only to lucrative CO2E emissions — which is all we really need to — we can indeed exclude the vast majority of emission by standards of retail measure on carbon-content of fuel and volatiles. This is so administratively simple, even Australia could manage it. And it has minimal costs to implement anywhere that has a retail tax scheme, piggy-backed on the tax system just like many places piggy-back insurance or garnishment or savings programs.
As for proof of harm? You really haven’t been listening. Capitalism isn’t in place to address harms. It exists to efficiently allocate scarce resources. Which we know no other system does as well.
Carbon is easily removed from the atmosphere and I can and have named half a dozen ways. And again the point is that there are much more effective ways to direct resources to mitigation.
You haven’t really been listening. You have far from shown that there is a scarce resource is any meaningful way and your claim is to damages which have not been demonstrated either. It seems more like carpet bagging than honest brokerage.
On the contrary, it is you who have failed to show a case against scarcity of the carbon cycle sufficient to counter the prima facie evidence that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising, and has been doing so for over a quarter of a millennium. If it ain’t scarce, it wouldn’t rise. QED.
CO2 is easily removed from the atmosphere? I can name far more than half a dozen ways, and yet we have a difference of opinion about who ought decide what is and is not easy. You want some global politburo to decide for everyone and then force us into line. I advise standard measures and enforcement of retail fees based on such measures by nations piggybacked on national retail tax systems and payment of the dividends of such fees (as determined by law of supply and demand) to each citizen by piggyback on payroll tax systems in the same way garnishee and insurance programs are done in many places. That way, every private citizen deems how to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere in the least financially painful way with every transaction, instead of paying some commissar to do it for them.
Storms have existed forever. The Great Barrier Reef is ancient. The difference between how it responded to storms in the past and how it collapses under the least storm stress now is attributable to failed hydrology and excessive runoffs. 150 years was not long enough for the reef to double in size.. and we know it didn’t from navigation charts older than 150 years. Your profession broke the Great Barrier Reef through Dunning Krugerism. What makes you think you’re competent enough now to fix the mess you made using the same thinking that got the reef here in the first place?
On the contrary Bart – your rent seeking is a fraud. The old English common law principle of water flow seems similar. Should I increase the flow of stormwater from my property to yours it is not the volume of water but the nuisance or injury it does. You have not proved any injury at all.
But really we are looking to succeed where there has been only failure.
‘A pragmatic approach to climate change seeks positive and politically achievable steps that yield discernible benefits, which in turn provide the rationale for the next steps. Thus, from the history of pollution control, pragmatists conclude that it is important to secure (and build upon) modest pollution regulations that have public and congressional support. Such efforts can make immediate progress, even as protracted battles rage over regulations that do not yet command such consensus.
While we cannot effectively manage human impact on the climate over the long run absent the decarbonization of the global energy system — a task that hinges on the energy innovation efforts described above — in the short term, we would do well to seize opportunities to quickly reduce non-CO2 emissions through traditional air pollution regulations, spread of
best practices, and multilateral cooperation. Roughly 40 percent of anthropogenic global warming measured to date is a function of climate forcings other than carbon dioxide, including methane, tropospheric ozone precursor gases, and deforestation. These non-CO2 forcings will remain significant contributors to global climate change in coming decades.
In fact, many of the most evident impacts of global warming, such as melting glaciers, ice caps, and tundra, are accelerated by pollutants that are not, technically, greenhouse gases — notably black carbon.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf
Far from draconian controls – what is envisaged is informed and multi-level co-operation that is the hallmark of what Elinor Ostrom spent many years discussing – and for which she won a Nobel Prize in economics. http://www.economist.com/node/21557717
As I keep saying – you may impose a tax if you wish and if you get enough support. But your $300/tonne tax is simply nonsense with which you are wasting everyone’s time – time and again and again.
Richard Branson can name 11 ways to take carbon from the atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Earth_Challenge I can add another – and most important – to make it an even dozen. Do you ever get bored with empty one intellectual upmanship? With so little basis in reality?
The Great Barrier Reef is less than 10,000 years old. If you had a clue you would know that. Only silt from the biggest storms from the biggest river reach even 35km out to sea. You invent incredible stories with no basis in fact or science. I suppose you may even believe them like webby, Myrrh or Doug Cotton. But I am not likely to take the word of a madman.
It seems you are Dunning-Krugering law now, as well as hydrology; and your charges both of rent-seeking (as a man whose income is built on the public purse) and of fraud (as a man who took monies from said purse only to destroy the Great Barrier Reef practically single-handed) are particularly backborn. And I get that you will throw up clouds of silt to obfuscate the guilt you must feel as a compassionate man, as is your wont. But I have the choice of believing you, or believing a reef that has prospered for millennia before you came along and in the span of your career destroyed half of it.
While water flow is one precedent (though far more nuanced than you imply and quite representative of the opposite of your claims for it, as it requires only damages, and damages as deemed by the reasonable landowner trespassed against and no other substitute: a man has successfully sued over the storm drain changes of a developer causing even a single frog to wander onto his driveway due his phobia of amphibians for a quarter of a million dollars recently), one could also cite sewer intrusion when seeking remedy of government for failures of infrastructure:
The plaintiffs must prove there were one or more defects in the sewerage system, that the governmental agency knew or should have known of it, and that the defect was “substantial proximate cause” of the damages. The statute does not require “fault” to be proved.
This is very like the cause requiring government to halt its negligence and administer measures and fees and dividends to citizens (air owners) by the law of supply and demand.
The monetary amount of said fees the government fails to collect on behalf of owners being damages. QED
Eh – you know I don’t work evenly indirectly for government – so why insist of feeble and frivolous gapes? And I am afraid that water flowing was the only law we did in hydraulics 101. So my limits are obvious – but I have nailed that one.
And again you make silly hand waving gestures in the directions of a deeper wisdom which you will not sully by casting before swine like me. Forgive me for thinking that you know even less than you don’t say.
Where government owns infrastructure that causes damages – and there must be real damage – it is of course liable to pay it the damage was foreseeable by a reasonable man. I guess that leaves you out in the cold Bart.
If it the risk could be foreseen by a professional person in the course of their duties or even more generally – then there is criminal as well as civil negligence. But I still contend that you have not proved damages or negligence. If there is a future risk – I contend that there are better and more practical ways to solve the issue. What if I say there is a risk – and I have been heard saying there is a catastrophic risk – and say that there are better ways forward than repeating the failures of the past? That repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different outcome is utter madness and merely distracts from sane and sensible suggestions? No Bart – it is you who are the problem and not the solution.
Then there is the realist argument I make, that the AGW Greenhouse Effect is an illusion created by sleight of hand, a science fraud.
The atmosphere is around 99% nitrogen and oxygen dry volume with variable amounts of water vapour, 0-6%. It is a heavy fluid real gas ocean weighing around a ton per square foot, pressing down a ton on your shoulders.
The -18°C figure is from traditional physics which gives it for the Earth without any atmosphere at all, without the main bulk heavy volume of nitrogen and oxygen.
The AGWScienceFiction fisics attributes this to the Earth without their version of greenhouse gases, only those imbibing longwave infrared mainly water and carbon dioxide, with the bulk heavy volume of nitrogen and oxygen still in place.
This is science fraud.
AGWSF then claims that it is the presence of their greenhouse gases which raise the Earth’s temperature 33°C to 15°C. They show no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence, it is an illusion.
In traditional physics the Earth with the bulk atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen and trace other in place, but without water, would be 67°C.
It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature. Compare with the Moon with no atmosphere.
It is the water content through the Water Cycle which brings down the temperature from 67°C to 15°C.
The AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect is an illusion created by:
– taking the minus 18°C figure which is how cold it would be without the real thermal blanket effect from the bulk nitrogen and oxygen under gravity, and giving this to the “greenhouse gases” water and carbon dioxide, claiming it is this cold without only water and trace gas carbon dioxide (which is practically all holes), and
– by removing the Water Cycle entirely, which through evaporation and its great heat capacity takes away heat from the surface into the colder heights where it releases this to condense back to water and ice, coming back down as rain.
The rest of AGWSF fisics is similar science frauds to bolster their Greenhouse Effect Illusion.
Tomcat | April 14, 2013 at 5:57 am |The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
The key to understanding my real world physics is to fully appreciate the properties of carbon dioxide and the other real gases which comprise our real gas atmosphere, which has volume and is heavy and is a fluid so fluid dynamics in play not your radiation in empty space waste heat gobbledegook.
Your fictional CO2 defies gravity to accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years, oops, not in your world, you don’t have gravity, that’s why your fake CO2 can accumulate for hundreds and thousands of years in your atmosphere..
You don’t have rain in your Carbon Cycle, why not? Because your carbon dioxide is too busy zipping around your empty space atmosphere at great speed bouncing off your other imaginary massless ideal gas molecules in elastic collisions with no attraction.
And you don’t have the Water Cycle anyway.
Etc., etc. You go straight from the Earth’s surface into empty space, you don’t have the real world atmosphere in your strange through the looking glass with Al world where you think up any number of impossible things before breakfast and believe them so you don’t know how stupid your fisics, you’ve been brainwashed by AGWScienceFiction memes.
lolwot | April 14, 2013 at 6:47 am | I still await the day that one of these rubes tries to deny the existence of CO2 molecule
You’re the one denying the existence of carbon dioxide molecules which have volume, weight, attraction under gravity, you have an imaginary hard dot of nothing with magic powers to drive global temperatures 800 years before it starts increasing. You’re not scientists, you’re believers in some new fangled religion using scientific terms to create an imaginary impossible world. Your Sun doesn’t even radiate heat!
Tomcat | April 15, 2013 at 2:03 am | Tomcat : The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
Myrrh : [completely ducks the question, focussing instead on a motley collection of straw men]
Point thus conceded by default.
You don’t have real gases, ergo, you don’t have any absorption characteristics of carbon dioxide.
“It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature.”
Nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb infrared, in any significant fashion, so they can’t prevent the radiated heat from the surface escaping.
If the surface of the Earth was 67C as you claim, it would be radiating about 388,000 terawatts of infrared radiation. With only oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere there is nothing to stop that 388,000 TW escaping straight into space.
Short story is that unless the Earth’s surface could make up that short-fall by absorbing 388,000 TW from elsewhere, it would not be able to maintain a temperature of 67C.
Alas the maximum sunlight the Earth could possibly absorb, all that coinciding on the face of the planet, is just 174,000 terrawatts. Far short of the 388,000 TW required to support a 67C surface.
As a quibble, technically ozone is oxygen, and NOx is ‘nitrogen and oxygen’, which would have some small impact on stopping.. a really tiny percentage of the OLR.
Otherwise, yes. If we had an atmosphere of only N2 and O2, all other things held equal, then the temperature of the Earth would be the same as the temperature of Earth without an atmosphere at all.
If the atmosphere were only composed of the current CO2, NOx, CO, H2O in air, the Earth would be essentially the same temperature as now (possibly slightly more, as no aerosols).
But where the claim ..no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence.. is made.. I’ve seen mechanisms, data and thus empirical evidence. Is it possible to be a denizen and not have seen mechanism and data amounting to empirical evidence?
lolwot | April 14, 2013 at 7:01 am | “It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature.”
Nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb infrared, in any significant fashion, so they can’t prevent the radiated heat from the surface escaping.
Nitrogen and oxygen absorb heat. Radiation is but one method of heat transfer, conduction and convection the others.
In the real world of traditional physics, gases and liquids are fluids. In the real world we have a heavy fluid ocean of gas around us, not empty space.
This heavy ocean of gas is heated up by conduction at the surface which causes the nitrogen and oxygen to expand and becoming less dense it rises, lighter than air, and as it rises it takes the heat with it, convection. As it rises colder denser heavier than air volumes of nitrogen and oxygen sink and flow beneath the rising volumes of hot air, these are convection currents – winds.
Hot air rises, cold air sinks.
Just as in the ocean volumes of hot water rise and volumes of cold water sink flowing below, which is how we get our great ocean currents from equator to poles..
If the surface of the Earth was 67C as you claim, it would be radiating about 388,000 terawatts of infrared radiation. With only oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere there is nothing to stop that 388,000 TW escaping straight into space.
Again, that 67°C figure is for the Earth with our real gas atmosphere of mainly nitorgen and oxygen, but without water. Think deserts.
In other words, it is the Earth’s water which brings down the temperature to 15°C from the 67°C it would be without it.
This is why I say you don’t have the Water Cycle in your comic cartoon AGW Greenhouse Effect.
That’s why you can never produce any mechanism or data or real physics explanation for your AGW version of “greenhouse gases warming” – there is no minus 18°C temperature without them.
The AGWGreenhouse effect claimed increase of 33°C to 15°C is an illusion created by the science fraud of attributing the -18°C figure to their absence when it is properly the absence of all the atmosphere which is predominately nitrogen and oxygen.
This -18°C figure is for the Earth without any atmosphere and the 67°C is the figure for the Earth with our atmosphere but without water, as given in traditional physics.
Bring back the Water Cycle by first bringing back the ocean of real gases which are our atmosphere, the mechanism is bog standard basic real world physics as still traditionally taught. You are arguing from an education system courrupted by AGW Science Fiction.
The oxygen and nitrogen which are the bulk of our atmosphere are the real greenhouse gases acting like a thermal blanket around our Earth, these are not empty space as you have in your imaginary fictional comic cartoon explanations. Compare with the Moon which doesn’t have our great heavy fluid ocean of voluminous real gases kept in place by gravity.
Short story is that unless the Earth’s surface could make up that short-fall by absorbing 388,000 TW from elsewhere, it would not be able to maintain a temperature of 67C.
The Water cycle cools it down to 15°C.
This is why the term “greenhouse” was first used of our atmosphere – because like a real world greenhouse it has both heating and cooling to give us the world we have for our plants to flourish.
The bulk real gas oxygen and nitrogen act as a thermal blanket keeping the heat from convecting away too quickly before the Sun again heats the surface, the real heat from the Sun which is longwave infrared.. Our abundance of water cools that down through the Water Cycle.
Water has a very high heat capacity, it is a very great absorber of heat. As it takes in heat it evaporates even faster becoming less dense as water vapour, which is anyway lighter than air, it rises through air taking away the heat from the surface to the higher colder levels, where it releases its heat and condenses back into liquid water or ice, and colder and heavier it drops back to the surface taking any carbon dioxide around with it, all rain is carbonic acid..
There is rational joined up logic in traditional physics, internal coherence.
That’s an unsubstantiated claim you just made , i.e. that N2 and O2 play no role in blanketing the temperature of Earth and that the entire 33C, by which the surface is theoretically warmer as a result of our atmosphere, is ALL due to the greenhouse effect.
Please show me the empirical evidence to corroborate that claim.
Bart R | April 14, 2013 at 8:13 am | But where the claim ..no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence.. is made.. I’ve seen mechanisms, data and thus empirical evidence. Is it possible to be a denizen and not have seen mechanism and data amounting to empirical evidence?
Where?? If it exists then surely you can fetch it.. But you don’t, none of you ever do. You just keep repeating ad nauseum that it exists but can’t find it to fetch..
You can’t find it to fetch because it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist because it is an illusion created by sleights of hand of a clever magician, who gives the properties and process of one thing to another, takes laws out of context, excises whole systems! You don’t have the Water Cycle. You don’t have the real gas atmosphere. You don’t know you don’t have them.
But that’s why you can never find anything to fetch..
The surface temperature is the sum of the temperature at the effective radiating level (255 K) and the temperature difference due to the lapse rate between that level and the surface. E.g. for earth the effective level is near 5 km and lapse rate near 6 K/km giving you the 33 C difference. For Venus, the mass between the high effective radiating level (because the atmosphere is quite opaque) and the surface is much higher leading to surface temperatures in the hundreds of degrees C. The lapse rate part can be seen as the contribution of atmospheric pressure to warming. With no GHGs, the effective radiating level is the surface, so no additional mass is between this level and the surface, making 255 K the surface temperature too.
Gentlemen, take up the topic of how unsubstantiated the claims I’ve made with the publisher, authors, reviewers and over 100 scientists who have cited this source, and from there with the sources used in it’s bibliographic section:
Non-Lte Radiative Transfer in the Atmosphere, Manuel López-Puertas, Fredric William Taylor (World Scientific Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Vol. 3, 2001)
If cold air sinks, and warm air rises, why does it get colder as you ascend? How do temperature inversions form? Have you left a bit of information out? Just curious, as your statement doesn’t seem to make sense.
Maybe you meant your statement to be an information free throwaway comment, I have no way of knowing.
The atmosphere changes with altitude according to a quasi-adiabatic process. The mean value for the lapse rate and pressure vs temperature is well characterized. http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html
Amazing how the average expected value falls out with the application of some fundamental thermodynamics. Of course, in any one place on earth, the specific value can fluctuate wildly about the mean, but that is what entropy entails — describing how convective motions allows the system to fill up possible energy states.
There is a world of conventional physics that climate skeptics don’t bother to get insight from.
If cold air sinks, and warm air rises, why does it get colder as you ascend? How do temperature inversions form? Have you left a bit of information out? Just curious, as your statement doesn’t seem to make sense.
Of course what I’m saying doesn’t make sense to you, if you knew the basic physics of the real world as still taught by traditional teachers it would make sense.
Gases get thinner the higher up because they expand under less pressure, giving up their heat in the process. Expand under less pressure because they are further away from the surface of the Earth where we have the strongest gravitational pull on their volume – this is what makes the blanket out of the nitrogen and oxygen molecules because real gases have volume and gravity draws them together.
These are real world gases which have volume, which expand and contract when heated and cooled, and expand or condense when under lesser or greater pressure. You don’t have this in the impossible world of the AGWGreenhouseEffect. You have instead the imaginary ideal gas pre Van der Waals, without volume. Your gases are the imaginary massless hard dots of nothing with no attraction travelling at great speeds through empty space under their own molecular momentum bouncing off each other in elastic collisions and so “thoroughly mixing by diffusion”.
That is not the real world of real gases of our real gas voluminous heavy ocean of fluid gas which is our atmosphere around us.
You don’t have any atmosphere! You don’t know you don’t have any atmosphere. You don’t have molecules of gas you have hard dots of nothing at vast distances from each other in empty space.
Which is why you have no gravity in your world, there is nothing for gravity to work on because you don’t have real molecules of gas.
Do try to get your head around this point because it is important to understanding what I’m trying to say – because your fisics is imaginary there is no internal coherence, no joined up logic in the properties and processes, and, this is not easy to explain because you have to know basic real world traditional physics to see it. That’s why I try very hard to keep this to the very basics because that is hard enough to show the differences..
I’ll expand a bit on one example here. The empty space hard dots of nothing imaginary non-existant “ideal” gas which you erroneously call carbon dioxide which you say travel at great speeds through empty space bouncing off other such non-existant “ideal” gas molecules is the explanation given by AGWSF to explain how carbon dioxide becomes well-mixed – taken from descriptions of the basic imaginary “ideal” gas as I’ve given – but these can’t then also accumulate in the atmosphere because ideal gases are not subject to gravity, because there is nothing for gravity to capture. So you have no atmosphere at all in the AGW world, your empty space really is empty space. How can you have clouds in your empty space ideal gas atmosphere? You can’t. So how do you explain clouds? You say that water vapour alone isn’t an ideal gas! This is nuts..
You can’t have it both ways, either you have a real gas atmosphere subject to gravity, which means that real gases have weight relative to each other and will rise and sink in air and so separate out when heavier or lighter as carbon dioxide and methane do and when heated or cooled, or, you have a non existant empty space around your Earth where you can make up your fisics to pretend to give answers but which make even more ludicrous scenarios.
Maybe you meant your statement to be an information free throwaway comment, I have no way of knowing.
I am making a very specific point. I can only suggest that you re read what I’ve said and try to concentrate on the point I am making. The sleights of hand at the beginning on which all the other fake fisics house of cards is built.
I’m trying to show how the “AGW greenhouse gases 33°C warming from the claimed -18°C it would be without them” is an illusion, a trick of the mind and eye. You have to concentratre to follow the magician’s tricks because he cleverly and subtly plays with real world physics’ basic facts, moving them about quicker than the eye can see..
In the real world around you the atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and oxygen molecules which have volume and so subject to gravity, the fluid gas air. They become hot when heated and cold when they lose heat. When they are hot they expand, become less dense and so lighter than air they will rise, when they lose this heat in the higher levels they condense, which means they become denser more compact, so heavier than air they will sink displacing lighter air.
This is how we get our winds, which are currents of volumes of convecting air created by differential heating. Winds are volumes (packets) of air on the move. This is basic bog standard meteorology.
AGWScienceFiction can’t explain this basic meteorology because it has taken out the properties and process of real gases.
The magician lies when he tells you that nitrogen and oxygen are non-condensable gases.., he lies when he tells you that gases are not buoyant in air.., he lies when he tells you that they are ideal gases which mix thoroughly by diffusion under their own molecular momentum and can’t be separated out.., he lies when he tells you that a practically all holes trace gas can act a great thermal blanket trapping heat…
The real voluminous subject to gravity gases of nitrogen and oxygen which is most of the atmosphere is a thick heavy volume of fluid gas around you, an ocean of gas weighing 14lb on every square inch, which really acts as the thermal blanket around the Earth to delay loss of heat – compare directly with the Moon which has no atmosphere.
The Moon has extreme swings of temperature, we don’t. The Moon’s without an atmosphere comparable figure with the Earth without an atmosphere is around minus 23°C.
Our Earth with its real gas voluminous atmosphere under the pressure of gravity would be 67°C without water. Think deserts.
An Earth without water would still be cooler than the extreme temperature the Moon gets to without an atmosphere under the hot Sun, because our gases will expand and rise when heated, become less dense and lighter taking away heat from the surface, and then spontaneously under gravity becoming heavier and colder will condense and as again high pressure volumes our nitrogen oxygen air will sink to the surface, will flow beneath into the low pressure area of expanding hot air, displacing the lighter hotter air, cooling the suface. To be heated again and so the cycle continues.
And we would still be warmer than the extreme cold the Moon gets without an atmosphere, because we have the thick heavy real gas atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen under gravity keeping the heat from escaping so fast. That is how we get the 67°C figure without water.
The magician’s trick here is just to keep repeating that the trace gas practically all holes in the atmosphere carbon dixide is the great thermal blanket around the Earth – so you don’t look to see what it takes to make a real thermal blanket. Our real thermal blanket is our whole atmosphere, all the real greenhouse gases.
With our vast volume of water, which cools the Earth through the Water Cycle in its great heat capacity and properties and processes as a real gas, the temperature comes down to 15°C. Water cools the Earth 52°C from the 67°C it would be without it but with the rest of the real gas atmosphere in place.
What I am giving you is traditional science which understands the properties and processes of real gases, which understands how we get our great wind and weather systems from the differential heating of gases which expand and rise when hot and condense and sink when cold. Real traditional physics makes sense.
It is not easy to see the tricks of this scam, this science fraud, because they have so thoroughly confused the basics. I often see applied scientists knowledgeable in one field, able to see the tricks being played with gases say, but believing the tricks in another field because these have been so thoroughly indoctrinated through the general education system that people take them for granted as if real, because outside of their fields they have no reason to investigate them. The AGWSF scam counts on the confusion this generates to continue confusing.
But if you examine as I have done the very basic claims of the AGW Greenhouse Effect and its Energy Budget, and compare the claims with what really is well known in traditional science, where matter has distinct properties and processes, then the scam becomes obvious.
Examine the basics Mike Flynn, draw the curtain aside..
I can accept the common hypothesis that Earth’s atmosphere is responsible for the surface of our planet being 33C warmer than it would be theoretically be without an atmosphere, and that the GHE is the primary reason for this, with CO2 responsible for somewhere around 5 to 7C of this with the bulk caused by water (vapor, liquid droplets or ice crystals).
But I have just not seen the empirical evidence that supports the notion that ALL of the 33C is caused by the GH effect.
A p.s. to Myrrh | April 15, 2013 at 7:30 am | ozzieostrich | April 15, 2013 at 4:18 am | Myrrh,
Take a read of this page from Columbia University, it’s typical of the AGWSF meme explanations which has taken rain out of the Carbon Cycle so it can brainwash that carbon dioxide “accumulates” in the atmosphere.
Because, the typical residence time of water in the atmosphere is 8-10 days and all rain is carbonic acid, carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle.
How do rocks on the Earth’s surface get weathered by carbonic acid? You wouldn’t know it was from rain because it has been completely excised from this AGWScienceFiction version of the Carbon Cycle.
Oh, it tells you that water and carbon dioxide make carbonic acid which is what does the weathering, but then it goes to carbon dioxide disolving in water at the surface,
“Weathering
Carbon dioxide and the other atmospheric gases dissolve in surface waters.”
and then the only mention of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is this sort of nonsense:
“For example, as carbonic acid is removed from solution by weathering of rocks, the reaction will adjust by producing more carbonic acid. And since the dissolved CO2 is in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2, more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere to replace that removed from solution by weathering.”
“If more rocks become available for rapid weathering as a result of mountain uplift the enhanced weathering will draw down atmospheric CO2 and decrease global temperatures.”
Magically removed from the atmosphere..
There is no Water Cycle in the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect because it would break the illusion, it has to avoided. It has to be avoided in the base premise because water cools the Earth down to 15°C, and, there is no rain the AGW GE because it has to be avoided in the Carbon Cycle, because nothing must jar with the meme that carbon dioxide is a well mixed gas and accumulates in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years.
Where sources do give accurate information about rain being carbonic acid they won’t be giving any information from the AGWmemes department which might contradict it.., for example here, exlaining what acid rain is and pointing out the difference between acid rain and natural rain which is acidic as carbonic acid:
“What is acid rain?
The term “acid rain” is commonly used to mean the deposition of acidic components in rain, snow, fog, dew, or dry particles. The more accurate term is “acid precipitation.” Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acid, and those with a pH greater than 7 are alkaline (or basic). “Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid.”
“because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid,”
This is from traditional science which understands the basic properties and processes of the natural world around us. Carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle.
These sleights of hand get easier to spot with practice..
Gee WHT, is the average lapse rate the same type of beast as the global meant temperature, that is, a fictional creation? Where will I find this average?
Gee WHT, is the average lapse rate the same type of beast as the global meant temperature, that is, a fictional creation? Where will I find this average?
”
ksd, your phd is failing you if all you can muster is cheap rhetoric. I did supply a link.
The lower tropospheric lapse rate can be predicted for earth, mars, and venus simply from the atmospheric concentration.
Folks, Ever wondered what Myrh is rabbiting on about re: the “water cycle” that everyone has allegedly ignored?
I think it’s this : he thinks there’s NO co2 in the atmosphere, because the rain washes it away. Therefore there can be no co2-induced warming. Voila. Quite funny really.
Memphis | April 16, 2013 at 12:55 am | Folks, Ever wondered what Myrh is rabbiting on about re: the “water cycle” that everyone has allegedly ignored?
I think it’s this : he thinks there’s NO co2 in the atmosphere, because the rain washes it away. Therefore there can be no co2-induced warming. Voila. Quite funny really.
That’s right, Memphis, that is why it is still a trace gas.
I’m so pleased you can see how funny it is to think that it accumulates.
The atmosphere would be choc a bloc with it by now if it could accumulate.
Especially so because there is no mechanism in AGWScienceFiction for it to get out of the atmosphere –
no rain in the AGW Greenhouse Effect Carbon Cycle
and not heavier than air in the AGW Greenhouse Effect atmosphere so it can’t naturally sink displacing air as it does in the real world –
so no way for rocks on the AGWSF Earth to be weathered by rain which is carbonic acid,
but more importantly, no way for the plants on the Earth’s surface to get their dinner in the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect illusion.
In the AGWSF impossible fisics world the plants must also be well-mixed in the atmosphere..
It gets funnier and funnier through the looking glass with Al.
I can accept the common hypothesis that Earth’s atmosphere is responsible for the surface of our planet being 33C warmer than it would be theoretically be without an atmosphere, and that the GHE is the primary reason for this, with CO2 responsible for somewhere around 5 to 7C of this with the bulk caused by water (vapor, liquid droplets or ice crystals).
So, GHE is the best available explanation?
But I have just not seen the empirical evidence that supports the notion that ALL of the 33C is caused by the GH effect.
And here we come to the part that matters to our understanding of what you are saying. Thank you for explaining.
You are, in effect, saying that sure, the chemical theory of combustion accounts for some of the heat and light of a flame but maybe there’s still some phloegiston doing some part of it; that sure, Newton’s Laws explain the motion of bodies but Quintessence plays some undefinable role that makes up part of the mechanism of celestial bodies. That the best available theory, which does in and of itself seem sufficient to explain what has happened, is just not enough for you and you fingoistically suppose some other hypotheses will make us happier, though we really don’t need them, they don’t further simplify things, they aren’t more universally applicable, and we have no new data that requires them to explain outcomes.
You’d need in Science, according to Newton, to climb a very steep hill of proof to require anyone to take your claim seriously.
You don’t get to demand additional evidence until you’ve made that very, very difficult case for fingoism.
Feebly feigning an understanding of what science is, Bart says Max can’t ask for evidence that GHGs completely explain why the earth is 33 C warmer than it would otherwise be, until he (Max) comes up with a rival theory.
Truly pathetic. Indicating again just how much the CAGW truebelievers hate the concept of skepticism and audits.
Myrrh writes: “Nitrogen and oxygen absorb heat. Radiation is but one method of heat transfer, conduction and convection the others.”
Conduction and convection cannot prevent surface radiation escaping into space. Only greenhouse gases can.
Any other solution you try will fail.
I think a necessary requirement of people who dispute the greenhouse effect is should be for them to make and present an energy budget diagram of their idea, in the form of Trenberth’s famous diagram.
Perhaps by actually trying to accomplish that task they would realize it’s not possible to have Earth this warm without greenhouse gases.
And to be more fair, sure, there are other components within the atmosphere that might account for the expression of heat from the atmosphere to space than the GHE;
Lightning visible from space carries energy away as light; even invisible lightning can send radiation up to gamma rays out of the atmosphere. Exotic electromagnetic interractions between the atmosphere and the solar wind could affect the temperature of the planet, too; and the height of the solar tide quite possibly counts for something.
All of which can be calculated and found to be a rounding error compared to well-founded calculations of the GHE.
Meanwhile, most of the convection/conduction/cloud-iris fingoism tossed around comes out to no more than perpetual motion or smoke and mirrors.
1. “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” This is Newton’s principle of parsimony .. His short version of Ockham’s Razor is, “More is in vain when less will serve.”
2. “To the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.” .. This principle is often stated the other way around, with a more predictive intent, i.e., from like causes we can infer like effects.
3. “Qualities … found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” (This is Newton’s principle of induction.)
4. “We are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phaenomena as accurately or very nearly true … till such time as other phaenomena occur by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.” This rule renders scientific conclusions at root conditional, always subject to correction. The science scholar Alexandre Koyr é called it Newton’s “rule of prudence and of good sense.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Parsimony, simplicity, universality, prudence and good sense. Get it?
What about “well, sure, GHE could parsimoniously, simply, universally, prudently and in good sense sufficiently explain all the warming, but I prefer any of an undeterminate number of long, complicated, exceptional, unrestrained and fantastical alternatives,” do you think is SCIENCE?!
Oh, you were being serious with interpreting what I wrote as requiring Max to have a rival hypothesis before he questioned the best one?
(Which, though it’s prudent and makes good sense, isn’t what I wrote.)
No. I wrote: “That the best available theory, which does in and of itself seem sufficient to explain what has happened, is just not enough for you and you fingoistically suppose some other hypotheses will make us happier, though we really don’t need them, they don’t further simplify things, they aren’t more universally applicable, and we have no new data that requires them to explain outcomes.
Which is pretty much the opposite. It’s not that Max needs a rival explanation before he questions the current one; it’s that anyone would need evidence that GHE cannot sufficiently explain the effects observed before is prudent and good sense to pursue any less parsimonious, simple, universal substitute added on top of GHE.
Excellent ongoing evasion, waffling, out-wriggling and obfuscation, Bart.
Well, at least we’ve finally dragged you kicking and screaming to the point of accepting that you don’t need a rival or better theory before you’re allowed to criticize an existing one, and pretending you have Newton’s blessing to say so.
And in the unlikely event that you never meant to claim that in the first place, LEARN TO WRITE BETTER.
You’re still fighting the same battle you lost in the Ethics topic over a year ago?
Ethically, yes, you ought be prepared to offer a superior hypothesis if you’re trashing one that has met all the requirements of Newton; there’s some imperfect equivalency between the two ideas except Newton wasn’t talking about ethics — heck, he was one of the least ethical people I’ve ever heard of — but about the philosophy of the method. Being unethical doesn’t make you a worse scientist, merely an unfortunate person to encounter.
If you have trouble reading what I write, then I agree to make every effort to write to lower and lower levels until I make myself clear to you, but I hope you stop making every effort to read to lower and lower levels until you see only what you want to get out of the words on a page.
Oh ….. so holding fast against determined drivel and evasion is ‘holding a grudge’, now. I see.
You’re still fighting the same battle you lost in the Ethics topic over a year ago?
You really must let me have the number of your dealer sometime. He gives lots of easy credit I take it.
Ethically, yes, you ought be prepared to offer a superior hypothesis if you’re trashing one that has met all the requirements of Newton;
So I was right to start with (or you’ve switched position again). You think Max was ‘ethically’ wrong to criticize a theory without offering a replacement. And you think Newton thought the same.
Hey, man, like, al skepticism in science in ‘unethical’. Dude. We all know that – it’s why so many target CAGW customers falter at the altar like they oughtn’t.
But yes, perhaps the problem isn’t just your writing skills after all, but rather the silly, shifting, point-scoring arbitrariness of your subject matter. Even a Pulitzer Prize Winner couldn’t knock that dross into shape.
Science adopts as accurate or very nearly true the most parsimonious, simple and universal explanation available to date for observed phenomena, in principle.
If someone finds new observations that the explanation cannot account for, it must be amended, revised or rejected, and the next most parsimonious, simple and universal explanation is adopted as accurate or very nearly true at that time.
While there is no ethical burden when one has new observations that displace old explanations to do more than point out “these are not explained by the scientific consensus”, almost all observations are framed within interpretation, and that interpretation itself demands an explanation of the interpretor.
For instance, Nic Lewis simply reprocessed old observations with a new Bayesian prior selected apparently only because it allowed him to lower the resultant Climate Sensitivity. If that were all he did, he’d be guilty of deceptive practices, an acknowledged form of scientific fraud or at least so commonplace an error with Bayesian analyses one would consider fraud or incompetence if one were to trip over it in a peer-reviewed paper. But I’m assured Nic Lewis went further, and provided a rationale for his prior. See? Alternate explanation offered, questions of ethics quelled.
Do you still not get how this works yet? You’ve had over a year to think about it. Did you not avail yourself of readings on the subject in all that time, but just skulked waiting to pounce randomly?
And your latest response is … yet another deceptive, self-aggrandizing smokescreen, finely tailored to ignore the point at hand – the point being your ridiculous assertion that science ‘ethics’ demands that before criticizing a theory, one is obliged to offer a replacement.
So not only are you clueless about the process of science, you’re hugely devious and dishonest into the bargain – just what one expects from a pompous, self-announced authority on science ethics.
(Let me guess – since the Climategate frauds and malpractices were done to support the alarmist consensus designed to justify more taxes, regulations and politics, you’re firmly in the “nothing to see here folks, move along please” camp of science ‘ethics’).
You indulge in a strawman. Or a facsimile of a platoon of straw men.
