by Judith Curry
It’s your turn to introduce topics for discussion.
I have an exceptionally busy two weeks coming up. I realize that there is a lot for me to respond to in terms of critiques of my testimony, etc. I will try to get to some of this in the coming week, as time allows.
Over 5600 responses to this survey now. The number of responses increased 25% since yesterday.
“Professional Background & Attitude to Climate”
http://scef.org.uk/survey/index.php/statistics_user/action/surveyid/868721/language/en
Unfortunately, it seems most of the responses are coming from people who read the sceptical blog sites. That is unfortunate. It would be much more valuable if it had a proper balance with appropriately proportional number of responses from the “blogs that are in general convinced that manmade warming is a problem such as Skeptical Science, Real Climate, DeSmogBlog, Celsias, George Monbiot, The Carbon Brief, Cliff Mass, Tamino’s Open Mind, Climate Ark or Hotwhopper, etc.”
If the survey ends with a poor representation from the CAGW alarmists, what does that say about the blog sites that are promoting the CAGW alarmist position?
Does it suggest they are objective, impartial, unbiased and want to get to the truth about what are the real differences between the alarmists and sceptics understandings, beliefs and what they hold those different positions?
Or does it suggest they are more interested in advocacy for a set of beliefs that driven by some other agenda than an objective search for truth and genuine understanding of how to reach a common understanding and policies that can be widely supported?
This kind of polls are completely meaningless, since the population of responders is not random.
Fortunately, nobody would take these “kind of polls” seriously. That’s why we don’t see a massive number of people claiming skeptics are conspiracy theorists based off of one. And that’s why we’d see David Appell devoting a lot of energy to telling people who do say that they’re making baseless accusations.
One sentence is hardly “a lot of energy.” Even less since it’s the truth.
“Unfortunately, it seems most of the responses are coming from people who read the sceptical blog sites. That is unfortunate. “
I’d hazard a guess this is because the great majority of climate blog readers *are* skeptics. Let’s face it, those online indoctrination camps such as the humorously named SkepticalScience don’t exactly make for stimulating reading…or discussion.
“David Appell | January 24, 2014 at 7:24 pm |
This kind of polls are completely meaningless, since the population of responders is not random.”
——
Pretty much exactly right. But “skeptics” will make whatever they can out if whatever they can.
David.
I think brandon is asking you what you thought about lewandowskys poll.
Plus the poll isnt meaningless metely because the sample isnt random. It just narrows any conclusions one might draw from it. For example I would like to see the professions of those who read both types of blogs daily. What type of people actively seek out information from both sides on a daily basis compared to those who only listen to one choir.. but in general folks will learn little of substance from a poll like this or one that asks scientists if they believe in agw
I think brandon is asking you what you thought about lewandowskys poll.
I haven’t studied it, and have no opinion on it.
I just don’t see what a social scientist’s poll has to do with the physics of climate change, which is my main interest.
Random sampling is more or less a myth in any case. Whatever methodology you use poses its own challenges. Telephone? Not everbody has one and did you call the right percentage of mobile phones? In person? How do you represent the (sizable) minority of those who don’t talk to strangers in the street? Post? How do you account for those who toss impersonal mails straight into the trash?
Researchers adapt by constructing sample frames based on their knowledge of the ‘universe’ they are trying to explore and recruit to fill the spaces (buckets) in the frame.
David Appell displays the typical alarmist ‘will to ignorance’ by professing to be unfamiliar with Lewandowsky’s charade. “If I pretend to not know about it I won’t have to acknowledge its worthlessness and incendiary nature.” But what else would we expect from one of the Crusher Crew?
Mosher’s call for examination of subsets is of course the appropriate response to a sample driven by one source of respondents. A simple set of crosstabs would be adequate to deal with the imbalances in sample source.
David Appell displays the typical alarmist ‘will to ignorance’ by professing to be unfamiliar with Lewandowsky’s charade.
Sorry, I didn’t follow it, or SkS’s 97% claim. Those aren’t science, and that isn’t how science is done. Polls by social scientists or bloggers are scientifically meaningless, and whatever Lewandowsky did or didn’t do isn’t scientifically meaningful.
There are a lot of interesting questions in climate science. Questions about social media polls aren’t any of them.
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist makes an amazing comment:
This is amazing because I have seen him promote Lewandowsky’s conclusions many times even though those conclusions were based on a very non-random “population of responders.” It’s difficult to see how he could reconcile this. Then again, it’s difficult to see how he reconciles calling himself a “skeptic” with promoting conclusions known to be unjustified. Even the simplest examination of Lewandowsky’s results show his conclusions are wrong.
On the upside, at least David Appell has come out against the work of Lewandowsky, Cook and co-authors. I think that may be the first time he and I have ever been on the same side of something.
Really? Is that what you learned from that poll?
Interesting.
Brandon Shollenberger wrote:
On the upside, at least David Appell has come out against the work of Lewandowsky, Cook and co-authors.
Brandon, are you simply unable to keep from lying?
Because I said no such thing. Saying I did is a lie, and you know it.
“This is amazing because I have seen him promote Lewandowsky’s conclusions many times even though those conclusions were based on a very non-random “population of responders.”
——
Could care less about Lewandowsky’s conclusions. You seem to be starting your new career as a fiction writer. Good luck with that.
Brandon, it’s exactly your kind of lie that make me question the positions of so many denialists.
David Appell, you’re welcome to claim it’s a lie. I disagree. I think most people will too. I think most people will accept my characterization was made in good faith. After all, Stephan Lewandowsky claims to be a scientists doing scientific work with his publications. You said what he did in his paper was not science and it is not how science is done. I think most people will agree I was merely describing the apparent contradiction in the two views.
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist, you may be able to “care less about Lewandowsky’s conclusions.” It may even be true you couldn’t care less about his conclusions. Either way, you’ve repeatedly promoted the idea skeptics are conspiracy theorists when the only “evidence” for such a generalization is Lewandowsky’s work.
If you want to claim you’re promoting a conclusion without caring about the evidence used to justify it, you can. If you want to suggest you haven’t checked the only evidence actually available for your view, you can.
I don’t think many people will fault me for assuming your repeated claims that skeptics are conspiracy theorists were references to the published work claiming such rather than assuming they were personal judgments made without any consideration for scientific publications. Or whatever you’re suggesting they were.
David Appell, you’re welcome to claim it’s a lie. I disagree.
Of course it’s a lie, as is your denial of the lie. I made it clear I haven’t followed Lewandowsky or the SkS claim about 97% of sometihng or other. I have no opinion about them.
Why do so many deniers have such faulty characters?
Brandon Shollenberger wrote:
You said what he did in his paper was not science and it is not how science is done.
Are you simply incapable of communicating the truth? Or do you avoid doing so on purpose?
Because you’re completely and utterly wrong. Obvioiusly wrong.
I swear, I have never run into such shady characters as I have with climate change denialists. Like you, they lie willingly, without regard, without remorse.
That says a lot.
Welp, I’d say it’s clear. Either I’m a lying liar who lies about lying, or you use intentionally uncharitable interpretations to justify abusive rhetoric to divert discussions from points you don’t want to discuss.
I hope it’s the former. I love alliteration.
“R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist, you may be able to “care less about Lewandowsky’s conclusions.” It may even be true you couldn’t care less about his conclusions.”
—-
Brandon, these first sentences were true and then everything that followed were attempts to further your new career in fiction.
Tom Fuller said:
David Appell responded:
And I lied by saying:
Because saying “Lewandowsky’s charade” and “SkS’s 97% claim” “aren’t science” could never be taken as saying what Lewandowsky “did in his paper was not science.”
In case it isn’t clear, that was me being facetious. David Appell’s insults are absurd and baseless. It seems to be his modus operandi. I was amazed at similarly ludicrous insults from William Connolley over at Appell’s blog, as I discussed here. Maybe I shouldn’t have been.
It seems this is a thing now.
Brandon, once I catch people in a lie, that’s it — I don’t deal with them again. That includes you.
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist, argument by assertion is a waste of everyone’s time. If you want to accuse me of bad behavior, I suggest you try contributing more to the exchange than mindless insults. It’ll make your case look like more than just a joke.
David Appell, but apparently you do repeatedly respond to them just to insult them. That’s interesting. I’m pretty sure that sort of behavior is against the comments policy of every blog I post at.
(For the record, I know I likely shouldn’t encourage this sort of behavior by responding to these two. I just think it’s worth the diversion so we can show their behavior for what it is.)
Ah, the unseemly, may we call it indecent, posturing. Oh, ye men of little faith, why do you so conspire against this social scientist?
=================
Brandon,
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/24/open-thread-6/wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/23/lewandowsky-call-your-office-correlation-is-meaningless/
The link you gave doesn’t open. Can you give me a link to one or two of the most authoritative critiques of the studies that concluded 97% of scientists believe …? I am after the ones that would be most likely to be accepted/not rejected out of hand by warmists.
Peter,
A coupla months ago, I held forth on sucky self-selecting surveys here:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/10/the-52-consensus/#comment-411343
Pretty much all of the survey responders for the surveys under discussion, whether done by Lew or AMS or Brandon, are massively self-selecting, so I think this is a pretty general critique.
Of course, some people will persist in the argument that we can just assume that our self-selected sample is representative until proven otherwise, but they would get blasted from here to kingdom come in any courtroom with expert witnesses testifying on the opposite side, and the lawyers who hired them would be very very angry.
NW,
Thank you. I agree with you. The reason for my question about authoritative rebuttals of the Lewandowski and Cook studies and particularly the the 97%, is because there are seemingly never ending quotes of it as if it is the gospel truth. It doesn’t help much to post to comments or even posts on blogs sites that are quickly dismissed by warmists as skeptics’ sites. So I was hoping someone might be able to give me a link to one or two authoritative rebuttals that might be taken seriously by warmists who at the moment are persuaded the 97% figure is an accepted, scientific fact.
Fortunately, nobody would take these “kind of polls” seriously. That’s why we don’t see a massive number of people claiming Cook & al etc.
These kinds of surveys are easily gamed. One link on a popular blog to mobilize a response and it’s off to the races. Even worse if there’s a way for zealots to vote more than once which is usually possible unless identification verification of some sort is required. Gallup, Rasmussen, and other professional polling organizations go to great length to get valid results and even then there’s a substantial margin of error.
The times where Appell makes an accurate claim with relevance to bandwagon climate science is as rare as hair on frogs but this is one of those rare times.
David Appell | January 25, 2014 at 12:36 am |
“I haven’t followed Lewandowsky or the SkS claim about 97% of sometihng or other. I have no opinion about them.”
Refreshing. This may get you in trouble at the Church of Carbon Sin.
+1
I have been reading the blogs of both sides of the conflict, and one thing I notice is that the alarmist blogs are far from agenda driven.
Other than suggesting cutting emissions even drastically, there seems to be no clear preferences on how that comes about.
Does anyone find the skeptics sites objective, impartial and unbiased?
I don’t.
Tom Fuller | January 24, 2014 at 11:14 pm |
Appell disavowed both Crook and Lewendouchebag polls as non-scientific and of no interest to him. Credit where credit is due. You owe Appell an apology.
I forgot to add that I did participate in the poll and answered that I read both sides daily.
“Of course it’s a lie, as is your denial of the lie. I made it clear I haven’t followed Lewandowsky or the SkS claim about 97% of sometihng or other. I have no opinion about them.”
David, you do have an opinion and you gave it earlier when you said:
“Sorry, I didn’t follow it, or SkS’s 97% claim. Those aren’t science, and that isn’t how science is done. Polls by social scientists or bloggers are scientifically meaningless, and whatever Lewandowsky did or didn’t do isn’t scientifically meaningful.”
That is an opinion on why you didn’t follow the Lewandowsky survey. Brandon is correct to point out you appear to dismiss Lewandowskys work because based on your opinion, it is not science. Not science because in your opinion polls by ‘social scientists or bloggers are scientifically meaningless, and whatever Lewandowsky did or didn’t do isn’t scientifically meaningful’. You own these words… How else is one to interpret the meaning?
“There are a lot of interesting questions in climate science. Questions about social media polls aren’t any of them.”
Would I be wrong in saying this would indicate you are not interested in how the science is used to frame the discussion wrt to policy on how to solve the climate change problem?
“Why do so many deniers have such faulty characters?”
Only because it appears that is the way you want it to be.
bob droege | January 25, 2014 at 10:05 am |
“I have been reading the blogs of both sides of the conflict, and one thing I notice is that the alarmist blogs are far from agenda driven.”
Climate control is an agenda unto itself. There are a great many reasons for wanting to do it from sinister anti-human agendas to having vested interests in the mitigation or alternative energy industries to having vested interests in climate research to power grabs by political players to geniune concern and combinations thereof. In general following the money will reveal most of the less-than-sincere climate change players.
What I find extraordinary is the dearth of vested interests on the so-called denier side most of whom won’t be remotely effected no matter which way the climate change cookie crumbles. For most of them I think it’s a matter of aversion to scams because bandwagon climate science is largely a scam as evidenced by the insane desire to take drastic action right frickin’ now even though such actions might be counter-productive if the bandwagon science is wrong. We can afford to wait another ten years to see how the model projections shake out and see if severe weather is increasing or decreasing and all these other scary prognostications. An agenda is indicated when the no-time-to-wait meme is introduced. The no-time-to-wait is largely driven by a desire to get the true agendas funded and rolling before mother nature comes along and falsifies the fear-mongering projections. In point of fact it’s already too late. The pause has already gone on too long to be ignored. Wait and see is now inevitable. The matter will be decided by nature not toy computer models of the climate system. Get used to it.
Bob, I would rephrase that as: “Other than suggesting cutting emissions even drastically, there seems to be no clear idea on how that can be made to come about.”
I would say that it is fair enough that David Appell is not interested in these studies of the denialist mindset, but this is something that we do need to study to know more about how to frame the discussion. I think that the strong connection between denialism and rightist political leaning is intriguing. It is clearly not just science that drives denialism in these peoples’ minds.
@David Springer…
Don’t forget that the IPCC “bandwagon science” predicts very little chance of anything going wrong in the next 3-5 decades, as well as very little chance of changing things in the same time-frame with even the most drastic of “drastic action right frickin’ now”.
It’s actually the possibility of sudden catastrophic changes (a la Hansen) that actually represents a risk (if any) in that time-frame. And that’s not really “bandwagon science”.
Joshua
I learned nothing from the poll I expressed one thing I would like to look at. Why did I pick that and why am I using that as a counter to appell assertion about random samples.
Again. Think before you write.
I think that the strong connection between chicken-little alarmism and leftist political leaning is obvious and predictable. It is clearly not just science that drives alarmism and “do it right now” political demands in many of these people’s minds.
David,
If you spent any time on good sites that discuss model observation mismatches like this one
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/on-mismatches-between-models-and-observations/or this one
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-or-ar5-models-doing-end-of-2013/
noting her big mistake in not considering the error bars for the observed trends…
you might come to a different conclusion.
AK | January 25, 2014 at 11:02 am |
“It’s actually the possibility of sudden catastrophic changes (a la Hansen) that actually represents a risk (if any) in that time-frame. And that’s not really “bandwagon science”.”
How much would any practically attainable mitigation reduce the risk of sudden catastrophic change? Actions by reasonable people can (or should be) calculated based upon risk/reward ratio. In this catastrophe is what and the cost of mitigating the risk is what? That’s a rhetorical question in case you think it’s answerable. In the meantime the benefit of continuing to use fossil fuels to keep the industry which feeds and clothes and continues to raise the average lifespan and living standards of 7 billion souls is more compelling. The known benefits are not rhetorical.
Peter Lang, you’re right that link doesn’t open. If you examine, you can see a link to WUWT is appended this page’s URL (…/open-thread-6/). You can get the right link by removing this page’s URL from the link.
It happened because of an issue with WordPress. If you post a link without including http://, WordPress automatically appends the link to the current page’s URL. That’s normally not a problem since you’ll usually copy the http:// with the rest of the link.
Now then, the URL of my address bar doesn’t show the http://, but if I copy the address I’m at from it, it automatically includes that. That means normally links copy just fine. However, if I edit the URL while it’s still in the address bar (such as by removing #comment-4417xx), my browser will not longer automatically add the http:// when I copy from it. I’m not sure anyone really cares about that, but I figure it might help people avoid the same mistake.
Anyway, Lewandowsky’s work was not about studying a consensus so the link I meant to provide wouldn’t address that topic. His work is basically said to be an “analysis” of skeptics’ worldviews to figure out what influences them. Instead, it’s been used primarily to smear skeptics, especially by labeling them conspiracy theorists.
If you’re interested in a rebuttal to that, let me suggest this link instead of my previous one (this one includes material from the other). It’s a fairly short document which I think will be of use to you, and you might even find it entertaining.
One warning though. It’s still just a rough draft. I need to do work on its formatting, and there’s still some editing to do.
bob droege | January 25, 2014 at 12:39 pm |
“If you spent any time on good sites that discuss model observation mismatches like this one”
Climate etc. is a “good site”. The owner is a top shelf climate scientist serially called upon to testify before the United States congress on exactly the subject matter in question.
Upon this good site we find (error bars included) these comparisons of CMIP5 model forecasts vs actual observation.
Obfuscation is rampant. These graphs are as factual as factual gets in climate science.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fig.jpeg
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/afig6.jpg
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/aahawkins.jpg
NW, while I agree that may be a fair critique of my survey’s results, I think you need to go a bit beyond that with my work. If you click on the link I gave Peter Lang and read through it, you’ll see I discuss that issue toward the end. In fact, I make a pretty huge point of it.
Brandon.
Have you misrepsented davids viewshttp://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/05/climate-candy-proof.html?m=1
Steven Mosher, I don’t believe so. Perhaps if you bothered to explain why you think the link you provided might indicate I have, I could give a more informative answer.
@David Springer | January 25, 2014 at 12:48 pm |
No, I was just pointing out the bait-and-switch involved in claiming “consensus science” to justify demands for “drastic action right frickin’ now”.
Yes, and putting some societal investment into ways of using solar power to create replacements for those fossil fuels would be a very “low-regrets” way of dealing with the problem. Not to mention helping insure the value of investments into transport and power-generating technology for those fuels.
Brandon
“This is amazing because I have seen him (Appell) promote Lewandowsky’s conclusions many times even though those conclusions were based on a very non-random “population of responders.” It’s difficult to see how he could reconcile this.”
Not if you think of the possibility that the tub of lard is not being intellectually honest and is a polemicist, abeit one who generates a measurable gravity field.
DocMartyn, I was talking about R. Gates, not David Appell.
As for your explanation, that’s an obvious possibility. It doesn’t reconcile the two views I listed though. It just admits they’re irreconcilable and says he’s being intellectually dishonest.
Brandon
” And that’s why we’d see David Appell devoting a lot of energy to telling people who do say that they’re making baseless accusations.”
This claim you make about Appell is unclear. Can you please clarify what you meant by it.
After you clarify it, then we can get down to the support for it.
Then we can proceed to whether or not you owe him an apology as Springer thinks. Or maybe we all just misunderstood you and you didn’y lie as Appell asserts.
So, first things first. What does ” And that’s why we’d see David Appell devoting a lot of energy to telling people who do say that they’re making baseless accusations.” Mean or what did you mean by it.
Steven Mosher, I can’t help but note your decision not to explain how the link you offered might indicate I have misrepresented David Appell’s views. It seems cheeky to ask someone to clarify what they said while simultaneously refusing to clarify what you said.
Regardless I have to point out we cannot move on to whether or not I “owe him an apology as Springer thinks” because Springer doesn’t think I own him an apology. He thinks Tom Fuller does.
Similarly, clarifying the sentence you quoted would be pointless in establishing whether or not I lied as David Appell did not call that a lie. It was the comment after that one he labeled as having a lie.
I think it’d be pointless for me to clarify my remark when you clearly haven’t read what has been said. You may have looked at people’s comments, but it seems you wound up reading figments of your own imagination.
Try coming back once you’ve read harder.
(I expect Steven Mosher to promptly quit posting in this thread.)
Appell’s and Gates’ posturing was amusing, but the takeaway is that Lewandowsky is under the bus.
=======================
Hi Brandon,
Thank you for the link and for the tips about editing posting links. What I am really looking for is a link to a serious critique of the Cook and Lewabdowski works, and especially the “97% of climate scientist …” I’d like a link to a critique that has been fairly well accepted and is not easy to simply dismiss, even by those who would like to believe the Cook and Lewandowski work. Hs such a critique been published? Has their work been properly discredited in the peer reviewed scientific literature? Can you or anyone point me to one or two good links suitable links?
Brandon
“Steven Mosher, I can’t help but note your decision not to explain how the link you offered might indicate I have misrepresented David Appell’s views. It seems cheeky to ask someone to clarify what they said while simultaneously refusing to clarify what you said.”
How so?, the reason I used the word MIGHT is because there are two uncertainties
1. What you meant
2. What Appell meant
Since you made the first move , I get to ask for clarification of what you meant.
It’s easy. Clarify what you meant and then we can ask appell what he meant
and then we can decide. What I meant is very clear.
The link I provided Might indicate ( its not certain) that you misrepresented his views. Then again, it might not. It’s contingent on two things.
1 what your actual views are, 2 what his views are. That is the plain meaning
of what I wrote.
Since you seem unable to clarify what you meant lets take a stab at it
Here is what you wrote
“Fortunately, nobody would take these “kind of polls” seriously. That’s why we don’t see a massive number of people claiming skeptics are conspiracy theorists based off of one. And that’s why we’d see David Appell devoting a lot of energy to telling people who do say that they’re making baseless accusations.”
1. “Fortunately, nobody would take these “kind of polls” seriously. That’s why we don’t see a massive number of people claiming skeptics are conspiracy theorists based off of one. ”
We could take this statement as sarcasm. It’s unclear because
A) we dont know what you mean by massive
B) we do know that you took it seriously. You wrote a rebuttal.
Nobody rebuts a statement that the moon is made of green cheese.
2. And that’s why we’d see David Appell devoting a lot of energy to telling people who do say that they’re making baseless accusations.
You seem to be arguing that If people took them seriously, then we’d see
David Appell devoting a lot energy to telling people they were making baseless accusations.
This is also unclear. First the logic doesnt exactly follow. If David wanted to
let people know the polls were not to be taken seriously he doesnt have
to attack the conclusions, he can attack ( as he appears to ) the very
notion of polling these sorts of things. Second its unclear because we dont know what you mean by devoting “a lot” of energy.
It’s clear from the link that David has done some thinking about these kinds of polls, not the lewandowsky one in particular, but the SKS paper. And further its clear from reviewing his writing that he has referenced lewandowskis ideas.
So, you may have represented his views fairly. Next up we would Probe him
on the truthfullness of some of his statements about lewandowski. But you made a claim, we can start by getting clear on that. Sarcasm and hyperbole dont help much.. so lets clarify your argument about what Davids views are or should be. Then we can check that link and a bunch of other sources.
My claim is simple. You (depending on what you meant) Might (its not certain)
have misrepreseneted ( over simplified, ignored key aspects, etc) davids position ( which we will also have to pin down )
The link is a start. you’d have to follow a trail from it to other places, but before we begin that journey, its best to get clear on what YOU MEAN.
What I mean is clear. You might have misrepresented ( its hard not to ) his position. The link points to node in a network of comments and posts that may clarify his position. So now lets get clarity from you.
Doc M has got it right on apple:
“Not if you think of the possibility that the tub of lard is not being intellectually honest and is a polemicist, abeit one who generates a measurable gravity field.”
Brandon wins this one.
The wheels go thumpety-thump thump.
=============
Steven Mosher, if you keep fabricating aspects of conversations, we’ll never get anywhere:
You say you used the word “MIGHT,” emphasizing it to make a point, yet you didn’t actually use the word might. Your supposed reason for doing something couldn’t possibly be true if you didn’t do it.
You made things up about what David Springer said. You made things up about what David Appell said. You now make things up about what you yourself have said. You then have the audacity to claim:
There is nothing in any of my comments that would make it seem I’m unable to clarify the comment in question. All I’ve done is indicate it would be pointless to attempt to clarify something to a person who serially fabricates things about what has been said.
The fact you ignored your fabrications when they were pointed out to you merely reinforces this view. It’s either a blatant sign of intellectual dishonesty, or it’s a sign you’re incapable of following simple conversations.
And you portray yourself as more than good at the latter.
For those who believe reducing global GHG emissions is vitally important, and the world needs to make deep cuts to man made emissions, I ask how could this be achieved, from both a technical and political perspective?
Technically we have the technologies to make a good progress now and they would develop further and with future technologies can cut GHG emissions from fossil fuels virtually as much as we want. That’s the technical side.
The other side is the economics and therefore the politics. If the solutions are not economically viable there will not be the support for the politics to implement these technologies or continue with the policies that support them.
So, the people who are most concerned about cutting global emissions should, IMO, focus on how the world can implement policies that will be politically acceptable. That means they must be economically advantages to most groups in virtually all countries from the very start.
How could this be achieved? One obvious answer is with cheaper energy. That immediately rules out the policies that have been advocated to date such as: targets and timetable with penalties for breech of commitments, carbon pricing and subsidised renewable energy.
The policies that would succeed focus on providing cheaper energy. These policies should, IMO, be supported by those who are most keen to reduce global emissions.
I’ve many times pointed out that nuclear power is about the most prospective technology for making a major contribution for substituting for fossil fuel energy, especially, in the early stages, for electricity and heat. I’ve explained why I believe the costs of nuclear power have been greatly inflated as a result of the publics irrational fear of nuclear power caused by 50 years of vigorous anti-nuclear propaganda (especially by the environmental NGOs).
An additional way of cutting the cost of nuclear power I haven’t emphasised much in the past is by raising the public radiation safety limits. See this new brochure published this week and then we can discuss what raising the limit could mean for reducing the cost of nuclear power:
http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf
Excerpt from the last two sections:
“ RADIATION POLITICS
Exposure limits that were set by LNT theory
ignore observed low-level radiation effects.
Public radiation safety limits have become
more restrictive, from 150 mSv/y (1948) to
5 mSv/y (1957) to 1 mSv/y (1991).
These rules are political and inconsistent.
Nuclear workers are allowed 50 mSv/y, and
astronauts 500 mSv/y. EPA’s limit for indoor
radon is 8 mSv/y, but 0.04 mSv/y for tritium in
drinking water. EPA limits Yucca Mountain
exposure to < 0.1 mSv/y for 10,000 years.
The LNT fallacy that any radiation can kill you
led to the ALARA principle (as low as
reasonably achievable). But achievability is
based on ever-changing technology capability,
not health effects. LNT and ALARA ratchet
limits lower and increase costs and fear.
Radiation is safe within limits.
An evidence-based radiation safety limit would
be 100 mSv/y. Ending LNT and ALARA rules
will enable the full environmental and
economic benefits of green nuclear power.”