Firstly, let me point out I don’t claim any authority for myself. I don’t make arguments from personal authority. I don’t claim credentials that might confer authority for myself. I _did_ refer, back when this topic was the topic — long, long ago before you spent over a year fuming in silent outrage with the issue festering on your mind to the exclusion of all else (what does that sort of obsessive mania feel like, one wonders?) — to authorities who published on the ethics of science for explicit support from their official ethical guidelines, but that wasn’t the crux of my argument. I do cite Newton, as it’s Science, and Science has had 300 years to review and amend Newton on this and never once has rejected this point in all that time, so it is an ethical argument that has withstood the trial of ages. So your claim that I have somehow abused the personal authority vested in my own person is both odiously a lie, and patently silly.
— For people who haven’t been around Climate Etc. since its inception, or have forgotten this incredibly minor exchange from that distant past, Vassily is dredging up an unrelatedly dusty old debate on Ethics in which he took the side of preferring to be unethical, and lost. So maybe it isn’t a surprise that he’s come out of the shadows to ambush us all with this malicious twisting of what was said to avenge his loss. —
Second, you misrepresent my claim. “..before criticizing a theory, one is obliged to offer a replacement..” is simply backwards and leaves out key conditions.
AFTER attacking a theory — if one has not already in the course of one’s critique offered a more parsimonious, simple (but not too simple) and universal theory in the process (which is generally the most clear way to communicate the gist of one’s meaning) — that has proven accurate or very nearly true based on all available evidence, and without offering new evidence and without revealing actual technical error verified by new evidence, one has the ethical obligation to suggest the best explanation one may.
Aside from the pragmatic simplicity of communicating the criticism more effectively, this allows the reader to more fully judge the comprehension of the critic of the matter at hand, as well as builds on the understanding of the critic to serve the advancement of science by bringing the critic’s familiarity of the subject (if any) to bear.
(Note that this is the OPPOSITE of what we were discussing in this thread: the fingoistic supplying of superfluous hypotheses not prompted by parsimony, simplicity, universality, accuracy, proximity to truth, or new observations.)
This doesn’t mean spotting obvious technical mistakes and pointing them out requires developing a new theory. It means spotting obvious technical mistakes ought include in pointing them out the impact the technical mistake might have on the validity of the current hypothesis, if any, so far as the technician can foresee. If the technician lacks any means to foresee the impact (as proven by the inability to offer a valid altnerate hypothesis), they ought say so rather than claiming wildly that the mistake undoes all, as that is simply an invalid assertion from ignorance.
If a critic is unable to or unprepared to address alternate explanations while attacking a well-established observation-based, parsimonious, simple, universal hypothesis that is accurate or very nearly true, if all they offer is audit after audit, FOI demand after FOI demand, then it will rapidly become apparent to all that all the critic is doing is obfuscation and obstructionism, which are inherently unethical.
One notes, in the very long time since that debate that Vassily’s side lost here in an obscure corner of the then quite obscure Climate Etc., that manner of attack has fallen off considerably. Fingoism has become the new norm, so rather than lack of alternate explanations we see the opposite problem. Almost everyone sprouts fake hypotheses out their ears at the drop of a peer-reviewed paper.
So glad Vassily brought this up in his backstabby improvised roadside way. It’s good to be reminded of the value of ethics.
*And on brief a Climategate note, Vassily appears unaware of or to whitewash that Jones was demoted and relieved of duties over the handling of FOI requests, that there were dozens of findings of procedural and administrative improvements required by the UK Parliamentary inquiry, which could hardly be called “nothing to see here” even though not just eight official inquiries (so far) but also reviews prompted by the GWPF (often through backchannels and using their political influence under the table — how ethical — in three countries) or Inhofe in virtually every related (and some unrelated) department of government consistently find the science sound, and if anything more convincing since that time.
One suggests that an inquiry into the waste of taxpayer dollars by Inhofe’s personal vendetta amounting to witch hunt would reveal it to have cost an obscene amount.
Readers will not be surprised to learn that, consistent with his general take on ethics, Bart is lying ad nauseam through his teeth.
This all started with – and is still all about – his response to Max, ludicrously upbraiding him for daring to criticize a theory without first offering an alternative. He has not backed down from this utter drivel.
And lord only knows which debate on ethics of year ago he is on about, and – if indeed it even happened – his lying ways have distorted it.
Bart’s vigorous excusing of the endemic fraud and malpractice within the IPCC cadre uncovered by Climategate, and the whitewashes of themselves run by the crooked universities responsible – at taxpayer expense – also comes as no surprise.
His preference – don’t spend more taxpayer money rooting out tax-funded crookery, just let the crookery continue. Just as long as the outcome of the crookery is politically correct – gets those taxes and bureaucracies growing.
That’s Bartian Science Ethics for you, in a nutshell.
Readers must have a difficult time imagining how, assailed by grudgery, vendetta, ambush, invalid argument, prevarication and smear, those very signatures of scientific ethos, my conscience can bear the calumny.
On December 17, 2003, the Ministry found that the DCSD had made a number of procedural errors, including:
Not using a precise standard for deciding “good scientific practice” in the social sciences;[citation needed]
Defining “objective scientific dishonesty” in a way unclear in determining whether “distortion of statistical data” had to be deliberate or not;[citation needed]
Not properly documenting that The Skeptical Environmentalist was a scientific publication on which they had the right to intervene in the first place;
Not providing specific statements on actual errors.
willard (@nevaudit) | April 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm |
Although Lomborg clearly proceeded in his book and works ensuing and use of influence since in an unscrupulous manner well outside the ethical practice and spirit of science, it does little good to dredge up all ancient grievances.
A catalog of every wrong of every page of every chapter of Lomborg’s entire book?! Surely, we can see at least a hint of Vassily-like vendetta in Fog’s efforts.
This is polarizing, unproductive, and wrong-headed. I’d say a pox on both their houses, if that itself was not polarizing, unproductive and wrong-headed.
Lomborg is an advanced — though wrong — thinker, with substantial influence and following, an effectual and persuasive communicator, and an energetic devotee of whatever he believes in. It would be a shame to lose all that from the discourse, and a mistake to ignore it while the chance to tap into all those virtues remains. So what if he’s a crackpot?
Between petitions on each side, almost a thousand distinguished names in science and medicine too one side or another in the issue. Wouldn’t it be great if all that energy had gone to something less divisively pointlessly polarizing?
Life is too short. If there is one thing I could claim to be an authority on in Science, it is that moving ahead one funeral at a time is an inefficient and wasteful practice that ought be supplanted with better.
Hardly Bart, the overwhelming, repeated evidence of your flat-out lying, question-ducking and general deviousness will have made it very easy for readers to see right through you. And it’s not as if it’s your first offense.
> Wegman is listed as the “Bernard J. Dunn professor” at George Mason University. Unfortunately, the very accomplished Dunn (check out his Wikipedia page!) died 2 1/2 years ago. I wonder what he would think if he knew that his donation to the university went to paying the salary of a plagiarist the author of papers that bear a striking similarity to, but are worse than, Wikipedia articles.
Mere silly diversion from Wegman’s two important points, the inappropriate statistics, and the existence of screeching feedback in the climate science peer review echo chamber. willard digs a hole for his reputation.
===========
Gergis is more illustration of the problem in peer review. Karoly admits failed procedure, yet the zombie reconstruction marches onto the field of AR5.
It’s counterproductive, ultimately. Narratives change, sometimes on their own.
========
I can’t really address the charge of “general deviousness”; after all, who could?
However, if you’ll be so kind as to repeat the scientific, climate-related questions you think I’ve ducked (with links), if I can’t find the answer I posted to them at the time, I’ll be glad to address them so far as I can, though I assure you asking them of real climate scientists would be the wiser course.
As for lying, again, link to the posts and explain why you think they contain lies. I’m perfectly content for denizens to judge for themselves. While I don’t mount vigorous defenses of my own character — as I have none to defend, so far as I can manage — it rankles me to hear such claims simply because errors are often worth addressing for the chance to correct them.
Are there any warmist denizens on Climate Etc., including our hostess, who are prepared to agree that the climate sensitivity of CO2, however defined, has not been measured? If there are, and you are prepared to stand up and say so, then we could have a meaningful discussion of what this means.
Well, I’m a ‘Forcist’, but apparently that’s the same thing to many here. It would be nearly impossible to acknowledge forcing without accepting warming, and far more difficult to concede warming due human activity without forcing.
Climate sensitivity of CO2 has not been isolated from all other forcings, from feedbacks, and from variability of ocean currents in a universally accepted way and with precision, to the best of my knowledge*, if that’s what you mean by ‘measured’.
But how is that relevant?
And why does such an acknowledgement hold up meaningful discussion on what it means? Why go to such extreme lengths to frame the meaning of a meaning of a meaning?
Bart, Hearty congratulations on making a meal out of nothing. Probably 99% of subscribers here are ‘forcists’ then – people who think CO2 probably has an effect, but don’t think it is anywhere near enough quantified to know whether to act on it or not.
You’re just whistling Bart; neither you nor anyone else yet has a fix on what the CO2 effect will be. The only ones pretending otherwise, and calling for political action, are those with a political agenda. And that includes the bulk of the climate ‘scientists’ that government has carefully selected to keep in its pocket.
But certainly it is an issue that needs to be studied rather than ignored.
I have read this scientific reasoning, and from what I can see it is a load of nonsense. For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. So far as I can see this omission makes the reasoning presented simply arm waving, with no substantial science behind it.
If the claims of >90% and >95% probability are just plain wrong, and I beleive they are, then there is no basis to believe that CAGW is a problem. That is the issue which I wish to discuss, but clearly this is not possible if warmists will no agree that the IPCC has omitted to mention that clinmate sensitivity has not been measured.
“I have read this scientific reasoning, and from what I can see it is a load of nonsense. For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. So far as I can see this omission makes the reasoning presented simply arm waving, with no substantial science behind it.”
But Jim, it has been measured. You can measure it today.
But before you measure it, lets see if you know what it is.
Being a man-made forcing in a chaos-bounded system is reason enough to act. Forcings are perturbations, and external perturbations change the state of a nonlinear complex iterative system to evolve new extremes.
Being the largest of the man-made forcings, CO2E is the one that ought have priority, but just as Lomborg is wrong to line up what charities to fund and which to kick to the curb by doling out an imagined budget, it would be wrong to imagine only CO2E ought be addressed.
Being that the signal of CO2E is detectable on the same scale as natural variability and that CO2 does not perish rapidly, we know all we need to act.
Trying to hide behind bombastic statements with scientific-sounding words does not address Jim Cripwell’s challenge.
The climate sensitivity of doubling CO2 has not been determined empirically.
Just claiming that “it is the largest of the man-made forcings” is poppycock unless you can substantiate this statement with empirical data (not fancy words).
But Jim, we’ve seen your reasoning his full of fallacies and misrepresentations. Perhaps the source of your problem with following the reasoning of others is that you believe your own fallacies?
Like, For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. Which is patently a pile of fallacy.
You talk about belief, as if your beliefs are indisputable, but you do not even contemplate the possibility that others’ evidence, observations, calculations, deductions, inferences, published papers by the truckload might be valid. How can anyone engage in discourse on such a basis? You offer nothing, therefore, to anyone willing to enter fair discussion.
Priority of importance of forcings, not a hill I’m interested in taking a stand on. First. Second. Third. Whatever. Unlike Lomborg, I don’t believe in rating the water leaking into the boat by what hole it poured through, while there’s bailing to be done. You fix the holes in the order that doesn’t sink you, not by the popularity contests they win.
All that needs be shown is that it’s a man-made forcing. There’s a signal of it in climate. It’s man made. Ergo it’s a large enough man made forcing to increase Risk. That’s all that we need know. At that point, we can know that the cost of this Risk is borne by all, and the profit goes to few Free Riders.
That’s a wasteful state for an economy, and an unfair one — which is one of those things that can shake the goodwill of all players in an economic system.
We don’t need to know how much harm CO2E does. We know how much harm loss of goodwill in an economy does. So the Free Riders whinge about having to finally pay their share? That’s good. Let them bleat. They may be squeaky wheels, but they’re few and nobody loves them but their mothers. The louder they scream, the more confidence everyone in the economy will have that the misery is shared equally, as is the utility.
Bart
Even assuming there is indeed significant CO2 AGW – which is far from clear and if anything getting less clear – it is not the case that there are free riders, since everyone is a user of CO2-creating energy, both directly at home and in their cars, and indirectly via their use of products and services that are produced using CO2-creating energy.
Bart thinks we “don’t need to know” how much harm CO2 does in order to act. But how then would we know what action is appropriate ? Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Perhaps even 0C wouldn’t matter to him – to heck with reality, rationality and objectivity, it’s just the perception of political correctness that really matters.
Certainly some buy the products of carbon burning. Certainly some sell them. But certainly, these are not the only near substitutes in all cases, and there are alternatives, and there is conservation, and there might be other far-removed budget decisions made if the true cost of carbon cycle use were reflected in the price of carbon burning: a man might buy a bag of apples from a local farmer and enjoy a quiet walk with his family eating apples rather than spend the same amount on filling up his 4×4 and off-roading with his drinking buddies, for example.
The redistribution that takes place, from local apple growers to frackers and foreigners, from agriculture to oil, from free democratic choices at the point of every purchase to committee-determined taxpayer-leveraged ‘cheap’ (I use the word ironically) energy, is free ridership, and inspires both waste of precious resources underpriced (or unpriced) as well as reduces faith in the fairness of the Market.
If everyone uses lucrative CO2E, and must use it, equally, then pricing the carbon cycle will have absolutely no effect as every penny of fee is delivered as a dividend to everyone equally who is an owner of the Carbon Cycle — every citizen, per capita, mainly in payroll adjustment. But we know from cases where this happens that not everyone uses this resource equally, and even modest prices — far below what the law and supply and demand would determine — show that pricing rapidly squeezes out waste from the Market.
Which is why Fee & Dividend, with levels set by the Law of Supply & Demand, is necessary before we even discuss other measures like carbon taxes or regulations or trading schemes: if we don’t have a valid understanding of what the Market ascribes as price, we have no valid data on which to estimate the prudent level of such measures, if any.
Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Bart : Yes. Clearly.
Mindboggling lunacy. If the Pause had continued for another 5, 10, 50, 100 ….. years, would you still be holding that position?
Yes the climate system is highly complex, but that is no excuse. The fact is we still have no real idea of the net effect of the CO2/human_influence in amongst the natural forces. Lukewarming has some credence. Your CAGW talk of “runaway” CO2 forcing doesn’t.
While is may be true that not everyone ultimately causes the *exact* same amount of CO2 to be created due to the products and services they consume, the average will initially suffice I suggest. So if everyone pays in for CO2 *they* cause to be created, and is compensated for the CO2 *other* people cause to be created, most people will come out about equal (divergence from this being a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor – your real motive?). All you will have done is create phoney ‘work’ for bureaucrats, thus diverting resources from active productivity into moving funds around.
Secondly, it is still far from clear how serious the addition of CO2 in fact is, and therefore how much bureaucratic overhead dealing with it warrants.
OK, let’s for now assume your figures for BC carbon tax are right. (Who compiled them – the people who argued for it?). That doesn’t mean there’s a free rider problem of any significance, since we don’t yet know if CO2 is the significant problem the politically-funded/motivated climate science says it is.
( As a Georgist tax on natural resources REPLACING other taxes I have no objection to it btw ).
Bart > You not only choose to dump trash over your fence, but you don’t want to know how much, or what’s in it, or where it falls, or what harm it’s done. That goes beyond shameful into negligent.
Did you just go to some denier site, and cut and paste that from some badass denier, and bring it over here to attribute it to me? Such barefaced and militant lying does you no credit at all. I guess it’s all you’ve got left …
BB> And there is no issue of market efficiency here.
Bart>> Do you even know what the words you write mean?
You still produce nothing to of any significance on this score.
Meaning it’s you who doesn’t understand the words he’s using.
As Willard would say, the sockpuppet pair known as Tomcat/BatedBreath “no play fair”.
It is a shame that this fake grassroots / astroturfing is allowed here. It is possible that TC and BB are not the same person, but they always comment on the same day and the same topic. Fake skepticism is a mix of purely political agendas and krackpot pranking.
Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Yes. Clearly.
In a linear system, of course you’d be right. In a linear system, absent complexity you could do CBA in some valid way. In a system where you deprecated such matters as insurance and Risk, fairness and rights, you’d be right. If the world were a pegboard and we all cogs and pegs, you’d be fine on your logic.
The world ain’t that way.
Temperature is just a proxy, and a remarkably poor one. A GMT might express at most half of the impact of the forcing, due the thermomechanical principle, and likely less as work goes into shifting the system itself that is not reflected in current measurements. Heck, we don’t even talk about the standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis of the GMT curve. (Well, not much.) Double the frequency of extremes in both directions, and the GMT would remain unchanged, but we’d still be seeing rather dramatic effect.
We can discern a signal of human influence. Indeed, the signal’s some sigma seven levels strong, if we don’t restrict ourselves only to GMT. Denying that signal is mindbogglingly false.
So long as we can detect a forcing, yes, we ought restrict its unforeseeable consequences by limiting it so much as practical. Do you suggest we’re limiting the forcing in any way, at all, currently? It’s a runaway forcing proceeding by accident and driven by perverse reward systems. How is that good?
If there were only 0.05C change per doubling, no one would call it ‘warming’, then, would they.
The ‘warming’ isn’t directly important.
The perturbation is, and the perturbation is poorly reflected if we attempt to represent it with only a single number.
And I am not about catastrophe.
Catastrophe is relatively rare, and even if the perturbations lead to an order of magnitude greater frequency of catastrophes the additional cost due the perturbation would pale in comparison to even the mildest projected additional costs of Risk or of damages to key vulnerabilities. Why limit the discussion to the small change? This is about money coming out of all our pockets — mine, yours, our families, everyone’s — because of poor decisions by governments prompted by the greed of lucrative industry.
And I say this as someone who has made a reasonable return from greedy lucrative industries and poor decisions of government.
The pocket-picking by Free Riders is the major reason for the excessive perturbation in America and to a lesser extent Europe.
The pocket-picking is because a fundamentally wrong idea “cheap energy” has had currency for far too long.
And yes, I get that this sounds slightly whackadoodle; but you can’t talk about undoing a thoroughly whacky idea without wending your way through a maze of whackyism.
What does “cheap energy” even mean? Ironically, it means more expensive energy and more expensive everything else.
You pay down the cost of energy by subsidy, and you end up removing democracy from the Market by counterfeiting the price signal that efficiently allocates scarce resources — the whole reason for having a Market!
This leads inexorably to waste, which is a great expense.
And you do this by subsidy, which means you pay for it by government deficit or taxation, which is the most expensive money in any economy, and raises the price of all goods.
How is this reasonable? How does it surprise that it leads to bad outcomes?
Warming isn’t the measure of the problem. It’s a symptom.
And imagine how hard by this point it is for me to suppress the urge to say “There is no freaking Pause, you innumerate ignoramus.”
If there were a Pause (which is possible but the data just has not yet confirmed, that nasty We Live At The Endpoint Problem), and it were just a pause of GMT warming, then its duration alone would not matter. Would the elevation of Risk — that costs me from my pocket — continue? No? Then I’d be fine with that kind of Pause. Would the elevation of harm to key vulnerabilities continue? No? Then even better! Would all extremes of weather that could be attributed to the perturbation cease, and all restructuring of climate systems stop? Well, that’d be pretty much necessary before it’d be a Pause to my mind.
Why don’t you reject all lesser claims, and dyskeptically accept inadequate statistical manipulations?
And I say this without knowing how much or how little education in statistics you may have, but even the best statisticians need information about the meaning of the numbers they’re operating on, and the science of meteorology tells us trend lines less than 30 years mean little, and the science of signal processing tells us trend lines less than 17 years mean nothing. So in 2022, we’ll know pretty well 95% if there’s a ‘pause’ starting in 2005, unless we both stop getting record warm years and start getting relatively very cold years consistently, then we might see a pause of warming — whether due to harsher winters because of shifting weather patterns or the heat being sent down to the deep ocean by some weird thermal inversion effect — slightly sooner.
But if there’s still TOA imbalance?
Then we’ll still see perturbation and extremes of weather and changes in the state of the climate system..
And if all that fails to come about while CO2E continues to rise, then we’re in some pretty big trouble, because then the most elementary of Mathematics will have stopped making sense.
While is may be true that not everyone ultimately causes the *exact* same amount of CO2 to be created due to the products and services they consume, the average will initially suffice I suggest.
You suggest?
Huh. Data from where it’s actually been done tells us over 70% of people come out dramatically ahead for BC’s revenue neutral carbon tax, about 20% come out so near to par as it doesn’t matter, and only 10% turn out to have been free riders all those years before the price signal was put in place.
You suggest based on what?
So if everyone pays in for CO2 *they* cause to be created, and is compensated for the CO2 *other* people cause to be created, most people will come out about equal (divergence from this being a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor – your real motive?).
Oddly, the biggest critics of the BC revenue neutral carbon tax are the Left, who complain that it _doesn’t_ redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Keep in mind, it was a right wing, tax-cutting government that brought in the revenue neutral carbon tax, and at the same time dropped BC from one of the highest taxed regions in North America to one of the lowest — lower than most US states, including among the lowest corporate taxes.
All you will have done is create phoney ‘work’ for bureaucrats, thus diverting resources from active productivity into moving funds around.
Bzzt. Third wrong guess in a row; if this were baseball, you’d be struck out. BC piggybacked this on its tax system, which it had lying around doing nothing much useful anyway but wasn’t going to get rid of; and guess what? It reduced tax churn by so much, it pays for the marginal additional cost of its administration. Thus putting resources that had been funds sitting around untouchable back into the pockets of working citizens. You got this one so backwards you cost your side a man on base in addition to striking out.
Secondly (that’d be Fourthly, but who’s counting?), it is still far from clear how serious the addition of CO2 in fact is, and therefore how much bureaucratic overhead dealing with it warrants.
You know, Ronald Reagan once said that a good landowner would pay any price to avoid the shame of dumping his trash over his fence onto his neighbor’s property. How far we have fallen since his day.
You not only choose to dump trash over your fence, but you don’t want to know how much, or what’s in it, or where it falls, or what harm it’s done. That goes beyond shameful into negligent.
Who produced the figures? Funny thing, if you go read the actual BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Act, you’ll find that the law requires every penny be accounted for annually by independent audit. But I see you’re comfortable pretending to expertise and knowledge you do not have without doing the basic reading.
Clearly, you’re not following if you think free rider arguments rely on harm. Free rider arguments rely on excess benefits obtained from scarce resources without equitable return to the Market. No harm need be shown done by the goods themselves; only scarcity (such as, say, the CO2 level rising — which as David Springer has pointed out, is one of the few things not seriously in question), rivalry (once one party has raised that level, it remains raised for more than a lifetime, so no other party has access to that same rise), excludability (ie there are ways to prohibit lucrative access to the resource) and administrative practicality (such as the BC Carbon Tax, which no Georgist would object to).
As for your trash over the fence repartee.. Uh.. what? I’m clearly not hep enough for this jazz.
Explain your market efficiency comments more fully, and I’ll be glad to fully explain why you’re wrong about them.
Who produced the figures? Funny thing, if you go read the actual BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Act, you’ll find that the law requires every penny be accounted for annually by independent audit.
So the state commissions ‘independent’ audits of itself. Even more convincing than the independent audits of itself the University of East Anglia commissioned in the wake of Climategate.
Clearly, you’re not following if you think free rider arguments rely on harm.
Clearly you’re not following if you think I say that. Or is it just that you desperately need another strawman to make you look non-moronic?
…
Good grief, so a rising CO2 level is a “scarcity” now is it? – such confident cluelessness.
As for your trash over the fence repartee.. Uh.. what? I’m clearly not hep enough for this jazz.
You’ll first need to tell me which of your strawmen is involved here
Explain your market efficiency comments more fully, and I’ll be glad to fully explain why you’re wrong about them.
You are the one making market efficiency claims (something about rising CO2 being a scarce resource), so it’s you who needs to explain. We’ll take a look again if an when we can get you past the basics.
The ‘state’ in BC is hardly monolithic, and is audited by people who are generally hostile to the party in power. You do understand that parliamentary democracy is an adversarial system, right? And even if it weren’t, a free press ought ensure democracy by printing truth. (Okay, so that last part is pretty much a mockery these days. I include it more to chastise readers who accept and even encourage crap (looking at you, Reuters) than to sustain my point. Even so, what sort of totalitarian dark fantasy world do you live in, Meowser?
..if you think I say that.. cf. since we don’t yet know if CO2 is the significant problem..
What did you mean at 4:44 by ‘significant problem’ if not harm? What, are you denying you are talking about catastrophe, now that it’s inconvenient?
You don’t need to prove ‘significant problem’ (of the totally harmless kind either) to establish Free Riding. Free Riding or even the conditions that lead to it is the significant and inevitable cause of problems. You don’t have to prove that poisoning candies and handing them out for Hallowe’en has caused deaths or injury for that to be wrong on its face, either.
And really, you claim to be a Georgist and lecture about market efficiency and don’t understand what scarcity is or how the difference between ‘economic goods’ and ‘free goods’ works, and dare criticize others on Economics? That’s bizarre. It’d be like G&T criticizing Carnot, Boltzmann or Gibbs on Thermodynamics.
Scarcity is confirmed by the non-zero opportunity cost to society of emitting CO2E. Don’t think the opportunity cost is non-zero? That’s fine as a fringe individual opinion — I think all the catnip in the world could disappear tomorrow and I’d feel no lost opportunity — but you’re not all of society, and if you think no one in society objects to CO2E as costly, you’ve been hiding under a rock in a catnip-induced haze.
The ‘state’ in BC is hardly monolithic, and is audited by people who are generally hostile to the party in power. You do understand that parliamentary democracy is an adversarial system, right?
You do understand it’s still the state pretending to audit itself, right, and the ‘adversaries’ therein are united in supporting it? As mentioned, about as objective as a police inquiry into police brutality, or a University of East Anglia inquiry into the science malpractice conducted with its blessing (Climategate).
—
And since you are so prone to keep pretending otherwise, I’ll mention again that we don’t yet know if rising CO2 is the significant problem the government-lackey ‘scientists’ say it is.
— You don’t need to prove ‘significant problem’ (of the totally harmless kind either) to establish Free Riding.
Well blow me down, after countless attempts you’ve finally made a non-moronic comment (giving you the benefit of the doubt, though – the “of” in the parentheses a presumed typo for “or”).
— And really, you claim to be a Georgist
Again you reach for the straw.
I don’t; I said I wouldn’t object to a Georgist tax REPLACING others.
and lecture about market efficiency and don’t understand what scarcity is
Yet more straw. Actually it’s you who tried lecture about market efficiency, and is plainly clueless about scarcity – you said “rising CO2 was scarce”, or some such mumbo-jumbo.
or how the difference between ‘economic goods’ and ‘free goods’ works
Hoo boy, the strawman just keep coming. Being charitable again, maybe this is from some other confused thread you’re mired in.
And that some people merely THINK rising CO2 is causing them a problem, doesn’t mean it actually is. Merely imagining a lost opportunity cost, isn’t the same as actually losing one.
The state only pretends to audit itself (a state we have no evidence you’ve ever been to or know anything at all about); Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents and Ralph Nader are all in a vast plot to oppress your rights; eight hearings in three countries were all Climategate cover-ups.. I’m beginning to see a pattern. The more fabulously incredible any idea seems, the more prone you are to embrace it with fanatical zeal.
The ‘of’ was not a typo, it was indicating sarcasm, or irony.
And what an interesting quibble. Wouldn’t object to taxes being replaced with ‘equal’ Georgist taxes, but not a Georgist. Like not objecting to the Yankees winning, but not being a Yankees fan. Truly, is the only thing you know about Georgist taxes something you got off the back of a pamphlet about what gun Hayek favored at a Tea Party fundraiser?
And you really need to figure out when someone’s saying you’re too incoherent to comprehend, and when they’re using rhetorical devices. Hint: I’m not using a rhetorical device.
How naive do you need to be to think an organization will act in any way except to further its own perceived self-interest ? Especially an organization as large, powerful and self-important as the state ?
Same principle with the Climategate universities’ investigations into themselves once revelations of hiding data, covering their tracks etc etc came to light. They used taxpayer money to deceive taxpayers, then used more of it to cover their deceit up.
– I’m beginning to see a pattern. The more fabulously incredible any idea seems, the more prone you are to embrace it with fanatical zeal.
Classic projection.
. Wouldn’t object to taxes being replaced with ‘equal’ Georgist taxes, but not a Georgist ? Like not objecting to the Yankees winning, but not being a Yankees fan.
More thoughtless twaddle – preferring a lesser evil to a greater evil makes one a fan of the lesser evil now does it ?
Truly, is the only thing you know about Georgist taxes something you got off the back of a pamphlet about what gun Hayek favored at a Tea Party fundraiser?
You are the clueless one on Georgism. It’s about ownership of natural resources. But you’re trying to press it into service based on the “scarcity” of CO2. God only knows what you have in mind, if anything.
Say, isn’t the State auditing itself, or any ‘self -auditing,’
a kinda oxy-moron?’ …Now if Steve McIntyre is auditing
something or other yer know it’ll git audited
And you really need to figure out when someone’s saying you’re too incoherent to comprehend, and when they’re using rhetorical devices. Hint: I’m not using a rhetorical device
You don’t need to in order to be too incoherent to comprehend, at least based on you last comment.
As we see with Bart, incoherence can present in both rhetorical and literal approaches. If your underlying thinking is incoherent, nothing can save you.
How naive do you need to be to think an organization will act in any way except to further its own perceived self-interest ? Especially an organization as large, powerful and self-important as the state ?
Less naive than a person would have to be to believe states are monoliths without division, internal politics, leaks, loopholes, failures, adversaries or proponents dedicated to some higher power than the state. You are making an argument premised on the government of a province the same size as South Carolina being an all-powerful, all-knowing Big Brother.
We can take from your silence on the question of whether you know anything about BC (as well as your laughable characterization of its government) that you’ve never been there. Have you ever been to South Carolina? Is there anything you can relate to or know about that exists in the real world and not in some fictional dystopia to help you graps how absurd your claim is?
Same principle with the Climategate universities’ investigations into themselves once revelations of hiding data, covering their tracks etc etc came to light. They used taxpayer money to deceive taxpayers, then used more of it to cover their deceit up.
Only two of the eight inquiries were university inquiries, and those were carried out by outside departments. Have you ever been to a university? You see them as unified monoliths where everyone covers each other’s backs? Did you not even read the Climategate emails, rife as they were with in-house petty jealousies, plots and distrust?
And then there’s the six other inquiries.
While data transparency is a no-brainer, and any restriction on access to any data is odious, it’s not like it’s unique to just Climategate-related activities. Making out that this is more than just a sad reality of science in general, lamentable and one hopes a practice that will die off sooner than later, it’s also something that every Climategate inquiry took issue with and landed on exactly the same side as you do about it. So they used taxpayer money to support your argument. You should thank the taxpayer for their support of your cause. Show some gratitude.
More thoughtless twaddle – preferring a lesser evil to a greater evil makes one a fan of the lesser evil now does it ?
All taxes are evil. Some are more evil than others, for the amount of revenue and goals of the state achieved, so they ought be replaced with lesser taxes, of course.
But you mistake my argument. I’m not advocating a tax at all, Georgist or other, however much the Georgist argument might pertain in your mind to the reasoning of owners making people pay for what they take from the owners.
Also, this is not about the scarcity of CO2, but about the scarcity of the carbon cycle’s ability to recycle CO2. That is demonstrably scarce, and you have failed to address this valid and telling point.
Beth Cooper | April 20, 2013 at 3:26 am |
Steve McIntyre self-audited for decades as a mining-industry accountant and political lobbyist. In Canada, they let companies self-audit. It’s the standard.
And looking at the reliability of McIntyre’s results, I wouldn’t say anyone “knows” anything’s been audited. Indeed, looking at MM2003-2005’s failures, we can say the entirety of McIntyre’s activities have added next to nothing at all to the field.
manacker | April 20, 2013 at 3:46 am |
Uh.. what? Do you mean what Memphis | April 20, 2013 at 3:58 am | said?
That’d be a pretty good point, if it were what you meant.. except Memphis seems to prefer to audit me than to audit thee.
Sometimes other-audit is as invalid as self-audit.
manacker | April 20, 2013 at 3:50 am |
We ought be reminded, Nixon’s audit was never completed, but we all know that the one single inquiry into Watergate that did complete was pretty widely accepted.
Or do you dispute the Watergate inquest findings, too, and want seven more?
I would be interested in learning how Denizens of the forum would answer the following back-to-basics questions.
1. In the physical sciences, what are the basic forms of dissipation? What are the SI dimensions of dissipation? (Wikipedia may be a helpful starting point.)
2. What form(s) of dissipation are described in Navier-Stokes equations?
3. Are isolated chaotic systems dissipative?
4. What is the dominant dissipation mechanism within the troposphere?
5. Without making any assumptions about linearity, what is the dissipation of a steady 1 ampere flux flowing between two interfaces differing in potential by 1 volt? Is this result dependent on any assumption of the spatial distribution of potential between the interfaces?
6. Ibid. for a steady 1 liter/sec flux of an incompressible fluid flowing between two interfaces differing in potential by 1 pascal?
7. Ibid. for a steady 1 watt thermal energy flux flowing between two interfaces at 300 K and 150 K? 150 K and 0 K?
8. Terry is perplexed with his answers to question 7. He imagines two parallel-plate cells connected in series. In the steady state, the 1 watt flowing into each cell must, by energy conservation, also be flowing out its opposite face. He’s used his textbook’s equation for thermal dissipation yet the sum of the dissipations of the 300K/150K cell and the 150K/0K cell exceeds the steady-state input power of 1 watt. Explain.
It seems that no-one has yet responded to your question Quondom. What you are talking about is plain old entrophy and the Law of Diminishing Returns.
I suspect that Climate Sensitivity will resolve to a PDF as its value seems not a constant but depends on other influences as well, which I will refer to as natural variability.
I also suspect that climate is governed by many interacting complex, non-linear, non ergodic systems all of which are effected by chaotic bifurcations. The remarkable thing to me is the comparatively narrow bands of its trajectory over millions of years.
For number 7. There is no zero plate or we would not exist. For 300K initial condition, you would have a series of plates, 300K, ~257K, ~212K, ~178K, ~150K etc. each with slightly less than 50% entropy if you use the S-B law. (~.93 would be the correction from ideal emissivity.)
The Carnot efficiency of each stage would be about 15.9%
My Answers
1. ..; watts. 2. Viscous. 3. No. 4. Thermal. 5. 1W; no. 6. 1mW. 7. 0.5W; 1W.
8. Terry has failed to distinguish free energy from dissipated energy. Only the former can do work or be dissipated. The 300K/150K cell’s output is 0.5W free energy and 0.5W dissipation. The free energy input of the tandem 150K/0K cell is thus 0.5 W which it duly dissipates. The combined dissipation of the two cells is thus 1W, the input flux of the joint system.
FYI: The formula for the maximum work that can be extracted from a heat engine when operated reversibly, i.e. without dissipation, is found in relevant texts. The unextracted balance appears as free energy at the cooler interface. If the engine is performing at only 30% of its maximum allowed efficiency, then 70% of the maximum allowed work is dissipated. If no work at all is done, all potential work is dissipated. (This is not a proof, but a description.)
“Being that the signal of CO2E is detectable on the same scale as natural variability …”
Bart,
Help me understand this. I’m skeptical, but open minded. I changed my mind once, so I can do it again.