Since people frequently argue for evidenced based policies, I would expect they should support a change to the limits from ALARA to ‘as high as reasonably safe’ (AHARS) radiation safety limits based on science.
The problem is that the public does not equate a lost quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) due to radiation exposure to a lost QALY from, say, a natural-gas explosion. It believes that the former is worse than the latter. You can try to argue that this is “irrational” but all preferences, including those for chocolate over vanilla and vice versa, are equally irrational (or rather arational). It might be possible to make headway by convincing people that while they feel, say, twice as bad about radiation-induced QALY losses as about those from fossil fuels or solar or wind, the actual policy we have imposes 10 or 100 times the safety costs on radiation risks.
Good point, Steve. And consider what the benefits could be from increasing the limit.
Attempts to explain the radiation facts of life are confounded by the extremely confusing multiple units of measurement and then the tendency to come off as a smarty-pants know-it-all when you use striking facts to point out the yawning gap between popular perception and facts. For example, the argument that Grand Central Station couldn’t have been licensed as a nuclear power plant because its granite blocks emit too much radiation usually gets a reaction but doesn’t really change opinions. After Fukushima, nerd-cartoonist extraordiaire xkcd tried to put things into perspective here
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
and clarified some stuff later here
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/04/26/radiation-chart-update/
But I don’t think this type of thing reached the masses and in any case doesn’t really compare radiation to non-radiation risks.
Steve,
I agree with all that.
However, let’s just suppose for a moment, that the IAEA representatives from countries like USA, Canada, UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Russia, China, Korea and Japan agreed to increase the limit based on scientific facts. What effect might such a change have?
Could it be a real game changer? Could it be the catalyst for a massive change in public perception of the risks and therefore a change in public support? It would certainly help if there were appropriate public education campaigns in countries that already use nuclear power. And that’s where the change needs to begin. It would greatly help if the environmental NGOs, or even one of them initially, could be persuaded to drop their opposition and become advocates.
Peter “Nukey” Lang wants to relax radiation safety limits to keep nuclear power from being overshadowed by wind power and solar power. He isn’t worried about future generations growing tails and glowing in the dark. And why should he be worried. At his advanced age, greater exposure to radiation won’t have time to affect his longevity.
Peter,
The best way to show people like MaxOCS is to show them a pie chart of energy like Willis Eschenbach does to Bill McKibben here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/15/james-hansens-policies-are-shafting-the-poor/#comment-1249300
“It would greatly help if the environmental NGOs, or even one of them initially, could be persuaded to drop their opposition and become advocates.”
—–
Yep, that would just be swell, wouldn’t it. But it ain’t gonna happen.
Canman,
Thanks you for the link to Willis excellent comment. It’s good to know there are others quietly working away to try to reduce the fear of nuclear energy.
The source of Willis’s chart is here: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=total+world+energy+consumption+by+source&rlz=1C1CHNU_enAU490AU490&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jGLjUvtCg6qRBYj_gYAB&ved=0CDUQsAQ#imgdii=_
@ Peter Lang
“For those who believe reducing global GHG emissions is vitally important, and the world needs to make deep cuts to man made emissions, I ask how could this be achieved, from both a technical and political perspective?”
Good question, but I go back one step and ask ‘Why?’.
A. If we make NO energy decisions based on their ACO2 signature and simply satisfy our energy requirements by using the most expedient and economical sources available, including nuclear, what will the ‘Temperature of the Earth (TOE)’ be in 50 years? 100 years?
B. If we postulate technical and political feasibility and actually make the deep cuts to man made emissions that we are told are necessary to ‘save the planet and its biosphere’, by whatever means and on whatever schedule deemed necessary, what will the TOE be in 50 years? 100 years?
C. Why is the temperature realized by case B preferable to that of case A?
D. What evidence can you provide that the case A temperatures and case B temperatures will be measurably different?
So far, the closest that I have come to getting answers is being told that ‘revenue neutral carbon taxes’ have been very successful in various venues. The criteria cited as proof of success have varied but none related to their efficacy in lowering the planetary temperature.
Prof Nate Lewis of Cal Inst Tech said in 2005 that “14,000 1 GWe fission reactors – 1 new reactor/day for 38 years” would be needed to meet the Worlds then energy need. Has this changed?
R Gretsy,
It depends on what you mean by “world’s energy needs”. You need to understand what that means first. It is not correct for electricity. For electricity, and to substitute for coal fired generation, we’d need about which is what nuclear supplies, we’d need about 1200 GW operarting at average 85% capacity factor (i.e for baseload). That’s 1200 not 14,000, and it they’d be built to supply new demand and replace the coal fired power station at the end of their lives when they have to be replaced or when it is cheaper to replace them with nuclear power.
The other thing you need to recognise is that only viable alternative to nuclear is to stick with fossil fuels (for electricity generation). Renewables are not a viable alternative to fossil fuels and unlikely to be become viable in the foireseeable future, if ever (except as fringe suppliers and in remote locations for a very small proportion of world energy supply).
If you think renewables is a viable option you need to ber able to answer these quesitons:
1. How many GW of capacity of renewables would be required to supply the worlds energy?
2. How sustainable are renewables (e.g. how much materials is required per TWh of electricity supplied through their life) and compare that with nuclea?. How much mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, decomissoning, etc per TWh for renewables v nuclear?
3. How much land area would be required v nuclear?
I urge you to ask your self those question then go an look them up for your self.
If you want to see a comparison of the costs of a mostly nuclear versus mostly renewable energy system, have a loom at Figure 6 here http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf . It compares the capital cost, cost of electricity, CO2 abatement cost and (in Figure 5) the emission intensity from the whole system. The nuclear system is much cheaper and more reliable.
Thought I’d better give the reference for Nate Lewis quote
http://science.energy.gov/~/media/bes/pdf/reports/files/seu_rpt.pdf
The January 24, 2014 issue of Science – Perspective has an information / opinion piece on “The Climate Effect of Clouds – Aerosols” by Daniel Rosenfeld, Steven Sherwood, Robert Wood and Leo Donner.
The piece beings saying “Aerosols counteract part of the warming effects of greenhouse gases, mostly by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to space. However, the ways in which aerosols affect climate through their interaction with clouds are complex and incompletely captured by climate models. As a result, the radiative forcing (that is, the perturbation to Earth’s energy budget) caused by human activities is highly uncertain, making it difficult to predict the extent of global warming ( 1, 2). Recent advances have led to a more detailed understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and their effects on climate, but further progress is hampered by limited observational capabilities and coarse-resolution climate models.”
The opening paragraph basically says the following:
1. Aerosols basically “counteract” the warming effects of greenhouse gases. The wording is important because it holds to the line that greenhouse gases and their effect on atmospheric warming are continuing to increase (… the official IPCC story line) except that the extent of warming is being mitigated by negative “forcing” from aerosols.
2. We do not understand the effect aerosols but they are obviously important. The models are lousy re the effect / mechanism of aerosols / clouds and they are unable to quantify in order to account for their effect in any prediction.
The first point may be true. But the IPCC position that the prediction of warming from GHGs still holds true but we are just going through a spell (hiatus) with no warming and the observed lack of prediction by the models is merely the unquantified effect of the negative forcings, cif as per the chart reproduced here http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/1125.jpg
implies they are the effect of the negative forcings is equal to i.e., offsets the GHG effect during the hiatus period but they then conveniently predict this offset will not continue into the future – even though they do not understand the mechanism of aerosols/clouds (which they said in the first sentence !) It is a contradiction, also a logical fallacy. Nevertheless the confidence in the attribution is raised from 90% very certain to 95% extremely certain. So how can it be?
…but we are just going through a spell (hiatus) with no warming
Actually, we are going through a spell with a great deal of warming:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/01/is-ocean-heat-content-accelerating.html
So what is causing it?
In the last two years or so — correction requested if this is off base — my red is that most of the aerosol literature says that reflective aerosol effects are real but of less importance than had once been thought. These would be mostly organic carbon and sulfate, the reflective aerosols. Inconvenient, with regard to a possible explanation for the pause.
Even the Trenberths of this world point to model-derived possible warmth hiding in the deep oceans, instead of pointing to aerosols as having much to do with the 16 year pause.
Danley Wolfe
It appears that the authors of the paper you cite have the anthropocentric belief that all changes in cloud cover are a result of human aerosol emissions, i.e. it’s humans whodunit.
Then it appears to me that they are using this silly assumption to argue that warming from human GHG emissions would actually have been much greater had there not been the human aerosol emissions, suggesting that this might even explain the otherwise puzzling “hiatus”.
But, since we all know that aerosol emissions are real pollution and bad for human health, they will eventually be banned globally and the GHG warming will resume “with a vengeance”.
IOW, It’s worse than we thought!
Duh!
Max
David Appell is playing the old “shell and pea” game again: now you see it, now you don’t.
(All based on non-existing OHC data.)
The fact of the matter is that we have no meaningful data on OHC prior to ARGO in 2003.
The first few years of ARGO data showed a very slight net cooling of the ocean (Willis’ “speed bump”). The ARGO data were then corrected to show a very slight net warming (whew!).
But we only have 10 years of data, which tell us that the “upper ocean” warmed by 0.015C since 2003.
Huh?
Max.
The fact of the matter is that we have no meaningful data on OHC prior to ARGO in 2003.
The fact of the matter is that just 9 years of data shows that the top half of the world ocean is warming strongly (0.54 W/m2), a number that is statistically significant (and perhaps even accelerating).
This isn’t especially surprising — the ocean is far and away the best place to look for the kind of energy imbalance that GHGs create.
The US Navy, along with the rest of the world’s navies, has been taking accurate measurements of the oceans for decades. Operating Sonar requires a knowledge of the temperature of the seawater.
So start there.
With just 9 years of data, it is hard to sell the idea that it is unprecedented warming. Unless you are 9 years old.
David Appell
How many degrees did the upper ocean warm and how was this measured?
Thanks for a reply.
Max
JCH wrote:
The US Navy, along with the rest of the world’s navies, has been taking accurate measurements of the oceans for decades.
And it’s exactly those kind of measurements that have been included in the Levitus historical dataset, as this NOAA Atlas describes:
http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds285.0/docs/wod05_introduction.pdf
manacker wrote:
How many degrees did the upper ocean warm and how was this measured?
What makes you thing “degrees” is the most useful unit here?
It isn’t. The most relevant unit (i.e. telling) for purposes of climate is Watts per square meter.
“…but we are just going through a spell (hiatus) with no warming
Actually, we are going through a spell with a great deal of warming:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/01/is-ocean-heat-content-accelerating.html
So what is causing it?”
—–
It is very likely the human carbon volcano of course, as there is no other known forcing that could cause such a continuous warming over so many decades.
The OHC increase is proceeding exactly as predicted by all the other measures of temperature increase:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
As long as the ocean continues to absorb 1 w/m^2 of heat, this is consistent with the CO2 control knob hypothesis. There is no missing heat and likely never was.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | January 25, 2014 at 11:04 am |
“As long as the ocean continues to absorb 1 w/m^2 of heat, this is consistent with the CO2 control knob hypothesis. There is no missing heat and likely never was.”
Levitus (2012) found 0 – 2000m OHC increase from 1955 through 2010 to be 2.4 x 10^23 Joules which corresponds to a volume mean warming of 0.09C and forcing factor of 0.39 W/m2.
Where do you get the 1W/m2 number for OHC increase?
@wht
The only way the recent OHC increase could possibly support the CO2 control knob hypothesis is if you assume that the climate was in equilibrium in the recent past. This is an extremely unlikely assumption if you look at the ice core records over the Quaternary. You might be able to find an argument for some sort of quasi-equilibrium climate state happening during periods of glaciation. I doubt very much you could do the same for the inter-glacial periods.
From Trenberth gives 0.9 w/m^2 which is the entire earth, I think.
I go to my own analysis, because like RG, I am a true skeptic.
http://imageshack.com/a/img28/5500/rpf.gif
This is a model fit to the Levitus data and it adds in the expected diffusion to depths that can’t be measured, adding a +20% correction.
This comes out to about 1 w/m^2. Looking at it again, it may by more accurate to say that it is 0.9 w/m^2, which I guess is a blunder on my part.
Knock yourself out if you want to assume the number is something different. See how much it adds or detracts from a consistent picture.
David Appell, repeat 100 times. Yes, CO2 is a GHG, but it is not a control knob and warming has been insignificant.
Since 1880, the warming has been 1.36C on land and 0.71C on the ocean surface, all due to CO2 acting as a control knob.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
Whether this is “insignificant” or not is not a scientific question, it is an opinion made by someone named “BOB”.
David Appell
You ask:
Duh!
Because it’s the unit that’s being measured, that’s why.
Max
I think it’s delicious that Science! devotees who supposedly rely on cold, hard facts for their worldview, are such disciples of AGW, which is entirely a steaming pile of imaginary dung.
I mean, if you were raging Pendulum Physics Groupies or Vintage Test Tube Collectors, I’d say, “Nerdy but Real. Props to you.” Instead, Warmers are Babbling Internet Orphans who have willingly surrendered what little brain they began with.
Andrew
Funny…or sad actually…I just saw that old movie again with Spencer Tracy as Thomas Edison on TCM. At one point one of the scientists who were deeply skeptical and likely jealous of Edison’s light bulb with which the inventor was still struggling, cried out joyfully, “Edison is finished as he’s claimed something that can’t be true. That is the surest road to ruin for any scientist.” Or words to that effect.
These days they give they just give the liars tenure.
Check out the young energy philosopher Alex Epstein, who on Stossel last night made a moral case for fossil fuels: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html?inf_contact_key=f5b7ba6b34d480b512c034c4466c3298cc94e520dec799a3c2f6639ec9bed3ba.