Correct me where I’m wrong. I accept that co2e (green house gas emissions) can be measured reliably. But there is (is there not?) a very open question as to atmospheric sensitivity…that is, wrt to the amount of warming we can expect over “x” time scale. Taking a layman’s gander at the available charts, it surely looks to me that sensitivity has been exaggerated by the IPCC. We’ve sent massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere in the last 17 years, a period with (to be overly generous) very little warming. Many credible sources, even from the alarmist side, concede no warming at all
The cost of “acting” is in general terms, a known. We can all agree…I think… that in societal terms it’s high. IN material terms. we might very well be less wealthy. In social terms, we will likely be less free. And yet the cost, if any, of not acting, is not known. It’s so uncertain that one could plausibly argue any co2 provoked warming would be a net benefit.
No one BArt, not even you with your apparent certainty, can say with any confidence what the effect of the coming solar minimum might be. If we’re headed back to a LIA, a few degrees of added warmth could save us all from quite a harsh fate.
“We’ve sent massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere in the last 17 years, a period with (to be overly generous) very little warming. Many credible sources, even from the alarmist side, concede no warming at all”
“The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.”
Not to belabor a point, but you seem to have problems understanding that there is a current lull in global warming.
Hansen has called it a “standstill”.
Jones stated that “there has been no statistically-significant global warming”.
Others have referred to it as a “pause”.
(At one point Trenberth referred to it as a “travesty”.)
The length of this pause is probably closer to 12 years, since starting at the end of 1997 (the start of a record high El Nino year) could be misleading.
“The cost of “acting” is in general terms, a known. ”
Well, the cost of the proposed “actions” (windmills and solar) is known.
The trouble is – their effects (or lack thereof) are ignored.
So, we end up acting and spending tons of money and acheiving nothing of the desired emission reduction.
This is the factual record, after hundreds of billions of dollars have already been spent.
A link, a cite, with a detailed balance line accounting of these billions of dollars and where and to whom exactly they went and from whom and when?
Because every time I seek these details, I find a surprising liberty is taken with definitions, and I’ve come to be skeptical of such claims. I’m sure you understand skepticism.
Which effects do you claim are ignored, specifically? Cite? Link? Places? Names? Between a quarter (well, 23%) and a tenth of the electricity in some states is derived from these windmills you so disparage, and the states declare them cost competitive. (See how annoying it is to hear claims rhymed off without details? You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.) And what of the actual bulk of the actions? Conservation and improved efficiency squeezing waste out of the economy, reducing th
Why has Earth temperature stayed bounded in the same small range for ten thousand years?
Why is Earth temperature still well inside those bounds and why is Earth temperature likely to stay inside that same bound?
Earth has been in a warming cycle since the coldest days of the little ice age. Albedo was higher during the coldest days of the Little Ice Age than the albedo during the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period or the Modern Warm Period. When Earth is cold, much Northern Water is frozen. There is still a difference between winter and summer, but both have more ice than during a warm period, such as now. When the water is colder and frozen more, it does snow less and ice retreats, albedo decreases and Earth warms. When Earth is warm, much Northern Water is thawed. There is still a difference between winter and summer, but both summer and winter have less ice than during a cold period, such as during the Little Ice Age. When the water is warmer and wetter, it does snow more and ice advances, albedo increases and Earth cools. The oceans go up during the warming and down during the cooling. Days get longer during the warming and days get shorter as a result of the snowfall that causes the cooling.
Earthshine data does show that the albedo decrease has halted.
Temperature data does show that the albedo decrease has halted.
Leap Second data does show that the days have stopped getting longer.
Unadjusted sea level data does show that the oceans have stopped rising.
Days did get longer because of the rising oceans but that is over.
The data is overwhelming. We are at or near the peak of this warm period and we will soon show the start of the move back toward a Little Ice Age. Look at how much snow does fall each year after the warm ocean opens the Arctic; the more open the Arctic, the more the snow.
CO2 is still headed up, making green things grow better, but it is going alone, without its supporting cast, temperature and sea level.
Climate scientists make the Earth colder and increase albedo as a result. Climate scientists make the Earth warmer and decrease albedo as a result. They have this exactly backwards. Increasing and decreasing albedo does drive the temperature changes.
Ice and water have a set point. The temperature that ocean sea water melts and freezes is the thermostat for Earth. Warm and Open Ocean results in more than enough snow. A Cold and Frozen Ocean does result in less than enough snow. This turns the snow monster on and off
Earth does not have one stable equilibrium temperature that it can hold. Earth does have a stable temperature cycle that does go from one powerful boundary to the other powerful boundary.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/
The tiny variations in temperature over the last 10,000 years make perfect sense if you believe that Arrhenius (1896) was wrong. Here is his hypothesis:
“The selective absorption of the atmosphere is……………..not exerted by the chief mass of the air, but in a high degree by aqueous vapor and carbonic acid, which are present in the air in small quantities.”
The hypothesis that the GHE (Greenhouse Effect) is caused by the “Chief Mass of the Air” fits observations much better than the Arrhenius theory. The tiny changes over the past 10,000 years may be attributed to factors such as water vapor, ocean currents, solar activity, aerosols, volcanic ash, CO2 and many more effects that are poorly understood.
I think you may be right. Ice and snow can drive a climate oscillation many decades or centuries in length. Warm and cool boundaries are established by the albedo change that accompanies phase change in water with high albedo on both sides ice on the low side and clouds on the high side with very low albedo of liquid water in the middle.
The theory of albedio changes affecting radiative thermal equilibrium temperature has merit.
So, some questions:
1. What drives the albedo changes?
2. What factors provide negative feedback to albedo changes??
blouis79 | April 16, 2013 at 10:01 am | Reply
“1. What drives the albedo changes?”
Snow and ice. When Arctic sea ice decreases it causes more snowfall over northern continents. Greater snow cover raises albedo thereby less energy is absorbed by the system. Less energy entering the system is gradually reflected in lowered ocean temperature. Lower ocean temperature stops melting Arctic sea ice and it starts to grow again. More sea ice means less snow on the continents lowering albedo allowing more energy to be absorbed by the system which eventually raises ocean temperature and we are back full circle.
The slow response time of the ocean to rapidly temperature over land makes for overshoot in both directions which sustains the oscillation.
“2. What factors provide negative feedback to albedo changes?”
Ocean temperature. Mean annual temperature over land responds very quickly to albedo change from snow cover. That means more cold air flows out over the ocean but it takes a long time to cool it because of immense thermal inertia. Eventually it cools enough so Arctic sea ice starts increasing which reduces snowfall over land. Now warmer air flows off the continents warming the ocean which eventually increases snowfall again.
The most interesting part of Pope’s theory isn’t what drives the oscillation. It’s what stops the oscillation. He claims there is nothing to stop it and climate is locked in interglacial conditions forever. The reason is because usually Greenland’s ice is gone before the abrupt warming that ends the glacial epoch reaches a peak. He believes this last glacial ending was unique in that the Younger Dryas interrupted the warming because an ice dam broke early releasing buku cold fresh water into the Atlantic which temporarily halted the temperature rise and it allowed Greenland’s ice sheet to remain intact and without Greenland’s contribution to lower albedo the snowfall is limited and hence not as much overshoot.
He describes it here:
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page24.html
Herman,
I’ve thought for some time now that this makes a lot of sense.
Which is why when I hear people claiming that snow and cold weather is the result of global warming, I don’t think they are talking out of their ass.
It does however makes me believe they are so committed to the cause they can’t see that this is what a negative feedback would look like.
Totally new subject, since we haven’t been given another Open Thread.
Moving Averages: two questions.
1. People love to do moving averages, I assume non-weighted (i.e. a rectangular window), but I’ve heard that this introduces distortions into the process. I’ve started doing moving averages after Hanning the values, to avoid edge-of-window effects. Is this an issue, and is Hann a good approach?
2. When I look at monthly temps, I’m really bothered by, say, a 3-year moving average, which smears all kinds of stuff together. So I’ve been experimenting with a different kind of moving average that I’m not sure there’s a name for. Perhaps a Seasonal Moving Average? That is, you (weighted) average each month with the month 12 months before, 24 months before, 12 months after, 24 months after, etc. So a particular July is representative that July and July’s from preceeding and following years.
You still get smoothing, but it also preserves seasonality which tells interesting tales. For example, you can see what years had narrow spreads of temperatures and which had wider spreads, or that warmer months peaked and leveled off sooner than cooler months.
Any merit to this thinking? Any name for the operation?
Consensus Climate Science has been running, roughshod, over Scientific Climate Science, way too long. It is way past time to kick the Consensus group aside and let them submit their papers side by side with skeptic papers and review them all by a group that is made up of people from many fields. This should be much like a review of NASA after a major accident. Decades of forecasts with no skill is way too long. They told us that the only way temperature could go is up. Now we have had seventeen years with no warming. The Emperor has no clothes on. What happens is real. What is forecast is smoke and mirrors.
Many main stream climate scientists do claim that they do have peer-review and consensus of 97% of climate scientists.
I have read the stories of boycott and intimidation of publications and editors who publish papers that disagree. I will give an example.
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/deja_vu_all_over_again/
This is an example of a dog pack frenzy and not responsible debate.
Each year that the lack of warming travesty extends, they get more desperate to get laws and rules in place to tax CO2 before the rest of the whole world knows they are on the wrong track.
Look at the Postscript from this posting.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/01/lonnie-and-ellen-serial-non-archivers/
Postscript 2 – Ellen Mosley-Thompson has an interesting cameo appearance in the Climategate emails. She was the EOS editor who rushed through the Mann et al 2003 EOS article on Soon and Baliunas 2003. The article took about 10 days from being commissioned to being accepted. They giggled among themselves when Willie Soon inquired about the peer review process. The character assassination of this article has not been fully analysed. In one despicable email, Tom Wigley acknowledged that Soon and Baliunas might have a point that 20th century precipitation was not unusual (a theme revisited in AR5 Zero and First Draft), writing to Mann and others (2003-06-06 682.):
Mike,
Well put! By chance SB03 may have got some of these precip things right, but we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit.
Mann, Wigley and others accomplished this by misrepresenting the actual content of Soon and Baliunas. The Mann article was rushed through by Mosley-Thompson just in time to be used against Soon and Baliunas in a Senate hearing in late July 2003 – the hearing at which von Storch announced his resignation as editor of Climate Research.
The real travesty is that when the oceans are warm and the Arctic is open, more snow falls and that stops Earth from getting too hot and the consensus climate scientists don’t even suspect that this is what is happening.
What they pass off as peer-review and consensus is really better described as peer pressure and control.
The climate scientists who disagree don’t get counted because it is hard to get recognized when the consensus clique decides who is a scientist.
Science is always skeptic so consensus science is not really science.
The skeptic scientists are the real scientists.
Herman Alexander Pope,
Two very interesting comments. Thank you.
Very acute, that one. Perhaps acute enough to be correct.
=======
” The skeptic scientists are the real scientists.”
Are some claiming to be skeptics actually just crazy ?
There is some of that and a lot of disagreement as to which ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUy9ePyo6Q
Andrew
Max_OK
There are “crazies” on both sides of the AGW issue.
Want to match crazies?
Can you top the skeptical scientists who reports being addressed by a glowing green raccoon?
And how about the one who thinks he can find buried gold with a pointed stick?
And the one who thinks he was once Jesus? Either that or he speaks for Jesus. He wasn’t clear.
Well, there’s good ol’ “coal death train”, “irreversible tipping point”, “meter high sea level rise”, “Venus runaway” James E, Hansen.
There’s good ol’ “the science is settled”, “7C rise by 2100” Sir Robert Watson
Oh, yeah, there’s the late “decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest” and “I don’t set very much store in looking at the direct evidence” Stephen Schneider
And we’ve got “2,500 scientists can’t be wrong”, “voodoo science and reincarnation believer”, novelist and train engineer, Rajendra Pachauri
And don’t forget writer George “Moonbat” Monbiot.
Just to name a few.
Max_CH
PS But this is a silly topic. We both know there are weirdos on both sides of this debate, so why belabor the point?
Ha Ha, because you can’t come close to my three guys, you say it’s a silly contest.
Max,
What does name calling and labelling bring of value?
Were I to point to environmental fanatics who spike trees and engage in arson, is that reason to ignore everyone with concerns about the environment?
And what exactly is crazy about Herman Pope? Is it the fact he’s prsenting a theory which sounds reasonable and plausible? Quick, bring out the labels, or as willard might say, let loose the squirrels.
+1
What gave wings to global warming is what’s killing it. What’s news there? A bomb planted in a bus exploding in Peshawar Pakistan as it was driven through bazar is more news. That is also how a hoax dies — especially one that demonizes people who work for a living because their CO2 will flubber the climate 50 years from now.
Unfortunately Waggy you seem to get your news from a singular source. In regard to the killing of global warming, aka climate change aka climate weirding, it would be nice if the media coverage alone could make this issue go away, but alas, basic laws of physics won’t allow such wishful thinking to command reality.
Western academia knows us too well. Many of us folks appreciate being given any excuse for why we should not even try to invest ourselves in all of that work that is needed to form an intelligent opinion on any super complex issue — especially when the issue is about climate change research, which has been a huge hole in the ocean into which the federal government poured billions of dollars that have been stripped from the economy to feed the climatists that are supposed to answer any difficult questions we may have. Yes, Western academia knows all about us and formulated a simple plan: pretend there is a scientific consensus about global warming and bet on our glorification of idleness in the Disinformation Age to anoint their climate propaganda with an aura of reason.
Wow Waggy, maybe more reading and study for you and a step away from grassy knoll thinking. But I am certain, no matter what you read, you see exactly what you want to.
Your problem is that warming and climate is not dangerous and there are other descriptive words such as ‘history’ or ‘science’ that point to bodies of knowledge that previous civilizations previously used as handy tools to discern the truth from fiction hidden in the warp and woof of the sights and sounds that assail our senses. Other scientists in other disciplines are beginning to see that everything they know to be true is wrong if climatology is not a hoax so remaining silent is no longer a good option. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~George Orwell
Gates,
Isn’t it the case that basic laws of physics tell us doubling CO2 concentration will result in approximately 1C of temp increase? After that you need models to get you into the rest of the stuff that’s suppossed to be so scary.
@R Gates
In regard to the killing of global warming, aka climate change aka climate weirding, it would be nice if the media coverage alone could make this issue go away, but alas, basic laws of physics won’t allow such wishful thinking to command reality.
The reality is the law of physics are now stomping all over the CAGW dogmatists’ attempts to command reality, much the the dismay of gullible truebelievers like R Gates. This despite the continuing valiant efforts of the media to keep CAGW on life support.
Unfortunately Eddie, the data would not support your rhetoric. Amidst the background noise of natural variability, especially pronounced in the rather low thermal inertia of the troposphere, we see the planet’s largest non-tectonic energy reservoir, namely the ocean, continue to gain energy. All this as a direct result of the human CO2 volcano that has been erupting for several centuries now, with the eruption increasing in intensity over the past several decades. Actual physics and science versus the rhetoric such as you might find on Faux News creates some cognitive dissonance, eh?
Puttin’ on a layer of fat for the hibernation. The question is, can that heat be recruited when needed? Alas, I expect it will remain missing.
===========
Consensus Science is the craziest.
New study related to high northern latitude temperture extremes over the past 600 years is quite interesting:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v496/n7444/full/nature11969.html
Very rigorous multi-proxy approach paints a statistically sound perspective on the level of anthropgenic influence on current temperature extremes while also looking at the range of natural variabilty over six centuries.
Now that’s news: sort of like panning for gold flakes and tripping on an Achtung Granate!
This last line from the research abstract is, as they say, right on target:
“These and other recent extremes greatly exceed those expected from a stationary climate, but can be understood as resulting from constant space–time variability about an increased mean temperature.”
–e.g., no matter how good you feel today and maybe even better than years or even a decade ago you’re still going to die, right?
The end has nothing to do with the Journey…or, the Journey is the destination, or, the fool and wise man will both be dust one day, but how would you like to travel to the grave?
Thanks for the link. The researchers came up with a little hockey stick. No matter what anyone does on pre-instrumental temperature, the result is some kind of hockey stick. The denier/skeptics might sleep better if they just accepted the hockey sticks and moved on.
Not going to happen Max. The wagons have circled long ago and they will defend their flat Earth to the last bit of sea ice melting away in the Arctic, ever keeping the name of John Daly on their lips.
Max_OK and Skeptic
Hockey “shticks” got themselves a bad name, because of the Mann fiasco.
The flaws in the recent “super-shtick” study haven’t helped as earlier threads have shown.
The “shtick” is a hard sell, especially in view of all the many independent studies, literally from all over the world, using different paleo climate methods, which all confirm a MWP that was slightly warmer then today.
Then there is the actual physical evidence of a warmer period (Greenland farms buried in permafrost, carbon-dated tree remains recovered under receding alpine glaciers, etc.), in addition to a vast amount of historical evidence from all over the civilized world at the time (such as Tony Brown is researching).
The evidence is just too overwhelming.
This is a losing battle for those trying to frame the current warming as something totally unprecedented and hence caused by human influences.
Best idea: fuggidaboudit – and, instead, concentrate on getting a better understanding of what makes our climate behave as it does- especially regarding natural variability and forcing factors – rather than trying to sell a dubious pitch of “unusual warmth in 1300 years”.
Max_not from OK
Skeptical
When you talk of “circled wagons” and “flat earthers” defending their position are you referring to those few individuals out there who are still trying to sell the “shtick”?
If so, I’d agree with you that this is the way it looks (confirmed by Marcott et al.).
Max
Max_CH, I don’t blame you MWP lovers for being peeved at Michael Mann, but why can’t you accept that the world is warmer now than it was back then. Even McIntiresome will not say Mann is wrong, and the MWP was warmer.
The hockey stick comes back at you again and again, and it’s not likely to stop. Expect researchers to find more hockey sticks in the future. It’s time for you to give serious thought to abandoning your MWP fantasy.
So Max_OK (whom I note won’t provide a real name), if we are warmer today than ever before, will you agree then that there are no traces of human activities yet to be found under retreating ice? And if so, then if there are additional traces found will you agree we aren’t warmer than ever before?
k scott denison, my real name is Max, but you have no need to know my last name, so I’m not giving it.
Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?
Max_OK
There are many independent studies from all over the planet using different paleo climate methods, which all confirm that the MWP was slightly warmer than today.
There is a historical record from all over the civilized world, which generally confirms this. Climate historians, like Tony Brown, are trying to extend the work done by Hubert Lamb, which also pointed to a slightly warmer MWP.
There is physical evidence, not only carbon-dated tree remains under receding alpine glaciers high above the present tree line but also medieval farm houses buried in the Greenland permafrost.
All of this evidence supports the “null hypothesis” of a MWP that was slightly warmer than today.
Attempts to falsify this “null hypothesis” (Mann, Marcott, and others.) have all failed so far.
Get used to it, Max. It’s not that hard.
(And it really doesn’t make that much difference, does it?)
Max_CH
Max_OK | April 13, 2013 at 6:20 pm |
k scott denison, my real name is Max, but you have no need to know my last name, so I’m not giving it.
Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?
———
(Again I note the need for Max_OK to remain anonymous. Wonder why?)
Answer: um, because it had to be warmer before the ice was laid down.
Unless, of course, you’re going to argue that it was selectively warmer back then. Yeah, right.
Max_CH says:
All of this evidence supports the “null hypothesis” of a MWP that was slightly warmer than today.
——–
Max_OK replies:
Why trust paleo-based studies that give you what you want and reject those that don’t? Why believe Greenland farm remains and tree remains uncovered by recent melting have to be from a warmer time than today?
I have never had a course in statistics, but my understanding is you need a statistically testable hypothesis to give meaning to a null hypothesis. I don’t see a statistically testable hypothesis here, so I don’t know why you are talking about a null.
Now, if we had hypothesis that were testable, it also is my understanding that I could choose your hypothesis, “the MWP is warmer than today” and the null would be “the MWP is not warmer than today.” In other words, neither of us has an exclusive on choosing the hypothesis.
Each and every hockey stick has been shown to be a fraud, starting with Mann.
No matter what anyone does, the result is some kind of hockey stick. When an algorithm is used that creates a hockey stick regardless of what data is used that should not come as a surprise.
Not the reason. That one is way overblown.
Max_OK asked k scott denision: “Why would you conclude traces of human activity under retreating ice in some locations prove the MWP was warmer than the current global average temperature?”
k scott denision answered: : um, because it had to be warmer before the ice was laid down.
———
No, it didn’t. You can do a simple experiment at home to see why it didn’t.
Fill an ice cube tray with water and deposit some small objects in the water. Grains of rice, BB’s, dried beans, or similar small objects wii do fine. Now, make note of the temperature in the room (write it down) and place the tray in the the freezer.
The following day, after the water in the tray has turned to ice, adjust the thermostat to make the room’s temperature the same as it was when you wrote it down the previous day. Remove the tray from the freezer and and set it on the counter. As the ice melts the small objects you placed in the tray will be uncovered.
Obviously, the ice turning to water doesn’t mean it’s warmer in the room than it was the day before. Need I say more?
Look at that warming trend from 1600 to about 1650. Looks to be about 1 C in only 50 years.
Say, who woulda’ thought, in the history of weaponry,
that a hockey stick would become a weapon of mass
destruction …
$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ …ter the global economy.
“Very rigorous multi-proxy approach paints a statistically sound perspective on the level of anthropgenic influence on current temperature extremes while also looking at the range of natural variabilty over six centuries.”
durrrr. no. not very rigorous since they used bad proxies.
‘statistically sound’? Pitch it all in Long Island Sound.
============
Arrg Kim.
what is it with you babies and bathwater
Steven,
You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad.
R Gates.
You are a reasonable fellow.
They used Korttajarvi Lake until 1985.
Here is what the data collector wrote when she published the data
“In the 20th century the Lake Korttaja¨rvi record was strongly affected by human activities. The average varve thickness is 1.2 mm from AD 1900 to 1929, 1.9 mm from AD 1930 to 1962 and 3.5 mm from AD 1963 to 1985. There are two exceptionally thick clay-silt layers caused by man. The thick layer of AD 1930 resulted from peat ditching and forest clearance (information from a local farmer in 1999) and the thick layer of AD 1967 originated due to the rebuilding of the bridge in the vicinity of the lake’s southern corner (information from the Finnish Road Administration). Varves since AD 1963 towards the present time thicken because of the higher water content in the top of the sediment column. However, the gradually increasing varve thickness during the whole 20th century probably originates from the accelerating agricultural use of the area around the lake.”
Now. This proxy was also used by Kaufman 2009.
They were smart enough to not use the modern portion
IT GETS BETTER.. co author Tingley ALSO used the series in question in a recent paper and had the sense to cut it off at 1720
as the original data collectors stated
http://www.martintingley.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PaiCo.pdf
So. we have these facts.
1. The original data collector warned that the 20th century period was contaminated. ( Tiljander)
2. Kaufman 2009. did not use the contaminated portion
3. Co Author Tingley did not use the contaminated portion in his seperate paper
4 Co Author Korhola ( on the second Tingley paper) has previously been critical is the mis handling of this data ( he’s from finland and I guess knows the original data collector)
Basically, Huybers and Tingley use the data to 1985
But Tingely and Korhola use the data to 1720 as the original data collector suggests.
Guess who else uses the contaminated portion of the data?
I notice that this study used instrument data too, and was not just a proxy study. Oddly the complaints from the blogosphere center on the modern part of proxies which surely don’t carry much weight when there are thermometers around. Since the authors provided all their data, I need to see some skeptics select the ones they like to come up with their own 600-year record rather than just complain about parts of two or three proxy lake records. I suspect they won’t because it will just show the same result.
Steven,
I guess I fail to understand your criticism of the PaiCo methodology. The modern temperature proxy reconstructions, using the pair-wise multiproxy approach, very closely matches the actual measured temperatures, which only adds some validity to the approach. Going back even further, it shows the MWP to be warmer than found, for example, by Mann.
I can hear StevieMac horselaughing from Svalbard.
===============
R. Gates
I raised the issue of BAD PROXIES in the Tingley Huybers article, an article which you found convincing.
YOU responded with doubt and suggested they might like to know.
“You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad.”
I responded by pointing out the bad proxy. IRONICALLY, Tingley
has used this proxy in two papers, the one you cite and the one I cite.
In the first, ( Tingley Huybers ) they use it to 1985. Which is WRONG
In the second Tingley ( when not publishing with Huybers) uses it to 1720, Which is Right.
NEVER in anything I wrote did I said Anything about the pairwise method.
You are Gish galloping my friend
Now. Lets test your honesty.
1. Did you or did you not write the following
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/13/open-thread-weekend-13/#comment-311444
2. did you or did you not write the following
“You seem pretty certain of the “bad proxies” – the lake sediment in particular provide rather convincing data So such a strong statement would seem to require some specifics. I’m sure Tingley & Huybers would appreciate knowing that their proxies are bad”
3. Did I or Did I not provide you details on the Korttajarvi Lake Proxy?
4. Does the paper you cite (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v496/n7444/full/nature11969.html) coauthored by Tingley use that proxy until 1985.
5. Did The orginal data collector ( Tiljander ) Warn that the modern period was contaminated. YES or NO
6. Did Kaufman 2009 Heed her warning Yes or No.
7. Did Tingley’s own paper (http://www.martintingley.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PaiCo.pdf) AVOID using the modern segment of this proxy and only use it to 1720. YES or NO.
In short.
You praised the paper without looking at the data.
When you look at the data you will see that my claim is correct.
Here is the clue R Gates. The planet is warming. C02 is the cause. We need to take action. GUESS WHAT? the first action we need to take is stopping bad science that uses bad data
Mosher applying another vigorous thumping.
It’s almost worth paying admission to watch you go to work.
Pom-poms suit you well, tim.
willard,
Not really. I’m not all that coordinated.
I do however enjoy seeing good work. And on that score, Mosher has managed to pound the hell out of more than one person on these pages.
Note: I will refrain from using any terminology with ties to weapons or firearms, as that will require Bart R to mount his steed of moral superiority and toss snide remarks (along with the apparently obligatory charge of cherry picking) my way. I do wish someone would point out to Bart that the cherries he was referring to were picked by someone else. A Senator from California, I believe.
timg56 | April 17, 2013 at 4:24 pm |
Moral superiority? Pfft. As if. Mathematical superiority. I could care less about whether you’re a saint or a sinner, if your math is just plain awful.
The mathematical case for assault rifle ban in particular and any gun control in general in the USA is debatable: Brazil has perhaps ten percent the gun ownership of the USA and far more firearms homicides as a ratio of population. Mexico has perhaps one eighth the guns per capita of the USA, and you see what an absolute basketcase it is. Perhaps 99.9% of gun owners are the right people to own guns; there’s next to no confidence except in the most extreme cases that any standard can say who is or is not the wrong person to possess such a tool, but then you wouldn’t want them driving or carrying hammers either. It does gun owners next to no measurable good to own one in perhaps 99.9% of cases, but who am I to substitute my judgement for anyone else’s about what’s good for them?
But none of that excuses either the cost born by the criminal justice system due the fad for putting tools into the hands of the gullible just so manufacturers can make a buck, or the atrocious innumeracy of claims like ‘hammers are used in more murders than assault rifles’. The firearms industry costs American taxpayers in terms of burden on the courts and police, and ought pay that burden. The moral dimension, I don’t have anything to say about. Square that with your own heart.
Which has nothing to do with the mathematical operation of finding the product of a number with itself.
WUWT has links to an article that shows that global warming over land is real.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/13/global-warming-over-land-is-real-cu-boulder-noaa-study/
This Compo et al. (2013) study is an independent method from station temperature data using just surface pressure records over the 20th century. It is an interesting method that can recreate upper and surfac e atmospheric weather states even before upper-air observations became regular, just using a GCM constrained by the surface pressure and sea-surface temperature. Their analysis can’t account for how fast some surface temperatures warmed in the 20th century, such as in the central US or Brazil, and its warming rate appears a little lower than station warming according to their maps, but still is 0.78 C since 1952, and 0.99 degrees since 1901. They admit their results are not perfect and look too conservative about warming in some specific areas. In fact their analysis shows the central US as one a few areas that is cooling since 1901, which is an issue with it, and they speculated on things such as land-cover changes or surface pressure data issues to account for the actual warming.
Tropospheric warming is real! Stop the presses! Oh wait, WUWT circa 2013 = Rest of World circa 1990.
JimD, the big issues is the 0.78 versus the 1.18. With the long term ocean warming trend since circa 1900 being in some part due to recovery from the little ice age conditions, the difference between 0.4 C higher land based rise should be an indication of aGW amplification.
The “recovery from the LIA” was complete by 1950. What we have now is an overshoot into previously unseen temperatures in the record, and possibly in the Holocene. The study shows the way the warming accelerated in the last 50 years.
JimD, “Recovery from the LIA was complete in 1950”. That would be “unprecedented” confidence. It “may have” been completed in 1950. If it was completed in 1950, that would make AGW ~0.38 C . About half. Hmmm, maybe it did finish recovery in 1950 :)
capt. d., you seem to have trouble with the idea that two things may be happening at the same time. Maybe the pre-1950 recovery was boosted by CO2, for example?
JimD, Actually I am positive more than one thing is happening at the same time. Natural variability, that would include recovery, and Anthropogenic. The Antropogenic would amplify the natural variability. So instead of the “natural variability can produce 0.2 C of climate change that will average to zero over x number of years.” , I say Anthropogenic factors amplify natural forcing and variability and we have no friggin’ clue how many years it takes for natural variability to zero out.
Predictably, most of the WUWT readers don’t like the article. I wonder why Watts ran it.
It is called post-publication review, pointing out what the peer reviewers missed. Very popular now in scientific communication.
Ironically while warmers here tend to denigrate blogs, over in the world of scientific communication there is a big movement arguing that commenting is superior to peer review and should replace peer review.
Blogs give readers the opportunity to correct researchers, which researchers should welcome. Blogs also give readers an opportunity to harass researchers, which no one should welcome. Do blogs have accountability?
It sounds like these are GCM dependent results not observations. If skeptics accepted GCM results we would not be here. So it sounds like what I call AGW science, which is science that assumes the AGW basis.
The basis is GCMs and whether they can reproduce current climate, including geographical and seasonal variations, and forecast global weather, as this one was designed to do.
Thanks Jim D, just as I thought, and this GCM basis makes it worthless as far as skeptics are concerned.
“Skeptics” haven’t yet shown or even denied that GCMs can’t reproduce current climate and weather systems, so that is an interesting opinion.
This study is not about current climate, whatever that means. What does it mean anyway? Weather averages over the last 30 years? Decadal trends? They missed that boat for sure.
Rejection of GCMs is close to universal among skeptics because they are the speculative foundation of AGW. Surely you know this.
Rejection of GCMs has no foundation in fact. GCMs that are run for centuries can produce a climate that is accurate enough to show seasonal and geographical temperature ranges very well. Climate change signals are in fact quite small compared to the annual or global range, so they are within their operating range for climate change studies too. The GCM in this study is given the observed ocean surface temperature which removes one area of uncertainty. It is run in a mode similar to that used for daily weather forecasts that merges in observed data as it runs. I realize there is a prejudice against GCMs simply because they are used as one tool in climate-change studies, but this does not take into account how well they do with verifiable current climate, and that such GCMs are also used in weather forecasting. Isolate the GCMs from climate change and evaluate them on their own merits. I know such objectivity is hopeless, however.
Rejecting everything that counters own prejudices isn’t skepticism, it’s denialism.
Do you see why CO2 control knob adherents are being labelled as climate change deniers?
================
Pekka
Wise words.
They apply to both sides, right?
Max
The remark from David Wojick was very telling. GCMs are rejected _because_ they are the foundation of AGW (when actually they aren’t, but that’s a different story). From this logic, if they were not used for AGW studies, perhaps all the good results from GCMs would have been accepted as evidence that they work well.
Pekka, reasoning is not prejudice. CAGW is based on the GCM predictions so they have received close attention from skeptics and their problems are well documented. Calling your opponent prejudiced is not a valid argument.
Pekka’s highly amusing when he edges warily around self-consciousness.
================
I used the word ‘prejudiced’ because “skeptics” work back from results they don’t like (for political reasons, or whatever) to the science they decide not to believe, some of it very fundamental. It is not a forward progression from science to results, conclusions be where they may, which is the direction the consensus comes from.
I just answer in kind to simplistic counterfactual arguments.
Discussing the accuracy and and reliability of various methods is legitimate, but requires some understanding of the details. Dismissing outright what scientists have done for decades is nothing better than denialism.
Unfortunately, Pekka, and Jim D, the history of this particular episode looks remarkably like CO2 was settled upon as a control knob, and much of what has passed as climate science since then has been an extraordinary effort to support that idea and suppress others.
Yes, Pekka, this is what some ‘scientists have done for decades’. Truly, Pekka, you are just fabulous sometimes, especially when you get so earnest.
=============
Yes, kim, kind of like evolution, there is a lot of paleo evidence to support AGW, let alone physics facts that can’t be denied. Even you would probably agree that removing what little CO2 we have from the atmosphere would lead to an Ice Age, so if you think that, don’t deny the control knob.
You wanna touch that knob very gingerly with insulated gloves, because it is wired for a shock. If Anthro effect has pulled us out of the LIA, then where would we be without it? We would be way colder. If Man has not pulled us out of the LIA, then Nature can still aspire, for it shows its power, to something other than the depths of the Holocene and imminent descent out of it.
I haven’t answered the attribution question, and I suspect that climate sensitivity to CO2 has been badly estimated, accurate and precise measuring devices being in short supply. So Jim D, what you think I think, or what you think I might agree to, is founded in two vast pools of ignorance, yours and mine. Go fish.
================
kim, it is a good litmus test question for skeptics to ask themselves. What do you think an earth without CO2 in the atmosphere would look like? Would it be more like now, or more like an Ice Age or even snowball earth? This question is sufficiently removed policy to be just a scientific opinion, making it an effective evaluation tool for a person’s scientific reasoning.
Heh, with none, there would be little life as we know it. The more CO2, the greener the earth, and the better off all plants and animals.
So much for plants, who asked them anyway. Your other question is the attribution question, so far poorly answered.
What warming effect can the small aliquot of CO2 that man can potentially release have? Don’t know yet, neither I nor anyone, but I do know that warmer is better than cooler, warmer sustaining more total life and more diversity of life, as seen in your latest paleontology record. I can suspect, however, that man’s aliquot will stop the next ice age if sensitivity is high, and delay it if is low. We could ask for more, but wouldn’t likely get it.
=========================
kim, so you are not saying it will be cold, just that all the plants will die. I see your reasoning here, and what you don’t want to talk about too is quite telling, almost a political dodge to keep your friends here happy.
You provide an example so extreme it is easy to dispense with.
You show no clue that you understood my reasoning about attribution and the temperature effect of Anthro CO2. Yet, you think you know what I am dodging. Please, I stand here open armed; throw the ball.
================
kim, why would removal of a 0.04% trace gas be so “extreme” in your words. Please tell the other “skeptics” who may not believe this point that you make as though it is obvious. Would turning it into 0.08% also be extreme?
Does this really need explaining? Well, I’ll condescend. Taking all CO2 is extreme because it is impossible and because all plants would die. Doubling a bare subsistence level, as it is now, is not nearly so extreme or absurd and would help the plants, derivatively the animals.
As to the temperature effect, and I note you dodge my reasoning yet again, we don’t know, do we? But, ponder the paradox, deliberate over the dilemma.
============
kim, it is a scientific question, a hypothetical. You state that you don’t know the temperature effect of removing all the CO2 or even whether it will cool much. If you don’t have a clue about this extreme case, why are you even trying to debate the science from a position of having no clue. It would seem to be a weak foundation you are standing on.
kim and Jim D
The one absolutely certain effect of removing all CO2 from the atmosphere is that we’d all be dead in a very short time.
(And not from freezing to death)
Max
kim, as to your question on how much effect Man can have on CO2, let’s say we have evidence that some time in the distant past volcanoes raised CO2 fourfold and it warmed 10 degrees, what would you think of that? Coincidence? A cause without and effect and an effect without a cause? Then the CO2 gradually decreased with geological sequestration and it cooled those 10 degrees leading eventually to ice caps and Ice Ages. More coincidence? Nature has already done the experiment for you. You just have to see the results.
You are starting to blither, Jim D. I’m sorry for the condescension.
=====================
“Pekka, reasoning is not prejudice. CAGW is based on the GCM predictions so they have received close attention from skeptics and their problems are well documented. ”
Huh. CAGW is based on estimates of sensitivity that are greater than
3C.
You could disappear all the models today and there would still be concerns about CAGW from evidence that is better than models.
Nobody who believes in AGW believes in it because of models. Sadly, some folks in my camp have tried to make models into evidence of something. But they are largely irrelevant. Everything we need to know we know from first principles.
kim and Jim D
Most climate scientists admit they do not really know what would happen to global temperature if the ~400 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere were removed.
Based on theoretical physics scientists believe that without our atmosphere and its components the surface temperature of Earth would be colder by 33C.
But there is not much unison among climate scientists on how much of this theoretical warming is a result of the greenhouse effect from the so-called “naturally occurring” (i.e. pre-industrial) 280 ppmv CO2.
The major impact comes from water (vapor, liquid droplets, ice crystals).
Estimates for the total CO2 impact range from 4.6°C to 7.2°C, with a mean value of 6.2°C (Lindzen estimates 5.2°C, Hansen 6.7°C).
So there appears to be general agreement that CO2 has played a role in the net warming at the surface resulting from our atmosphere, but it isn’t the major role.
6°C lower temperature than today would push us into a new Ice Age, but we’d be dead from starvation long before that.
Max
“CAGW is based on estimates of sensitivity that are greater than
3C.
Nobody who believes in AGW believes in it because of models. Sadly, some folks in my camp have tried to make models into evidence of something. But they are largely irrelevant. Everything we need to know we know from first principles.”
How do you get to an estimate of sensitivity to CO2 without the irrelevant climate models?
Oh, please, don’t take Jim D’s strong foundations from him, nor first principles from moshe. It’s bad enough as it is.
===================
Jim D
Agree with kim that you are blithering with your cherry-picked PETM example of rapid warming resulting from massive volcanic emission of CO2 and other gases.
It is estimated that up to 6,800 Gt of carbon were released into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane (CH4).
If half was CO2, this equals 12,500 Gt CO2
The other half would be 4,500 Gt CH4, with almost 20 times the initial greenhouse effect of CO2 (or 90,000 Gt CO2eq), diminishing as CH4 is slowly converted to CO2.
So we have 1600 ppmv CO2 plus 1600 ppmv methane, eventually resulting in 3200 ppmv CO2.
At an assumed starting concentration of ~400 ppmv this was a nine-fold increase with an added boost of the much more effective GH gas, CH4, which together resulted in a 10°C rise in temperature (assuming there were no other factors which contributed).
Kind of a weak “experiment”, Jim, which has nothing whatsoever to do with our current situation.
So, yep, kim’s right – you’re blithering.
Max
kim and manacker, I gave an example of the type of evidence that could convince most people: volcanoes, doubling and redoubling CO2, warming ten degrees, steamy forests covering mid-latitudes, no ice, etc. Nature did this experiment. The results are in. Look for them in paleoclimatology. There are some nice summaries around. Interesting subject to explore. Don’t hide from it.
manacker mentions 33 K. Good, yes this difference between no GHGs and current GHGs is explainable with radiative physics and the energy balance, and this leads to confidence that they know what doubling does because it uses the same physics that explains the 33 K that we have already. The CO2 and H2O combine to give the 33 K, along with albedo from ice and clouds that combines for the 30% albedo.
By the way, I wasn’t talking about the PETM. I was talking about the Eocene as a whole, and most of the last 50 million years in general. Yes, methane release is a danger too, but the long-term effects were CO2.
GaryM
“How do you get to an estimate of sensitivity to CO2 without the irrelevant climate models?”
1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800’s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,
In fact Hansen argues that the best approach is paleo, followed by observational and models? models are a distant 3rd in Hansen’s view since they have incomplete physics.
You could just read Ar4 to see how models are not used to justify the range of values ( 1.5 to 6 ) models fall squarely in the middle of this ( kinda by construction) so they do not and cannot limit the uncertainty of the metric.
Something you probably didnt know
How daring of you. ‘kinda by construction’. Ooh, what you know and what I don’t know.
===========
Kim
“kim | April 13, 2013 at 9:27 pm |
How daring of you. ‘kinda by construction’. Ooh, what you know and what I don’t know”
its the aerosol knob. by setting the aersol knob you also implicitly produce the sensitivity. plot how they set the aersol knob versus ECS and you basically have a straight line. Models show sensitivity from 2.1 to 4.4.. all basically “set” by how they choose to set the aerosol knob. more or less.
Manacker the Chemical Engineer can not figure out that a loss of non-condensing GHG gases such as co2 and ch4 will allow the h2o to reach a steady-state where it will exist mainly in a solid phase.
For shame on whoever taught Manacker the Chemical Engineer about thermodynamics and phase equilibria.
Fabulous, moshe, thanks. A Fable for Our Times.
=============
Steven Mosher,
“1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800′s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,”
How do you “calculate” from any of these without a model? Reading Real Climate’s articles on estimating sensitivity, the proper method is to take into account all the other forcings. In fact, each article I read referenced the climate models used to come up with the estimate.
Not to mention, paleo-climate is irrelevant to CAGW as well. I know because Gavin Schmidt said so.
“1. First principles will get you to 1.5.
2. Arrehenius calculated it at 5C in the late 1800′s
3. You can calculate it from Paleo as Hansen has ( 3C)
4. You can calculate it from observational data,”
How do you “calculate” from any of these without a model? Reading Real Climate’s articles on estimating sensitivity, the proper method is to take into account all the other forcings. In fact, each article I read referenced the climate models used to come up with the estimate.
Not to mention, paleo-climate is irrelevant to CAGW as well. I know because Gavin Schmidt said so.”
####################
How do you calculate these without a GCM? easy. you dont use a GCM.
1. First principles. no GCM required, just the laws of physics..
so if laws of physics are “models” ( one could argue ) then
you need them. But My point was about GCMs.
2. Arrehius had no GCM. calculated it just fine.
3 Paleo. No GCM.. and gavin is not talking about the same thing.
Paleo gets you to 3C, and if we double C02 we get to 3C.
Thats CAGW according to you.
4. Observational data. No GCM in sight. Estimates of forcings dont
require GCMs. you get it from basic physics.
So. to repeat you do not need GCMs to get sensitivity. Period.
Jim D
Global warming over land is real.
Wow!
Has been for a couple hundred years as we have finally recovered from a period of harsher weather called the Little Ice Age.
And, although it seems to have stopped most recently and during the period from ~1945 to ~1975 (plus an earlier period until ~1910), there was significant warming over two statistically indistinguishable periods during the early and late 20thC.
And we’ve even got the BEST study to confirm it all.
But, hey, it’s not really something new, is it?
Max
Even WUWT has conceded on this point. Debate over.
Jim D
Agree.
Max
However, while it might demoralize Watts, I think he will continue to pursue his now sidelined research into surface station effects.
Max, I for one do not believe these surface statistical models are credible, on mathematical grounds, not to mention possible heat contamination as Watts’s research has amply demonstrated.. If there has been warming it may well be due to the LIA cycle, but we do not know that it has the specific form you seem to accept and the community is vainly trying to explain. The satellite measurements indicate otherwise, contradicting the surface models. Thus the debate is far from over. But I have said this many times before.
Here’s how the point seemingly got conceded:
> I’ll leave it to WUWT’s readers to do their own distinguishing…
Also notice the author of what might very well be a concedo.
Jim D
Surface station effects are real.
Net warming after removing these effects is also almost certainly real – and almost certainly reduced by the surface station effects.
Analyzing these seems to be part of the scientific process to me, Jim.
Do you disagree?
Max
Another episode of the scientific process:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/13/weekend-open-thread-6/#more-84078
Does this story remind you of the Blogger award?
As honest brokers would say, you be the judge.
“Max, I for one do not believe these surface statistical models are credible, on mathematical grounds, not to mention possible heat contamination as Watts’s research has amply demonstrated.”
1. you are wrong. The surface models are credible on statistical grounds. Tested and Confirmed. Its called k fold cross validation.
2. Anthony has never demonstrated any heat contamination. His sole publication found no effect on Tave. Period. No effect.
Given the uncertainty a small effect ( < 0.1C /dec) may be real but not easily distinguished in the record. Its scietifically important but not policy relevant
Hagen
“It sounds like these are GCM dependent results not observations. If skeptics accepted GCM results we would not be here. So it sounds like what I call AGW science, which is science that assumes the AGW basis.”
Lets see when Anthony published a paper that relied on the same model ( NCEP) you were SILENT.
your selective skepticism is showing and its not pretty. No one should trust a single word you write
moshe, such absolutes dismay, but it doesn’t mean I don’t trust a single word you write. Actually, I trust most of them; I’ve figured out what you don’t dare write.
==========
Hagen, Wojick, same difference.
Kim, you and willard should beware of writing too many short comments.
we might, lewandowski style, draw conclusions about your character
http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2013/04/13/study-people-who-text-frequently-tend-to-be-more-racist-shallow/
Well, if I try to stretch out my subject, it just gets shallower.
=================
willard, though, gets deeper. Unplumbable, even.
===================
Mosh,
You were doing so well, until you dipped into the field of psychology.
Unless the reference to Lewandowsky was supposed to tell us you were not being serious.
Herman Alexander Pope said on April 13, 2013 at 12:00 pm
“They told us that the only way temperature could go is up. Now we have had seventeen years with no warming.”
______
You may be misled by 1998 average global temperature being a freakishly warm year. Look what happens to the trend if we leave the 1998 average out, just using the UAH averages for 1979-97 and 1999-2013:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1997/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:1999/to:2013/plot/uah/from:1999/to:2013/trend/plot/none
You see rising average global temperatures both in 1979-97 and 1999-2013, with the later having a sharper rise. “Just a minute,” you may protest, why leave the 1998 average out? Shouldn’t it count just as much as any other year?
I left the 1998 average out because it’s an aberration, and aberrations can be misleading. Suppose the averages in the linked graph represented deposits to your savings account, and you added an unusually large amount to that account in 1998 because you benefitted from an unexpected financial windfall. Would it be fair to say that you had not saved any better after 1998?
That was a good attempt for you to join the hockey stick clique, but if not even the IPCC supports this idea, it must be really bad.
Max_OK
You have stepped onto a slippery slope.
Sure, 1998 was a year of unusual warmth caused by a super El Nino (but included in the warming trend attributed to GHGs by IPCC).
But the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has truly stopped warming since the end of 2000 (i.e. for the past 12+ years) – and even shown a slight cooling trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1978/to:2001/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1978/to:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2013/trend
So let’s stay with the facts. The rapid warming of the late 20thC has stopped (at least for now).
Them’s the facts.
Max_CH
I see nothing special about 2000, other than it’s a nice round number.
You should be aware average global temperature was flat before and then continued to rise. Think about the rises and treads on an infinitely long stairway. Are you being like the blind man ascending those stairs who thinks each tread is the landing?
Max_CH, I did look at your woodfortrees graph. You used the wrong series. I use the sattelite-based UAH series, which is more high-tech and better than the series you used. The UAH shows global temperature rising from 2000 to 2013. Of course, it contradicts what you want, but that’s the way the cookie crunmbles.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1999/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1999/trend/plot/uah/from:2000/to:2013/plot/uah/from:2000/to:2013/trend
MaxOkie crumbles his cookie in search of the fortune, and now his fortune is just all crumby.
================
I like cornball humor. Reminds me of my grandma and grandpa.
But getting back to Max_CH’s attempt to pull a fast one, I should point out he discarded two-years of data (1999 and 2000), while I threw out only one(1998). I’ll let him throw out 1999 to make us even. Rather than use all four temperature series individually, I’ll use the handy woodfortrees index which reflects all four. Guess what it shows? An increase in temperature for the 2000 – 2013 period.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2000/to:2013/plot/wti/from:2000/to:2013/trend
Your grandma and grandpa would shudder at your confirmation bias, and make jokes about youngins.
=============
Max_OK
Talking about “pulling a fast one”.
I stated that all but one temperature record since the beginning of 2001 showed no change or cooling.
So does the WoodforTrees composite record.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2013/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2013/trend
You come back with a curve from the beginning of 2000.
Duh!
Max_not from OK
Max_Ch, like I said, you threw out the global temperature data for two years (1999 and 2000) while I only omitted the average for 1998. If that’s your notion of fair, your moral compass needs fixing. Besides, I omitted the 1998 average because it was an aberration, a freakishly high level. That’s a good reason. Oh, I know, you want to be able to say “in this century” and 2001 is the start of the century, but that’s not a good reason from a scientific standpoint.
More trendology with short term data? Higher or lower over the past 12-13 years? So?
Younguns. Omigod!
==============
Max_OK,
Ask them what the 95% significance range is for their trends.
When the head of the IPCC admitted that there has been no warming for seventeen years, he likely already thought about your trick about leaving out warm years to help his cause and must have decided that there was too many scientists looking at the data to allow him to get away with this.
I didn’t leave out warm “years.” I left out THE warmest year, 1998, because it was freakishly high.
You haven’t answered my question about the savings account. Would it be fair to say your hadn’t saved any better after 1998?
Max_OK
IPCC did NOT leave out 1998 when it showed us the late 20thC warming trend, which it attributed primarily to increased human GHG concentrations.
But now you are removing 1998 in an attempt to show that the warming has not stopped.
And you cite the one record (UAH), which shows continued slight warming) out of.five or six (which all show no warming or slight cooling).
Is this a deliberate :cherry-pick” or just a “cock-up”?
Max_not from OK
UAH stands alone? I’m skeptical. Can you show me that’s true using Wood-for-trees?
Consider what you would have if not for the temperature aberration in 1998. Not much of a “no warming” argument, that’s for sure.
Now, how about addressing my savings account question?
Max_OK
As I showed with the HadCRUT4 record, there is no warming IF YOU LEAVE OUT 1998 plus 1999 and 2000.
The following records show no change from 2001-2013:
BEST (land only)
GISTEMP (global)
The following global records show slight cooling from 2001-2013
HadCRUT3
HadCRUT4
RSS
UAH (the one you picked) is the only record, which shows a slight warming trend over this period.
Check it out yourself.
It’s easy.
Max_CH
PS Don’t be a “denier”, Okie.
Max_CH, be fair. Just because I omit one year of data (1998) , doesn’t mean you get to throw out two (1999 and 2000). I’ll give you 1999 (see my 5:51 PM post elsewhere for the rest of my reply).
“When the head of the IPCC admitted that there has been no warming for seventeen years”
There’s no credible evidence he did admit any such thing. And if he did he made a mistake.
He’s been rowing back since so lustily I haven’t seen any headway.
=================
kim what matters is what the data shows, not what Pachauri claimed. The data does not show a lack of warming for the last 17 years. To date I don’t think I’ve seen a single scientist claim it has either. It’s only cllimate skeptics who believe it, yet they like to pretend scientists have “admitted it”.
Climatists must attack skeptics (e.g., call them names like deniers, hacks, flacks shills, wackos) whenever skeptics tell a very different and mostly more plausible story that climatists find themselves impotent to prevent or counter. The risk of confusion is especially high when the very same methodology the global warming alarmists use to define the problem now says global warming stopped 16 years ago.
Some who identify themselves as skeptics probably are deniers. Others may be skeptics only about things they don’t like, which means they are affected by their bias. True skeptics are even-handed. True skeptics are rare.
…very discriminating of you.
Now auditors; a dime a dozen and most worth every penny.
=========
But he can guarantee he’s right.
Ever hear of an “Oklahoma guarantee”?
Well, I’m here to say that Oklahomans are in general, a fine herd of humans, but as with many things, this particular exception proves the rule.
=========================
kim
Agree with you on Oklahomans.
Once new a sweet gal from Tulsa that was one-eighth Osage Indian. (The other seven-eighths must’ve been Irish or Scottish, because she had long red hair.)
She got a royalty check each month from her tribe.
Don’t know if they still do that or if the oilfields on tribal lands have all played out.
Max
You should read of the Osage in Paris a hundred years ago; they were spectacular. The tribe was shoved out of Kansas just over the border on to less tillable land. Oklahoma had adopted the Rule of Law by the time oil was found under that less tillable land, or they’d have been shoved further.
==============
I think that a true sceptic is someone who is not yet convinced either way. Once you start arguing from a position on the AGW you’re not a sceptic, and as far as my own brain cells are concerned, the jury is still out on the issue of CO2 build-up and its effect on CS but I am pretty sure that human activity is causing environmental damage.
I am very skeptical of some of the things that get posted here by denizens, and some of their ideas are so wrong I would even be a denier.
From Making Science Public …
Gavin Schmidt in the comments …
I agree that this is close to how ‘sceptics’ see themselves, but examination of the arguments shows they are made of straw.
True, true we are skeptical. Lo, these many years climate scientists have been hell-bent on putting their math where our mouths are. While we have been fully occupied in the business of living (did you notice your taxes went up for 2012?) the Left and new government employees are busy blaming us for putting food on both our tables.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/04/07/james-delingpole-regrets-that-climate-scientists-shouldnt-be-murdered/
It’s news! Windmill accidents on increase.
The best part of his blog is the introduction:
That sets the stage for the rest.
Wow, ‘right about everything’. I wonder how he got so good, and wonder why Pekka is envious rather than adoring.
===========
“Right” about everything as opposed to “left” about everything?
Beth +1 for your witty and well researched post on windmills. It was a trifle long winded for an old bloke like me who is suffering from dementia and a fear of the unknown and of change.
Recently, he compared wind-farms to paedophilia.
You may need to back that statement up in a Court of Law. I know exactly where that nonsense came from and it wasn’t a direct statement from Delingpole. I would suggest that you request that the mods amend your comment as I have informed Delingpole of this comment.
You may need to get how a blockquote appears at Judy’s, grumpy one.
Below is a link to Deligpole’s wind farm article. He quotes a NSW sheep farmer saying “The wind-farm business is bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/wind-farm-scam-a-huge-cover-up/story-e6frgd0x-1226345185075
A complaint to the Australian Press Council about the Delingpole article was held up in part. For more on this, see
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/press-council-adjudication/story-fn59niix-1226611061436
Hmmmm. I wonder if willard read the rest of Delingpole’s article.
======================
MiniMax should now consider that I quote a blogger saying that Delingpole etc.
Hey, read the whole article. There’s more, and who can ask for anything more.
============
Salty NSW sheep farmer says, “X”
Correspondent quotes salty NSW sheep farmer.
Ergo correspondent said “X”?
Gimme a break.
> If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9547273/Arguments-for-wind-power-are-just-hot-air.html
As honest brokers ought to say: you be the judge.
You bring proponents of pedophilia into the courtroom? Sure, everyone’s entitled to defense. Circumstances might mitigate. Are windmills falsely accused?
==============
Examining the idea that wind power is “good” for the climate.
Beth Cooper
So what about the idea that wind power is ‘good’ for the climate? Well, whether
or no CO2 is the perpetrator of out of control climate change …which seems unlikely, Say, where’s the empiric data, hot spot, feedbacks, albedo evidence … let’s just take
a walk on the wind side, see what’s happening in the wind energy industry.
From the four corners of the world, wind farm technology’s been going up while
green groups and governments keep hoping that CO2 will be going down. Seems like there’s a lot of enthusiasm from government bureaucrats and environment advocates … out there. Vilma Radvilate of the ‘European Energy Programme for Recovery,’ the ‘E E P R,’ love those acronyms, believes wind energy projects are an ideal way
to stimulate economic growth, improve energy security and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (1) Hmmm …so let us examine those claims about wind energy as we accompany a certain old fashioned gentleman on his travels …
In a village in La Mancha lived an old fashioned gentleman who, when he had nothing to do, which was most of the year, passed his time reading books of knight errantry, so that, after a while, he began to lose the use of his reason. Don Quixote, which is what he called himself, now thought it necessary, as well for the increase of his honour as to be of service to the public, to turn knight errant and roam through the world, redressing all manner of grievances …
So picture your typical modern wind farm. Towers more than 200 feet high that support a turbine housing, or nacelle, the size of a bus. (2) Sweeping the sky,
three rotor blades, 100 to150 feet long, … say, listen to that thrumm!.
An Australian Study analyses the engineering in one of these large turbines in windy Esperance, Western Australia, the kind of tower proliferating around the world. Its electric power is generated in the nacelle behind the propeller. The generator can’t be too large though, or it couldn’t be mounted off the ground, so units most commonly in use only generate about 3/4MW power output. The gear box of the unit is designed to hold the turbine at one speed, to produce maximum power and operate in wind speeds between 8/16 MPH. At speeds below 8 MPH the blades don’t turn, above 16 MPH they are designed to lock down so they won’t be destroyed by high winds.You could say intermittency is a constant problem. In the United Kingdom, BBC weatherman, Paul Hudson, reported in 2011, that in three consecutive winters of intense cold, there was little or no wind to generate electricity. (4) On December the 21st, 2010, coal and gas generated 45,000 MW of electricity, compared to wind generated electricity of 20 MW. This is not surprising, since prolonged cold weather is usually associated with the calm conditions of high-pressure weather-systems.
You could say insufficiency of supply is a massive problem. Bob Graham, the Chairman of Highlands Against Wind Farms criticized the proposed installation of 400 plus wind turbines on the Thames Estuary. Operating at an estimated capacity of 1.3GW, even with a generous load factor of 30 %, average output would only be
390 MW, enough to provide 5KW electricity to 78,000 homes, ‘about enough to power an electric kettle and a toaster.’ (5) Bob Graham’s estimate could be a best-case scenario. Number Watch, UK, argues that these figures underestimate the case, as for 80% of the time the turbines would produce no power at all. (6)
Globally, wind power’s popularity
is
going
. down …
In the year 2000, Denmark, wind capital of the world, cancelled three off shore wind farms. In 2002, the Netherlands decommissioned ninety turbines. At the Searsburg Plant in Vermont, USA, wind energy output
is
declining
exponentially,
expo … nent … ially.
In 2006, the Spanish Government put an end to wind subsidies. (7) …
Crossing the plains of Montiel, the knight and his squire discovered some thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote had spied them,
he cried out: ‘ Fortune directs us better than I could imagine. Look yonder, Sancho, here are at least thirty terrible giants whom I intend to encounter, and having deprived them of their lives, we will partake of their spoils, for in knight errantry, these are lawful prize.’
Partaking of spoils, hmmm …so what’s happening in western developed economies?
You could say renewable energy costs are going through the roof while productivity’s
going
through
the
floor
In order to meet the GHG emissions set by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, developed nations in the west are implementing carrot and stick policies to shift economies from fossil fuels to reliance on renewable energy. Governments hope to meet CO2 emissions targets through the mechanisms of renewable obligation policies, hefty taxes, cap and trade permit schemes, subsidies for solar and wind energy and tariffs designed to feed unused renewable energy into the grid.
A CIVITAS Think Tank Study in the UK used Government commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity to calculate the efficiency of fossil fuels and renewable technologies. (8) The main conclusions drawn from the report are, that excluding carbon costs, coal is the cheapest form of energy generation. When carbon costs are included, near-term, gas became the cheapest option, while medium-term, nuclear energy is cheapest. Although on shore wind looked a relatively attractive proposition in the commissioned report, once other costs are added on, including back up generation, on shore wind becomes the second most expensive option. (9) Off shore wind-farms are always inordinately expensive. Another study, by Economics Professor Graham Hughes, calculates that UK and EU policies favouring wind turbines incur additional costs of 120 billion English pounds for turbines and backups. Open cycle gas plants could generate the same amount of electricity for 13 billion. (10)
Cost are up and productivity
is
going
down …
In 2003, in Denmark, windmill capital of the world, the country’s 6,000 turbines provided only 3.3% of its electricity. In 2003, 84% of Western Denmark’s wind energy was exported … at a loss. (11) In Germany, utilities buy renewable energy at up to ten times the cost of conventional power. (12) In the US, the proposed off shore wind-farm at Massachusetts, for the same instillation cost as Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, will deliver only one third of Diablo Canyon’s output, 7 1/2 hours out of 24, compared to nuclear, 24/7/365. (13) In Spain, in 2005, utilities began refusing new wind power connections. (14)
‘What giants?’ asked Sancho Panca.
‘Those whom we see yonder, with their immense extended arms.’ replied Don Quixote. ‘ Some of that detested race have arms that reach two leagues across the land.’ Couching his lance and protecting himself with his shield, Don Quixote rushed with Rozinante’s utmost speed upon the first windmill he came to, running his lance into the sail. The wind whirled with such force that his lance was broken into shivers and knight and horse hurled away with it and flung a good way into the field.
So then, are giant wind farms ‘good’ for the climate? Do they reduce CO 2 emissions? Well you’d have to say there’s a problem with ‘on – again, off – again,’ back – up technology standing in for ‘on – again, off – again,’ wind technology. A recent Dutch Study criticizes the energy models that sold wind power to the Netherlands’ Government because the models neglect factors that increase fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.(15) One such factor is the process of ‘cycling’ or ramping up conventional plants connected to stand in when the wind isn’t blowing, and ramping down when it is. Both processes increase fuel consumption and increase CO2 emissions. The study included an analysis of wind data at Schiphol Airport on an average windy day, 28/08/11, and found that back up ramping over 21.5 hours of low winds, increased gas input by 47,15O m3, adding 117,9 ton of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.(16)
Two other studies reveal similar effects from ramping. An internet analysis of data from EUR Grid, Ireland’s Grid operator, show increased CO2 emissions. (17) A study in Colorado / Texas, where coal fired plants operate with wind turbine connection under government mandate also show increased emissions of SO2 and NOX. (18)
Then there’s the factor of extra energy needed to build and install huge steel wind turbines, energy needed for cabling and replacing the systems after 15 years, in the UK, a subsidy regulation. (19) The Dutch Study also analyses the efficiency factor in back up generation. Coal and nuclear technologies are slow to ramp up and down, as are Steam Enhanced Gas Turbines, (CCGT,) which are twice as energy efficient as Open Cycle Gas Turbines, (OCGT.) Because OCGT are well suited to rapid ramping, however, the less efficient technology becomes the preferred option as back up. (20)
So wind technology is not so good for the climate and it’s not so good for the environment either. We know about the noise… there’s more. Wind farms sure take up a lot of land, could be crop land. Off shore wind farms take up lots of space too.
Picture the proposed off shore wind farm in the UK covering over 1002 miles of the Thames Estuary.(21) And what about the wild life? A 2002 study in Spain estimated that 11,200 birds of prey, some of them endangered species, 3,000,000 small birds, and 350,000 bats are killed every year by wind turbines and power lines. (22)
Wind farms can be messy too. In Valencia, Spain, (23) operators of the giant wind installations mention the dripping and flinging off of gallons of motor oil, cooling and cleaning fuels…tsk, tsk.
‘Heaven send us better times, ‘cried the knight, ‘there is nothing but plotting and counter mining in the world. I can do more.’ Then raising a fixed eye upon two near by water mills Don Quixote said, ‘My dear friends, immured as you are, I cannot rescue you from your confinement; that adventure is reserved for some other knight.’
And so, weary but not wiser, Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their mules like
a couple of senseless beasts, and went upon their way …
Hmmm … it appears that wind technology is not what it seemed. Alas dear reader
and dear Vilma Radvilate of The European Energy Programme for Recovery, the
E E P R, intermittent, inefficient and uneconomic wind technology is not ‘good’ for the climate. The dream is not the reality.
Reference List:
(1) EU Offshore Wind Program Creates 4,000 Jobs Since 2009, 2012, commentary on the ‘Mid-term evaluation of the European Energy Programme for Recovery – Final Report. December 2011’, viewed 18 April 2012, . p. 1.
(2) Rosenbloom, E 2006, A Problem With Wind power, 5 September,
viewed 12 March 2012, . p. 4.
(3) TonyfromOz 2009, The Limitations Of Renewable Power (Part 3), PA Pundits, Viewed 30 March 2012,
. pp. 2-3.
(4) Lea, R 2012, Electricity Costs: The folly of wind-power, Report by CIVITAS: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, registered in England and Wales, viewed 7 April 2012 See Hudson, P.
p. 15.
(5) Brignel, J 2006, Kami-kaze – the god of wind, 23 December, Number Watch, viewed 29 March 2012, . See Graham, B, Chairman, Highlands Against Windfarms, Orton, Moray. p. 11.
(6) Brignel, J 2006, Ibid. p.11.
(7) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Op Cit. pp. 1-2.
(8) Lea, R 2012, CIVITAS. Op Cit. Executive Summary, and pp.6-7.
(9) Lea, R 2012, CIVITAS. Ibid. pp. 11-12 and Tables pp. 13-23.
(10) Orlowski, A 2012, The true cost of British wind power, The Register, viewed 18 March 2012, .
See Hughes, G 2012, Why is wind power so expensive? An economic analysis, p. 2.
(11) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Op Cit. p. 1.
(12) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Ibid. p. 3.
(13) ‘TonyfromOZ’, Papundits, Op Cit. p. 4.
(14) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Ibid. p. 3.
(15) le Pair, C 2009, Electricity in The Netherlands: Wind turbines increase fossil fuel consumption & CO2 emission, viewed 9 April 2012, . pp. 1-13.
(16) le Pair, C, Ibid. Table p.13
(17) Lusvardi, W 2011, Windmill-Gate Scandal Storms Into CA, Calwatchdog,
viewed 9 April 2012, . p. 3. See Udo, F, The Smoking Gun of the Windmill Fraud.
(18) Bentek Energy 2010, How Less Became More: Wind, Power and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market, 20 April, viewed 9 April 2012, . pp. 1-4.
(19) le Pair, C, Op Cit. p. 6.
(20) le Pair, C, Ibid. pp. 3-4.
(21) Brignel, J, Op Cit. p. 11.
(22) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Op Cit. p. 6.
(23) Rosenbloom, E 2006, Ibid. p. 9.
BETH
In the Wind Turbine Turbulence world on the East Shores of Lake Huron, gale force winds off the Lake blow an inconsistent source of power.
Ross McKitrick has a recent piece:
http://web.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/Excerpts%20from%20Fraser%20Report%20April%2011%202013.pdf?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=950060&part=2
As my own Amen, I just received my Hydro One electric bill for 1 kilowatt hour: $0.07. Delivery charge: $70.48 (which will rise in cost by $3.08) and Ontario Clean Energy Benefit $8.06 all Canadian Dollars of course. All of this compliments of the Green Energy Act, written into legislation by the Green Party as a way to make Ontario Canada a beckon of virtue (not that an act of Parliament could confer such an arrangement.)
In summary: I get my 1 kilowatt hour electricity from Bruce Nuclear down the road a piece for $0.07 and I am awarded a Green windmill subsidized additional feel good expense for the measly cost of $8.06 CnD.
Now this is feel good climate impact change. Ahhhh, I feel better already.
Beth
Love your well-researched, witty but tragicomic treatise on windmills, noble knights, dead raptor birds and jackasses.
In Switzerland the environmentalists complained for years about a high tension power line that crossed the Jura mountains, spoiling the otherwise pristine landscape.
Finally they got it removed!
Only to be replaced a few years later with a bunch of even uglier windmills (that evil race of long-armed giants your noble knight fought so bravely).
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Max
Thx Max, fer comment re Don Quixote and Sancho,
plus meme chose alright.
Beth the serf.
Most climate science denialists are also anti-climate-aided-energy-technology.
Learning about climate science helps us to understand how to leverage the climate and our environment for current and future needs.
Even studying lapse rate has benefits to every aspect of technology http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html?m=1
Funny how an academic blog can turn south without constant prodding on what defines the true and practical discipline of earth sciences.
Most climate science denialists
Referring of course to those bad citizens not gullible enough to take government-funded climate ‘science’ at face value, when government has such a huge and obvious stake and vested interest in fostering alarm. And not gullible enough to overlook systemic, unrepentant fraud and malpractice such as seen in Climategate, in the ranks of government climate ‘science’.
Sorry Beth. My comment on your excellent post is here http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/13/open-thread-weekend-13/#comment-311854
Got lost in the nesting.
Max_OK’s links would not be worth checking out because the first one is paywalled if you want to read the whole Delingpole article while the second link is the Press Council’s review of an unrelated article.
Old age creeping on Max_OK? ;)
Well, if you have Delingpole’s job, you may have to write crazy stuff to keep your crazy readership. He’s not the only one pandering to nuts. Still, that’s a hell of a way to make a living.
By the ton, Wag does it for free.
As a public service … uhh I mean disservice.
Max_OK
Who pays you for the garbage you write here?
The same nuts who pay wee Willard for his garbage?
Forget all the silly talk.
Max_CH
No need for anyone to pay me. I got all the money I need, and more.
I said some nice things about Switzerland in a post the other day. I hope you didn’t think it was silly.
Max_OK
Thanks for that.
I’ve said some nice things about the great state of Oklahoma and it’s institutions and famous inhabitants, as well.
Just to name a few there are dude ranches, oil wells, rodeos, oilfield service companies, rolling hills plus drifter, songwriter and guitar picker, Woody Guthrie (+ his son, Arlo) and good ol’ Senator Inhofe plus his junior Senator Coburn.
And the musical was great.
Is there anything there not to like?
Max_CH
What’s crazy…green economics is crazy.
Refer ter RiHoO8 comment above.
Max_CH, thank you for the kind words about Oklahoma. I’m sure any Oklahoman reading your statement would find something to like.
But Oklahoma is no match for your Switzerland. If I could have been born in a country of my choosing, it would have been Switzerland.
He should tend his garden of rigs. What’s Switzerland got but tough terrain and marginal living from the land. Oh, Zurich grows garden gnomes, for at least the last millenium.
=========
Switzerland lies between France and Switzerland.
Oklahoma lies between Kansas and Texas.
Need I say more?
I should say more.
Switzerland lies between France and Italy.
Switzerland lies between Germany and Italy, or between France and Austria.
Yes, Germany and Austria too, but France and Italy are the countries I would visit most frequently if I lived in Switzerland.
> People focus on notable differences, excluding those that are less conspicuous, when making predictions about happiness or convenience. For example, when people were asked how much happier they believe Californians are compared to Midwesterners, Californians and Midwesterners both said Californians must be considerably happier, when, in fact, there was no difference between the actual happiness rating of Californians and Midwesterners. The bias lies in that most people asked focused on and overweighed the sunny weather and ostensibly easy-going lifestyle of California and devalued and underrated other aspects of life and determinants of happiness, such as low crime rates and safety from natural disasters like earthquakes (both of which large parts of California lack).
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#section_1
We must admit the article does not say anything about Switzerland.
For good measures, here’s the link to D’s op-ed:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100075908/are-climate-change-deniers-worse-than-paedophiles/
Grumpy might appreciate the title.
Damn tablet:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/09/19/nutjob-james-delingpole-compares-wind-farms-to-paedophilia/
Grumpy might appreciate that title a little less.
willard regrets his tablet first linked the real deal, then, deviously, commentary on it.
When will these machines not think they are our masters?
===============
Dang, D’s quote, not op-ed.
Here’s D’s quote, this time in the original op-ed:
> If there were a single plausible argument in favour of wind power, my task would be a much harder one than it is. But there isn’t. The wind industry is so wrong in every way that to be against it ought to be no more contentious than being against paedophilia. Where wind is concerned we need to stop being Nimbys and learn to be Niabys: not in your back yard, not in my back yard, not in anyone’s back yard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9547273/Arguments-for-wind-power-are-just-hot-air.html
As honest brokers ought to say: you be the judge.