He is writing a book on the subject that will get a lot of promo when it comes out next year.
Mr. Enron, I heard this Epstein character on talk radio the other day. He understands squat about energy.
Webby
Puts him on a par with you.
Max
Spain spent $4.85M per green job created versus Obama who spent over $11M per green job created since 2009. Who has the better formula for economic success, Spain or the Democrats?
Wagathon
You should reword that:
Who has the
betterless absurd formula for economic success, Spain or the Democrats?Max
…or, who will go over the cliff first?
But, the rich.
Sorry, I’m channelling Willard.
Keith Kloor (discover blogs collide a scape) has an interesting post, noting that Europe is the last gaggle to accept the “iron law” of climate policy. I think that leaves the Guardian and the two or three remaining peak oilers who haven’t accepted reality. And the former is just getting home from being stuck in the ice. Delicious!
Waggy, I don’t know where you got those numbers, but if they are true it means American green is less labor intensive than Spanish green, which is a good thing. Be proud to be American.
“Clearly, in terms of ‘bang for the buck,’ government programs that coddle renewable energy are losers,” the report stated. “In terms of jobs, the losers are the American workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed but for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars on the administration’s obsession with ‘green energy.’”
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/05/09/report-energy-dept-spent-more-than-11m-per-green-job-created/
Oh you mean the few remaining peak oilers who haven’t figured out that we are already past peak in world-wide crude oil production?
What is keeping the plateau in production going is an ever increasing price to meet the demand.
http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u673/images/2013/world-crude-oil-production-and-price.jpg
You would think with that kind of price, that the production would increase.
If it wasn’t for the transient supply of tight oil in the USA and Canada, we would be down considerably.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | January 25, 2014 at 11:21 am |
“You would think with that kind of price, that the production would increase.”
That drives down price. There’s a balancing act going on. Liquifaction of coal or gas is competitive with oil at $80/bbl. However it takes billions and billions of dollars and many years of construction to get a big liquifaction plant online. So long as there’s room to increase production of crude oil, and do it quickly, a liquifaction plant can be put out of business by predatory pricing of crude.
There doesn’t appear to be much interest in nuclear power due to the abundance of natural gas made economically recoverable by new and improved extraction. Combined cycle natural gas plants are already cheaper than nuclear power by half and with NG prices falling the competitive situation just gets worse. Nukes and liquifaction plants require insanely large amounts of capital put to risk up front with no way of knowing whether technological advance in the decades it takes to amortize the capital will make them uncompetitive and hence unprofitable.
Trend start dates do matter, but for the MSU era ( 35 years ),
all major observed temperature trends are lower than that of the LOW scenario C:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraTemperatures.png
At the same time, emissions have been at a HIGH scenario:
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/CO2Emissions/TimeBombFig16.gif
How could that be?
Well, one factor is that actual forcing has decelerated:
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f5_online.jpg
That’s because greenhouse gases other than CO2 decelerated rapidly and the portion of CO2 which remains airborne was not as large as modeled.
Al Bedo
Yeah.
And Hansen’s model Case “C” ASS-U-MEd that there would be no further CO2 emissions after 2000.
And even this model projection is slightly higher than the actual observed record, despite unabated human GHG emissions (slightly higher than those ASS-U-MEd by Hansen for his Case “A”).
Problem is that Hansen used an ASS-U-MEd CO2 temperature response that was exaggerated by a factor of two.
Max
No assumptions MAnacker.
I use the temperature data up to 1950 and can project the pause that eventually arrived:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
How does that happen? Of course it is mainly due to Curry”s natural variations !
Cool!
If you can project the pause to date you can project its end too, right?
So when will the pause end?
Nice Webby! I’m with Springer, if using data to 1950 allowed you to forecast to 2014, then using data to 2014 you should be able to forecast out to 2078. So let’s see it now so we can track the skill of your model!
And then let us know what odds you are offering on bets that your forecast is accurate.
WebHubTelescope:I use the temperature data up to 1950 and can project the pause that eventually arrived:
That’s good, but when you first developed and estimated the model you already knew that the pause had arrived. I take it you are treating “the pause” as real. Perhaps you can answer my question: If there is no heating in the troposphere and surface, how has an increase in CO2 produced an increase in deep ocean temperature? How does the increase in CO2 warm the distant ocean but not the adjacent surface and troposphere?
You and R. Gates have written on and on without answering that question about recent changes and non-changes.
What are you asking? You treat it like something unaccountably strange is happening.
Dramatic reenactment: “Oh my god, my fan-less PC without a heat-sink attached to the CPU is getting incredibly hot! I don’t know how that can happen!.”
Perhaps it is because you don’t understand thermal physics and diffusion?
Betting is for the kiddies at The Blackboard, with their Monopoly “quatloo” money.
The fact is that that there was a pause from 1940 to past 1970, and this would have been a cooling without CO2. So the underlying warming trend has always been there.
Webby
Yeah.
But Hansen was off by a factor of 2:1 (because his model used a CO2 temperature response that was too high by this factor).
CO2 actually increased by more than Hansen’s Case A, but temperature increased by less than his (no further CO2) Case C.
All the rationalizations in this world aren’t going to change that.
Max
Ok Webby, so you’re not confident enough to bet. So how about showing us the projection from 2014 to 2078 then, no bets required?
Certainly you’re confident enough in your outstanding model to do that, right?
This three minute video recording of light of different wavelengths (energy) coming from the Sun (Earth’s heat source) over a three year period reveals
1. Featureless, tranquil images of low energy radiation that come from the fluid photosphere of waste products (H and He), and
2. Violently uneven images of high energy radiation that come from the Sun’s heterogeneous interior.
http://mobile.news.com.au/technology/science/scientists-baffled-as-sun-activity-falls-to-century-low/story-fnjwlcze-1226805090679
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the entire climate-change debate is not the scientific questions that it presents, but the social dynamics it reveals.
I would never have guessed 20 years ago that a scientific question would arise that would have some suggesting that people should be put in jail for having the wrong opinion. I did not expect David Suzuki to morph into Trofim Lysenko,
Interesting. Do you have a link to Suzuki saying that?
Suzuki called for the jailing of Canadian politicians at something called McGill Business Conference on Sustainability (groan) in 2008.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Some spokesperson immediately after said it was not to be taken literally etc etc and I really doubt that Suzuki cares about his own pronouncements after they have made the desired sensation.
Judging by his performance in Australia recently, I’d say Suzuki has the attention span of an aphid. Even earnest alarmists were surprised by his evasiveness and ignorance of the most basic matters – and you wouldn’t believe how basic.
Lysenko was evil but capable. Suzuki is just some airhead who is out to make more jet trails than all the Kardashians and Hiltons put together.
Where is the proof of what Suzuki said? I’m interested, but would need proof….
Even earnest alarmists were surprised by his evasiveness and ignorance of the most basic matters – and you wouldn’t believe how basic.
How basic?
Appell.
http://greenliving.about.com/od/greenlivingbasics/a/David-Suzuki.htm
“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,”
The statement, made and applauded at the conference, wasn’t filmed or recorded as far as I know but it’s been reported over and over many times. It was in reference to the tarsands and such matters. It has never been denied or recanted, but, as I said, an official spokesperson said not to take it “literally” – so I won’t!. I certainly wouldn’t make too much of it, since many skeptics, idly or stupidly, say similar things about leading warmists. I’m a skeptic and I don’t want to see Suzuki sued, jailed, prosecuted or silenced. (It would be like shooting Bambi in his case.)
As for the lamentable showing in Oz, I won’t direct you to skeptic sites, where some bias will be inevitable. You can draw your own conclusions by watching him on the thoroughly leftist and alarmist ABC. I can’t check because of limited band width out here in the bush, but I’m assuming this is the same thing I saw on TV:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3841115.htm
Mosher, never give a link to a Crusher. They’ll just pretend they didn’t follow it. Here’s the quote: “What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act.”
http://greenliving.about.com/od/greenlivingbasics/a/David-Suzuki.htm
Suzuki is wrong — in my opinion.
I agree with him that “the debate is over about whether or not climate change is real,” but I hardly think we should throw political leaders in jail for denying it. I think they’re very unwise — or, at least, bought off — but I don’t see any grounds for throwing them in jail.
Sometimes the world does stupid things. This is one of them. Others will pay for our neglect.
If Suzuki didn’t say that kind of stuff, he wouldn’t get invited to do so many lectures. Unfortunately, that’s what it takes.
David Appell invokes the shade of Schneider, you have to say things that can’t be taken literally in order to be invited to so many lectures.
===============
“If Suzuki didn’t say that kind of stuff, he wouldn’t get invited to do so many lectures. Unfortunately, that’s what it takes.”
Have you ever asked yourself why that has to be the case? Why is it necessary to use such hyperbole? What kind of audience would support that idea? This argument cuts both ways…. Why is it necessary to distort reality or use hyperbole to get invited to lecture? Why are we letting extremist ideology on both sides control the pulpit?
David Appell, here is a post Suzuki wrote as well, entitled “Climate Change Deniers Don’t Deserve an Equal Voice”:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-suzuki/climate-change-deniers_b_3984750.html
Doesn’t your mind tell you that if one side of an argument starts this type of rhetoric (and he’s not the only one, by far), that their case must not be a strong one? These are the tactics of dictators and despots.
Regarding aerosols and other fine particulate pollutants (as those from a large volcanic eruption), their effect is to cause well-documented planetary cooling. When they eventually settle out, natural warming occurs–due to greater insolation– to pre-eruption levels.
The Clean Air Act and other similar efforts abroad had the same effect, causing the 1975-2000 warming, and the “pause”, where no further significant cleansing of the air is taking place (or is being offset by the rising massive pollution from the East)
“Climate change” is actually far simpler than most will acknowledge
I would agree ! Even a climate hobbyist such as myself can simplify the models to the degree that it all makes sense, while also being consistent with the consensus.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
I’d like to see what the consensus models put out if they assume 75% of ’70’s to 90’s warming was due to natural ocean cycles. What range pf sensitivities does that result in? Fascinating to me that possibility was so willfuly ignored.
How do you know that possibility was ignored if you don’t know what the models actually say?
I don’t think we can take David Appell literally.
================
Now for a change of pace, here’s a nice piece of research indicting why the certainty of human influence on the climate is so high, and the human contribution more than 50% since 1950:
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/43/17235.full.pdf?with-ds=yes
Thank you, R. Gates.
Looks like they finally got rid of that troublesome hot spot.
All of a sudden …
Tipping El Ninos harder as Pacific sensor array output ‘collapses’
But the performance of the moored devices, which take atmospheric readings and monitor conditions down to 500 metres below the sea’s surface, has fallen to about 40 per cent since 2012, according to the the climate observation director of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, David Legler.
That is affecting the ability of forecasters and climate modellers, including those in Australia, to predict extreme weather patterns.
. . .
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tipping-el-ninos-harder-as-pacific-sensor-array-output-collapses-20140122-318q4.html
Those claiming ‘95% certainty’ might want to re-think that.
As for changing the economy based on “settled science” …
It seems like not a day goes by without a wrong estimate about oil and gas production. Here is one.
From the article:
The U.S. Energy Information Administration late last year put out a white paper that talked about how gas production is becoming more efficient. But this white paper did not include the Barnett Shale, which is in steep decline now. It’s true, efficiencies have been gained over the last several years, such as the way fracking has changed, and operators are becoming more efficient in fracking, with longer laterals. But what is really happening is the completion of the inventory of previously drilled wells.
********
The date of this article is Jan. 21, 2014 8:47 AM ET.
So, what about the data? We only have nat gas data for the Barnett through October, 2013. There was some cold weather in December that could have hampered production, but the Barnett is in Texas. Texas doesn’t get all that cold, even in a cold winter. So, I think it’s safe to say that production for November and December was done at the same rate as the previous months of 2013. After that adjustment, 2013 comes in with 6426 million cubic feet per day. 2012 was 5728 and 2011 was 5,666.
I guess the guy in the first article has some special definition of decline. Maybe it like the Congress’ definition of spending cut – it’s been cut but it still goes up.
I just don’t get the peak oil (gas) people. Sure, it is a finite resource, but they still can’t predict production. Those two items are apples and oranges.
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/barnettshale/NewarkEastField_1993-2013.pdf
You are right jim2, the experts at EIA can’t seem to predict crude oil production!
http://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/eia-oil-production-forecasts-continously-revised-downward.png
Every year they have to revise their projections downward.
Whereas the scientific-based analysis seems to get the depletion correct!
Science usually wins, dashing the economists wishes for an endless supply of crude.
The data wins. Every time.
Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 23% since 1950. All other things being equal, an increase in CO2 is supposed to be beneficial to many plants and result in increased yields. Does more CO2 also change the quality of what the plants give us to eat?
First, I would like to ask old timers if they have noticed any of the following changes in fruit and vegetables since the 1950’s:
1. Increase or decrease in size (e.g. tomatoes are larger)
2. Changes in color and/or shape ( I can’t think of an example) )
3. Changes in flavor and/or texture (e.g., bananas used to taste better)
Second, I would like your opinion on whether the increase in atmospheric CO2 caused any of the changes you remember.
I can imagine it’s not easy to recall so far back, and I fear many people will have trouble remembering what anything looked like or tasted like 60 years ago, but I hope I’m wrong.
t
I am by no means an authority on the science of climate, but based on what I have seen & read, I am of the opinion that the science is nothing more than a cargo cult.