The truly ringing comparison, which clangs all bells, is the treatment by Penn State of Michael ‘Piltdown’ Mann, and that other famous liar from there.
============
Yes, but Mike.
Willard
You’ve got to agree with Delingpole that, despite the scientific skullduggery of Mann with his “shtick”, he should NOT “get the electric chair”.
It also makes sense that George Monbiot should NOT “be hanged by the neck for his decade or so’s hysterical promulgation of the great climate change scam and other idiocies too numerous to mention”.
Nor should Tim Flannery “be fed to the crocodiles for the role he has played in the fleecing of the Australian taxpayer”.
I agree completely with Delingpole that these punishments are much too severe for the misdemeanors allegedly committed.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Max
Willard
Back in the lawless days of the Old West, an exposed “snake oil” cheater was NOT hanged by the neck until dead, but simply tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on the rail.
Today they are rarely prosecuted (unless the skullduggery has resulted in significant loss to others), but simply discredited.
For some ego-driven types, this is even more painful than being tarred and feathered
Max
Oh, they’ll get their’s alright, but whether it is in this life or later, well, I guess you just have to depend upon a God in Heaven.
=================
Delingpole’s neat way to solve a rhetorical problem is known since the Antiquity:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis#section_3
Y U no play fair, MiniMax?
Heh, willard’s blind to the irony, but from his viewpoint it would take a genius to see it. With his skills, it’s ‘hardy’ and ‘metally’.
==============
kim entertains
ad hominem
about irony
post hoc told
about irony.
The Iron Butterfly stolidly flaps his bouyancy,
willard rocks lobsters and croons his credulancy.
======================
Willard
Like I tolja.
You can play “fair”
You can play “poor”
You can play “good”
Or you can play “excellent”.
Why play “fair”?
Max
willard wishes he had a ball he could take home.
=======
Iron Butterfly and Rock Lobster in the same comment. Not sure I can process that.
Find your own private Idaho. Hint, it’s on the Planet Clare, but don’t tell the Emperor of Wyoming.
===============
> Why play “fair”?
Good question.
Too bad MiniMax has no clue.
I can hear willard grind his teeth on ‘Max’ even though he oils it up with ‘Mini’ aforegrind.
==========
Dang, ‘near Planet Clear’ is way better, and describes the uncertainty of the location so much more accurately.
===================
max.
Kinda weird how scientists enter the political arena and expect the rulz of the academy to prevail. Kinda arrogant actually. Isnt fair political fight an oxymoron?
Russssssty.
==========
Ninjas follow roolz for their own sake.
MiniMax’ courageous Gish gallops
Are still only Gish gallops, and worse they are
Written forever and ever on the Internetz.
Missed that last line I noticed. Let me repeat it for you:
“It ought to go without saying that my answer to all these questions is – *regretful sigh* – no.”
Uncertainty and Decision in Climate Change Economics
Geoffrey Heal, Antony Millner
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18929
Willard, potentially interesting, I’ll purchase the paper as soon as SSRN processes my membership application. I used to have access to NBER papers, which are generally excellent.
Most welcome, Faustino.
I got it from this blog:
http://cyclingprof.blogspot.ca/2013/04/heal-and-milner-on-climate-uncertainties.html
I thought anyone could download the PDF. I can set it up somewhere online if you wish.
Well, they’re simply wrong. Uncertainty in this case implies enough ignorance to postpone policy action. The science cannot even guarantee future warming, let alone catastrophic warming, of this earth, and that is necessary for any policy mitigating AnthroCO2.
Now sure, I can think of immediate policy action, like increasing the effort to understand climate, before attempting to manipulate it, and risking taking entirely the wrong step.
==============
Let’s increase our efforts to understand
While we keep asking for void guarantees
“Now sure, I can think of immediate policy action, like increasing the effort to understand climate, before attempting to manipulate it through continued CO2 emissions, and risking taking entirely the wrong step.”
So far, lolwot, the hand of man on the climate is so light as to be unweighed, and your alternative steps are 4C up and 10C down. Look before you leap. Also, weigh this: 4C up sustains more total life and more diversity of life, 10C down, well lots of things aren’t sustained.
===========
Kim, on the point of “knowing that it is a serious problem that requires immediate policy action,” the authors are straying from their field of economics into one in which they are not qualified, climate science. But at first glance their work as economists is interesting. I’ve e-mailed them suggesting that they or I do a head-post on CE, given Judith’s interest in uncertainty and many CE posters’ interest in soundly-based policy.
Yes, F, I too was intrigued by the promise of the first part of the abstract. And then they throw in that utter foolishness at the end. Were they actually unaware of how bad it is, or are they surrendered?
=============
Heh, look at it this way. I am neither a climate scientist nor an economist, and I can pick out the glaring flaw in the paper with a glance at the abstract.
Something is very wrong about that, and you can smell it all the way over there.
=================
“So far, lolwot, the hand of man on the climate is so light as to be unweighed”
You don’t trust the scales so you can’t claim to know it’s light.
“and your alternative steps are 4C up and 10C down.”
4C up is the only credible step.
10C down, apart from confusing polar temperatures from ice cores with global temperature, is a type of “orbital”-driven change that is understood to not be feasible in the next 100 years. So it’s an invalid step.
“4C up sustains more total life and more diversity of life, 10C down, well lots of things aren’t sustained.”
Yet 10C down from current levels has happened dozens of times over the past few millions of years. 4C up has not.
Another thing you haven’t considered is the timing. The 10C down you are thinking of took place over thousands of years. The 4C up is going to happen over hundreds.
Life, if it can adapt to 4C up, may not be able to do so in time if it happens in mere hundreds of years.
The paper echoes my concerns about the impossibility of making serious economic and social predictions given the level of uncertainty. I’ll try to draft a head-post on it.
I wish your op-ed won’t rely on any Procrustean bed, Faustino.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-guttorp/uncertainty-climate-change_b_2994056.html
Did they show that it was colder than most of the Holocene? Even Marcott, manufactured bit of false ikon that it is, showed that.
Besides, we all know it is warmer than during the Little Ice Age. The question, need I remind you, is what caused the warming. If man caused it, we should thank our ancestors and ourselves, and prepare for the coming cold, which would have been here already but for the effect of man. If Nature caused the warming, we can be thankful that we didn’t drop out of the Little Ice Age into the Big One. In either case, much gratitude for the present, but everchanging, climate.
Are we glad? Well I am. Some are overcome with fear, guilt, and doom. Whassa matta wid ’em?
================
Hey, kim, I’m glad, too.
And I really like the fact that I can flip a switch and have light or turn on a faucet and have hot and cold water or heat my house in winter.
No fear. No guilt. No doom.
So I say, “Drill, baby, drill!”
,blockquote>Whassa matta wid ‘em?
They’ve been brainwashed is all I can figure (some even by themselves).
Max
Frankly, it’s pathological, and likely terminal. Was it pessimists who first worshipped bodies bulging with babies? Circumstances shed doomsayers, and the despondent, and those depending upon fear and guilt for their existence.
=================
All MiniMax can figure indeed.
Willard
Your story reminds me of the old saw of three statisticians hunting a rabbit.
The first shoots and misses him by a foot to the left.
The second shoots and misses him by a foot to the right.
The third shouts, “We got ‘im!”
Goes to show you can prove almost anything with statistics if you torture the data hard enough.
Max
@manacker
An engineer, a chemist, and an climatologist are stranded on a deserted island. They are starving, when miraculously they find a box filled with canned food. What to do? They consider the problem, bringing their collective lifetimes of study and discipline to the task.
Being the practical, straightforward sort, the engineer suggests that they simply find a rock and hit the cans until they break open. “No, no!” cry the chemist and climatologist, “we would spill too much food and the birds would get it!”
After a bit of thought, the chemist recommends that they start a fire and heat the cans. The pressure in the cans will force them open and the food will conveniently already be heated. But the engineer and climatologist object, pointing out correctly that the cans would likely explode and splatter the food all over the beach.
The climatologist, after carefully studying the cans and reading the labels, starts scrawling a series of equations in the sand, which eventually cover the entire beach. After much pondering, he excitedly announces, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” as he points to the final equation. They ask him to explain, with their visions of finally getting a meal causing them to regard the climatologist with a new sense of respect.
The climatologist clears his throat and begins, “First, assume a can opener …”
I like it, grump.
Max
Our breed of climatologist would assume an electric can opener.
====================
kim, yeah – driven by an integrated solar panel.
Max
Heh, the sun is powerful enough to open the can, but they assumed no possible mechanism.
================
Grumpy just told an old economist joke.
There’s nothing new under the sun, just jokes that haven’t seen the light of day yet.
=================
I don’t think you all give climate scientists enough credit. A good enough climate scientist could simply apply a new statistical analysis to the dimensions of the can and prove thereby that it is already open. Anybody got a fork?
The root of the demise of society and the global climate scandal is this:
In 1945 world leaders collectively attempted to hide the Destroyer of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and inadvertently ended up losing their ability to promote the general welfare of society: http://tgrule.com/2013/04/08/hunger-campaigns-to-kill-the-poor/#comment-10866
No one has mentioned Margaret Thatcher yet, so I will, and my take on her is at http://donaitkin.com/the-complex-margaret-thatcher/
donaitkin
Not being a Brit I can only comment from the sidelines.
At the time of PM Thatcher I spent a considerable amount of time in the UK on business, so I got a glimpse of the general opinion at the time.
During Thatcher’s long term as PM the UK pulled out of its post WWII malaise and the economy started surging again. The coal miners’ union’s stranglehold was broken as much by the North Sea oil and gas discoveries as it was by the will of the “Iron Lady” at 10 Downing Street. The re-privatization of moribund state enterprises, which had been nationalized under previous Labour governments since WWII, undoubtedly also helped the UK recovery. The brief but decisive Falklands war gave Britons renewed self-confidence. And her role (along with US President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev) in ending the USSR and its hegemony over eastern Europe liberated millions (who are still thankful today).
So I’d say the plusses outweighed the minuses – but there are still some on the left, who hated her so much that they shamefully celebrated her death.
A pity.
No doubt, she was a great lady and powerful leader.
Max
” but there are still some on the left, who hated her so much that they shamefully celebrated her death.”
Its not just the left that had a problem with Mrs Thatcher. Most leaders make some effort to relate to all sections of society , and not just those groups where their support may be strongest. Not Mrs Thatcher though. She was fond of phrases like “not one of us” and “the enemy within”.
That approach may have been OK in her SE England power base, but it didn’t go down well in the English regions or Scotland. Just speaking English slightly differently to her clipped upper middle class accent was enough to be classed as “not one of us”.
In Scotland the Tory party, or Unionists as they used to be known there, historically enjoyed a large measure of popular support winning about half of all seats. That all evaporated after Thatcher. The Tories have just one parliamentary seat there now. There is a strong movement for independence which, if it comes about, will mean Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, will no longer exist as a political entity. It’s only the British Labour party which is in any position to maintain that union. The Tories are just about finished north of the border. Their lack of support there cost them an overall victory in the 2010 UK elections and they now can only realistically hope to form government by entering into coalition with one or other of the minor UK parties.
So, next time you are reading how bad the UK was before Thatcher and how marvellous is after her, just take a look at how close the UK is to not existing at all. That’s the real legacy of Thatcherism.
I knew times were hard in the UK but I didn’t think they were this bad. Does anyone have an address where we can send food parcels?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2308344/Petronella-Wyatt-Its-hell-posh-poor.html
What facile drivel from tempterrain.
1. Of course it is the Left that hates Thatcher – she slowed the totalitarian drift somewhat, and saved the country from militant unionism.
2. Why is it bad or a failure if Scotland gains independence ?? It necessarily results in more democracy all round, ie both Scots and English/Welsh/N Irish get a government more to their own liking, don’t have to compromise with the other party.
temp
As an Aussie, you have some pretty strong (and negative) thoughts about former UK PM Thatcher, the only female in history to hold that position.
Are you a misogynist?
Or do you have some other problem?
Just checking.
At any rate, I’m sure you are just as appalled as I am about the insensitive idiots that celebrated her death.
Max
@manacker
This is one of the key reasons she always got my vote and I’m a real working class Brit;
‘blockquoted’ to please Willard.
Max,
Yes I’m not happy that people are celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. She was 87 after all and hasn’t been able to exercise any personal influence for 20 years or more now. It would be better if they were celebrating the death of Thatcherism, but that’s likely to carry on for a little while longer yet. Unfortunately.
> It would be better if they were celebrating the death of Thatcherism, but that’s likely to carry on for a little while longer yet. Unfortunately.
Only unfortunate to those who want an even bigger Big Brother. To those who prefer a freer world, it’s fortunate.
@Steady Eddie,
Scottish independence not a question of success or failure. That’s for the Scots to decide. My family backround is a mixture of both Scottish and English and I, personally, would like to see the Union maintained. There’s really no logical reason why the Scots and English can’t be considered to be equals and live in the same country. I don’t believe the Scots have a problem when it’s the Labour Party in office but when its the Tories turn, they feel like they are treated as second class citizens. That’s why there is a push for independence. But I won’t get a say in the matter!
The Conservative party did , at one time, rate the integrity of the Union very highly. The present day party doesn’t, and probably largely agrees with you. They’re very contemptuous of Scotland, and the Scots, for having the temerity to disagree with their political view and force them into negotiating with the Lib Dems in order to be able to achieve government.
Its not too late to be fixed. IMO. The Conservative Party needs to show that they are a party for the whole of the UK and not just SE England.
There’s really no logical reason why the Scots and English can’t be considered to be equals and live in the same country.
There is an extremely logical reason – the Scots are quite leftwing, England is more middle-ground. No single government can satisfy both. Only if they separate can they both get what they want.
While you are essentially right, Mr B, what you overlook is that those of a more left/totalitarian persuasion invariably want those who disagree with them, to still be forced into paying for leftist policies. The very LAST thing a leftist want to happen, is that those he wants to plunder escape his grasp. Which what would happen if England no longer had to subsidise Scotland via the Union.
The other issue is that with Scotland independent, the Labour party in the remainder of the Union will be massively reduced, perhaps even terminally.
Actually, the more freedom-minded English should declare independence from the Union. The Scots, Welsh & Northern Irish could do the same or club together, as they wish.
There is an extremely logical reason – the Scots are quite leftwing, England is more middle-ground.
Have you any evidence for this assertion? From my experience, there’s no reason to assume any difference in political attitudes between the average Scottish or English person.
The problem is of very recent origin and has co-incided with the ascendancy of the Thatcherite tendency within the Tory party who have been far too quick to dismiss the opinion of those who live, not just in Scotland, but the English regions too. It’s not just a left/right issue.
The evidence that the Scots are more leftwing than the English, is that they vote for Labour far more than the English do. And the Scottish Nationalists are pretty leftwing too.
England moved on from the old totalitarian/left thinking that the Scots (and the EU for that matter) still cling to. And Thatcher was part of that, sure.
What are these allegedly anti-Scots sentiments you imagine exist in the Tory party ?
The sentiments of the present day Tory Party aren’t so much anti-Scots as pro-Surrey, Pro-Essex or Pro the Home counties and pro the English middle class. If they want to be a national party of the UK, as a whole, they have to be seen as pro the regions, and pro the people who live there, too.
They have decided not to, for whatever reasons they may have. That’s not the way the old Tory party chose to go, and that’s why they managed to keep the UK together as a political entity, at least if you don’t include Ireland, and why it’s quite likely that the present day Tory party won’t.
You again fail to show that there is anything other than a pro/anti-freedom divide. The English/liberals want more freedom, the Scots/left want less (want others to have less, more precisely). This is reflected in their voting patterns. There is no England-Scotland divide per se, beyond the abovementioned.
The evidence that the Scots are more leftwing than the English, is that they vote for Labour far more than the English do
I haven’t checked the figures but let’s just go with that statement for now. It’s a mistake to assume that everyone who votes Labour in Scotland is particularly left wing. The Labour party pick up a lot of votes there from those who would like to register their support for the Union. Who else can they vote for? Obviously not the Scots Nats. Almost equally obviously not the Tories either. Most English Tories would like to see the end of the Union.
Most English Tories would like to see the end of the Union.
The most spectacular nonsense. Sadly.
Mr B,
Nonsense? Hardly We know official Tory policy is for the UK to continue, but as that likely means no more Tory governments in the foreseeable future many (most?) individual Tories have concluded that it may be better if it doesn’t.
Your own earlier comment: “No single government can satisfy both. Only if they separate can they both get what they want” was precisely along those lines.
TempTerrein
I do so much wish for you to be right and me to be wrong. But the stubborn Tory hierarchy just won’t countenance “losing” the Union territories.
tempterrain
The suggestion of a more decentralized form of government in the UK has been brought up here.
Not being a Brit, I can only discuss what works elsewhere, where I am familiar with the system.
Switzerland is a strong federal union of historical cantons, which are quite diverse in culture and language, but still have a strong sense of unity.
Many issues are settled locally and regionally, rather than on a federal level.
I realize that the history of Great Britain is quite different, but could some sort of system like the one in Switzerland work there?
This would mean that the “federal” Parliament and PM would still exist, but their importance would be diminished as local legislative bodies and governors take over a more important role.
Taxes could also be levied more at the regional than at the federal level.
Of course this sort of thing would have to be settled by a plebiscite and only implemented if supported by a clear majority.
Max
Max,
Yes I think something along the lines of what you are suggesting could still work for the UK. Not sure it will happen though but we’ll see.
Yet her achievements cannot be gainsaid. She reversed what her mentor, Keith Joseph, liked to call “the ratchet effect”, whereby the state was rewarded for its failures with yet more power. With the brief exception of the emergency measures taken in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-08, there have been no moves to renationalise industries or to resume a policy of picking winners. Thanks to her, the centre of gravity of British politics moved dramatically to the right. The New Labourites of the 1990s concluded that they could rescue the Labour Party from ruin only by adopting the central tenets of Thatcherism. “The presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector,” declared Mr Blair. Neither he nor his successors would dream of reverting to the days of nationalisation and unfettered union power.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/04/margaret-thatcher?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709
Yes, Girma, rewarding error with power goes against nature.
Re Scotland’s separation ftom England, there’s a brilliant
book written by a German , Arthur Herman, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment,’ that is, itself enlighteningconcerning the
Scottish invention of the modern world, which is his claim,
David Hume, Adam Smith et al coming out of the education
system of the repressive Scottish kirk as an unexpected
consequence of its literacy program, a literate society.
The harsh environment was still against economic progress
but the union with England, commercial treaties, advantages
on the high seas, kick started the economy. Sad ter think
Scotland has moved from the thinking of its ‘great generation,’
but then, many of its bolder citizens emmigrated.
Btg
Jest cain’t seem ter manage the oddam line length.
‘Sich is life.’ ( Ned Kelly.)
Don, here’s a take on Thatcher which I liked: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9975006/Margaret-Thatcher-Britain-was-set-free-by-this-class-warrior.html
I was not immediately enamoured of Thatcher (having been a long-term UK Labour supporter), but over the years have come to appreciate what she did. As a Pom who left England in late-79, I don’t think that the then desperate state of the UK could have been addressed by a gentler and less committed approach, there were too many entrenched interests and attitudes to be overcome. Essentially, Thatcher saw value in individual self-reliance and initiative, and faced a culture in which those virtues were not valued.
Those who knew Thatcher seemed to find Streep’s portrayal offensive and demeaning.
She refused the part. Well, the actress in her did.
=============
Faustino,
I agree with all you say in that comment (I haven’t read the link).
The following is not addressed to Faustino (he may not agree with me)
I think the behaviour of the Thatcher haters is disgusting. The people who hate Thatcher, are part of a breed of haters (all of Left ideology). The same people hate John Howard (past Prime Minister of Australia) and Tony Abbott (hopefully the next PM of Australia). They also hate rich people (like Australian mining magnates, including Gina Reinhardt, the world’s riches woman), they hate …. the list of who they hate is long.
Past head of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, called the Murdock Press the “Hate Media”. But it is not the Murdock Press that fans hatred. Hatred is fanned in Australia by the Left wing MSM – including the taxpayer funded ABC and SBS.
Faustino — yes it’s a good piece. When I first went to Britain in 1964 I too was puzzled by some of the supposed working class sentiments I found there. I was used to working-class people who were doing their best to leave it! Yes, Australia had trade unions and all the rest, but a widespread assumption was that if you could you did. My grandparents were Scottish/ English working -class people (a miner and a railway blacksmith) but all their children moved ‘upwards’ into the middle class. It was possible and desirable. But not obviously in the pre-Thatcher UK.
Donaitkin,
You’ve got this the wrong way around. The big change in British society and the increase in social mobility started after WW2 and lasted well into the 60’s and 70’s.
Thatcherism sought to reverse all that and has largely succeeded. In the league table of social mobility the UK is now well down the list. The US isn’t much better. Norway and Denmark show how it is still possible though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
Great Britain, pioneer, like Pericles’ Athens, of opportunity
fer all, Scottish Enlightenment, “liberal” underpinning of
economic and political freedom, hopes fer a goddam
better world, tempt, England was going down the drain
pre Thatcher, from goddam union regulations on productivity.
H/t me dad, entrepreneur- innovator…Wealth comes from
what is produced. Context, goddamit, yer can’t get blood
out of a goddam stone. Don’t just listen ter ivory tower
academics, school teachers, et al, .. I was one but yer
can listen ter me. So many of them put their faith in top
top down hand – outs from the public purse. And – when –
the – goose – that – lays – the – golden – egg – is – gone –
it’s – back – ter – the – golden – age – and – out, – O U T –
go – the – lights
Btg
> In 461 BC, Pericles achieved the political elimination of this formidable opponent using the weapon of ostracism. The ostensible accusation was that Cimon betrayed his city by acting as a friend of Sparta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles#Ostracizing_Cimon
The lady had the courage of her convictions and the apparent schism between those who love her and those who loathe her is a hangover of the British class system, which served this country so well over so many hundreds of years.
The new social order appears not to be serving the British cause anywhere near as well and a decline in international influence is reflective of the lack of clear underlying values by its political leaders.
” the British class system, which served this country so well over so many hundreds of years.” Did it really? Many people loathed it and still do.
You comment illustrates an interesting difference between American and British history though. America was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment. Democracy , or representative Rupublicanism if you prefer, was enshrined in the US constitution. There wasn’t the same struggle to establish democracy in the USA. (Although there was the struggle to extend it of course). There was no Chartist movement. Protesters weren’t put to the sword in the streets, or deported overseas. British history, over the last couple of centuries, shows just what class struggle has been about. Its not between people and government, but the peoples’ right to choose a government, rather than it being the privilege of the aristocracy or wealthy classes..
TT this link shows an overview of British society for the last few hundred years.
http://www.localhistories.org/society.html
The British Empire was arguably the greatest and most enduring of all and even today the sense of order that this class system provided still serves well in almost all of its former colonies, which generally fared better than the former colonies of other European powers.
Another aspect of the difference between a monarchy based on birthright and rank and that of a Republican Presidency is that of stability and order that seemed to percolate right down.
Democracy tends to produce socialist governments because of one vote one value but socialism fails to address many of the pressing problems of effective economic reforms in businesses, workplaces and in family life in those times.
Peter Davies,
I’m not quite sure what point you are trying to make. Yes the link shows, reasonably accurately I would say, what British society was in historical terms.
If there’s a lesson to be learned, it should be for our American friends. They might want to look back on this and learn what the relationship was in previous centuries between the powerful and the rest of society. Their history didn’t start with their declaration of Independence or the writing of US constitution, but I’m not sure they would agree with that comment.
The British class system certainly suited those who ran the country. It probably still suits those who run it today. But it doesn’t suit everyone.
The point is that the class system was supported by all levels of society. Even the serfs and villeins found comfort in knowing that their lives were stable and well ordered.
The servants of the manor houses were much more rigorous in their adherence to these rules than their masters, who seemed to be much more casual about it all.
In regards to your thoughts on the power of the ballot box going to the plebs instead of being the preserve of the privileged few, in the US, the main problem in an election today is to encourage people to get off their butts and vote!
Peter Davies
Democracy tends to produce socialist governments
Yes, because majorities can then club together to plunder and oppress minorities.
“…………….in the US, the main problem in an election today is to encourage people to get off their butts and vote”
The TV pictures showed very long queues at US polling stations last November. Was this typical? Or just in the big cities? Was it easier to vote in the wealthy more Republican areas?
What is the general opinion on using internet voting? The usual objection is security but there are ways to safeguard against fraud just like there is with internet banking. Its not an insuperable obstacle.
The long queues would certainly discourage voter participation TT. It would be interesting to see if there is any evidence of poor distribution of polling places discriminating against voters likely to vote against incumbents.
The Australian system is probably up with World’s best practice in that it is run by a separate commission and that electoral boundaries are reviewed regularly to ensure that representation is fairly weighted between districts.
Max OK writes: “You may be misled by 1998 average global temperature being a freakishly warm year. Look what happens to the trend if we leave the 1998 average out, just using the UAH averages for 1979-97 and 1999-2013:”
Laughable. When James Hansen predicts (wrongly of course, and seemingly every other year), another super el nino, do you suppose he’s talking about “natural variability.”
Nor were any alarmist climate scientists back in 1998 saying, oh don’t worry about this dramatic warming this year, it’s only a freak el nino, nothing to do with Co2…
You guys can’t have it both way, though it never stops you from trying..
pokerguy, if you leave out the warmest year (1998), you are still left with a warming trend. If you cherry-pick a period since 1998 when temperature was flat, you can find an equally long previous flat period without going back very far in years.
Suppose we see another 1998 – 2013 record in temperature. Would you ignore the sharp rise, and say temperature has been about the same for 15 years now, and a little ice age is just around the corner?
Max_OK
There comes that little BIG word, “IF” again.
IF a bullfrog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its a** every time it hopped, either.
Don’t know where you’re orbiting right now, Okie, but you should come back down to planet Earth.
Max_not from OK
Max_OK | April 13, 2013 at 7:09 pm | Reply
if you leave out the warmest year (1998), you are still left with a warming trend.
No you aren’t. Even cagw fanatics now concede this, and are scurrying to find where the ‘missing’ heat is hiding out.
Whatever James Delingpole’s style, he happens to be right about the windmills. They are totally useless climate-wise, and cause a ton of damage to people and the environment.
A typical outcome of the warmist hysteria.
Baloney! Windmills are fine. People imagine windmills are harmful. People imagine frogs cause warts. People imagine Obama was born in Kenya. People imagine a lot of things.
Of course, if you were a bird, you wouldn’t want to fly into a windmill. I’lll give you that. Birds don’t belong around airports either.
Regardless of how much money the Chinese government throws at windmills, if they were viable they would not need to be propped up by subsidies (which necessarily make the public as a whole poorer).
Whatever James Delingpole,
Regardless China,
Subsidies, subsidies, subsidies.
‘Wind turbines kill far fewer birds in general each year than do many other causes linked to humans, including domestic cats and collisions with glass windows. But wind power has a disproportionate effect on certain species that are already struggling for survival, such as the precarious US population of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis).
“The troubling issue with wind development is that we’re seeing a growing number of birds of conservation concern being killed by wind turbines,” says Albert Manville, a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Arlington, Virginia.’
http://www.nature.com/news/the-trouble-with-turbines-an-ill-wind-1.10849
So we have an expensive technology that – because of the intermittent nature – stops questionable amounts of emissions and is environmentally damaging?
Related:
> Crude oil is a mixture of many different kinds of organic compounds, many of which are highly toxic and cancer causing (carcinogenic). Oil is “acutely lethal” to fish, that is it kills fish quickly, at a concentration of 4000 parts per million (ppm)[1] (0.4%). Crude oil and petroleum distillates cause birth defects.[2]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_petroleum_industry#section_1
They thought by erecting the sacrificial monuments they would pacify the Gods. But the Gods love birds, and even cats on good days.
======================
willard relates his fears, fearlessly and credulously gathered from wikipedia.
================
‘◾Although wood smoke conjures up fond memories of sitting by a cozy fire, it is important to know that the components of wood smoke and cigarette smoke are quite similar, and that many components of both are carcinogenic. Wood smoke contains fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide and various irritant gases such as nitrogen oxides that can scar the lungs. Wood smoke also contains chemicals known or suspected to be carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxin.
◾Wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It also increases children’s risk of lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
◾Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways.
◾ According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), toxic air pollutants are components of wood smoke. Wood smoke can cause coughs, headaches, eye, and throat irritation in otherwise healthy people.
◾ For vulnerable populations, such as people with asthma, chronic respiratory disease and those with cardiovascular disease, wood smoke is particularly harmful— even short exposures can prove dangerous.’
http://ehhi.org/woodsmoke/health_effects.shtml
Dioxins are water soluble so they enter waterways after bushfires and accumulate in the food chain over long times. But fire is also critical to many ecosystems.
I don’t think we should argue that oil and coal are benign – simply that they should be managed appropriately. And still then it may be problematical.
It is not the same thing at all as arguing that windmills are benign. They are expensive, environmentally damaging and of questionable worth as mitigation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html
http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/30/energy.oilandpetrol
Gaze at the torrent of guilt willard spasms horrifically under. Try tap dancing, as in dance over to the tap. What kind of motel are you running around here? Abate your fearful nuisance.
=================
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/08/168887788/deep-in-canadian-lakes-signs-of-tar-sands-pollution
You know willard, that most of the tarballs you shrink from on beaches are from natural origin, don’t you?
You know willard, that hydrocarbon bonds are naturally degraded by Nature unless sequestered from the biosphere, don’t you?
======================
Willard
Fact: crude oil kills fish
Conclusion: keep it out of oceans.
Don’t do the stupid thing BP did and the environmental authorities okayed in the Deepwater Horizon disaster (save a few bucks by not installing a fail-safe blowout prevention system in a deep-water offshore well)
Despite BPs monumental PR campaign to portray themselves as “green” (“beyond petroleum”) and the major efforts they are actually undertaking in Alaska to actually be “green”, this one cock-up resulted in the death of 12 rig workers plus cost BP billions and ruined their “green” reputation for a long time.
I think BP, the rig service company Transocean and the permit authorities have all learned a lesson: make absolutely sure large quantities of oil do not leak into the ocean as a result of a blowout in a deep-water offshore well.
Max
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/us-exxon-spill-mayflower-insight-idUSBRE93A0PI20130411
Twelve people killed, untold treasure shoveled into the deep, and uncountable billions of micro-organisms fed. Gaia is chuckling over the good deal she got.
=============
And as a bonus, Gaia got a brand new lake:
willard’s got a brand new fright. Check out the environment where the Captain of the Exxon Valdez secured immortality and the birth of a useful though phony meme.
===============
Following up on the newswire sounds a better bargain,
considering they redeem empty squawks from our parlor fury.
Polly is a cracker. Ain’t just people who seek the energy in that fragile hydrocarbon bond. Oh, the entropy.
==============
A blast from the past:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-02/exxon-developing-excavation-plan-for-pegasus-oil-pipeline-spill.html
willard’s anecdotes thrill some and bore others. If only he’d pay attention to the matter the way micro-organisms do.
=================
Chief,
The Respiratory effects of woodburning stoves reporting begins in the 1980’s. Infants carried on the backs of mothers into cooking huts developed permanent airway injury is reported from Papua New Guinea, Katmandu Nepal, and the Navajo Hogans in the desert Southwest USA.
Of all the chemicals and carcinogens that wood smoke and woodburing stoves emit, it is the aldehydes: formaldehyde and especially acrolin that attach to the respiratory mucosa lining resulting in coagulated mucus, cilia immobility, and cell death. The fine respirable particles <2.5 microns carry attached toxins to the lower respiratory bronchioles.
Burning biomass for fuel results in the same air pollution as wood stoves. Advocates for biomass as fuel should think about what is causing the sweat smell of a wood fire; aldehydes. The only colorless and odorless compounds from these fires are CO2 and Carbon Monoxide.
When first going outside, I know precisely from which direction the wind is blowing as I can smell the sulfur dioxide from the coal fired power plant five miles away.
I can tell my neighbor's gas furnace is on by the steam trickling from their chimney.
We as a developed society have achieved cleaner air by moving from biomass burning to coal, and now to nuclear and gas.
During the gentle snowfall this morning, the wind wasn't blowing and the wind turbines weren't turning.
Wind turbine energy can't exist without subsidies and back-up energy source.
Wind turbines, the pinwheel toy of the rich.
Speaking of micro-organisms:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09593339409385441
RiHo08
Aw c/mon. Willard doesn’t care a hoot for the millions who die annually from respiratory problems resulting from indoor burning of (renewable, yeah!) wood and dung.
He certainly doesn’t want them to have access to a reliable, low-cost supply of energy based on fossil fuels (boo!).
Ya gotta sacrifice someone to save the planet and bring those horrible oil and gas companies to their knees.
And as long as it isn’t Willard, himself, he doesn’t believe the sacrifice is too great.
Max
> he doesn’t believe the sacrifice is too great.
Yet another untruth.
Yet another BRIC in willard’s wondrous precious wall. Slap some water buffalo dung on it to dry for fuel, quickly.
================
It might be wiser to wing more birds instead:
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/fasthma.asp
Heh, scrubbers are so last century.
====
Release the clowns.
Wait, they already are.
Let’s keep our cool
And audit clean coal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_coal_industry
Hobgoblins, willard. Poor people breathe bad air from necessity not choice. Cheap electricity from coal will save far more than kill.
You sure look hard for your misinformation.
===========
Is this your answer to Chief’s ornithological concerns, kim?
Make of it what you like. I defer to your expertise there.
==========
In their green-hate they’d rather sacrifice people than birds.
Sugarpie, I’m an environmentalist. It is clear we must keep our room clean, else it becomes unlivable.
==============
There are 1200 coal plants in the planning stage worldwide, predominantly in the BRICS. These are not people trying to dirty their environment, but clean it, following the US model. They are optimistic, and steadily gaining power, but losing the power of water buffalo dung.
=================
Let’s hope MiniMax does not overhear kim whispering
Cheap electricity from dung will save far more than kill
The main thing wind-mills kill, is wealth .
Tomcat, on behalf of Peter D I award you a plus one
fer that aphorism …though, like wind turbines, cats
also kill birds. Hunt rats instead, Tomcat.
BC
> Hunt rats instead, Tomcat.
Oh I do. Bureauc Rats.
> like wind turbines, cats also kill birds
And cats don’t even generate power for us. Perhaps if we put them in little treadmills for a few hours a day … ?
Pitting yrself againnst the bureaucracy, Kinda like
holding back the tide…but its got ter be done.
+10
“And cats don’t even generate power for us.”
But they’re cute and more likable than windmills
jacobress,
Now here’s a rhyme from Kenyon Cox that kinda
en – cap -su – lates what we’re on about here, cats.
giant wind turbines, beau – rock – racy :
I love Octopussy
his arms are so long,
there’s nothing in nature
so sweet as his song.
“Tis true I’d not touch him – –
no not for a farm.
If i keep at a distance
he’ll do me no harm.
Btcg etc etc
> no not for a farm.
Not even a wind-farm, dearie?
We ought to tell that to China:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988311001307
China, China, China.
Whatever James’ style describes it well.
Dear Climate Realists
It is with regret that due to recent changes in my personal life I will not have the time available to update this site until sometime in the future.
I have made provisions to keep the site running so you can read the 10,000+ articles
I hope the name “Climate Realists” remains a prominent irritation to supporters of AGW and that it is used by you wisely
I bid you all farewell and look forward to the day when the supporters of AGW admit their mistake.
There has been NO warming of the Earth due to “Man Made” co2. The warming can be atributed to 50 years of higher then average solar activity on the Sun that started in the 1950’s and ended around 2006.
There WILL be more changes to our climate in the future due to our Sun becoming less active. This change is destined to make the Earth cooler, and NOT warmer. The reason AGW supporters have been misinformed about this issue is from political madness and the abuse of science
In short we have seen extended Summers due to an active Sun and now face extended Winters due to a less active Sun….Pass it on!
I Love you all …..please keep up the fight by calling yourself a “Climate Realist”, the term “Climate Skeptic” is not correct, as there is nothing to be skeptical about! It’s the Sun stupid;)
Gabriel
http://climaterealists.com/
Wish you the very best.
Girma,
Take care, I look forward to you resuming posting when you
can. You have a lot of friends here who respect yr knowledge
and integrity.
Best wishes,
Beth
Thank you Beth.
Girma
Hope to see you back soon.
Max
‘This paper provides an update to an earlier work that showed specific changes in the aggregate time evolution of major Northern Hemispheric atmospheric and oceanic modes of variability serve as a harbinger of climate shifts. Specifically, when the major modes of Northern Hemisphere climate variability are synchronized, or resonate, and the coupling between those modes simultaneously increases, the climate system appears to be thrown into a new state, marked by a break in the global mean temperature trend and in the character of El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability. Here, a new and improved means to quantify the coupling between climate modes confirms that another synchronization of these modes, followed by an increase in coupling occurred in 2001/02. This suggests that a break in the global mean temperature trend from the consistent warming over the 1976/77–2001/02 period may have occurred.’ Swanson and Tsonis – has the climate recently shifted?
There is no doubt that the ‘character of ‘El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability’ changes after 1998. You can see for yourself.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
La Niña dominant to 1976, El Niño to 1998 and La Niña since. These are expressions of global patterns of internal climate variability that change abruptly in response to relatively small changes in forcings. The system is acted on by forcings – energy in vs. energy out – and the system responds with changes propagating though powerful mechanisms.
Currently the Southern Annular Mode has been positive for a couple of months suggesting a warm, dry winter for Southern Africa, Southern Australia and South America. A strong polar vortex is pushing Southern Ocean water through Drakes Passage and keeping cold water well to the south. A negative Northern Annular Mode is still pushing storms into the US and Europe – although that can hardly be news. It has gone strongly more negative in the last month. The NAM has been positive since 1995 – but clustered around a few years at the turn of the millennium. The SAM peaked positively in 1998.
There is very cold sub-surface water rising in the Humboldt Current – the thermal origin of La Niña – although it is still too early to tell La Niña is favoured in this phase of the ‘character of El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability’. The seesawing pattern of shifts in atmospheric mass influences and is influenced by tropical and subtropical patterns of ENSO, the PDO and others.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2013/anomnight.4.11.2013.gif
The control variable – the small change in forcing – for the changes in atmospheric and coupled oceanic processes may have a lot to do with solar UV/ozone interactions in the stratosphere and may create cooler conditions over the next few centuries as solar intensity declines from a 1000 year grand maxima.
Although the direction of causation may not be as simple as Tessa Vance imagines – tying together the systems in simple salt content measurements at the Law Ice Dome is compelling data.
‘ENSO causes climate extremes across and beyond the Pacific basin; however, evidence of ENSO at high southern latitudes is generally restricted to the South Pacific and West Antarctica. Here, the authors report a statistically significant link between ENSO and sea salt deposition during summer from the Law Dome (LD) ice core in East Antarctica. ENSO-related atmospheric anomalies from the central-western equatorial Pacific (CWEP) propagate to the South Pacific and the circumpolar high latitudes. These anomalies modulate high-latitude zonal winds, with El Niño (La Niña) conditions causing reduced (enhanced) zonal wind speeds and subsequent reduced (enhanced) summer sea salt deposition at LD. Over the last 1010 yr, the LD summer sea salt (LDSSS) record has exhibited two below-average (El Niño–like) epochs, 1000–1260 ad and 1920–2009 ad, and a longer above-average (La Niña–like) epoch from 1260 to 1860 ad’.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=38
It suggests that there may be much that is unprecedented in the past 600 years – but perhaps less so in the past 1000. It is definitely not a hockey stick. The problem with space cadet climate science is that there is far too much real science that is left unexplained.
The 1998/2001 climate shift is associated with cloud changes. The 1998/2001 change is a dragon-kind – or noisy bifurcation ( http://eprints.port.ac.uk/3527/ ) – being extreme fluctuation between La Niña and El Niño states in this case. Similar to the 1976/1977 ‘Great Pacific Climate Shift’. The two events added most of the recent warming to the temperature record. The shifts last 20 to 40 years – so cooler conditions seem with us for a while yet from 2002.
…dragon-king…
Heh, that was a baby dragon. The King will have clothes to bow to.
===========
OK, this is not climate related. But the majority of commenters here live in the NYTimesWashPostABCCBSNBCMCNBCCNN bubble and are either progressives, moderates, independents or libertarians of one stripe or another. So you probably wouldn’t hear about this anywhere else. And you should. (Don’t worry, the post is to a link to a Huffing and Puffington Post article – by a Fox News progressive – so you won’t get culture shock going to an actual conservative site.)
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2072577
Oh, hey, let’s trash Ben Carson instead. Yeah, that’s the tikket.
=============
And for a better, more eloquent description of where our current culture has staggered:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345483/dehumanizing-word-games-gosnell-andrew-c-mccarthy
Global Warming is Baloney
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/05/burger-king-global-warming-us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/mar/09/climate-change-deniers-monbiot-cards?picture=344343782
Jack of clubs
James Inhofe
Senator for Oklahoma
Inhofe is the senior Senator for Oklahoma. In 2003 he delivered a speech to the Senate called The Science of Climate Change, in which he said: “The claim that global warming is caused by manmade emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science … With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it”
They have been lying about warming for the last 17 years, and have finally admitted it. And then carry on business ponzi scheme as usual. What will it take to stop this juggernaut crushing unwilling or ignorant victims?
Maybe the bloody trail behind the juggernaut, had we eyes to gaze upon.
====================
Inhofe is 78 years old. As people age, they resist what’s new and cling to the past. I guess that makes some sense, since they don’t have much future ahead of them.
Inhofe will be dead tomorrow but fools will be with us always.
Citation please Max_OK.
inhofe’s basket of bread turned to roses.
======
Peter, I found Inhofe’s DOB at Wiki. He was born on November 17, 1934.
Preemptive action is the secret ingredient to Inhofe’s stamina, researchers find:
> Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said that the United States should be prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike “right now” against North Korea, warning that its “deranged” president Kim Jong Un could attempt a nuclear attack on America.
http://thehill.com/video/senate/291827-inhofe-pre-emptive-strike-would-get-the-attention-of-deranged-north-korean-leader
A deranged Kim Jong is no match for a deranged James Inhofe.
Inhofe’s age is 78. I agree with this, the only objective statement in your comment. Now what was it that you were saying about the effects of aging?
Aging takes it’s toll on mind and body. Aging is about loss.
Apology fer ‘comment’ above, it was intended as an attachment!
Apologies need from those who thought power from the days of ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ would constitute human advancement. Whatever gave them that devilishly stupid idea. I think a God somewhere just wanted to torment load dispatchers.
As for your apology, Beth, please. This way I read and glad of it.
==================
To the days of nasty, brutish, and short, we may soon return if we get cold enough. This fetish over a few degrees more warmth is the very height of human folly and ignorance.
Almost any warming man can do would be Paradise. Almost any descent into glaciation will be a Hell beyond our imagining. Notice the use and unuse of the subjunctive. And yet, we’re stampeded into fearing warming?
A madness of the herd. We’ll get over it.
=============
Speaking of the subjunctive:
If…
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
PG +1
The arxiv server’s “Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics” section include’s Piotr J. Flatau’s wonderful “Interview with Warren Wiscombe on scientific programing and his contributions to atmospheric science tool making.”
Perhaps this warm, in-depth (and occasionally funny!) interview will help climate-change skeptics to a better appreciation of the immense effort, scrupulous care, and talented craftsmanship, by which complex simulation codes affirm (or disconfirm) simple thermodynamics models of AGW.
Best wishes for enlightened discourse and mutual respect!
YEA AND NAY —
EACH HATH HIS SAY;
BUT GOD HE KEEPS THE MIDDLE WAY.
NONE WAS BY
WHEN HE SPREAD THE SKY;
WISDOM IS VAIN, AND PROPHESY
-Herman Melville
Dazzling Northern Lights Anticipated Tonight
Perhaps the present solar cycle still has some “zip” left in it? … it’s worth taking a look-see, anyway.
You know there is a study correlating aurorae borealis with Nile River levels.
================
And birth rates at higher latitudes (with a 9-month time lag)
Max
Statistical analysis without physical theory is mere cleromancy, eh Kim?
Of which there exist ample examples in the pseudo-scientific literature relating to climate-change!
We are at the peak of the solar cycle – http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png – as has been predicted for some years.
So this is when we expect peak solar flares and if had been paying attention to anything serious you might have heard dire warnings – which are always to be ignored – months or even years in advance.
But the fact remains that we are at a Solar Grand Maxima not seen for a thousand years – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cosmogenicisotopes-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=81
Noise or some coherent signal of the music of the spheres? Does it matter? There is only one way and that is down. I would opt for music of the spheres – it has a nice ring to it.
Happy to put you straight – again and again and again. Some time or other you might like to check your assumptions before making an idiot of yourself again and again and again – aye Miss Fombs? .
Fan
I was physically in Iceland to see the northern lights on Saturday. They were unfortunately nothing special
Tonyb
What deniers and false skeptics don’t like to admit.
Even without the warmest year in instrumental temperature history, which was1998, the warming trend over the last several decades is undeniable.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1999/to:2013/plot/wti/from:1999/to:2013/trend/plot/wti/from:1978/to:1997/plot/wti/from:1978/to:1997/trend/plot/none
The issue is the spectacular miscalculation:
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/17/dailymail_rose_tempgraph.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg
No one is denying the warming.
We are denying the “0.2 deg C/decade for the next two decades” of the IPCC as shown in the above graph.
…the instrumental temperature history of urban heat islands?
Weather has been known to be chaotic since Edward Lorenz discovered the ‘butterfly effect’ in the 1960’s. Abrupt climate change on the other hand was thought to have happened only in the distant past and so climate was expected to evolve steadily over this century in response to ordered climate forcing.
More recent work is identifying abrupt climate changes working through the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the Artic Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and other measures of ocean and atmospheric states. These are measurements of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressure over more than 100 years which show evidence for abrupt change to new climate conditions that persist for up to a few decades before shifting again. Global rainfall and flood records likewise show evidence for abrupt shifts and regimes that persist for decades. In Australia, less frequent flooding from early last century to the mid 1940’s, more frequent flooding to the late 1970’s and again a low rainfall regime to recent times.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
Cooling from 2002 for 20 to 40 years.
A cooling influence for hundreds of years as we pass from the Grand Solar Maxima.
True, true, Nikola Scafetta forecasts a stabilized climate “or cool until 2030-2040,” the result of such ‘physical mechanisms’ and the ‘collective synchronization of coupled oscillators,’
Everyone should know what global warming is all about. It’s not about the weather but about who rules your life.
Max Not Ok and lolwot are the last remaining holdouts when it comes to the pause. You guys are like those Japanese soldiers who refused to believe world war 2 was over. I think a few of them were still around in the 1970’s. So don’t feel too badly. There’s a precedent in the annals of human folly.
Max not Ok, if the heat isn’t missing, why is trenberth looking for it?
pokerguy, there have been pauses and even declines in temperature during the overall upward trend. Apparently, you have identified one you like. Please let me know exactly what period your pause covers and why you think it’s different than any previous pause, and I will be glad to address it.
Meant for here – http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/13/open-thread-weekend-13/#comment-311747
And re Trenberth, he’s looking because he expected more.
The missing heat was seen by Trenberth in CERES – part of the problem is that the record is so short it missed the critical 1998/2001 period. The other problem – for Trenberth – is that it was all in SW.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=17
“Max Not Ok and lolwot are the last remaining holdouts when it comes to the pause”
No, I think I am in agreement with virtually all climate scientists and other subject experts.
The idea that there has been no warming for 17 years is bogus.
The idea that there has been no warming for 17 years is bogus.
Only if the thermometers are bogus. Even the most advocacy-tainted climate ‘scientists’ now accept this.
“Even the most advocacy-tainted climate ‘scientists’ now accept this.”
Give me a quote from just one of them stating there has been no warming for 17 years.
If there was a stand of Siberian larch that was known to put the issue of global warming rest once and for all the Left would be out there flicking kitchen matches into the forests to destroy the evidence.
There was a time when a certain tree in the Maldives had to go…
Now they’re not so sure about drowning isles and underwater cabinet meetings. The luxury market billions were better than the climate millions. You gotta go where the money is.
Sorry about the tree.
Anti wind-energy comments here claim it’s a failure or has no future. I’m skeptical of their claims because the Global Wind Energy Council tells a different story.
“The Global Wind Energy Council’s 2012 market statistics show continued expansion of the market, with annual market growth of almost 10%, and cumulative capacity growth of about 19%. A record year for US installations and a slower market in China mean that the two countries all but tied for the top spot in 2012.”
For more 2012 market statistics on wind energy, see
http://www.gwec.net/global-figures/wind-energy-global-status/
The wind industry survives on subsidies. We are sceptical that subsidies are long term an effective way to behave. that much happens in the way of carbon mitigation – especially where baseload coal plants are involved or there is much other renewables such as hydro or beyond a relatively small penetration – that it doesn’t kill birds and bats and that it isn’t a blight otherwise pristine landscapes.
The success of subsidies in the crude sense of having installations happen is not in question.
If pristine landscape is your concern, you might not like drilling rigs and strip mining. If wildlife is your concern, you might not like offshore drilling.
As for subsidies, the railroads that opened the American West for development were subsidized, and that worked out very well. We have subsidized farms, airports, roads, schools, etc. So I have no objection to subsidizing wind-energy.
@Max_ok
We have subsidized farms, airports, roads, schools, etc. So I have no objection to subsidizing wind-energy.
Great argument. Because other areas of society are screwed up, why not screw up energy too ?
And of course when something is subsidized, all that happens is that you get more of it (wind-energy, unemployment, etc). Because the money to do this grows on special subsidy trees, so no other goods and services have to be cut back to enable this. There are no costs, only benefits.
Sign here
……………………………………….
Mining and industry are fairly intensive – and rehabilitation can be done poorly or not at all. It is best to return it to a stable landform and with native veg. There are some horrible examples of mines around where I live. This is one of new interests and I actually have an old coal mine to play with. They give you a gas mask when you enter the site because of the toxic fumes generated from the old dumps. But it is intensive and theoretically transient if done properly. I have seen modern mines restored beautifully as they go. Not much oil but gas in abundance – many thousands of drill heads – but they don’t kill birds and bats.
As an environmental scientist – many things are my concern.
Many things are possible in wealthy democracies. From the perspective of that doyen of enlightenment liberal thought – HA Hayek – government exist to supply services that the market cannot or will not provide. If you decide you want expensive and inefficient energy and you can get the support of enough citizens – well that is democracy.
I think your money would be better spent meeting your Millennium Development Goals commitment or else western governments are just frauds, liars and cheats. But what’s new? We also think that we should be putting $100 billion a year – globally – into energy research rather than subsidising technologies that are obviously limited, expensive and nonsensical. Just like you aye – Max. No wonder you like it so much.
Cui bono?
About pristine land:
drilling rigs count into thousands, winmills into tens of thousands (more than 100 thousand globally).
Wind mills are necessarily located on mountain ridges (where the wind blows), so, they are more visible, and also destroy virgin forests with their access roads. They also drive away wildlife (and human beings) wuth their low frequency humm.
But, above all – they are useless. Their contribution to reducing emissions is negligible, and cannot be otherwise.
Max,
Did you take note of the name of the organization you link to? A reasonable person might conclude that such an organization is highly likely to publicize positive numbers on wind generation.
Hit the post bar too soon.
I meant to add that one has to look deeper into the issue. Investment in wind generation is being primarily driven by two factors. The first is mandated “renewable” percentages in utility generation portfolios. The second is economic incentives, such as tax credits and subsidies for kW’s generated.
I can’t speak for the entire US, but in the PNW, construction of new wind generation is starting to taper off. For one, the renewables targets have been met or exceeded. On top of that, I believe California recently rewrote their regs, tightening up how they allow for renewable “credits”. (Meaning if your generation is not directly tied to the CA grid, it don’t count.)
The outlook for continued subsidies is also becoming less firm. Congress added what? – a one or two year extension? Without that, incentive for developing wind dries up quickly.
I don’t believe there is a current wind project on the books for WA. We’ve put the 2nd and 3rd phases of our most recent project on hold. OR still has something like 3 projects which still might get built. But thermal is also getting looked at in the mix of new generation.
Poor analogies, Max_OK . in fact, jest not OK.
Roads, railroads, airways take yer somewhere, transport
stuff we need, like food, are the backbone pf commercial,
global, open society. I totally love global. )
Wind turbines, on – again – off again, inefficient, veeeeery
expensive technology, back – ter – the – so – called –
golden – age- closed – societies – of -magical – thinking –
unquestionned – cohesion – weltanshauung, ( love that
word ) that keeps the serfs in their place, Tsk!
One – of – the – serfs – who – became – a – free – cowgirl –
of – the – prairies .
,
Beth, I disagree. I’m all for seeding wind-power with subsidies. I don’t want the U.S. to fall behind China and European countries in developing this alternative source of energy. I reject the notion if private capital can’t be attracted the thing ain’t worth doing.
Max_OK
If it has potential and makes economic sense, it will attract private capital like honey attracts a bee.
If it can only survive with taxpayer-funded subsidies or some other boondoggle like carbon taxes it isn’t worth pursuing.
Max_CH
manaker,
I disagree with you on this. There is nothing wrong with trying to jump start new technologies. Do you really think we would have had an internet if the US had not developed DarpaNet? I work in wireless. Would my job exist without the money put into developing combat communications systems using cellular technology? (Government money.) Previously I worked in nuclear. Once again, an industry which received considerable governmental support to get started.
The issue should not be whether research dollars, subsidies and other incentives should be allowed or not. It should be on how these get decided upon and managed.
Where you start to have a point is when a field or industry has been subsidized to the extent that market forces should begin to be felt. At this point wind has been subsidized to having reached sufficient critical mass. If it it isn’t drawing capital, then maybe we need to look at why that is.
Bethsheba
Just because something (eg food) is important, is no reason to subsidize it. People can just buy it themselves – as opposed to the government seizing their money, buying it, and then giving it to them.
Memphis, I am, not in favour of subsidies meself, but
some infa – structure building, a road, a bridge, has a
wealth producing aftermath, subsidizing on again off
again windmill technology does not …in fact, the
opposite. Say, Memphis, are you from Tenessee?
Bethsheba )
Bethany
Road and bridges get subsidized on the grounds that there is no easy way to charge for their use (technology is changing that though – toll roads, gizmos in your veehighcle so see where you drove, etc).
Not the case with ‘tricity though, it is very easily metered.
The other question – ‘fraid ya’ll haf ta ahsk Long Distance Information…
MAXOK I reject the notion if private capital can’t be attracted the thing ain’t worth doing.
IOW, you don’t think wind-power will ever be viable. Yet you want money put into it??
That’s not what I think.
Max_OK
You’re an investor.
How much are you investing in wind power?
Max_CH
PS I know that another famous investor from Oklahoma, T. Boone Pickens, was hot on windmills a couple of years back, because he knew they required gas-fired backup plants for the 75% of the time they don’t work and he had a substantial chunk of natural gas. His plan also included shifting a lot of US transportation fuel from imported petroleum to domestic natural gas.
One of my mutual funds may have a small stake in wind energy, but I’m not sure. As a tax payer I have an investment in it.
So, then (anonymous one), you have a forced investment in an alernative energy that will never be viable. How’s that feel?
ps (to the one who won’t be named), what do you expect the return on your “investment” to be?
You don’t know it will never be viable.
Well, actually I do. One need only do the math on how frequently the wind blows and where to understand this. It’s a lot like investing in a scheme to sell ice to Eskimos. It can be done, of course, but with such simpler and cheaper solutions available why would one?
PS: I assume because you think it will be viable that you’ve invested in a windmill to power your home out there in OK, right?
No one can exactly predict when the rain will fall, yet agriculture has been successful.
Yes, agriculture has been successful. These days mainly to something called *irrigation*. Assume you’ve heard of it WHT. (Are you suggesting we ban irrigation??)
Amazing how man adapted to be able to grow more food in the absence of predictable rainfall. Solved that problem with logic and technology. Now we have reliable food production. Yes!
How about we do the same with energy… oh wait, we have. It’s called burning fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro. Time we just recognize that wind speed and location don’t line up well with the times and places we want to use electricity. Just as we shouldn’t and won’t ban irrigation, we shouldn’t ban reliable sources of energy.
D’oh!
Max,
I hate to tell you that as a tax payer, you have nothing in it. No equity. No share of stock, no discounted electricity coming your way.
If you get a feel good out of it, fine. Just don’t expect that everyone else should be feeling the same.
k scott,
Unless you are seriously invested in adding Max to your Christmas mailing list, can you drop the anonyminity (sp?) thing? It doesn’t add anything.
k scott, we used to have a windmill on the farm for keeping the stock watertank filled. It worked fine. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have used it. I no longer live in OK.
Ran the whole farm on it, eh? LOL. And I’m assuming you’re evading answering the question means you don’t power your current home with a windmill. Wonder why? Is it because you’re someone who believes in “do as I say, not as I do?” or is it just that wind power doesn’t get the job done?
What’s your excuse?
Oh, and Max_I_don’t_want_anyone_to_know_who_I_am_OK, plenty of people use to keep their water tanks filled with a good old-fashioned animal-powered pump. No why do you think they went to something, um, more modern.
BTW, I love how you say you *used* to have a windmill… not there anymore? I think a lot of farms had windmills but have since replaced them. Wonder why? I mean, the energy was free and reliable, right?
ksd, some farmers are making easy profits from turbines on their land.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/farming-the-wind-wind-power.html
> some farmers are making easy profits from turbines on their land
ie eating the taxpayer subsidy, and hence making everyone else poorer ?
You think of it like oil or fracking? It is cleaner for sure.
k scott, you don’t read worth a damn.
Perhaps more than one sentence in a paragraph is too much for you to deal with.
Read each of the following sentences slowly:
I (that ‘s me) used to live on a farm in Oklahoma.
The farm I lived on had some cows,
The cows drank from a water tank.
A wind-mill powered pump filled the tank with water from a well.
The wind-mill did not power anything but the water pump.
We sold the farm.
I no longer live on a farm.
I no longer live in Oklahoma.
Yup Max, I got all that, but thanks for the remedial lesson.
Funny, you still refuse to answer one simple question: Have you invested in a windmill to power your *current home*?
It’s a pretty easy question, “yes” or “no” will suffice.
The follow up question, assuming the answer is “no”, is this:
Is that because you believe in “do as I say not as I do” or is it because wind power won’t meet your energy needs?
Jim D | April 16, 2013 at 12:43 am |
ksd, some farmers are making easy profits from turbines on their land.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/farming-the-wind-wind-power.html
———————
Yo, Jim D (who also seems to want to be anonymous), really nice of you to come to Max_who_won’t_be_named_OK’s defense.
I’m not impressed that some farmers are making easy profits… in fact, I’m disgusted. Why? Because that’s my money being wasted to pay them!
Please look up what % premium is being payed for the wind power versus the cost for efficiently-produced electricity. It’s disgusting.
ksd, government money comes from the rich, dontcha know. It’s all good.
=============
Odd that the anti-science vibe is so strong.
Climate science is in fact very interesting, not only on this planet, but other planets as well
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html?m=1
Applying simple thermodynamics can lead to some very interesting ideas. There are many more where these come from a needs only curiosity to find out what lays in store.
‘The atmosphere is not rivalrous – there is no practical limit to the ability to contain any amount of CO2 that we could possibly put out in the foreseeable future. My ability to exhale does not inhibit your ability to breath – there is nothing exclusive about the atmosphere at all. What we have instead a Tort claim. A claim of injury of some kind that exists outside of a breach of contract.
The claim of injury from CO2 emissions appears tendentious at the very least. It depends on a chain of unproven assertions – and occurs in the nebulous future. It demands a compensation now for an injury that might or might occur. It is an injury that is moreover entirely avoidable with proper planning and foresight – and something I have discussed many times here.
Proper, pragmatic, multi-objective approaches with properly directed resources would better serve the needs of people than frivolous and fraudulent claims of injury and demands for compensation from quasi criminal conspirators. Properly directing resources for such things is the proper role of government – even if they are rarely very good at it.
It is suggested that if injury occurs from CO2 that it is with a great deal of contributory negligence from pissant progressives.’
Bart R
What you say about the atmosphere being not rivalrous, hydrologists have been saying for years about the Great Barrier Reef.
Want to dump outflows and silt by the bargeload every second? Go ahead, the Great Barrier Reef is so huge it can absorb it all with no practical limits.
And really, it’s too big to exclude every little paddle-boarder from, hydrologists were given to say.
And now we have half the Great Barrier Reef that was there a mere four decades ago, thanks to these failures of hydrology that left the reefs vulnerable to predators and weather that never before dented them in one percent the way they do today.
Conservation farming primarily is the answer to this. About 50% of grain farmers in Queensland are conservation farming and all cane farmers. I have shown the data to you before – merely repeating yourself and your wild claims is a little wearing. It takes a little time to work through and in the meantime crown of thorns starfish are being harvested manually.
Here is an ENSO proxy – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=38 – high salt content is La Niña which is associated in Australia with cyclones. I can assure you from this and from studies of storm wrack that in Queensland Australia the mega storms of past centuries far surpass anything we have seen in recent times. It has been historically quite for 150 years.
CO2 takes so long to weather out of the atmosphere that in effect no CO2 emitted today will have its influence removed in the lifetime of its emitters’ children. In this sense, the Carbon Cycle is rivalrous.
Restricting ourselves only to lucrative CO2E emissions — which is all we really need to — we can indeed exclude the vast majority of emission by standards of retail measure on carbon-content of fuel and volatiles. This is so administratively simple, even Australia could manage it. And it has minimal costs to implement anywhere that has a retail tax scheme, piggy-backed on the tax system just like many places piggy-back insurance or garnishment or savings programs.
As for proof of harm? You really haven’t been listening. Capitalism isn’t in place to address harms. It exists to efficiently allocate scarce resources. Which we know no other system does as well.
Carbon is easily removed from the atmosphere and I can and have named half a dozen ways. And again the point is that there are much more effective ways to direct resources to mitigation.
You haven’t really been listening. You have far from shown that there is a scarce resource is any meaningful way and your claim is to damages which have not been demonstrated either. It seems more like carpet bagging than honest brokerage.
Chief Hydrologist | April 14, 2013 at 4:49 am |
Claims in reverse order:
On the contrary, it is you who have failed to show a case against scarcity of the carbon cycle sufficient to counter the prima facie evidence that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising, and has been doing so for over a quarter of a millennium. If it ain’t scarce, it wouldn’t rise. QED.
CO2 is easily removed from the atmosphere? I can name far more than half a dozen ways, and yet we have a difference of opinion about who ought decide what is and is not easy. You want some global politburo to decide for everyone and then force us into line. I advise standard measures and enforcement of retail fees based on such measures by nations piggybacked on national retail tax systems and payment of the dividends of such fees (as determined by law of supply and demand) to each citizen by piggyback on payroll tax systems in the same way garnishee and insurance programs are done in many places. That way, every private citizen deems how to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere in the least financially painful way with every transaction, instead of paying some commissar to do it for them.
Storms have existed forever. The Great Barrier Reef is ancient. The difference between how it responded to storms in the past and how it collapses under the least storm stress now is attributable to failed hydrology and excessive runoffs. 150 years was not long enough for the reef to double in size.. and we know it didn’t from navigation charts older than 150 years. Your profession broke the Great Barrier Reef through Dunning Krugerism. What makes you think you’re competent enough now to fix the mess you made using the same thinking that got the reef here in the first place?
On the contrary Bart – your rent seeking is a fraud. The old English common law principle of water flow seems similar. Should I increase the flow of stormwater from my property to yours it is not the volume of water but the nuisance or injury it does. You have not proved any injury at all.
But really we are looking to succeed where there has been only failure.
‘A pragmatic approach to climate change seeks positive and politically achievable steps that yield discernible benefits, which in turn provide the rationale for the next steps. Thus, from the history of pollution control, pragmatists conclude that it is important to secure (and build upon) modest pollution regulations that have public and congressional support. Such efforts can make immediate progress, even as protracted battles rage over regulations that do not yet command such consensus.
While we cannot effectively manage human impact on the climate over the long run absent the decarbonization of the global energy system — a task that hinges on the energy innovation efforts described above — in the short term, we would do well to seize opportunities to quickly reduce non-CO2 emissions through traditional air pollution regulations, spread of
best practices, and multilateral cooperation. Roughly 40 percent of anthropogenic global warming measured to date is a function of climate forcings other than carbon dioxide, including methane, tropospheric ozone precursor gases, and deforestation. These non-CO2 forcings will remain significant contributors to global climate change in coming decades.
In fact, many of the most evident impacts of global warming, such as melting glaciers, ice caps, and tundra, are accelerated by pollutants that are not, technically, greenhouse gases — notably black carbon.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf
Far from draconian controls – what is envisaged is informed and multi-level co-operation that is the hallmark of what Elinor Ostrom spent many years discussing – and for which she won a Nobel Prize in economics. http://www.economist.com/node/21557717
As I keep saying – you may impose a tax if you wish and if you get enough support. But your $300/tonne tax is simply nonsense with which you are wasting everyone’s time – time and again and again.
Richard Branson can name 11 ways to take carbon from the atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Earth_Challenge I can add another – and most important – to make it an even dozen. Do you ever get bored with empty one intellectual upmanship? With so little basis in reality?
My entire career is keeping sediment out of waterways. I can assure you that Australian hydrologists lead the world. You should rather look to your own backyard. http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html
The Great Barrier Reef is less than 10,000 years old. If you had a clue you would know that. Only silt from the biggest storms from the biggest river reach even 35km out to sea. You invent incredible stories with no basis in fact or science. I suppose you may even believe them like webby, Myrrh or Doug Cotton. But I am not likely to take the word of a madman.
Chief Hydrologist | April 14, 2013 at 3:16 pm |
It seems you are Dunning-Krugering law now, as well as hydrology; and your charges both of rent-seeking (as a man whose income is built on the public purse) and of fraud (as a man who took monies from said purse only to destroy the Great Barrier Reef practically single-handed) are particularly backborn. And I get that you will throw up clouds of silt to obfuscate the guilt you must feel as a compassionate man, as is your wont. But I have the choice of believing you, or believing a reef that has prospered for millennia before you came along and in the span of your career destroyed half of it.
While water flow is one precedent (though far more nuanced than you imply and quite representative of the opposite of your claims for it, as it requires only damages, and damages as deemed by the reasonable landowner trespassed against and no other substitute: a man has successfully sued over the storm drain changes of a developer causing even a single frog to wander onto his driveway due his phobia of amphibians for a quarter of a million dollars recently), one could also cite sewer intrusion when seeking remedy of government for failures of infrastructure:
The plaintiffs must prove there were one or more defects in the sewerage system, that the governmental agency knew or should have known of it, and that the defect was “substantial proximate cause” of the damages. The statute does not require “fault” to be proved.
This is very like the cause requiring government to halt its negligence and administer measures and fees and dividends to citizens (air owners) by the law of supply and demand.
The monetary amount of said fees the government fails to collect on behalf of owners being damages. QED
Eh – you know I don’t work evenly indirectly for government – so why insist of feeble and frivolous gapes? And I am afraid that water flowing was the only law we did in hydraulics 101. So my limits are obvious – but I have nailed that one.
And again you make silly hand waving gestures in the directions of a deeper wisdom which you will not sully by casting before swine like me. Forgive me for thinking that you know even less than you don’t say.
Where government owns infrastructure that causes damages – and there must be real damage – it is of course liable to pay it the damage was foreseeable by a reasonable man. I guess that leaves you out in the cold Bart.
If it the risk could be foreseen by a professional person in the course of their duties or even more generally – then there is criminal as well as civil negligence. But I still contend that you have not proved damages or negligence. If there is a future risk – I contend that there are better and more practical ways to solve the issue. What if I say there is a risk – and I have been heard saying there is a catastrophic risk – and say that there are better ways forward than repeating the failures of the past? That repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different outcome is utter madness and merely distracts from sane and sensible suggestions? No Bart – it is you who are the problem and not the solution.
Then there is the realist argument I make, that the AGW Greenhouse Effect is an illusion created by sleight of hand, a science fraud.
The atmosphere is around 99% nitrogen and oxygen dry volume with variable amounts of water vapour, 0-6%. It is a heavy fluid real gas ocean weighing around a ton per square foot, pressing down a ton on your shoulders.
The -18°C figure is from traditional physics which gives it for the Earth without any atmosphere at all, without the main bulk heavy volume of nitrogen and oxygen.
The AGWScienceFiction fisics attributes this to the Earth without their version of greenhouse gases, only those imbibing longwave infrared mainly water and carbon dioxide, with the bulk heavy volume of nitrogen and oxygen still in place.
This is science fraud.
AGWSF then claims that it is the presence of their greenhouse gases which raise the Earth’s temperature 33°C to 15°C. They show no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence, it is an illusion.
In traditional physics the Earth with the bulk atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen and trace other in place, but without water, would be 67°C.
It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature. Compare with the Moon with no atmosphere.
It is the water content through the Water Cycle which brings down the temperature from 67°C to 15°C.
The AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect is an illusion created by:
– taking the minus 18°C figure which is how cold it would be without the real thermal blanket effect from the bulk nitrogen and oxygen under gravity, and giving this to the “greenhouse gases” water and carbon dioxide, claiming it is this cold without only water and trace gas carbon dioxide (which is practically all holes), and
– by removing the Water Cycle entirely, which through evaporation and its great heat capacity takes away heat from the surface into the colder heights where it releases this to condense back to water and ice, coming back down as rain.
The rest of AGWSF fisics is similar science frauds to bolster their Greenhouse Effect Illusion.
The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
I still await the day that one of these rubes tries to deny the existence of CO2 molecule
Tomcat | April 14, 2013 at 5:57 am |The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
The key to understanding my real world physics is to fully appreciate the properties of carbon dioxide and the other real gases which comprise our real gas atmosphere, which has volume and is heavy and is a fluid so fluid dynamics in play not your radiation in empty space waste heat gobbledegook.
Your fictional CO2 defies gravity to accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years, oops, not in your world, you don’t have gravity, that’s why your fake CO2 can accumulate for hundreds and thousands of years in your atmosphere..
You don’t have rain in your Carbon Cycle, why not? Because your carbon dioxide is too busy zipping around your empty space atmosphere at great speed bouncing off your other imaginary massless ideal gas molecules in elastic collisions with no attraction.
And you don’t have the Water Cycle anyway.
Etc., etc. You go straight from the Earth’s surface into empty space, you don’t have the real world atmosphere in your strange through the looking glass with Al world where you think up any number of impossible things before breakfast and believe them so you don’t know how stupid your fisics, you’ve been brainwashed by AGWScienceFiction memes.
lolwot | April 14, 2013 at 6:47 am | I still await the day that one of these rubes tries to deny the existence of CO2 molecule
You’re the one denying the existence of carbon dioxide molecules which have volume, weight, attraction under gravity, you have an imaginary hard dot of nothing with magic powers to drive global temperatures 800 years before it starts increasing. You’re not scientists, you’re believers in some new fangled religion using scientific terms to create an imaginary impossible world. Your Sun doesn’t even radiate heat!