I would have had more respect for those in the field if they had also stated the shortcomings of the theory. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It appears to me that the warmist were so afraid that they wouldn’t be able to defend their theory that they decided to forgo scientific method and use the bluff instead.
“The science was settled” they said.
“We have a consensus” they said.
That sent my BS meter to full scale deflection.
They never questioned their own theory, at least not publicly. They avoided public debate, refused to release their data, accused their critics of being kooks or shills for big oil & coal.
Even a simpleton like myself can see that’s not science. It looks a bit like science, but it isn’t.
but then, I’m just some yobbo… what the hell would I know…
Rob H. says: “Even a simpleton like myself can see that’s not science.”
_______
You are not alone. Many skeptics here are simpletons.
What “shortcomings of the theory?”
Max_OK, Citizen Scientist wrote:
You are not alone. Many skeptics here are simpletons.
Ha. +1
I don’t get it, but Rob H does.
=========
@ Rob H.
“but then, I’m just some yobbo… what the hell would I know…”
Well, you obviously have a pretty good handle on ‘Climate Science’.
I didn’t know that science is a cargo cult. In case you didn’t notice, climate science is nothing more than physics and chemistry (and chemistry is nothing more than physics).
So what you are saying is that all of physics is a cargo cult. How quaintly Victorian.
There’s a lot more than that to it. The real science, that is.
Straw Man Alert!
Max said:
“Waggy, I don’t know where you got those numbers, but if they are true it means American green is less labor intensive than Spanish green, which is a good thing. Be proud to be American.”
Be proud to be less efficient, I can’t think of a better example of liberal economic theory.
If the kid down the street raises the price of mowing my lawn from $10 to $12 it has not changed the labor at all, just the cost.
harkin, Waggy posted the propaganda of a fossil- fuel promoting pollution-for-profit organization that would find little good in anything green. I countered with propaganda about how capital-intensive is better than labor-intensive, which it is if you believe the higher the productivity the better, and output per man-hour is your measure of productivity.
In fairness to Max I think he’s saying I should be proud to subsidize a government program to cut lawns using solar powered robot helicopter mowers.
That sounds like something Amazon.com is working on.
Oh yeah, the reason I came to this thread…
JC – any opinion on this:
Tidal energy to power half of Scotland
https://theconversation.com/tidal-energy-to-power-half-of-scotland-22231
Seems like a pretty bold statement
Harkin, neither TC or the source (University of Edinburgh) has any information regarding potential costs of infrastructure or resultant energy prices. Any potential tide energy is of no value unless it is economically viable.
There isn’t enough info at the U of E site to make any kind of assessment of the claim that such amounts of power could be provided. Tidal energy has been suggested in many parts of the UK, e.g. the Severn Estuary (Tony Brown might be able to comment), I don’t know whether any have overcome doubts and viability tests. That said, the Scottish option seems to have more sea energy to work with.
Tidal, wave and ocean thermal supply 0.001% of global energy.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=total+world+energy+consumption+by+source&rlz=1C1CHNU_enAU490AU490&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jGLjUvtCg6qRBYj_gYAB&ved=0CDUQsAQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=31ISzEXqIeColM%253A%3BxEhADR0hr1E3NM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fupload.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252Ff%252Ff0%252FTotal_World_Energy_Consumption_by_Source_2011.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcommons.wikimedia.org%252Fwiki%252FFile%253ATotal_World_Energy_Consumption_by_Source_2011.png%3B1960%3B840
R. Gates the non-skeptical warmist. David Appell, Joshua, lollywot, Max_callow, cub reporter, WHT…just about any warmist I can think of….not a likable personality among them. What a rogues gallery of nasty people.
Not a wit or a poet or anyone I’d care to have a beer with. No one I’d even care to be in the same room with.
It just can’t be a coincidence.
This is about science, not companionship. Find your friends elsewhere.
Pokerguy,
We are all quite sad you no longer want to be in our fan clubs. We’ll all hoist a beer to your leaving– and then we’ll continue on with actual science, such as:
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/353/art%253A10.1007%252Fs00382-010-0984-y.pdf?auth66=1390745595_d503851edf095982322185fd7b040756&ext=.pdf
There surely is a place for them in NY!
It’s partially because of an intentional strategy. People on that “side” have openly discussed their desire to try to marginalize the people who disagree with them. A group can’t do that while have open and friendly discussions with their targets. As such, members who might not be participating in the marginalization should be prevented from having such discussions.
I’ve seen that done on this site in two ways: 1) They sabotage discussions by posting useless comments intended only to disrupt things. 2) They abuse the people you might get along with to bully them into staying away from you.
Or at least, that’s my impression. I could have misjudged things. I usually don’t think much about people’s motivations.
“I could have misjudged things.”
——
Indeed.
I’m a member of the Nasty Jerks’ Club, and our purpose is to marginalize anyone who isn’t a nasty jerk.
HA HA ! I love it.
You just don’t get David Appell; he caricatures himself regularly, all very subtly. Funniest guy on the internet.
======
pokerguy, don’t make assumptions about their personalities based on what they write here. They are part of the self-appointed Crusher Crew, alarmist blog commentes who flit from blog to blog, determined to crush any resistance to their religion. They volunteer for specific blogs, although they do travel between them.
Just be thankful the more obnoxious of them–such as BBD, Secular Animist, ad tedium, don’t hang out here. It could be much worse.
You can tell the difference between the Crusher Crew and actual commenters, such as Andrew Adams, in a hot second. Just pretend you’re a patient dog owner. Let them mark their territory and proceed onwards.
There goes the Fuller Brush Man, going door-to-door selling his concern troll attitude.
Smarm vs Snark
The recursive duel
Yes, but arrogance.
Errorgance
See how they crucified me
You religious bigot
Willard’s the only one from that persuasion I can abide. So clearly he’s doing something wrong.
Tom Fuller, are you sure they’re all part of the Crusher Crew, or that that is still even a thing? I know I read about the idea a while back, but I didn’t pay attention to who was supposed to be part of it or how much effort they actually put into it.
“They are part of the self-appointed Crusher Crew, alarmist blog commentes who flit from blog to blog, determined to crush any resistance to their religion. They volunteer for specific blogs, although they do travel between them.”
This strikes me as so much b.s.i, much like the alarmists swearing that skeptics are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, though not quite as bad. And even it it’s true I don’t care. Let them be the ones seeing conspiracies behind every corner.
pokerguy, I’ve never cared much about the supposed “Crusher Crew,” but I did find it amusing to read people in the Skeptical Science forums openly discussing plans to drown out people whose views they don’t like. The most amusing part to me was this comment by Rob Honeycutt:
He envisioned a hundred or more people acting in a coordinated effort to do this. I can’t imagine that would ever happen, but can you imagine if it did?
you forgot Moshpit
> Willard’s the only one from that persuasion I can abide.
Dudes abide, Poker.
I owe you a White Russian, if you ever come near Montreal.
Be proud to hoist one or two with you, Willard,though better make mine a club soda. Mosher too, whom I unforgivably and unaccountably left off my good guy list.
David Appell:
“This is about science, not companionship. Find your friends elsewhere.”
http://www.gala-ben.com/up/uploads/1385744439922.jpg
@Brandon: “He envisioned a hundred or more people acting in a coordinated effort to do this. I can’t imagine that would ever happen, but can you imagine if it did?”
Truthfully Brandon, I can’t get too worked up about it, maybe because I can easily picture a bunch of skeptics plotting the same thing Of course it would never work as skeptics can’t comment on those sites for the most part. Come to think of it, if you hang around that fetid, warmist swamp of Revkins, it’s a favorite conspiracy theory among the alarmists, that the skeptics comments are part of an organized effort. Some of them are also convinced the skeptics are also paid. It’s a profoundly depressing place all things considered.
@ordvic | January 25, 2014 at 8:07 pm |
That link appears to be a Middle Eastern site and attempts to run malware.
Just to add, at least Revkin doesn’t censor. I admire him for that.
Giant asteroid headed for Earth — look up around March 21, 2014. Global warming alarmists say, “Humanity has it coming.”
Yeah, I hope it hits some humanity. Too bad the odds are so bad. It’ll hit some ocean and the ARGO floats won’t even see float to the bottom.
Listen to the scientists, it’s not going to hit.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077740
Realistically, could there ever have been any real danger if simply electing Obama was all that was needed to stop the seas from rising?
Here is what I would like to get a sense of. The recent stdy on Atlantic and Pacific ocean heat contents being .64 degrees “C” warmer than today in the MWP, and with a heat content of a Kg of water being nearly 4X that of a KG of atmosphere, and there being about 500X mass of oceans vs. atmosphere, why are we worried about ocean heat content? Full stop, Period.
The combined ocean atmospheric energy in the MWP by this study is vastly more than today. Explain it. Why is anyone concerned?
Or, the study was wrong. Why is it wrong? It had the right AGW soundbites.
We can only give the concept of an ‘average global temperature’ meaning if we are honest in its use.
For example, we cannot prove human-CO2 is causing global warming based on the concept of an ‘average global temperature.’ We can, however, use the concept to prove it is meaningless to that application.
For example, what do the Minoan, Roman, and medieval warm periods have in common? Current global temperatures are 5°F cooler than these previous warm periods. Similarly, we can use the same concept of ‘average global temperature’ to also demonstrate we currently are heading into a period of global cooling instead of global warming.
Here’s a letter The Australian didn’t run, might be of interest here. TIm Wilson of the IPA has been a force for freedom in Australia, his appointment as human rights commissioner for freedom caused outrage on the left. The abuse they heaped on him far exceeded what they would castigate from a right-winger.
“The values embraced by Tim Wilson have their origins in Anglo-Saxon England (“Narrow focus confuses intent,” 23/1). To quote from Dan Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom – how the English-speaking peoples made the modern world,” “From that era came three inter-related concepts that were to transform human-kind. First, the idea of personal autonomy, including in contract and property rights; second, the notion that collective decisions ought to be made by representatives who are answerable to the community as a whole; third, the conception of the law as something more than a projection of the wishes of the ruler, as a folkright of inherited freedoms that bound the King just as surely as it bound his meanest subject.
“The unique notions that rights come from the people and that the ruler holds their position through a compact with the people and have no authority without it have flourished almost solely in the Anglosphere countries. They underpinned the later development of freedom, democracy and capitalism and the growth of wealth in the UK then later the US which became the foundation of world prosperity.
“By contrast, almost all non-Anglosphere countries, as well as international bodies such as the UN, have the premise that authority resides centrally, in the ruler rather than the individual: rights and laws are arbitrary, at the whim of the powerful. This system gave us fascism, communism and Maoism and their attendant misery.
“The proposition that rights come not from a compact between people and government but from an external authority, e.g. through the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, is false and damaging. It has unfortunately held sway in Australia, and Wilson is right to resist it.
“Hannan’s book should be core reading for all history and civics syllabi.”
I think that it would also be of interest to many on this blog. In passing, Hannan addresses what drives different attitudes to alleged CAGW, in the section from p 330. Perhaps more on this later.
So that’s why the English cricket team has to summon parliament before Alistair Cook can make a field change!
Anyway, Faustino, you’ve finally had a win…thanks to the Irish. I could have taunted you before this (seven times) but like a chivalrous Aussie I refuse to kick an underdog.
Plenty of kicks domestically, mosomoso, more painful now that my wife is wearing a hefty air-boot on her broken ankle. I don’t have to come to this blog to get abused about cricket, sitting amongst Aussies on day 2 at the Gabba gave me a season’s-worth in an afternoon.
The full ARGO record doesn’t show any trend at all – neither does the CERES record.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Marine_Atlas.html
http://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAFSelection.jsp
The data is available to December 2012 and June 2013 respectively. Try it yourself.
What large variability there is results from changes in cloud cover.
What science actually says is that the world is unlikely to warm for another decade to three and that climate is wild. Meanwhile – the tedium of the climate war – the whining, the prattling, the preening and the overweening conceit – is excruciating. Where can it all end?
As bears repeating – this is not about science – it is the latest manifestation of the culture wars. Commingled with a millennialist impulse, authoritarian tendencies and a utopian zeal to reform cultures and economies. Traditionally it has all ended in the Kool-Aid queue.
‘Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical. Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values.’ http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/units/mackinder/pdf/mackinder_Wrong%20Trousers.pdf
Fortunately – their being so spectacularly wrong on the science leads to a strategic advantage in the culture war that should not be squandered.
In their preamble, the authors note that:
“The Kyoto Protocol failed because it is the wrong type of instrument (a universal intergovernmental treaty) relying too heavily on the wrong agents exercising the wrong sort of power to create, from the top down, a carbon market. It relies on establishing a global market by government fiat, which has never been done successfully for any commodity. Such fabricated markets invite sharp and corrupt practices–and these are now occurring on a large scale in the European Emissions Trading Scheme and through Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism scams such as HFC combustion. This accounts for two-thirds of all CDM payments to 2012. On false premises, it dodged increasing challenges that result from industrialisation in China and India, in particular the growing use of coal in both countries.
“Kyoto was constructed by quick borrowing from past practice with other treaty regimes dealing with ozone, sulphur emissions and nuclear bombs which, while superficially plausible, are not applicable in the ways that the drafters assumed because these were “tame” problems (complicated, but with defined and achievable end-states), whereas climate change is “wicked” (comprising open, complex and imperfectly understood systems). Technical knowledge was taken as sufficient basis from which to derive Kyoto’s policy, whereas “wicked” problems demand profound understanding of their integration in social systems, and their ongoing development.