Tomcat : The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
Myrrh : [completely ducks the question, focussing instead on a motley collection of straw men]
Point thus conceded by default.
Tomcat and Myrhh are much alike, using rhetoric instead of applied physics.
Web
If you seriously think Myrrh in fact didn’t duck the question, do elaborate. But if all you have is rhetoric, just leave it at that.
Tomcat | April 15, 2013 at 2:03 am | Tomcat : The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
Myrrh : [completely ducks the question, focussing instead on a motley collection of straw men]
Point thus conceded by default.
You don’t have real gases, ergo, you don’t have any absorption characteristics of carbon dioxide.
I answered you.
Tomcat : The key to ‘understanding’ Myrrh’s fictional ‘physics’, is to flatly ignore the absorption characteristics of CO2 et al.
Myrrh, 1st attempt : vague waffle, completely ducking the point
Myrrh, 2nd attempt : You don’t have real gases, ergo, you don’t have any absorption characteristics of carbon dioxide.
Yet more impenetrable gibberish.
“It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature.”
Nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb infrared, in any significant fashion, so they can’t prevent the radiated heat from the surface escaping.
If the surface of the Earth was 67C as you claim, it would be radiating about 388,000 terawatts of infrared radiation. With only oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere there is nothing to stop that 388,000 TW escaping straight into space.
Short story is that unless the Earth’s surface could make up that short-fall by absorbing 388,000 TW from elsewhere, it would not be able to maintain a temperature of 67C.
Alas the maximum sunlight the Earth could possibly absorb, all that coinciding on the face of the planet, is just 174,000 terrawatts. Far short of the 388,000 TW required to support a 67C surface.
lolwot | April 14, 2013 at 7:01 am |
As a quibble, technically ozone is oxygen, and NOx is ‘nitrogen and oxygen’, which would have some small impact on stopping.. a really tiny percentage of the OLR.
Otherwise, yes. If we had an atmosphere of only N2 and O2, all other things held equal, then the temperature of the Earth would be the same as the temperature of Earth without an atmosphere at all.
If the atmosphere were only composed of the current CO2, NOx, CO, H2O in air, the Earth would be essentially the same temperature as now (possibly slightly more, as no aerosols).
But where the claim ..no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence.. is made.. I’ve seen mechanisms, data and thus empirical evidence. Is it possible to be a denizen and not have seen mechanism and data amounting to empirical evidence?
lolwot | April 14, 2013 at 7:01 am | “It is the bulk nitrogen and oxygen which is the Earth’s thermal blanket preventing heat from escaping and wide swings in temperature.”
Nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb infrared, in any significant fashion, so they can’t prevent the radiated heat from the surface escaping.
Nitrogen and oxygen absorb heat. Radiation is but one method of heat transfer, conduction and convection the others.
In the real world of traditional physics, gases and liquids are fluids. In the real world we have a heavy fluid ocean of gas around us, not empty space.
This heavy ocean of gas is heated up by conduction at the surface which causes the nitrogen and oxygen to expand and becoming less dense it rises, lighter than air, and as it rises it takes the heat with it, convection. As it rises colder denser heavier than air volumes of nitrogen and oxygen sink and flow beneath the rising volumes of hot air, these are convection currents – winds.
Hot air rises, cold air sinks.
Just as in the ocean volumes of hot water rise and volumes of cold water sink flowing below, which is how we get our great ocean currents from equator to poles..
If the surface of the Earth was 67C as you claim, it would be radiating about 388,000 terawatts of infrared radiation. With only oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere there is nothing to stop that 388,000 TW escaping straight into space.
Again, that 67°C figure is for the Earth with our real gas atmosphere of mainly nitorgen and oxygen, but without water. Think deserts.
In other words, it is the Earth’s water which brings down the temperature to 15°C from the 67°C it would be without it.
This is why I say you don’t have the Water Cycle in your comic cartoon AGW Greenhouse Effect.
That’s why you can never produce any mechanism or data or real physics explanation for your AGW version of “greenhouse gases warming” – there is no minus 18°C temperature without them.
The AGWGreenhouse effect claimed increase of 33°C to 15°C is an illusion created by the science fraud of attributing the -18°C figure to their absence when it is properly the absence of all the atmosphere which is predominately nitrogen and oxygen.
This -18°C figure is for the Earth without any atmosphere and the 67°C is the figure for the Earth with our atmosphere but without water, as given in traditional physics.
Bring back the Water Cycle by first bringing back the ocean of real gases which are our atmosphere, the mechanism is bog standard basic real world physics as still traditionally taught. You are arguing from an education system courrupted by AGW Science Fiction.
The oxygen and nitrogen which are the bulk of our atmosphere are the real greenhouse gases acting like a thermal blanket around our Earth, these are not empty space as you have in your imaginary fictional comic cartoon explanations. Compare with the Moon which doesn’t have our great heavy fluid ocean of voluminous real gases kept in place by gravity.
Short story is that unless the Earth’s surface could make up that short-fall by absorbing 388,000 TW from elsewhere, it would not be able to maintain a temperature of 67C.
The Water cycle cools it down to 15°C.
This is why the term “greenhouse” was first used of our atmosphere – because like a real world greenhouse it has both heating and cooling to give us the world we have for our plants to flourish.
The bulk real gas oxygen and nitrogen act as a thermal blanket keeping the heat from convecting away too quickly before the Sun again heats the surface, the real heat from the Sun which is longwave infrared.. Our abundance of water cools that down through the Water Cycle.
Water has a very high heat capacity, it is a very great absorber of heat. As it takes in heat it evaporates even faster becoming less dense as water vapour, which is anyway lighter than air, it rises through air taking away the heat from the surface to the higher colder levels, where it releases its heat and condenses back into liquid water or ice, and colder and heavier it drops back to the surface taking any carbon dioxide around with it, all rain is carbonic acid..
There is rational joined up logic in traditional physics, internal coherence.
Bart R
That’s an unsubstantiated claim you just made , i.e. that N2 and O2 play no role in blanketing the temperature of Earth and that the entire 33C, by which the surface is theoretically warmer as a result of our atmosphere, is ALL due to the greenhouse effect.
Please show me the empirical evidence to corroborate that claim.
Max
Bart R | April 14, 2013 at 8:13 am |
But where the claim ..no mechanism for this, no data, no empirical evidence.. is made.. I’ve seen mechanisms, data and thus empirical evidence. Is it possible to be a denizen and not have seen mechanism and data amounting to empirical evidence?
Where?? If it exists then surely you can fetch it.. But you don’t, none of you ever do. You just keep repeating ad nauseum that it exists but can’t find it to fetch..
You can’t find it to fetch because it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist because it is an illusion created by sleights of hand of a clever magician, who gives the properties and process of one thing to another, takes laws out of context, excises whole systems! You don’t have the Water Cycle. You don’t have the real gas atmosphere. You don’t know you don’t have them.
But that’s why you can never find anything to fetch..
The surface temperature is the sum of the temperature at the effective radiating level (255 K) and the temperature difference due to the lapse rate between that level and the surface. E.g. for earth the effective level is near 5 km and lapse rate near 6 K/km giving you the 33 C difference. For Venus, the mass between the high effective radiating level (because the atmosphere is quite opaque) and the surface is much higher leading to surface temperatures in the hundreds of degrees C. The lapse rate part can be seen as the contribution of atmospheric pressure to warming. With no GHGs, the effective radiating level is the surface, so no additional mass is between this level and the surface, making 255 K the surface temperature too.
Myrrh | April 14, 2013 at 7:24 pm |
manacker | April 14, 2013 at 7:22 pm |
Gentlemen, take up the topic of how unsubstantiated the claims I’ve made with the publisher, authors, reviewers and over 100 scientists who have cited this source, and from there with the sources used in it’s bibliographic section:
Non-Lte Radiative Transfer in the Atmosphere, Manuel López-Puertas, Fredric William Taylor (World Scientific Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Vol. 3, 2001)
You’re simply denying common knowledge.
Myrrh,
If cold air sinks, and warm air rises, why does it get colder as you ascend? How do temperature inversions form? Have you left a bit of information out? Just curious, as your statement doesn’t seem to make sense.
Maybe you meant your statement to be an information free throwaway comment, I have no way of knowing.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
The atmosphere changes with altitude according to a quasi-adiabatic process. The mean value for the lapse rate and pressure vs temperature is well characterized.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html
Amazing how the average expected value falls out with the application of some fundamental thermodynamics. Of course, in any one place on earth, the specific value can fluctuate wildly about the mean, but that is what entropy entails — describing how convective motions allows the system to fill up possible energy states.
There is a world of conventional physics that climate skeptics don’t bother to get insight from.
ozzieostrich | April 15, 2013 at 4:18 am | Myrrh,
If cold air sinks, and warm air rises, why does it get colder as you ascend? How do temperature inversions form? Have you left a bit of information out? Just curious, as your statement doesn’t seem to make sense.
Of course what I’m saying doesn’t make sense to you, if you knew the basic physics of the real world as still taught by traditional teachers it would make sense.
Gases get thinner the higher up because they expand under less pressure, giving up their heat in the process. Expand under less pressure because they are further away from the surface of the Earth where we have the strongest gravitational pull on their volume – this is what makes the blanket out of the nitrogen and oxygen molecules because real gases have volume and gravity draws them together.
These are real world gases which have volume, which expand and contract when heated and cooled, and expand or condense when under lesser or greater pressure. You don’t have this in the impossible world of the AGWGreenhouseEffect. You have instead the imaginary ideal gas pre Van der Waals, without volume. Your gases are the imaginary massless hard dots of nothing with no attraction travelling at great speeds through empty space under their own molecular momentum bouncing off each other in elastic collisions and so “thoroughly mixing by diffusion”.
That is not the real world of real gases of our real gas voluminous heavy ocean of fluid gas which is our atmosphere around us.
You don’t have any atmosphere! You don’t know you don’t have any atmosphere. You don’t have molecules of gas you have hard dots of nothing at vast distances from each other in empty space.
Which is why you have no gravity in your world, there is nothing for gravity to work on because you don’t have real molecules of gas.
Do try to get your head around this point because it is important to understanding what I’m trying to say – because your fisics is imaginary there is no internal coherence, no joined up logic in the properties and processes, and, this is not easy to explain because you have to know basic real world traditional physics to see it. That’s why I try very hard to keep this to the very basics because that is hard enough to show the differences..
I’ll expand a bit on one example here. The empty space hard dots of nothing imaginary non-existant “ideal” gas which you erroneously call carbon dioxide which you say travel at great speeds through empty space bouncing off other such non-existant “ideal” gas molecules is the explanation given by AGWSF to explain how carbon dioxide becomes well-mixed – taken from descriptions of the basic imaginary “ideal” gas as I’ve given – but these can’t then also accumulate in the atmosphere because ideal gases are not subject to gravity, because there is nothing for gravity to capture. So you have no atmosphere at all in the AGW world, your empty space really is empty space. How can you have clouds in your empty space ideal gas atmosphere? You can’t. So how do you explain clouds? You say that water vapour alone isn’t an ideal gas! This is nuts..
You can’t have it both ways, either you have a real gas atmosphere subject to gravity, which means that real gases have weight relative to each other and will rise and sink in air and so separate out when heavier or lighter as carbon dioxide and methane do and when heated or cooled, or, you have a non existant empty space around your Earth where you can make up your fisics to pretend to give answers but which make even more ludicrous scenarios.
Maybe you meant your statement to be an information free throwaway comment, I have no way of knowing.
I am making a very specific point. I can only suggest that you re read what I’ve said and try to concentrate on the point I am making. The sleights of hand at the beginning on which all the other fake fisics house of cards is built.
I’m trying to show how the “AGW greenhouse gases 33°C warming from the claimed -18°C it would be without them” is an illusion, a trick of the mind and eye. You have to concentratre to follow the magician’s tricks because he cleverly and subtly plays with real world physics’ basic facts, moving them about quicker than the eye can see..
In the real world around you the atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and oxygen molecules which have volume and so subject to gravity, the fluid gas air. They become hot when heated and cold when they lose heat. When they are hot they expand, become less dense and so lighter than air they will rise, when they lose this heat in the higher levels they condense, which means they become denser more compact, so heavier than air they will sink displacing lighter air.
This is how we get our winds, which are currents of volumes of convecting air created by differential heating. Winds are volumes (packets) of air on the move. This is basic bog standard meteorology.
AGWScienceFiction can’t explain this basic meteorology because it has taken out the properties and process of real gases.
The magician lies when he tells you that nitrogen and oxygen are non-condensable gases.., he lies when he tells you that gases are not buoyant in air.., he lies when he tells you that they are ideal gases which mix thoroughly by diffusion under their own molecular momentum and can’t be separated out.., he lies when he tells you that a practically all holes trace gas can act a great thermal blanket trapping heat…
The real voluminous subject to gravity gases of nitrogen and oxygen which is most of the atmosphere is a thick heavy volume of fluid gas around you, an ocean of gas weighing 14lb on every square inch, which really acts as the thermal blanket around the Earth to delay loss of heat – compare directly with the Moon which has no atmosphere.
The Moon has extreme swings of temperature, we don’t. The Moon’s without an atmosphere comparable figure with the Earth without an atmosphere is around minus 23°C.
Our Earth with its real gas voluminous atmosphere under the pressure of gravity would be 67°C without water. Think deserts.
An Earth without water would still be cooler than the extreme temperature the Moon gets to without an atmosphere under the hot Sun, because our gases will expand and rise when heated, become less dense and lighter taking away heat from the surface, and then spontaneously under gravity becoming heavier and colder will condense and as again high pressure volumes our nitrogen oxygen air will sink to the surface, will flow beneath into the low pressure area of expanding hot air, displacing the lighter hotter air, cooling the suface. To be heated again and so the cycle continues.
And we would still be warmer than the extreme cold the Moon gets without an atmosphere, because we have the thick heavy real gas atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen under gravity keeping the heat from escaping so fast. That is how we get the 67°C figure without water.
The magician’s trick here is just to keep repeating that the trace gas practically all holes in the atmosphere carbon dixide is the great thermal blanket around the Earth – so you don’t look to see what it takes to make a real thermal blanket. Our real thermal blanket is our whole atmosphere, all the real greenhouse gases.
With our vast volume of water, which cools the Earth through the Water Cycle in its great heat capacity and properties and processes as a real gas, the temperature comes down to 15°C. Water cools the Earth 52°C from the 67°C it would be without it but with the rest of the real gas atmosphere in place.
What I am giving you is traditional science which understands the properties and processes of real gases, which understands how we get our great wind and weather systems from the differential heating of gases which expand and rise when hot and condense and sink when cold. Real traditional physics makes sense.
It is not easy to see the tricks of this scam, this science fraud, because they have so thoroughly confused the basics. I often see applied scientists knowledgeable in one field, able to see the tricks being played with gases say, but believing the tricks in another field because these have been so thoroughly indoctrinated through the general education system that people take them for granted as if real, because outside of their fields they have no reason to investigate them. The AGWSF scam counts on the confusion this generates to continue confusing.
But if you examine as I have done the very basic claims of the AGW Greenhouse Effect and its Energy Budget, and compare the claims with what really is well known in traditional science, where matter has distinct properties and processes, then the scam becomes obvious.
Examine the basics Mike Flynn, draw the curtain aside..
Bat R
You apparently have misunderstood
I am not“denying common knowledge”.
I can accept the common hypothesis that Earth’s atmosphere is responsible for the surface of our planet being 33C warmer than it would be theoretically be without an atmosphere, and that the GHE is the primary reason for this, with CO2 responsible for somewhere around 5 to 7C of this with the bulk caused by water (vapor, liquid droplets or ice crystals).
But I have just not seen the empirical evidence that supports the notion that ALL of the 33C is caused by the GH effect.
Have you?
Max
A p.s. to Myrrh | April 15, 2013 at 7:30 am | ozzieostrich | April 15, 2013 at 4:18 am | Myrrh,
Take a read of this page from Columbia University, it’s typical of the AGWSF meme explanations which has taken rain out of the Carbon Cycle so it can brainwash that carbon dioxide “accumulates” in the atmosphere.
Because, the typical residence time of water in the atmosphere is 8-10 days and all rain is carbonic acid, carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle.
http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm
How do rocks on the Earth’s surface get weathered by carbonic acid? You wouldn’t know it was from rain because it has been completely excised from this AGWScienceFiction version of the Carbon Cycle.
Oh, it tells you that water and carbon dioxide make carbonic acid which is what does the weathering, but then it goes to carbon dioxide disolving in water at the surface,
“Weathering
Carbon dioxide and the other atmospheric gases dissolve in surface waters.”
and then the only mention of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is this sort of nonsense:
“For example, as carbonic acid is removed from solution by weathering of rocks, the reaction will adjust by producing more carbonic acid. And since the dissolved CO2 is in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2, more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere to replace that removed from solution by weathering.”
“If more rocks become available for rapid weathering as a result of mountain uplift the enhanced weathering will draw down atmospheric CO2 and decrease global temperatures.”
Magically removed from the atmosphere..
There is no Water Cycle in the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect because it would break the illusion, it has to avoided. It has to be avoided in the base premise because water cools the Earth down to 15°C, and, there is no rain the AGW GE because it has to be avoided in the Carbon Cycle, because nothing must jar with the meme that carbon dioxide is a well mixed gas and accumulates in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years.
Where sources do give accurate information about rain being carbonic acid they won’t be giving any information from the AGWmemes department which might contradict it.., for example here, exlaining what acid rain is and pointing out the difference between acid rain and natural rain which is acidic as carbonic acid:
URL:http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/acidrain/2.html
“What is acid rain?
The term “acid rain” is commonly used to mean the deposition of acidic components in rain, snow, fog, dew, or dry particles. The more accurate term is “acid precipitation.” Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acid, and those with a pH greater than 7 are alkaline (or basic). “Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid.”
“because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid,”
This is from traditional science which understands the basic properties and processes of the natural world around us. Carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle.
These sleights of hand get easier to spot with practice..
Manacker and Myrhhh — hard to tell these guys apart, what with their weird theories on the atmosphere.
The difference would even be greater that 33C if it wasn’t for the quasi-adiabatic lapse rate in operation:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/standard-atmosphere-model-and.html
The average environmental lapse rate is fixed and an increase or decrease of GHG concentrations will slide the temperature up or down.
Gee WHT, is the average lapse rate the same type of beast as the global meant temperature, that is, a fictional creation? Where will I find this average?
ksd, your phd is failing you if all you can muster is cheap rhetoric. I did supply a link.
The lower tropospheric lapse rate can be predicted for earth, mars, and venus simply from the atmospheric concentration.
Actually I think it’s your sarcasm detector that is failing WHT.
So let me try it this way: please tell me what the measured average lapse rate was yesterday, where it was measured and how it was measured.
Enquiring minds want to know!
Folks, Ever wondered what Myrh is rabbiting on about re: the “water cycle” that everyone has allegedly ignored?
I think it’s this : he thinks there’s NO co2 in the atmosphere, because the rain washes it away. Therefore there can be no co2-induced warming. Voila. Quite funny really.
Memphis | April 16, 2013 at 12:55 am | Folks, Ever wondered what Myrh is rabbiting on about re: the “water cycle” that everyone has allegedly ignored?
I think it’s this : he thinks there’s NO co2 in the atmosphere, because the rain washes it away. Therefore there can be no co2-induced warming. Voila. Quite funny really.
That’s right, Memphis, that is why it is still a trace gas.
I’m so pleased you can see how funny it is to think that it accumulates.
The atmosphere would be choc a bloc with it by now if it could accumulate.
Especially so because there is no mechanism in AGWScienceFiction for it to get out of the atmosphere –
no rain in the AGW Greenhouse Effect Carbon Cycle
and not heavier than air in the AGW Greenhouse Effect atmosphere so it can’t naturally sink displacing air as it does in the real world –
so no way for rocks on the AGWSF Earth to be weathered by rain which is carbonic acid,
but more importantly, no way for the plants on the Earth’s surface to get their dinner in the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect illusion.
In the AGWSF impossible fisics world the plants must also be well-mixed in the atmosphere..
It gets funnier and funnier through the looking glass with Al.
manacker | April 15, 2013 at 4:55 pm |
I can accept the common hypothesis that Earth’s atmosphere is responsible for the surface of our planet being 33C warmer than it would be theoretically be without an atmosphere, and that the GHE is the primary reason for this, with CO2 responsible for somewhere around 5 to 7C of this with the bulk caused by water (vapor, liquid droplets or ice crystals).
So, GHE is the best available explanation?
But I have just not seen the empirical evidence that supports the notion that ALL of the 33C is caused by the GH effect.
And here we come to the part that matters to our understanding of what you are saying. Thank you for explaining.
You are, in effect, saying that sure, the chemical theory of combustion accounts for some of the heat and light of a flame but maybe there’s still some phloegiston doing some part of it; that sure, Newton’s Laws explain the motion of bodies but Quintessence plays some undefinable role that makes up part of the mechanism of celestial bodies. That the best available theory, which does in and of itself seem sufficient to explain what has happened, is just not enough for you and you fingoistically suppose some other hypotheses will make us happier, though we really don’t need them, they don’t further simplify things, they aren’t more universally applicable, and we have no new data that requires them to explain outcomes.
You’d need in Science, according to Newton, to climb a very steep hill of proof to require anyone to take your claim seriously.
You don’t get to demand additional evidence until you’ve made that very, very difficult case for fingoism.
Feebly feigning an understanding of what science is, Bart says Max can’t ask for evidence that GHGs completely explain why the earth is 33 C warmer than it would otherwise be, until he (Max) comes up with a rival theory.
Truly pathetic. Indicating again just how much the CAGW truebelievers hate the concept of skepticism and audits.
Myrrh writes: “Nitrogen and oxygen absorb heat. Radiation is but one method of heat transfer, conduction and convection the others.”
Conduction and convection cannot prevent surface radiation escaping into space. Only greenhouse gases can.
Any other solution you try will fail.
I think a necessary requirement of people who dispute the greenhouse effect is should be for them to make and present an energy budget diagram of their idea, in the form of Trenberth’s famous diagram.
Perhaps by actually trying to accomplish that task they would realize it’s not possible to have Earth this warm without greenhouse gases.
Vassily | April 16, 2013 at 11:18 am |
I don’t say it; Newton does.
Take it up with Newton.
And to be more fair, sure, there are other components within the atmosphere that might account for the expression of heat from the atmosphere to space than the GHE;
Lightning visible from space carries energy away as light; even invisible lightning can send radiation up to gamma rays out of the atmosphere. Exotic electromagnetic interractions between the atmosphere and the solar wind could affect the temperature of the planet, too; and the height of the solar tide quite possibly counts for something.
All of which can be calculated and found to be a rounding error compared to well-founded calculations of the GHE.
Meanwhile, most of the convection/conduction/cloud-iris fingoism tossed around comes out to no more than perpetual motion or smoke and mirrors.
Bart R | April 16, 2013 at 10:55 pm |
I don’t say it; Newton does.
[“It” being the ‘idea’ that a skeptic must first advance a rival theory before criticizing an existing one]
Obviously not. This is just you feigning to know what “science” means again.
Vassily | April 17, 2013 at 2:42 am |
I don’t feign hypotheses:
http://philosophynow.org/issues/88/Hypotheses_Non_Fingo
1. “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” This is Newton’s principle of parsimony .. His short version of Ockham’s Razor is, “More is in vain when less will serve.”
2. “To the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.” .. This principle is often stated the other way around, with a more predictive intent, i.e., from like causes we can infer like effects.
3. “Qualities … found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” (This is Newton’s principle of induction.)
4. “We are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phaenomena as accurately or very nearly true … till such time as other phaenomena occur by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.” This rule renders scientific conclusions at root conditional, always subject to correction. The science scholar Alexandre Koyr é called it Newton’s “rule of prudence and of good sense.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Parsimony, simplicity, universality, prudence and good sense. Get it?
What about “well, sure, GHE could parsimoniously, simply, universally, prudently and in good sense sufficiently explain all the warming, but I prefer any of an undeterminate number of long, complicated, exceptional, unrestrained and fantastical alternatives,” do you think is SCIENCE?!
Excellent ducking of the issue, Bart.
Remember, you demanded of Max that he first advance a rival theory before criticizing an existing one. And then, worse, claimed support from Newton.
Vassily | April 17, 2013 at 4:17 am |
Oh, you were being serious with interpreting what I wrote as requiring Max to have a rival hypothesis before he questioned the best one?
(Which, though it’s prudent and makes good sense, isn’t what I wrote.)
No. I wrote: “That the best available theory, which does in and of itself seem sufficient to explain what has happened, is just not enough for you and you fingoistically suppose some other hypotheses will make us happier, though we really don’t need them, they don’t further simplify things, they aren’t more universally applicable, and we have no new data that requires them to explain outcomes.
Which is pretty much the opposite. It’s not that Max needs a rival explanation before he questions the current one; it’s that anyone would need evidence that GHE cannot sufficiently explain the effects observed before is prudent and good sense to pursue any less parsimonious, simple, universal substitute added on top of GHE.
Learn to READ HARDER.
Excellent ongoing evasion, waffling, out-wriggling and obfuscation, Bart.
Well, at least we’ve finally dragged you kicking and screaming to the point of accepting that you don’t need a rival or better theory before you’re allowed to criticize an existing one, and pretending you have Newton’s blessing to say so.
And in the unlikely event that you never meant to claim that in the first place, LEARN TO WRITE BETTER.
Vassily | April 17, 2013 at 10:10 am |
Wow. Talk about holding a grudge.
You’re still fighting the same battle you lost in the Ethics topic over a year ago?
Ethically, yes, you ought be prepared to offer a superior hypothesis if you’re trashing one that has met all the requirements of Newton; there’s some imperfect equivalency between the two ideas except Newton wasn’t talking about ethics — heck, he was one of the least ethical people I’ve ever heard of — but about the philosophy of the method. Being unethical doesn’t make you a worse scientist, merely an unfortunate person to encounter.
If you have trouble reading what I write, then I agree to make every effort to write to lower and lower levels until I make myself clear to you, but I hope you stop making every effort to read to lower and lower levels until you see only what you want to get out of the words on a page.
Wow. Talk about holding a grudge.
Oh ….. so holding fast against determined drivel and evasion is ‘holding a grudge’, now. I see.
You’re still fighting the same battle you lost in the Ethics topic over a year ago?
You really must let me have the number of your dealer sometime. He gives lots of easy credit I take it.
Ethically, yes, you ought be prepared to offer a superior hypothesis if you’re trashing one that has met all the requirements of Newton;
So I was right to start with (or you’ve switched position again). You think Max was ‘ethically’ wrong to criticize a theory without offering a replacement. And you think Newton thought the same.
Hey, man, like, al skepticism in science in ‘unethical’. Dude. We all know that – it’s why so many target CAGW customers falter at the altar like they oughtn’t.
But yes, perhaps the problem isn’t just your writing skills after all, but rather the silly, shifting, point-scoring arbitrariness of your subject matter. Even a Pulitzer Prize Winner couldn’t knock that dross into shape.
Vassily | April 17, 2013 at 11:29 am |
http://philosophynow.org/issues/88/Hypotheses_Non_Fingo
Science adopts as accurate or very nearly true the most parsimonious, simple and universal explanation available to date for observed phenomena, in principle.
If someone finds new observations that the explanation cannot account for, it must be amended, revised or rejected, and the next most parsimonious, simple and universal explanation is adopted as accurate or very nearly true at that time.
While there is no ethical burden when one has new observations that displace old explanations to do more than point out “these are not explained by the scientific consensus”, almost all observations are framed within interpretation, and that interpretation itself demands an explanation of the interpretor.
For instance, Nic Lewis simply reprocessed old observations with a new Bayesian prior selected apparently only because it allowed him to lower the resultant Climate Sensitivity. If that were all he did, he’d be guilty of deceptive practices, an acknowledged form of scientific fraud or at least so commonplace an error with Bayesian analyses one would consider fraud or incompetence if one were to trip over it in a peer-reviewed paper. But I’m assured Nic Lewis went further, and provided a rationale for his prior. See? Alternate explanation offered, questions of ethics quelled.
Do you still not get how this works yet? You’ve had over a year to think about it. Did you not avail yourself of readings on the subject in all that time, but just skulked waiting to pounce randomly?
How.. sad.
Bart
And your latest response is … yet another deceptive, self-aggrandizing smokescreen, finely tailored to ignore the point at hand – the point being your ridiculous assertion that science ‘ethics’ demands that before criticizing a theory, one is obliged to offer a replacement.
So not only are you clueless about the process of science, you’re hugely devious and dishonest into the bargain – just what one expects from a pompous, self-announced authority on science ethics.
(Let me guess – since the Climategate frauds and malpractices were done to support the alarmist consensus designed to justify more taxes, regulations and politics, you’re firmly in the “nothing to see here folks, move along please” camp of science ‘ethics’).
Vassily | April 19, 2013 at 2:02 am |
You indulge in a strawman. Or a facsimile of a platoon of straw men.
Firstly, let me point out I don’t claim any authority for myself. I don’t make arguments from personal authority. I don’t claim credentials that might confer authority for myself. I _did_ refer, back when this topic was the topic — long, long ago before you spent over a year fuming in silent outrage with the issue festering on your mind to the exclusion of all else (what does that sort of obsessive mania feel like, one wonders?) — to authorities who published on the ethics of science for explicit support from their official ethical guidelines, but that wasn’t the crux of my argument. I do cite Newton, as it’s Science, and Science has had 300 years to review and amend Newton on this and never once has rejected this point in all that time, so it is an ethical argument that has withstood the trial of ages. So your claim that I have somehow abused the personal authority vested in my own person is both odiously a lie, and patently silly.
— For people who haven’t been around Climate Etc. since its inception, or have forgotten this incredibly minor exchange from that distant past, Vassily is dredging up an unrelatedly dusty old debate on Ethics in which he took the side of preferring to be unethical, and lost. So maybe it isn’t a surprise that he’s come out of the shadows to ambush us all with this malicious twisting of what was said to avenge his loss. —
Second, you misrepresent my claim. “..before criticizing a theory, one is obliged to offer a replacement..” is simply backwards and leaves out key conditions.
AFTER attacking a theory — if one has not already in the course of one’s critique offered a more parsimonious, simple (but not too simple) and universal theory in the process (which is generally the most clear way to communicate the gist of one’s meaning) — that has proven accurate or very nearly true based on all available evidence, and without offering new evidence and without revealing actual technical error verified by new evidence, one has the ethical obligation to suggest the best explanation one may.
Aside from the pragmatic simplicity of communicating the criticism more effectively, this allows the reader to more fully judge the comprehension of the critic of the matter at hand, as well as builds on the understanding of the critic to serve the advancement of science by bringing the critic’s familiarity of the subject (if any) to bear.
(Note that this is the OPPOSITE of what we were discussing in this thread: the fingoistic supplying of superfluous hypotheses not prompted by parsimony, simplicity, universality, accuracy, proximity to truth, or new observations.)
This doesn’t mean spotting obvious technical mistakes and pointing them out requires developing a new theory. It means spotting obvious technical mistakes ought include in pointing them out the impact the technical mistake might have on the validity of the current hypothesis, if any, so far as the technician can foresee. If the technician lacks any means to foresee the impact (as proven by the inability to offer a valid altnerate hypothesis), they ought say so rather than claiming wildly that the mistake undoes all, as that is simply an invalid assertion from ignorance.
If a critic is unable to or unprepared to address alternate explanations while attacking a well-established observation-based, parsimonious, simple, universal hypothesis that is accurate or very nearly true, if all they offer is audit after audit, FOI demand after FOI demand, then it will rapidly become apparent to all that all the critic is doing is obfuscation and obstructionism, which are inherently unethical.
One notes, in the very long time since that debate that Vassily’s side lost here in an obscure corner of the then quite obscure Climate Etc., that manner of attack has fallen off considerably. Fingoism has become the new norm, so rather than lack of alternate explanations we see the opposite problem. Almost everyone sprouts fake hypotheses out their ears at the drop of a peer-reviewed paper.
So glad Vassily brought this up in his backstabby improvised roadside way. It’s good to be reminded of the value of ethics.
*And on brief a Climategate note, Vassily appears unaware of or to whitewash that Jones was demoted and relieved of duties over the handling of FOI requests, that there were dozens of findings of procedural and administrative improvements required by the UK Parliamentary inquiry, which could hardly be called “nothing to see here” even though not just eight official inquiries (so far) but also reviews prompted by the GWPF (often through backchannels and using their political influence under the table — how ethical — in three countries) or Inhofe in virtually every related (and some unrelated) department of government consistently find the science sound, and if anything more convincing since that time.
One suggests that an inquiry into the waste of taxpayer dollars by Inhofe’s personal vendetta amounting to witch hunt would reveal it to have cost an obscene amount.
Readers will not be surprised to learn that, consistent with his general take on ethics, Bart is lying ad nauseam through his teeth.
This all started with – and is still all about – his response to Max, ludicrously upbraiding him for daring to criticize a theory without first offering an alternative. He has not backed down from this utter drivel.
And lord only knows which debate on ethics of year ago he is on about, and – if indeed it even happened – his lying ways have distorted it.
Bart’s vigorous excusing of the endemic fraud and malpractice within the IPCC cadre uncovered by Climategate, and the whitewashes of themselves run by the crooked universities responsible – at taxpayer expense – also comes as no surprise.
His preference – don’t spend more taxpayer money rooting out tax-funded crookery, just let the crookery continue. Just as long as the outcome of the crookery is politically correct – gets those taxes and bureaucracies growing.
That’s Bartian Science Ethics for you, in a nutshell.
Vassily | April 19, 2013 at 11:36 am |
Readers must have a difficult time imagining how, assailed by grudgery, vendetta, ambush, invalid argument, prevarication and smear, those very signatures of scientific ethos, my conscience can bear the calumny.
Nice own goal there, Vassily.
Speaking of inquiries:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist
Do these ‘technical errors’ go into the heart of the matter?
Inquiring minds want to know if inquiring minds want to know.
willard (@nevaudit) | April 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm |
Although Lomborg clearly proceeded in his book and works ensuing and use of influence since in an unscrupulous manner well outside the ethical practice and spirit of science, it does little good to dredge up all ancient grievances.
A catalog of every wrong of every page of every chapter of Lomborg’s entire book?! Surely, we can see at least a hint of Vassily-like vendetta in Fog’s efforts.
This is polarizing, unproductive, and wrong-headed. I’d say a pox on both their houses, if that itself was not polarizing, unproductive and wrong-headed.
Lomborg is an advanced — though wrong — thinker, with substantial influence and following, an effectual and persuasive communicator, and an energetic devotee of whatever he believes in. It would be a shame to lose all that from the discourse, and a mistake to ignore it while the chance to tap into all those virtues remains. So what if he’s a crackpot?
Between petitions on each side, almost a thousand distinguished names in science and medicine too one side or another in the issue. Wouldn’t it be great if all that energy had gone to something less divisively pointlessly polarizing?
Life is too short. If there is one thing I could claim to be an authority on in Science, it is that moving ahead one funeral at a time is an inefficient and wasteful practice that ought be supplanted with better.
Bart R,
I agree, and would gladly accept this as a valid conclusion of my neverending audit.
My point was not to dredge Lomborg’s past, but about this of remark:
> hehe.. learned a lot from that.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/13/open-thread-weekend-13/#comment-312761
I don’t think that comment shows much learning, except perhaps how to better exploit contributions like Vassily’s to the public discourse.
Hardly Bart, the overwhelming, repeated evidence of your flat-out lying, question-ducking and general deviousness will have made it very easy for readers to see right through you. And it’s not as if it’s your first offense.