“The presentation of Kyoto as the only course of action has raised the political price of admitting its defects, not least because it would mean admitting that the non-signatories may have been right in practice, whatever their motives. Its advocates invested emotional as well as political capital in the process, making it difficult to contemplate the idea that it is fatally flawed. Its narrow focus on mitigating the emission of greenhouse gases (in which it has failed) has created a taboo on discussing other approaches, in particular, adaptation to climate change. Failure to adapt will cost the poor and vulnerable the most.
“For the past fifteen years, it has given the concerned public an illusion of effective action, tranquillising political concern. This has been, perhaps, its most damaging legacy.”
And for the past fifteen years those who have made similar points have been labelled “deniers” and vilified. Perhaps the tide is really turning.
Judith, note the adoption of your “wicked problem” view.
Incidentally, the authors of this critique think that AGW is a real and serious problem that should be addressed urgently, their argument – which I would agree with – is that measures to date have been wasteful, ineffective and counter-productive, worsening (as they see it) the problem by failing to sensibly address it.
Nice to see you hopping again, Skippy.
We should expect CO2 emissions to grow from 4% to 8%, 16%, 32% of natural fluxes as economies grow this century. A priori it sees imprudent to radically change the composition of the atmosphere without much idea of consequences – good or bad. Especially in a chaotic system.
As I see it – the proper role of the right is to create a positive narrative for the future. Something that Hayek talked about way back when. Something very much in the spirit of the documents in this series.
Hayek is sooo yesterday. His thinking is as outdated as shag carpeting. It’s no wonder Hayek appeals to aging fuddy-duddies, many of whom probably still have shag carpeting. He also may appeal to younger people who are pre-maturely fuddy-duddy.
Go away Maxy – the adults are talking.
Max:
“pre-maturely fuddy-duddy”
http://entertainment.stv.tv/showbiz/259018-kate-middleton-turns-her-nose-up-at-fuddy-duddy-kensington-palace/
But alas pre-mature Believers as well.
ordvic, thank you for the link to the Kate Midddleton story. I’ll quote a little from it.
“Whereas William is used to the smell and the feel of the palace, Kate is used to a more modern, relaxed environment. She felt it had an overriding musty, damp smell, and ordered a six-month supply of her favourite products to override this.”
“The source added: “She’s also thrown pillows around to make it look more minimalist-chic and less fuddy-duddy.”
______
Climate Etc. needs throw pillows.
” Climate scientists, meanwhile, know that heat must still be building up somewhere in the climate system”
Removing the ‘consensus’ spin :
Government climate scientists and others baying for more taxes, meanwhile, desperately hope that heat might still be building up somewhere in the climate system.
“Trenberth, for example, analysed their impacts on the basis of satellite measurements of energy entering and exiting the planet”
If satellite measurements of energy entering and exiting the planet are really worth their salt, and are saying more heat is going in than coming out, and this difference tracks changes in CO2, how come the whole matter isn’t already settled beyond any doubt?
There was likely AGW happening before he year 1950, as that was the end of the training period that I used to tune the CSALT model recently:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
This generates a projection from 1950 to the current day, which follows all the temperature fluctuations, culminating in the infamous “hiatus” of the past 15 years. That is no coincidence, as the Cause of the Pause is explainable by thermodynamic Laws
But unless you have a theory for at least decadal scale variability in the Pacific – the future for you is still very murky.
Let’s say it all evens out over a multi decadal scale. Say 1976 to 2030?
All fluctuations get flattened by the passage of time. The signal of the CO2 continues to rise while the natural variations revert to a mean of zero.
You don’t get it? Non warming for decades? And then a cooling Sun over centuries with resultant resurgent La Nina? I guess not.
Apparently I apply scientific evidence while skeptics furiously wave their hands.
It is far from apparent that you understand much beyond the simplest – and most convenient – ideas. Decadal long cool periods, a Sun cooling from a 1000 year Grand Maximum and Bond Events are all well established.
WHT,
You are correct, that some anthropogenic warming signal in the climate record existed before 1950, but the signal was weaker against the background noise of natural variability. Some scientists, like Ruddiman take the extreme view and suggest a signal of anthropogenic forcing might exist going back many centuries and started altering the present interglacial quite some time ago. Considering that CO2 had risen about 8% or so from preindustrial levels by 1900, this is probably a good outer bound for the detectability of the modern anthropogenic signal.
Yup, agreed.
Yet the AGW signal can’t be so weak as to not be able to pick it up through a climate hobbyist’s (such as myself) analysis. The fact that a model fit that only goes to 1950 is also able to project most of the intricacies of the temperature signal up to the current date is nothing to be sneezed at.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
Gesundheit !
“the historical ocean-temperature data are notoriously imprecise” – Nature article
So even if heat really is building up in the ocean, how could we possibly know it ?
Because we can measure it ?
While we are at it, it all makes consistent sense as well:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
> The same people who ostensibly couldn’t get good readings out of ARGO prior to 2008 suddenly discovered a mistake that changed the polarity of OHC change? If they weren’t competent enough to avoid the mistake in the first place what makes them competent enough to find and correct it? I smell a rat.
>> R. Gates|
Oh yes, the conspiracy escape clause. The last refuge to prevent massive cognitive dissonance.
———————————–
The tired old “conspiracy” strawman escape clause again. Truly the last refuge to prevent massive cognitive dissonance.
There is no implication of conspiracy is observing that government-funded scientists alter their findings to suit government – their paymaster after all, who selected them and whose interests they were specifically employed to serve.
Confirmation of this allegiance and bias gets ever stronger with each passing year that no broad embarrassment over Climategate and the ensuing coverups is expressed.
As I said, the old conspiracy escape clause. Guaranteed to instantly reduce cognitive dissonance our your money back! Honest skeptics don’t need it because the goal of honest skeptics is to increase cognitive dissonance and to question all their provisional truths. Fake “skeptics” don’t actually understand this.
So Handel explains why R. Gates was wrong to call a particular view conspiratorial ideation. R. Gates responded by saying, “As I said, the old conspiracy escape clause.” Upthread, he suggests he hasn’t paid any attention to the scientific publications which label skeptics conspiracy theorists.
In what world is this okay? Argument by assertion is stupid, ignoring what people say is rude, insulting them is pathetic, and intentionally avoiding the scientific work relevant to a position is intellectually dishonest.
When the facts don’t support your point of view, all you have left is “conspiracy” to maintain the balance of your meta-memeplex, or minimize your cognitive dissonance. This record warm past year in Australia brought out lots of “data manipulation conspiracy” nut-job talk. Quite predictable as such record warmth doesn’t sit well with “the globe is cooling folks” kind of thinking for Australian, “skeptics”.
A very marginal increase in surface temp over a land mass – even one as big as Australia – is not of much interest. Except as a partisan talking point. The rainfall deficit over the past couple of years has something to do with it.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/extremes/timeseries.cgi?graph=TXmx&ave_yr=0
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/extremes/timeseries.cgi?graph=TXmx&ave_yr=0
On the plus side it looks like a soggy Australia Day over a lot of the country.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/national_radar_sat.loop.shtml
For north eastern Australian rainfall – and global climate -the thing to keep an eye on is the blue V in the eastern Pacific.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/national_radar_sat.loop.shtml
the blue V…
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomp.1.15.2014.gif
Hottest year in the instrument record.
So you take one week at the end of 2010 and extrapolate backwards?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.1.28.2010.gif
Your clutching at irrelevant straws is increasingly odd.
R. Gates, you have to be a fool to believe that. Even if one accepts the facts don’t support certain points of view, there are dozens of ways people can still hold them.
As long as you say stupid things like this, it’s clear you’re just insulting people to insult them. You’re not contributing anything. You’re being a troll.
Has anyone come across a definition of “global” when it comes to climate science? There isn´t one in the IPCC-reports. In practice it seems to mean about 60-75% of the earth surface but then, at what resolution?
The MWP is dismissed on the grounds it was not “global”. So, what coverage, time overlap, resolution etc is needed to qualify as “global”?. Any ideas on this? I have asked this extremely basic question to active climate scientists before and most have admit its awkward that the concept of “global” is used in a sloppy way but not really defined.
In terms of the MWP, a scientific paper would have to demonstrate the surface of the globe, 2 meters above land surfaces and however the hell sea surface temperatures are measured, was warmer in the MWP than it is today. So far no scientist has done that. They could. Like Steve McIntyre. He’s really smart. He could go prove the MWP was global.
A good case could be made for a global influence if widely separated areas had warming at the same time. This hasn’t been shown clearly for the MWP, as far as I know, due to different regions having different non-overlapping warming periods, which is the normal situation with regional climate variability and anecdotal evidence. Coincident warming is the key.
I know, they could use tree rings!
“they could use tree rings!”
And they could pick tree rings that magically give them the answer they want!
Andrew
Somehow the “skeptics” have been incapable of picking the trees to prove MWP.
“picking the trees to prove”
Jim D, do you understand there is an issue with efficacy of this idea?
Andrew
It is called cherry-picking, a primary mode of “skeptical” science.
Why haven’t lazy skeptics gotten off their butts and proven the globality of all them kings and castles and furs and ladies in waiting?
Why are you guys so lazy? The other guys are so busy running around on glaciers and drilling cores and the like. You guys do what, take pictures of old air conditioners and old asphalt. And then there is no paper.
The only exception seems to be tonyb. He works at it, but the rest of you are bums.
Get some game.
“It is called cherry-picking”
Also easily applicable to anyone picking trees.
Andrew
Neukom (nice Dr. Strangelove name) et al did show a multi-proxy review paper of the MWP (now called medieval warm anomaly). Showing it was global in nature, The Skeptic sites all picked up on it but I’m sure the Believers will pull an ostrich on that one.
Goggle links:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Neukom+et+al.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.floodgap:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a
It looks like McIntyre had the same problem with him as with Mann and Scarfetti (where’s the beef)
JCH, Since 71% of the surface is not measured 2 meters above the surface wouldn’t the “however the hell” SST be a more reasonable metric to use?
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/emile-geay2012/emile-geay2012.txt
Since you are an ENSO dunit fan, that is tab seperated and ready for any spreadsheet program. The MWP was, as far as SST goes, about the same as today. Since the ENSO 3.4 region is the driver, you can estimate the driven if you choose. Note the period formerly known as the Little Ice Age.
If you want to estimate the two meter temperature you can make whatever allowances for land amplification that you please, but it should look something like this.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/12/2000-years-of-climate.html
HcIntyre would choose cherry-tree-rings to study.
I always wondered why HcIntyre attacks the weakest areas of the science.
Simple, he thinks science is a sport, similar to his beloved squash. Pick the opponent that is weak and it becomes easier to claim victory.
Science is actually about going after the strongest and then to expect full contact.
Web:
“Science is actually about going after the strongest and then to expect full contact.”
I guess that’s why you get ignored. (ouch dagger)
I don’t know. My H-index is 17 which is well above the average in sciences of 10.6.
I am about as ignored as anyone else in that case. If I was actually ignored, my score would be 1.
http://www.jmir.org/article/viewFile/2177/1/17523
And only in the northern hemisphere – though they themselves still have no legit warmist hockey stick for the southern hemisphere :)
Web,
Good on ya mate!
Does that cover all sciences or just medicine? I just thought it strange you’d be on a medical survey?
Yes it shows up in various places, but it does not have its chit together. Not yet anyway.
I would not be at all surprised if it was as warm as the 1980’s, maybe even 1990’s, but I sort of doubt it would beat the 2000’s.
Would take the right trees. Maybe Michael Mann is available.
Different academic disciplines have different levels of ignoring what other researchers are doing. Sciences in general are more collaborative efforts so they have more citations. I read somewhere that the mode of the distribution of citations for research articles is 0. The mode is defined by the most frequent number of citations for any particular article.
This means that the most frequent occurrence for any article is to never get cited by someone else. That’s just the way it is.
Does anyone have a reference where the numeric value of climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2, expressed in terms of OHC, has been estimated?
Such a pain Crip. Fortunately the pieces of climate science fit as tightly together as a jigsaw puzzle. This is an analysis I finished this morning relating how the OHC influences climate sensitivity and how the latent heat of evapotranspiration can amplify the CO2-based land warming:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
It is all consistent with the Trenberth energy budget and answers the question “What missing heat?”.
“Does anyone have a reference where the numeric value of climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2, expressed in terms of OHC, has been estimated?”
_____
Tradition has established that climate sensitivity is measured only by tropospheric temperatures at the surface. OHC would be a far better metric, especially because it is far more stable and because oceans drive tropospheric temperatures so strongly. But because we are tropospheric dwellers and getting this measurement was far easier, that has been the tradition.
Sorry, WHUT, you haven’t answered the question. What is the estimated value of climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 expressed in terms of OHC?
R. Gates, you write “But because we are tropospheric dwellers and getting this measurement was far easier, that has been the tradition.”
Fair enough. Are you saying you know of no reference which estimates CS in terms of OHC? because if so, this has implications.
Jim Cripwell, your question doesn’t make sense. Doubling CO2 causes both a surface temperature rise and an OHC increase. Ultimately the OHC increase doesn’t matter for canceling out the forcing, except to the extent that the surface ocean warms, and so sensitivity is expressed in terms of surface warming only, not OHC.
Jim C.,
CS is defined as a change in global tropospheric surface temperatures per a doubling of CO2. That’s the definition. Given that the climate is driven far more by ocean temperatures than tropospheric temperatures, it would have made more sense to use ocean heat content, but that’s what we are stuck with. If you want to suggest a completely new term, go for it. As it is, the approximately 0.5 x 10 ^22 Joules per year that are accumulating in the ocean (at least down to 2000m) tells me all I need to know about how sensitive the climate is the increased anthropogenic GH gas forcing. This warmer ocean has huge implications for the global climate.
Sorry, R. Gates, you are not addressing my concerns. Are you saying that you know of no reference which gives a numeric value for the climate sensitivity for the doubling of CO2 expressed in terms of OHC?
“Ultimately the OHC increase doesn’t matter for canceling out the forcing…”
_____
? What do you mean by this Jim D. ? OHC increase doesn’t “cancel” out the forcing but is part of the forcing. Please don’t fall for the nonsense that OHC “doesn’t matter” to climate, as it matter very much, as most of the world climate system is driven by sensible and latent heat flux flowing from ocean to atmosphere and more heat in the ocean means an enhancement to this hydrological cycle. An enhanced hydrological cycle, as par of the rock-carbon cycle is the natural feedback to higher CO2.
Jim C.,
I am wondering what sort of trick question or thing you are angling for here. We have estimates from both models and paleoclimate data on now warm the oceans might get for a doubled CO2 level (560 ppm). But no one talks about this as climate sensitivity as we troposphere dwellers like to focus on the troposphere. But if you want to know how warm the oceans might get per a doubled CO2 level– yes, lots of research on that. But no one considers that “climate sensitivity” estimates.
Gates
Jim Cripwell is simply asking if there is an OHC numerical equivalent to the usual 2C Climate Sensitivity or whatever for Global temperatures. Fair question and something that I have not seen expressed.
Crip, put down your needlepoint for a second and study the equations here.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
It answers exactly what you are asking. I am not going to redo the equation markup on a blog commenting section.
WebHubTelescope: This is an analysis I finished this morning relating how the OHC influences climate sensitivity and how the latent heat of evapotranspiration can amplify the CO2-based land warming:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
That’s certainly one possibility, well worth reading. As with your csalt model, I recommend that you submit the work for publication; after all, you did the work already, and publication would be worthwhile.
How does the increased evapotranspiration that you write of affect cloud cover, and are the effects different in daytime and nighttime?
If CO2 concentration were to double from its present value, what fraction of the increased downwelling LWIR would be transferred to increased evapotranspiration, and how much to warming the non-dry surface of the Earth?
Why not, in response to Jim Cripwell, just say that OHC changes (and the durations of time over which they occur), can not be accurately computed at this time? Surely it is worth knowing whether the observed changes in OHC (despite limitations in measurement and estimation) accord quantitatively with the rest of the theory of greenhouse gas induced warming. Otherwise we merely have some hand-waving over events of dubious importance, such as an extremely slight warming of the deep oceans.
R. Gates, when I say OHC doesn’t matter for canceling out the forcing, I can see it was taken as it doesn’t matter at all, which is not what I am saying. I mean when talking about equilibrium sensitivity, only the change in surface temperature will cancel the forcing in equilibrium, independent of what the actual value of OHC is. In a transient state, OHC, and especially d(OHC)/dt matter a lot, because this term can delay a surface temperature rise by responding to the forcing instead of surface temperature. There is a big difference between a transient and equilibrium state in the role of the OHC. In equilibrium d(OHC)/dt=0, averaged over long enough, by definition, so it doesn’t matter in that sense.
I submitted a paper just yesterday to the ACM eEnergy conference with a couple of my colleagues. Nothing to do with this topic.
I don’t get concerned about stuff building up in a queue. It’s documented and archived and I can go back to it as the need arises. Used to be that we would always worry about getting scooped on a research finding, but that doesn’t matter any more.
Better to ask what the differences are between the ocean and the land in terms of cloud cover and negative lapse rate feedback. It is still possible that negative feedback in the lapse rate can provide further refinement in my analysis, by providing a difference between ocean and land radiative effects, but that would be a second-order correction. Something different between the moisture in the ocean versus moisture over the land would have to occur (possibly due to cloud formation) for this not to be incorporated in the general CO2 control knob theory of climate sensitivity.
My view is that the rate of change of OHC is a symptom of an imbalance, and that the land responds to this imbalance with an immediate temperature rise, having no equivalent way to store that energy away. So, in this view, the land does not require any energy from the ocean to warm up, it just needs the imbalance to be present, and in some sense the imbalance is maintained by the rising OHC.
An interesting insight from my analysis is that the transfer of latent thermal energy by sea surface evapotranspiration and then convection to land areas is that it causes an amplification in land warming, by 22% according to the formula.
What do the skeptics want?
For the OHC to continue to rise, which would further validate the AGW theory?
Or for the OHC to start to stagnate, which would mean more thermal energy is being retained at the surface, with more of that diverted to land.
Dennis, you write “Jim Cripwell is simply asking if there is an OHC numerical equivalent to the usual 2C Climate Sensitivity or whatever for Global temperatures. Fair question and something that I have not seen expressed.”
Thank you. You understand what I am getting at. The warmists are dancing all round the question, because they dare not answer it. If they say, yes there is a reference, then they cannot produce the reference, and their statement is clearly false. But if they answer no, there is no such reference this has all sorts of implications.
If there is no measure of climate sensitivity in terms of OHC, then it becomes difficult, if not actually impossible, to produce the equivalent of the Stern Report. There is no way of establishing what the costs are for the oceans to warm up slightly. So the whole claim that somehow the increasing value of OHC, allegedly attributed to increasing CO2 levels, is going to be highly detrimental to mankind, becomes untenable.
That is the problem my little question exposes.
Another of webby’s one line of algebra purporting to solve climate?
Evapotranspiration is a combination of plant transpiration and evaporation. So not a concept that can be applied to the oceans.
The surface (i.e. at 2m above the surface) temperature over land is higher than over oceans because cooling from evapotranspiration is less than cooling by evaporation over oceans – a simple function of less available water. It all evens out over the full depth of the troposphere.
e.g. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2778.1
The trouble with these guys is that they make much of a narrative informed with little actual science.
Jim-
Ever since I started reading your comments I thought you were posing some very straight forward and fundamental questions. But no one seemed to want to give you answers. Then I thought there must be something more nuanced in your interest. I am glad I was understanding your questions after all.
They have been the kinds of questions about the scientific method and intervening variables that I first learned in Miss Isham’s 8th grade Science Class many decades ago.
Keep at it. You are on the right track. I think at times we all need to go back to square one.
“That is the problem my little question exposes.”
_____
The problem your little question “exposes” is the fact that you are trying to change the definition of things. If you want to ask: How will the heat content of the ocean change by doubling CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm, that is a legitmate question, and has been studied, but it will never be the definition for climate sensitivity, as that has already been defined as something else. The warming of the oceans and sea level rise is something that is extensively studied as related to increased GH gases, but the energy being stored in the ocean as a result of GH gas increases will never be considered as a metric for climate sensitivity.
Well, if ‘missing heat’ is going into the ocean, where it will stay until the end of the Holocene, then climate sensitivity as measured by tropospheric temperature will be vanishingly small. But I still think the heat is missing out in the galaxy, thanks to clouds.
It would be nice if it were going into the oceans, a reserve for when things get really cold.
============
If ‘missing heat’ is going into the oceans, it’s a win/win situation for humanity. It’ll not be in the troposphere where we live, and it will be available at the end of the Holocene. The lose for humanity is if it’s been re-radiated out to space.
I suspect Kevin Trenberth has caught on to this; now he hopes that ‘sloshed’ heat will save the CAGW meme. It may, temporarily, but what’s the long term hopes for that?
It was a massive strategic failure to demonize warmth, and to demonize CO2. These are our friends.
====================
R. Gates, you write ” If you want to ask: How will the heat content of the ocean change by doubling CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm, that is a legitmate question, and has been studied, ”
OK, let me ask that question. What is the reference that estimates how much the heat content of the ocean changes by doubling CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv?
It takes 5×10^24 J per degree to warm the whole ocean. If global warming is 3 degrees that is about 15×10^24 J. Of course, it would take centuries to warm the ocean through by 3 degrees. What happens is that the surface warms first, and the deeper ocean takes more time, so while you can get this number, it doesn’t count for much.
Jim D. I want a reference.
Jim Cripwell, I gave the result in terms of the amount of warming. For any warming you choose, you can find the increase in the OHC that goes with it. I chose the central consensus estimate which was 3 degrees. The rest is just geography (ocean volume) and thermodynamics (water density, heat capacity) with a little mathematics.
@Jim D
The average surface temperature during the Holocene has been approximately 15C and the average ocean temperature today is not quite 4C. If we take a swag that average ocean temperature at the end of the last glacial period was 1C, then it appears to take approximately 3,000 years to warm the oceans one degree via the surface. Because there is still a large delta between surface temperature and ocean temperature, ocean warming must still be going on. We can therefore expect another degree increase in ocean temperature 3,000 years from now. If in the meantime the surface temperature increases by 3 degrees, the temperature delta increases by 25% and the time it takes to warm the ocean by an additional degree will be reduced to 2,400 years.
What does your thermodynamics and little bit of mathematics say about that?
In the wrong place webby? I don’t read your contributions to blog science. It is an utter waste of time.
I linked to actual science that discussed the actual processes rather than your fantasy physics.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2778.1
Do try to keep up and not simply spout the usual sock puppet nonsense from a nonsensical sock puppet.
kim
Agree with you that it would be nice if the “missing heat” were going into the ocean (as Gatesy believes), where we might never see it again – or (if we’re lucky) it might come back out to save us if things really get cold up here where we humans live.
But it’s unlikely.
My bet would go with the clouds (as you write).
So that “missing heat” really is “missing”.
Too bad.
Max
willb, in the Eocene paleoclimate some areas of the bottom of the ocean were 14 C warmer than today. The ocean can warm deeply, if slowly. Of course what happens at the bottom of the ocean does not affect climate, which is why the equilibrium value of the OHC is not a very instructive climate parameter. I don’t know why Jim Cripwell has become obsessed with this. Maybe you can explain it to him how, due to time-scales, it is beside the point.
Jim Cripwell
You asked:
I’ve read several comments here alluding to your question, but none that have answered it.
Let me have a stab at giving you the “consensus” answer to your question.
Jim D estimates:
My estimate is in the same ballpark, 5.7×10^24 J per degree C. But I don’t think the ocean is going to warm by 3 degrees, as Jim D apparently does.
The troposphere has a mass of around 4,370,000 Gt (around 85% of the entire atmosphere).
IPCC tells us that at “equilibrium” 2xCO2 would raise global atmospheric temperature by 3ºC (based on 3.7 Watts per square meter forcing from 2xCO2 multiplied by ~3 for net model-derived “positive feedbacks”).
The mass of the entire ocean is 1.4×10^9 Gt (1,400,000,000 Gt)
The specific heat of sea water is roughly 4 times that of air.
So a doubling of CO2 (using the IPCC “consensus” for CO2 forcing incl. model-based feedbacks), would raise ocean temperature by:
3ºC * 4,370,000 / (1,400,000,000 * 4) = 0.0023ºC
Don’t believe the little fishies down there are going to mind a bit – do you?
Max
Manacker said:
Yes. It would be really nice to have that insurance against getting colder buried in the oceans so future generations could extract it. And it would also be great to lift the planet out of the rare cold house phase it is currently in and get it back to its more normal temperatures, where life thrives instead of struggling for survival.
Jim Cripwell
BTW to warm the entire ocean by 3C (as Jim D alluded in his post) would take:
If 2xCO2 would warm ocean by 0.0023C
To warm ocean by 3C, would take (logarithmic)
2 * 3 / 0.0023C ~ 2,500 times increase in CO2 concentration above today
i.e. to 2,500 * 400 = 1,000,000 ppmv CO2
Huh?
Max
manacker, Jim Cripwell might fall for that hide-the-pea stuff, but I don’t. You want to sink the tropospheric heating into the ocean and say nothing further will happen. The troposphere is maintained 3 C warmer by the forcing, therefore the energy going into the ocean is not limited by the amount currently in the troposphere.
Jim D
Don’t just come with silly double-talk or absurd projections of 3C warming of the entire ocean from AGW, Jim D.
Give Jim Cripwell the answer to his question.
If you can.
I say the 2xCO2 temperature impact on the entire ocean is 0.0023C.
Show us your estimate and show how you arrived at it.
Max
manacker, if the surface of the ocean warms by 3 C, why wouldn’t the rest of it eventually get there? Remember the surface temperature is maintained by the forcing. This should mix or circulate down over time into the deep currents. It may take a long time, but that would be the trend until it reaches its equilibrium with its surface temperature.
Dietmar Dommenget shows how the ocean heating leads to land heating amplification, which can be estimated as I demonstrated.
If for whatever I do, you can find research that duplicated it earlier, that’s considered a good thing.
Jim D
OK. Let’s play your silly game to calculate the cumulative warming of the ocean from AGW.
According to IPCC AR4 the total net anthropogenic forcing was 1.6 W/m^2 in 2005.
Adjusting from 379 ppmv CO2 in 2005 to 396 ppmv in 2013 puts this at around 1.8 W/m^2 in 2013.
On this basis the Earth’s climate system should be accumulating around 3.0×10^22 Joules per year
To raise the temperature of the ocean by 1C would take 5.7×10^24 Joules, so the anthropogenic forcing could theoretically raise the ocean temperature by
(3.0E+22 / 5.7E+24) * 1 = 0.005C per year
If we ASS-U-ME that CO2 will increase to 650 ppmv by 2100, we would have an annual increase in 2100 of 0.013C
So over the next 87 years the ocean would warm by
87 * (0.005 + 0.013) / 2 = 0.78C
The average temp of the ocean today is around 277.3K
So this would increase it to 281.1K by 2100.
Yawn!