Vassily,
You seem to be referring to the Wegman Affair:
> Wegman is listed as the “Bernard J. Dunn professor” at George Mason University. Unfortunately, the very accomplished Dunn (check out his Wikipedia page!) died 2 1/2 years ago. I wonder what he would think if he knew that his donation to the university went to paying the salary of a plagiarist the author of papers that bear a striking similarity to, but are worse than, Wikipedia articles.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/10523929361
Please don’t be too harsh with Wegman and his Team ™.
Think about science and funerals.
Mere silly diversion from Wegman’s two important points, the inappropriate statistics, and the existence of screeching feedback in the climate science peer review echo chamber. willard digs a hole for his reputation.
===========
Is the statistical point you have in mind related to Wegman running the Auditor’s code without knowing what he was doing?
Is the network analysis point related to something that was beyond Wegman’s mandate and was so out of the left field our Auditor never mentioned it?
Beware what you’re wishing for, kold one.
***
You should be talking about Gergis, right now.
Gergis, Gergis, Gergis.
Hey, sick stats. Hey, sick echo chamber.
Gergis is more illustration of the problem in peer review. Karoly admits failed procedure, yet the zombie reconstruction marches onto the field of AR5.
It’s counterproductive, ultimately. Narratives change, sometimes on their own.
========
Indeed, and here’s the Auditor:
> O’Donnell et al review correspondence was an enormous file as well.
http://climateaudit.org/2013/04/19/pages2k-gergis-and-made-for-ipcc-journal-articles/#comment-414270
Notice how the concept of “review correspondence” hides the responsibility of the size of this correspondence.
Auditors ought to wonder why.
Vassily | April 19, 2013 at 5:42 pm |
I can’t really address the charge of “general deviousness”; after all, who could?
However, if you’ll be so kind as to repeat the scientific, climate-related questions you think I’ve ducked (with links), if I can’t find the answer I posted to them at the time, I’ll be glad to address them so far as I can, though I assure you asking them of real climate scientists would be the wiser course.
As for lying, again, link to the posts and explain why you think they contain lies. I’m perfectly content for denizens to judge for themselves. While I don’t mount vigorous defenses of my own character — as I have none to defend, so far as I can manage — it rankles me to hear such claims simply because errors are often worth addressing for the chance to correct them.
I’m here for ideas, not personification.
Are there any warmist denizens on Climate Etc., including our hostess, who are prepared to agree that the climate sensitivity of CO2, however defined, has not been measured? If there are, and you are prepared to stand up and say so, then we could have a meaningful discussion of what this means.
Jim Cripwell | April 14, 2013 at 7:36 am |
Warmist?
Well, I’m a ‘Forcist’, but apparently that’s the same thing to many here. It would be nearly impossible to acknowledge forcing without accepting warming, and far more difficult to concede warming due human activity without forcing.
Climate sensitivity of CO2 has not been isolated from all other forcings, from feedbacks, and from variability of ocean currents in a universally accepted way and with precision, to the best of my knowledge*, if that’s what you mean by ‘measured’.
But how is that relevant?
And why does such an acknowledgement hold up meaningful discussion on what it means? Why go to such extreme lengths to frame the meaning of a meaning of a meaning?
*Though I am aware of several really good attempts that are quite acceptable as a basis for discussion.
Bart, Hearty congratulations on making a meal out of nothing. Probably 99% of subscribers here are ‘forcists’ then – people who think CO2 probably has an effect, but don’t think it is anywhere near enough quantified to know whether to act on it or not.
You’re just whistling Bart; neither you nor anyone else yet has a fix on what the CO2 effect will be. The only ones pretending otherwise, and calling for political action, are those with a political agenda. And that includes the bulk of the climate ‘scientists’ that government has carefully selected to keep in its pocket.
But certainly it is an issue that needs to be studied rather than ignored.
Bart, you ask “But how is that relevant?”
In the SPMs to the IPCC AR4 of WG1, there are claims of >90% and >95% probability that certain things with respect to CAGW are correct. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html
I have read this scientific reasoning, and from what I can see it is a load of nonsense. For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. So far as I can see this omission makes the reasoning presented simply arm waving, with no substantial science behind it.
If the claims of >90% and >95% probability are just plain wrong, and I beleive they are, then there is no basis to believe that CAGW is a problem. That is the issue which I wish to discuss, but clearly this is not possible if warmists will no agree that the IPCC has omitted to mention that clinmate sensitivity has not been measured.
“I have read this scientific reasoning, and from what I can see it is a load of nonsense. For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. So far as I can see this omission makes the reasoning presented simply arm waving, with no substantial science behind it.”
But Jim, it has been measured. You can measure it today.
But before you measure it, lets see if you know what it is.
Define climate sensitivity.. Lets start with that
Define climate sensitivity.. Lets start with that.
lets define random that’s the interesting problem.
Punksta | April 14, 2013 at 8:09 am |
Being a man-made forcing in a chaos-bounded system is reason enough to act. Forcings are perturbations, and external perturbations change the state of a nonlinear complex iterative system to evolve new extremes.
Being the largest of the man-made forcings, CO2E is the one that ought have priority, but just as Lomborg is wrong to line up what charities to fund and which to kick to the curb by doling out an imagined budget, it would be wrong to imagine only CO2E ought be addressed.
Being that the signal of CO2E is detectable on the same scale as natural variability and that CO2 does not perish rapidly, we know all we need to act.
Bart R
Trying to hide behind bombastic statements with scientific-sounding words does not address Jim Cripwell’s challenge.
The climate sensitivity of doubling CO2 has not been determined empirically.
Just claiming that “it is the largest of the man-made forcings” is poppycock unless you can substantiate this statement with empirical data (not fancy words).
Max
M
Jim Cripwell | April 14, 2013 at 9:17 am |
But Jim, we’ve seen your reasoning his full of fallacies and misrepresentations. Perhaps the source of your problem with following the reasoning of others is that you believe your own fallacies?
Like, For one thing, it carefully omits the fact that climate sensitivity has not been measured. Which is patently a pile of fallacy.
You talk about belief, as if your beliefs are indisputable, but you do not even contemplate the possibility that others’ evidence, observations, calculations, deductions, inferences, published papers by the truckload might be valid. How can anyone engage in discourse on such a basis? You offer nothing, therefore, to anyone willing to enter fair discussion.
You do see that, yes?
manacker | April 14, 2013 at 7:27 pm |
Priority of importance of forcings, not a hill I’m interested in taking a stand on. First. Second. Third. Whatever. Unlike Lomborg, I don’t believe in rating the water leaking into the boat by what hole it poured through, while there’s bailing to be done. You fix the holes in the order that doesn’t sink you, not by the popularity contests they win.
All that needs be shown is that it’s a man-made forcing. There’s a signal of it in climate. It’s man made. Ergo it’s a large enough man made forcing to increase Risk. That’s all that we need know. At that point, we can know that the cost of this Risk is borne by all, and the profit goes to few Free Riders.
That’s a wasteful state for an economy, and an unfair one — which is one of those things that can shake the goodwill of all players in an economic system.
We don’t need to know how much harm CO2E does. We know how much harm loss of goodwill in an economy does. So the Free Riders whinge about having to finally pay their share? That’s good. Let them bleat. They may be squeaky wheels, but they’re few and nobody loves them but their mothers. The louder they scream, the more confidence everyone in the economy will have that the misery is shared equally, as is the utility.
Bart
Even assuming there is indeed significant CO2 AGW – which is far from clear and if anything getting less clear – it is not the case that there are free riders, since everyone is a user of CO2-creating energy, both directly at home and in their cars, and indirectly via their use of products and services that are produced using CO2-creating energy.
Bart thinks we “don’t need to know” how much harm CO2 does in order to act. But how then would we know what action is appropriate ? Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Perhaps even 0C wouldn’t matter to him – to heck with reality, rationality and objectivity, it’s just the perception of political correctness that really matters.
I call sockpuppet dupes on the pair known as BatedBreath and Tomcat. They always post on the same day and same topic.
My powers of observation are strong and the data supports it.
Fake grassroots astroturfing is bad stuff.
BatedBreath | April 15, 2013 at 1:34 am |
Your argument is unsound.
Certainly some buy the products of carbon burning. Certainly some sell them. But certainly, these are not the only near substitutes in all cases, and there are alternatives, and there is conservation, and there might be other far-removed budget decisions made if the true cost of carbon cycle use were reflected in the price of carbon burning: a man might buy a bag of apples from a local farmer and enjoy a quiet walk with his family eating apples rather than spend the same amount on filling up his 4×4 and off-roading with his drinking buddies, for example.
The redistribution that takes place, from local apple growers to frackers and foreigners, from agriculture to oil, from free democratic choices at the point of every purchase to committee-determined taxpayer-leveraged ‘cheap’ (I use the word ironically) energy, is free ridership, and inspires both waste of precious resources underpriced (or unpriced) as well as reduces faith in the fairness of the Market.
If everyone uses lucrative CO2E, and must use it, equally, then pricing the carbon cycle will have absolutely no effect as every penny of fee is delivered as a dividend to everyone equally who is an owner of the Carbon Cycle — every citizen, per capita, mainly in payroll adjustment. But we know from cases where this happens that not everyone uses this resource equally, and even modest prices — far below what the law and supply and demand would determine — show that pricing rapidly squeezes out waste from the Market.
Which is why Fee & Dividend, with levels set by the Law of Supply & Demand, is necessary before we even discuss other measures like carbon taxes or regulations or trading schemes: if we don’t have a valid understanding of what the Market ascribes as price, we have no valid data on which to estimate the prudent level of such measures, if any.
Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Bart : Yes. Clearly.
Mindboggling lunacy. If the Pause had continued for another 5, 10, 50, 100 ….. years, would you still be holding that position?
Yes the climate system is highly complex, but that is no excuse. The fact is we still have no real idea of the net effect of the CO2/human_influence in amongst the natural forces. Lukewarming has some credence. Your CAGW talk of “runaway” CO2 forcing doesn’t.
Bart R
While is may be true that not everyone ultimately causes the *exact* same amount of CO2 to be created due to the products and services they consume, the average will initially suffice I suggest. So if everyone pays in for CO2 *they* cause to be created, and is compensated for the CO2 *other* people cause to be created, most people will come out about equal (divergence from this being a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor – your real motive?). All you will have done is create phoney ‘work’ for bureaucrats, thus diverting resources from active productivity into moving funds around.
Secondly, it is still far from clear how serious the addition of CO2 in fact is, and therefore how much bureaucratic overhead dealing with it warrants.
And there is no issue of market efficiency here.
Bart R
OK, let’s for now assume your figures for BC carbon tax are right. (Who compiled them – the people who argued for it?). That doesn’t mean there’s a free rider problem of any significance, since we don’t yet know if CO2 is the significant problem the politically-funded/motivated climate science says it is.
( As a Georgist tax on natural resources REPLACING other taxes I have no objection to it btw ).
Bart > You not only choose to dump trash over your fence, but you don’t want to know how much, or what’s in it, or where it falls, or what harm it’s done. That goes beyond shameful into negligent.
Did you just go to some denier site, and cut and paste that from some badass denier, and bring it over here to attribute it to me? Such barefaced and militant lying does you no credit at all. I guess it’s all you’ve got left …
BB> And there is no issue of market efficiency here.
Bart>> Do you even know what the words you write mean?
You still produce nothing to of any significance on this score.
Meaning it’s you who doesn’t understand the words he’s using.
Bart,
As Willard would say, the sockpuppet pair known as Tomcat/BatedBreath “no play fair”.
It is a shame that this fake grassroots / astroturfing is allowed here. It is possible that TC and BB are not the same person, but they always comment on the same day and the same topic. Fake skepticism is a mix of purely political agendas and krackpot pranking.
Tomcat | April 15, 2013 at 1:48 am |
Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Yes. Clearly.
In a linear system, of course you’d be right. In a linear system, absent complexity you could do CBA in some valid way. In a system where you deprecated such matters as insurance and Risk, fairness and rights, you’d be right. If the world were a pegboard and we all cogs and pegs, you’d be fine on your logic.
The world ain’t that way.
Temperature is just a proxy, and a remarkably poor one. A GMT might express at most half of the impact of the forcing, due the thermomechanical principle, and likely less as work goes into shifting the system itself that is not reflected in current measurements. Heck, we don’t even talk about the standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis of the GMT curve. (Well, not much.) Double the frequency of extremes in both directions, and the GMT would remain unchanged, but we’d still be seeing rather dramatic effect.
We can discern a signal of human influence. Indeed, the signal’s some sigma seven levels strong, if we don’t restrict ourselves only to GMT. Denying that signal is mindbogglingly false.
So long as we can detect a forcing, yes, we ought restrict its unforeseeable consequences by limiting it so much as practical. Do you suggest we’re limiting the forcing in any way, at all, currently? It’s a runaway forcing proceeding by accident and driven by perverse reward systems. How is that good?
> Temperature is just a proxy,
For Tomcat, it might be another kind of proxy than what Bart R means by that.
Tomcat | April 16, 2013 at 1:55 am |
You really aren’t following. At all.
If there were only 0.05C change per doubling, no one would call it ‘warming’, then, would they.
The ‘warming’ isn’t directly important.
The perturbation is, and the perturbation is poorly reflected if we attempt to represent it with only a single number.
And I am not about catastrophe.
Catastrophe is relatively rare, and even if the perturbations lead to an order of magnitude greater frequency of catastrophes the additional cost due the perturbation would pale in comparison to even the mildest projected additional costs of Risk or of damages to key vulnerabilities. Why limit the discussion to the small change? This is about money coming out of all our pockets — mine, yours, our families, everyone’s — because of poor decisions by governments prompted by the greed of lucrative industry.
And I say this as someone who has made a reasonable return from greedy lucrative industries and poor decisions of government.
The pocket-picking by Free Riders is the major reason for the excessive perturbation in America and to a lesser extent Europe.
The pocket-picking is because a fundamentally wrong idea “cheap energy” has had currency for far too long.
And yes, I get that this sounds slightly whackadoodle; but you can’t talk about undoing a thoroughly whacky idea without wending your way through a maze of whackyism.
What does “cheap energy” even mean? Ironically, it means more expensive energy and more expensive everything else.
You pay down the cost of energy by subsidy, and you end up removing democracy from the Market by counterfeiting the price signal that efficiently allocates scarce resources — the whole reason for having a Market!
This leads inexorably to waste, which is a great expense.
And you do this by subsidy, which means you pay for it by government deficit or taxation, which is the most expensive money in any economy, and raises the price of all goods.
How is this reasonable? How does it surprise that it leads to bad outcomes?
Warming isn’t the measure of the problem. It’s a symptom.
And imagine how hard by this point it is for me to suppress the urge to say “There is no freaking Pause, you innumerate ignoramus.”
If there were a Pause (which is possible but the data just has not yet confirmed, that nasty We Live At The Endpoint Problem), and it were just a pause of GMT warming, then its duration alone would not matter. Would the elevation of Risk — that costs me from my pocket — continue? No? Then I’d be fine with that kind of Pause. Would the elevation of harm to key vulnerabilities continue? No? Then even better! Would all extremes of weather that could be attributed to the perturbation cease, and all restructuring of climate systems stop? Well, that’d be pretty much necessary before it’d be a Pause to my mind.
Why don’t you reject all lesser claims, and dyskeptically accept inadequate statistical manipulations?
And I say this without knowing how much or how little education in statistics you may have, but even the best statisticians need information about the meaning of the numbers they’re operating on, and the science of meteorology tells us trend lines less than 30 years mean little, and the science of signal processing tells us trend lines less than 17 years mean nothing. So in 2022, we’ll know pretty well 95% if there’s a ‘pause’ starting in 2005, unless we both stop getting record warm years and start getting relatively very cold years consistently, then we might see a pause of warming — whether due to harsher winters because of shifting weather patterns or the heat being sent down to the deep ocean by some weird thermal inversion effect — slightly sooner.
But if there’s still TOA imbalance?
Then we’ll still see perturbation and extremes of weather and changes in the state of the climate system..
And if all that fails to come about while CO2E continues to rise, then we’re in some pretty big trouble, because then the most elementary of Mathematics will have stopped making sense.
Tomcat > Would a CO2x2 effect of 5C merit the same response as an effect of 0.5C or 0.05C?
Bart > Yes. Clearly
Tomcat > Mindboggling lunacy.
Then the next day …
Bart > If there were only 0.05C change per doubling, no one would call it ‘warming’, then, would they.
I accept you are big enough to now see the mindboggling lunacy of your earlier reply.
BatedBreath | April 17, 2013 at 2:25 am |
While is may be true that not everyone ultimately causes the *exact* same amount of CO2 to be created due to the products and services they consume, the average will initially suffice I suggest.
You suggest?
Huh. Data from where it’s actually been done tells us over 70% of people come out dramatically ahead for BC’s revenue neutral carbon tax, about 20% come out so near to par as it doesn’t matter, and only 10% turn out to have been free riders all those years before the price signal was put in place.
You suggest based on what?
So if everyone pays in for CO2 *they* cause to be created, and is compensated for the CO2 *other* people cause to be created, most people will come out about equal (divergence from this being a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor – your real motive?).
Oddly, the biggest critics of the BC revenue neutral carbon tax are the Left, who complain that it _doesn’t_ redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Keep in mind, it was a right wing, tax-cutting government that brought in the revenue neutral carbon tax, and at the same time dropped BC from one of the highest taxed regions in North America to one of the lowest — lower than most US states, including among the lowest corporate taxes.
All you will have done is create phoney ‘work’ for bureaucrats, thus diverting resources from active productivity into moving funds around.
Bzzt. Third wrong guess in a row; if this were baseball, you’d be struck out. BC piggybacked this on its tax system, which it had lying around doing nothing much useful anyway but wasn’t going to get rid of; and guess what? It reduced tax churn by so much, it pays for the marginal additional cost of its administration. Thus putting resources that had been funds sitting around untouchable back into the pockets of working citizens. You got this one so backwards you cost your side a man on base in addition to striking out.
Secondly (that’d be Fourthly, but who’s counting?), it is still far from clear how serious the addition of CO2 in fact is, and therefore how much bureaucratic overhead dealing with it warrants.
You know, Ronald Reagan once said that a good landowner would pay any price to avoid the shame of dumping his trash over his fence onto his neighbor’s property. How far we have fallen since his day.
You not only choose to dump trash over your fence, but you don’t want to know how much, or what’s in it, or where it falls, or what harm it’s done. That goes beyond shameful into negligent.
And there is no issue of market efficiency here.
Do you even know what the words you write mean?
BatedBreath | April 17, 2013 at 4:44 am |
Who produced the figures? Funny thing, if you go read the actual BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Act, you’ll find that the law requires every penny be accounted for annually by independent audit. But I see you’re comfortable pretending to expertise and knowledge you do not have without doing the basic reading.
Clearly, you’re not following if you think free rider arguments rely on harm. Free rider arguments rely on excess benefits obtained from scarce resources without equitable return to the Market. No harm need be shown done by the goods themselves; only scarcity (such as, say, the CO2 level rising — which as David Springer has pointed out, is one of the few things not seriously in question), rivalry (once one party has raised that level, it remains raised for more than a lifetime, so no other party has access to that same rise), excludability (ie there are ways to prohibit lucrative access to the resource) and administrative practicality (such as the BC Carbon Tax, which no Georgist would object to).
As for your trash over the fence repartee.. Uh.. what? I’m clearly not hep enough for this jazz.
Explain your market efficiency comments more fully, and I’ll be glad to fully explain why you’re wrong about them.
bart
Who produced the figures? Funny thing, if you go read the actual BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax Act, you’ll find that the law requires every penny be accounted for annually by independent audit.
So the state commissions ‘independent’ audits of itself. Even more convincing than the independent audits of itself the University of East Anglia commissioned in the wake of Climategate.
Clearly, you’re not following if you think free rider arguments rely on harm.
Clearly you’re not following if you think I say that. Or is it just that you desperately need another strawman to make you look non-moronic?
…
Good grief, so a rising CO2 level is a “scarcity” now is it? – such confident cluelessness.
As for your trash over the fence repartee.. Uh.. what? I’m clearly not hep enough for this jazz.
You’ll first need to tell me which of your strawmen is involved here
Explain your market efficiency comments more fully, and I’ll be glad to fully explain why you’re wrong about them.
You are the one making market efficiency claims (something about rising CO2 being a scarce resource), so it’s you who needs to explain. We’ll take a look again if an when we can get you past the basics.
BatedBreath | April 18, 2013 at 3:52 am |
The ‘state’ in BC is hardly monolithic, and is audited by people who are generally hostile to the party in power. You do understand that parliamentary democracy is an adversarial system, right? And even if it weren’t, a free press ought ensure democracy by printing truth. (Okay, so that last part is pretty much a mockery these days. I include it more to chastise readers who accept and even encourage crap (looking at you, Reuters) than to sustain my point. Even so, what sort of totalitarian dark fantasy world do you live in, Meowser?
..if you think I say that.. cf. since we don’t yet know if CO2 is the significant problem..
What did you mean at 4:44 by ‘significant problem’ if not harm? What, are you denying you are talking about catastrophe, now that it’s inconvenient?
You don’t need to prove ‘significant problem’ (of the totally harmless kind either) to establish Free Riding. Free Riding or even the conditions that lead to it is the significant and inevitable cause of problems. You don’t have to prove that poisoning candies and handing them out for Hallowe’en has caused deaths or injury for that to be wrong on its face, either.
And really, you claim to be a Georgist and lecture about market efficiency and don’t understand what scarcity is or how the difference between ‘economic goods’ and ‘free goods’ works, and dare criticize others on Economics? That’s bizarre. It’d be like G&T criticizing Carnot, Boltzmann or Gibbs on Thermodynamics.
Scarcity is confirmed by the non-zero opportunity cost to society of emitting CO2E. Don’t think the opportunity cost is non-zero? That’s fine as a fringe individual opinion — I think all the catnip in the world could disappear tomorrow and I’d feel no lost opportunity — but you’re not all of society, and if you think no one in society objects to CO2E as costly, you’ve been hiding under a rock in a catnip-induced haze.
Is that basic enough for you?
Bart R | April 18, 2013 at 10:42 am | Reply
The ‘state’ in BC is hardly monolithic, and is audited by people who are generally hostile to the party in power. You do understand that parliamentary democracy is an adversarial system, right?
You do understand it’s still the state pretending to audit itself, right, and the ‘adversaries’ therein are united in supporting it? As mentioned, about as objective as a police inquiry into police brutality, or a University of East Anglia inquiry into the science malpractice conducted with its blessing (Climategate).
—
And since you are so prone to keep pretending otherwise, I’ll mention again that we don’t yet know if rising CO2 is the significant problem the government-lackey ‘scientists’ say it is.
—
You don’t need to prove ‘significant problem’ (of the totally harmless kind either) to establish Free Riding.
Well blow me down, after countless attempts you’ve finally made a non-moronic comment (giving you the benefit of the doubt, though – the “of” in the parentheses a presumed typo for “or”).
—
And really, you claim to be a Georgist
Again you reach for the straw.
I don’t; I said I wouldn’t object to a Georgist tax REPLACING others.
and lecture about market efficiency and don’t understand what scarcity is
Yet more straw. Actually it’s you who tried lecture about market efficiency, and is plainly clueless about scarcity – you said “rising CO2 was scarce”, or some such mumbo-jumbo.
or how the difference between ‘economic goods’ and ‘free goods’ works
Hoo boy, the strawman just keep coming. Being charitable again, maybe this is from some other confused thread you’re mired in.
And that some people merely THINK rising CO2 is causing them a problem, doesn’t mean it actually is. Merely imagining a lost opportunity cost, isn’t the same as actually losing one.
BatedBreath | April 18, 2013 at 11:37 am |
The state only pretends to audit itself (a state we have no evidence you’ve ever been to or know anything at all about); Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents and Ralph Nader are all in a vast plot to oppress your rights; eight hearings in three countries were all Climategate cover-ups.. I’m beginning to see a pattern. The more fabulously incredible any idea seems, the more prone you are to embrace it with fanatical zeal.
The ‘of’ was not a typo, it was indicating sarcasm, or irony.
And what an interesting quibble. Wouldn’t object to taxes being replaced with ‘equal’ Georgist taxes, but not a Georgist. Like not objecting to the Yankees winning, but not being a Yankees fan. Truly, is the only thing you know about Georgist taxes something you got off the back of a pamphlet about what gun Hayek favored at a Tea Party fundraiser?
And you really need to figure out when someone’s saying you’re too incoherent to comprehend, and when they’re using rhetorical devices. Hint: I’m not using a rhetorical device.
Bart
The state only pretends to audit itself ?
How naive do you need to be to think an organization will act in any way except to further its own perceived self-interest ? Especially an organization as large, powerful and self-important as the state ?
Same principle with the Climategate universities’ investigations into themselves once revelations of hiding data, covering their tracks etc etc came to light. They used taxpayer money to deceive taxpayers, then used more of it to cover their deceit up.
–
I’m beginning to see a pattern. The more fabulously incredible any idea seems, the more prone you are to embrace it with fanatical zeal.
Classic projection.
.
Wouldn’t object to taxes being replaced with ‘equal’ Georgist taxes, but not a Georgist ? Like not objecting to the Yankees winning, but not being a Yankees fan.
More thoughtless twaddle – preferring a lesser evil to a greater evil makes one a fan of the lesser evil now does it ?
Truly, is the only thing you know about Georgist taxes something you got off the back of a pamphlet about what gun Hayek favored at a Tea Party fundraiser?
You are the clueless one on Georgism. It’s about ownership of natural resources. But you’re trying to press it into service based on the “scarcity” of CO2. God only knows what you have in mind, if anything.
Say, isn’t the State auditing itself, or any ‘self -auditing,’
a kinda oxy-moron?’ …Now if Steve McIntyre is auditing
something or other yer know it’ll git audited
Bart R
You don’t need to in order to be too incoherent to comprehend, at least based on you last comment.
Max
Beth
You’re right on that one.
Many years ago Nixon was going to do a thorough internal investigation of the Watergate burglary and cover-up.
Self audits only work when someone realizes a mistake was made and is trying to find out how this happened and how to avoid it in the future.
Otherwise it is an invitation for a whitewash.
Max
As we see with Bart, incoherence can present in both rhetorical and literal approaches. If your underlying thinking is incoherent, nothing can save you.
Max _not from OK Extemism, *
Guess there’s a difference betw bein’ obliged ter do
something and wantin’ ter do somethin ter solve a
problem situation ter yr own satisfaction.
The – other – Climate Etc -serf.
BatedBreath | April 20, 2013 at 3:14 am |
How naive do you need to be to think an organization will act in any way except to further its own perceived self-interest ? Especially an organization as large, powerful and self-important as the state ?
Less naive than a person would have to be to believe states are monoliths without division, internal politics, leaks, loopholes, failures, adversaries or proponents dedicated to some higher power than the state. You are making an argument premised on the government of a province the same size as South Carolina being an all-powerful, all-knowing Big Brother.
We can take from your silence on the question of whether you know anything about BC (as well as your laughable characterization of its government) that you’ve never been there. Have you ever been to South Carolina? Is there anything you can relate to or know about that exists in the real world and not in some fictional dystopia to help you graps how absurd your claim is?
Same principle with the Climategate universities’ investigations into themselves once revelations of hiding data, covering their tracks etc etc came to light. They used taxpayer money to deceive taxpayers, then used more of it to cover their deceit up.
Only two of the eight inquiries were university inquiries, and those were carried out by outside departments. Have you ever been to a university? You see them as unified monoliths where everyone covers each other’s backs? Did you not even read the Climategate emails, rife as they were with in-house petty jealousies, plots and distrust?
And then there’s the six other inquiries.
While data transparency is a no-brainer, and any restriction on access to any data is odious, it’s not like it’s unique to just Climategate-related activities. Making out that this is more than just a sad reality of science in general, lamentable and one hopes a practice that will die off sooner than later, it’s also something that every Climategate inquiry took issue with and landed on exactly the same side as you do about it. So they used taxpayer money to support your argument. You should thank the taxpayer for their support of your cause. Show some gratitude.
More thoughtless twaddle – preferring a lesser evil to a greater evil makes one a fan of the lesser evil now does it ?
All taxes are evil. Some are more evil than others, for the amount of revenue and goals of the state achieved, so they ought be replaced with lesser taxes, of course.
But you mistake my argument. I’m not advocating a tax at all, Georgist or other, however much the Georgist argument might pertain in your mind to the reasoning of owners making people pay for what they take from the owners.
Also, this is not about the scarcity of CO2, but about the scarcity of the carbon cycle’s ability to recycle CO2. That is demonstrably scarce, and you have failed to address this valid and telling point.
Beth Cooper | April 20, 2013 at 3:26 am |
Steve McIntyre self-audited for decades as a mining-industry accountant and political lobbyist. In Canada, they let companies self-audit. It’s the standard.
And looking at the reliability of McIntyre’s results, I wouldn’t say anyone “knows” anything’s been audited. Indeed, looking at MM2003-2005’s failures, we can say the entirety of McIntyre’s activities have added next to nothing at all to the field.
manacker | April 20, 2013 at 3:46 am |
Uh.. what? Do you mean what Memphis | April 20, 2013 at 3:58 am | said?
That’d be a pretty good point, if it were what you meant.. except Memphis seems to prefer to audit me than to audit thee.
Sometimes other-audit is as invalid as self-audit.
manacker | April 20, 2013 at 3:50 am |
We ought be reminded, Nixon’s audit was never completed, but we all know that the one single inquiry into Watergate that did complete was pretty widely accepted.
Or do you dispute the Watergate inquest findings, too, and want seven more?
I would be interested in learning how Denizens of the forum would answer the following back-to-basics questions.
1. In the physical sciences, what are the basic forms of dissipation? What are the SI dimensions of dissipation? (Wikipedia may be a helpful starting point.)
2. What form(s) of dissipation are described in Navier-Stokes equations?
3. Are isolated chaotic systems dissipative?
4. What is the dominant dissipation mechanism within the troposphere?
5. Without making any assumptions about linearity, what is the dissipation of a steady 1 ampere flux flowing between two interfaces differing in potential by 1 volt? Is this result dependent on any assumption of the spatial distribution of potential between the interfaces?
6. Ibid. for a steady 1 liter/sec flux of an incompressible fluid flowing between two interfaces differing in potential by 1 pascal?
7. Ibid. for a steady 1 watt thermal energy flux flowing between two interfaces at 300 K and 150 K? 150 K and 0 K?
8. Terry is perplexed with his answers to question 7. He imagines two parallel-plate cells connected in series. In the steady state, the 1 watt flowing into each cell must, by energy conservation, also be flowing out its opposite face. He’s used his textbook’s equation for thermal dissipation yet the sum of the dissipations of the 300K/150K cell and the 150K/0K cell exceeds the steady-state input power of 1 watt. Explain.
It seems that no-one has yet responded to your question Quondom. What you are talking about is plain old entrophy and the Law of Diminishing Returns.
I suspect that Climate Sensitivity will resolve to a PDF as its value seems not a constant but depends on other influences as well, which I will refer to as natural variability.
I also suspect that climate is governed by many interacting complex, non-linear, non ergodic systems all of which are effected by chaotic bifurcations. The remarkable thing to me is the comparatively narrow bands of its trajectory over millions of years.
For number 7. There is no zero plate or we would not exist. For 300K initial condition, you would have a series of plates, 300K, ~257K, ~212K, ~178K, ~150K etc. each with slightly less than 50% entropy if you use the S-B law. (~.93 would be the correction from ideal emissivity.)
The Carnot efficiency of each stage would be about 15.9%
And yet it dissipates…
Chiefio in CO2 scrubbing … some insightful comments as well.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/co2-past-and-problems/
Thanks for the feedback from all respondees.
My Answers
1. ..; watts. 2. Viscous. 3. No. 4. Thermal. 5. 1W; no. 6. 1mW. 7. 0.5W; 1W.
8. Terry has failed to distinguish free energy from dissipated energy. Only the former can do work or be dissipated. The 300K/150K cell’s output is 0.5W free energy and 0.5W dissipation. The free energy input of the tandem 150K/0K cell is thus 0.5 W which it duly dissipates. The combined dissipation of the two cells is thus 1W, the input flux of the joint system.
FYI: The formula for the maximum work that can be extracted from a heat engine when operated reversibly, i.e. without dissipation, is found in relevant texts. The unextracted balance appears as free energy at the cooler interface. If the engine is performing at only 30% of its maximum allowed efficiency, then 70% of the maximum allowed work is dissipated. If no work at all is done, all potential work is dissipated. (This is not a proof, but a description.)
Q, I’m completely delighted that even with the answers I’m still puzzled. No such luck with the New York Times Crossword.
========================
“Being that the signal of CO2E is detectable on the same scale as natural variability …”
Bart,
Help me understand this. I’m skeptical, but open minded. I changed my mind once, so I can do it again.
Correct me where I’m wrong. I accept that co2e (green house gas emissions) can be measured reliably. But there is (is there not?) a very open question as to atmospheric sensitivity…that is, wrt to the amount of warming we can expect over “x” time scale. Taking a layman’s gander at the available charts, it surely looks to me that sensitivity has been exaggerated by the IPCC. We’ve sent massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere in the last 17 years, a period with (to be overly generous) very little warming. Many credible sources, even from the alarmist side, concede no warming at all
The cost of “acting” is in general terms, a known. We can all agree…I think… that in societal terms it’s high. IN material terms. we might very well be less wealthy. In social terms, we will likely be less free. And yet the cost, if any, of not acting, is not known. It’s so uncertain that one could plausibly argue any co2 provoked warming would be a net benefit.
No one BArt, not even you with your apparent certainty, can say with any confidence what the effect of the coming solar minimum might be. If we’re headed back to a LIA, a few degrees of added warmth could save us all from quite a harsh fate.
“We’ve sent massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere in the last 17 years, a period with (to be overly generous) very little warming. Many credible sources, even from the alarmist side, concede no warming at all”
Which credible sources? Who. Name them.
“We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found them. They surround us. That simplifies things.”
H/t LB Puller.
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James Hansen wrote this:
“The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.”
In a paper that is found here:
http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf
Now, if the 5-yr mean has been flat for a decade, then how long has temperature been flat. Hint: more than a decade.
lolwot – is that the sound of crickets?
I supplied the quote, from what I believe you would call a “credible source”. No comment?
lolwot
Not to belabor a point, but you seem to have problems understanding that there is a current lull in global warming.
Hansen has called it a “standstill”.
Jones stated that “there has been no statistically-significant global warming”.
Others have referred to it as a “pause”.
(At one point Trenberth referred to it as a “travesty”.)
The length of this pause is probably closer to 12 years, since starting at the end of 1997 (the start of a record high El Nino year) could be misleading.
Max
“The cost of “acting” is in general terms, a known. ”
Well, the cost of the proposed “actions” (windmills and solar) is known.
The trouble is – their effects (or lack thereof) are ignored.
So, we end up acting and spending tons of money and acheiving nothing of the desired emission reduction.
This is the factual record, after hundreds of billions of dollars have already been spent.
jacobress | April 14, 2013 at 9:19 am |
Could you show me this factual record, please?
A link, a cite, with a detailed balance line accounting of these billions of dollars and where and to whom exactly they went and from whom and when?
Because every time I seek these details, I find a surprising liberty is taken with definitions, and I’ve come to be skeptical of such claims. I’m sure you understand skepticism.
Which effects do you claim are ignored, specifically? Cite? Link? Places? Names? Between a quarter (well, 23%) and a tenth of the electricity in some states is derived from these windmills you so disparage, and the states declare them cost competitive. (See how annoying it is to hear claims rhymed off without details? You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.) And what of the actual bulk of the actions? Conservation and improved efficiency squeezing waste out of the economy, reducing th