Jim, this imaginary hobgoblin just isn’t very scary, no matter how you slice it.
Max
manacker, i said it would take centuries, and perhaps your numbers show it is quicker than I said, but not a very informative exercise anyway.
CORRECTION
So this would increase it to
281.1K278.1K by 2100.Jim D
You are wrong. The exercise is informative.
It tells us that man is unable to change the ocean temperature perceptibly by AGW.
Max
manacker, do you really think the ocean bottom average rate of change is the same as the surface ocean temperature rate of change? Clue – where is it being warmed from?
Jim D
No.
I don’t think the ocean is being warmed perceptibly from AGW .
And that’s what even IPCC’s bloated model-based guess-timates show, as I pointed out.
It’s an imaginary (or virtual) threat, Jim.
But, hey, if you want to worry about it, go right ahead.
Max
In the UK, the Parliamentary Committee for the Department of Energy and Climate Change is having hearings on the robustness of the conclusions in the AR5. I understand these are to start next week. I have looked for information on precisely what is happening, podcasts, etc. but have been unable to find anything.
Does anyone know if this information has been released, and if so where I can access it?
A topic for discussion:
If society is in danger – because the very best way to obtain reliable information on our environment has been seriously compromised since 1945 to save mankind from possible nuclear annihilation – the scientific method – can one communicate that information without becoming a producer of confusion and discord, I.e., without destroying the harmony needed to advance understanding?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2014/01/08/polar-vortex-explained-2-minutes
John Holdren explains why CAGW is the reason for the recent outbreak of cold air into the southern USA. I find his explanation difficult to understand. I only have a bachelor’s degree in physics, but I understand that there is more energy when you have two air masses with a large difference in temperature between them. So, most severe weather on the NA continent occurs when there is a large difference in temperature between the cold and warm air. This explains the damage caused by Nor’Easters, Hurricanes Hazel and Sandy, tornados, and derouchers.
Now Holdren is trying to claim that the outbreak of the recent cold weather is due to a decrease of temperature difference. I cannot understand this. When that happens, I like to get a reference that I can read, which gives the physics of the explanation, written by someone who knows what (s)he is talking about. Does anyone have a reference which explains what Holdren is talking about? Or is this merely argument from authority? I am John Holdren, I work in the White House. I say it is so, so it is so.
Interesting. The warmer Arctic makes the circumpolar vortex more wavy and this leads to more incursions of cold Arctic air southwards. I think this waviness is more typical of spring and fall, and is now also becoming part of the winter pattern, but with colder air available at that time. Just my take.
Jim Cripwell and JimD – The basic argument goes like this:
The jetstream separating cold arctic air from warmer extratropical air is driven by the latitudinal temperature gradient, as described by the thermal wind equation*. Specifically, the vertical zonal wind shear is proportional to the latitudinal temperature gradient; a weakened gradient results in slower winds at high altitude. A slower jetstream is more susceptible to wave-like disturbances that displace the jetstream, thus amplifying the meandering and distortion of the boundary between arctic and warmer extratropical air.
See “Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes”, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L06801, doi:10.1029/2012GL051000, 2012, by Francis and Vavrus, for a more detailed explanation and supporting observations, and the Climate Etc. discussion here.
It seems to me that the key question is the affect on the large amplitude waves, and how they break, in view of the fact that other changes in atmospheric circulation are occurring simultaneously (e.g., the expansion of the Hadley cells). The fact that the wind speeds exceed the relevant wave speeds lends plausibility to the notion that reducing the wind speeds leads to stronger coupling to baroclinic and other modes, and therefore larger amplitudes (more meandering).
*Thermal wind equation:
dV/dp = [R/(f p)] dT/dy
where V = zonal wind speed, p is pressure, R is the gas constant, f is coriolis parameter, T is temperature, y is the latitudinal direction, and the T derivative is the partial at constant pressure.
So dT/dy is negative in the northern hemisphere, dV is negative, and V increases with altitude (decreasing pressure). Weakened dT/dy results in a weaker zonal (eastward) wind, which is more vulnerable to the waves that distort the boundary, resulting in more and greater excursions of cold air southward and warm air northward.
Thank you, Pat. I have some reading to do.
Hello –
I’m one of those “uniformed” or “misinformed” non-scientist who tends to read a lot of climate blogs. If you wonder why I chose to read mostly the skeptics side it’s simple – Pro AGW sites have little or no true discussion going on. They are like parrots mimicking each other. Massive group think with little value (and people wonder how Hilter could become so powerful). Many times I have seen them resort to ad homs or just flat ban folks for disagreeing. Now there are many posts about just banning all skeptic/denial comments anywhere and MM saying report to DHS. WTF? It’s pathetic to watch.
My own beliefs –
Man is destructive. All you have to do is look around. So it is not hard to believe that man has impacted the atmosphere.
Something is incredibly wrong in the climate science field. It makes absolutely no sense that scientists study a portion of the climate (CO2) and come to a conclusion without acknowledging not enough is known about all of climate arena. It’s like saying I can make a chocolate cake and all I have is chocolate. Ridiculous.
Policies about green energy and money spent is out of control. It doesn’t take a lot brain power to know we are putting the cart before the horse. We have the knowledge of wright brothers and trying to build a super sonic jet. We need to slow down and let the technology catch up. We need to spend our money wisely, not just cause someone has a good idea.
The warmists/alarmists do not help themselves by being so secretive and reactionary to anyone who disagrees. Makes my non-scientist self wonder what you are hiding. Please don’t say – we are exaggerating because it is in the best interest of the world. Bull$hit – the worlds best interest is to know exactly what is going on. That way we do appropriate things to help.
My message to you scientists – Get your $hit together and figure it out – SCIENTIFICALLY. The world can forgive a scientists for being wrong in the name of scientific discovery. The world will not forgive you for being wrong and sticking to your guns in our best interest.
True, true, Western government-paid school teachers have really let down society. Unlike Al Gore you’re obviously not buying into the belief we have about 10 years to save the planet and our time is about up.
“You know, Al is a funny guy, but he’s also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.” ~Larry David (promoting Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 27, 2006)
You are tight, “the world’s best interest is to know exactly what is going on.”
We have already figured out that deception has been “going on !”
It is in the best interest of all of us to have reliable information on our surroundings.
If the present structure of organized science cannot or will not do the job for which established and paid, the entire structure will be replaced.
We have no other option. Society will not survive if government policies are based on misinformation.
Pingback: What missing heat? | context/Earth
Bella | January 25, 2014 at 10:04 am | Reply
“Man is destructive. All you have to do is look around. So it is not hard to believe that man has impacted the atmosphere.”
Man is also constructive. Art, literature, architecture, knowledge, expanding a sentient presence which can acknowledge, appreciate, and love the beauty of creation and each other. What purpose would creation have if there was no one who could see it? A dog, much as I love their innocent joy at being alive, doesn’t build space telescopes or appreciate what’s revealed by them.
Eventually too the earth’s sun will become a red giant and consume the earth destroying all life. Right now for as much as we know the earth is the sole home to living things. Man is the only creature with the ability to conserve life and escape the fate of the planet itself by migration to another world.
Agreed – we are constructive & destructive. I as well as others often harp to much on the destructive part. Point taken. Thank You.
One of the common traits of all living things is to reproduce and endure. If we consider earth-life as single living community then in the long run it really needs a technologic species to build telescopes and spacecraft to reproduce and endure beyond the limited time the earth is hospitable. Moreover in the effort to reproduce and endure the immediate environment is stripped of whatever resources are required to produce and protect a next generation. In the big picture then the earth is a consumable resource where its sole function is to enable life to reproduce itself on other worlds with more hospitable lifespan left in them. It all seems perfectly natural to me. I mean what else explains the otherwise insane desire to build telescopes and spacecraft able to explore beyond the bounds of the earth? These things are required for life to outlive the earth and it’s probably a very natural progression that’s built into life by evolution on timescales that exceed the time that individual planets are useful for organic life.
AG is a politician. All politicians should be regarded with outright skepticism and I consider them all to be liars until proven differently. He has not proven any different. Thing is – all I want is the truth. I dont see there is much to be found. Thankfully it seems that the “hiatus” is making people get off their “science is settled” rhetoric and looking at a variety of things. Thirty years and billions wasted is painful way to get there though. I give kudos to the skeptics and the warmists who argue it out via skeptics or lukewarmists blogs. There is hope. :) Now I will go back into my corner with my popcorn & watch.
Who thinks on millennial time-scales? WUWT’s eccentric community of “peer” reviewers
Who thinks on millennial time-scales? Israel’s sober-minded business community
Who yah gonna respect, Climate Etc readers?
Who thinks on millennial time-scales? Another answer: Dave Springer’s great hero, Craig Venter
Aye, Climate Etc lassies and laddies, now *THAT’S* millennium-scale foresight for yah!
Venter’s solution is probably viable for millenia but it solves problems that are here now and the technology is forecast to mature within decades not centuries or millenia. You example makes no sense. Try again.
a fan of *MORE* discourse: Ain’t that the plain evidence of history, Dave Springer?
Craig Venter is working on the problem of increasing crop yields, for example, the yields of fuel precursors in salt-tolerant varieties, but not limited to that. In his fields of agriculture and genetics, progress has, on historical evidence, been obtained on decadal time scales.
A fan of *MORE* discourse | January 25, 2014 at 12:51 pm |
Historically speaking the world has ended far fewer times than predicted by alarmists.
Ain’t that the plain evidence of history, John Sidles?
It was last seen flying way with a population bomb in the passenger seat.
Numerous Climate Etc regulars accept *MOST* of Craig Venters’ (admirable!) scientific vision … *EXCEPT* for Venter’s conclusion that AGW is real and serious.
Question Why not taste the whole scientific apple, folks?
I couldn’t find a peep out of Craig Venter’s mouth about how serious he thinks climate change including in that youtube you linked. I can find Venter talking about energy independence for the US as a benefit of biofuel. Time into the video where I missed him talking about concern with climate change please.
Venter is interested in producing first fuel and then a huge range of things via programmable synthetic organisms. If he believes in his own vision then he must also believe that more CO2 is a good thing because atmospheric carbon is the most dependable source of carbon there is. It’s everywhere free for the asking. Out of carbon can be made carbon compounds with properties diverse enough to build just about anything. There are over 10 million known carbon compounds with properties diverse enough to meet just about any engineering requirement and then some.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounds_of_carbon
When programmable synthetic bacteria becomes a mature technology there will have to be laws about how much carbon can be removed from the atmosphere for manufacture of durable goods instead of how much can be added.
Imagine being able to grow a house, ready to move in complete with art (reproductions but perfect reproductions haha) and electronics and plumbing and furniture… all custom designed and cost free except perhaps the design work.
This is what is possible when self-reproducing programmable bacteria are finally created. Extraordinary progress is being made. We understand robotics and programming, we can cut & paste bacterial genomes with increasing ease and accuracy, we understand a great deal of the molecular machinery in the simplest free living cells, it’s just a matter of time and not much. Progress in this field reminds me of how the first acorn size commercial transisters costing dollars each in the 1950’s became so small in 60 years there’s many billions of them in a smart phone with per transister price in the nanopennies.
Dave Springer, we can all of us appreciate the quality of Craig Venter’s science and the foresightedness of his vision … heck, *SOME* of us even appreciate (and share) the commitment of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) to carbon neutrality and hydrocarbon independence!
Keep broadening yer vision, why don’cha Dave Springer!
Fellow Fan of More Discourse:,
There is a cornucopian aspect to fans of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. There is sort of a kind of faith that all their obstacles will be overcome. I don’t think this is clear. Did you read Willis’s response to Bill McKibben?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/15/james-hansens-policies-are-shafting-the-poor/#comment-1249300
Take a good look at that pie chart.
“They recognise the global warming ‘pause’ first reported by The Mail on Sunday last year is real – and concede that their computer models did not predict it. But they cannot explain why world average temperatures have not shown any statistically significant increase since 1997.
“They admit large parts of the world were as warm as they are now for decades at a time between 950 and 1250 AD – centuries before the Industrial Revolution, and when the population and CO2 levels were both much lower.
“The IPCC admits that while computer models forecast a decline in Antarctic sea ice, it has actually grown to a new record high. Again, the IPCC cannot say why.
“A forecast in the 2007 report that hurricanes would become more intense has simply been dropped, without mention.
“This year has been one of the quietest hurricane seasons in history and the US is currently enjoying its longest-ever period – almost eight years – without a single hurricane of Category 3 or above making landfall.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Worlds-climate-scientists-confess-Global-warming-just-QUARTER-thought–computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz2rQjxQm81
Upthread there was a request for oldtimers’ perceptions of the changes in fruits and vegetables since their youths, and whether they thought the atmospheric CO2 increase over that time was a component of the perceived changes. Well, I think I can answer that. I’ve been busy all night developing a software modeling program that integrates all the complex changes in this area over the last fifty years, i.e. almost a complete change in the cultivars of the common vegetables we eat now, the changes in those cultivars from selective breeding or genetic manipulation; for uniformity of maturity, size, shelf life, resistance to pathogens or bruising, taste, including acidity or sugar levels, drought resistance, the changes in farming techniques; including fertilization, herbicides, trace mineral augmentation, drip irrigation, crop rotation, spacing, harvest timing, the changes in post harvest storage; including temperature and gas mixture control, the usage of ripening techniques; including artificial temperature control and gases like ethylene, the attrition of taste buds in my mouth; through the natural aging process, former smoking and hard liquor consumption, the decrease in response of those taste buds to substances like capsaicin, the changes of the typical preparation methods from boiling in water, frying in saturated or hydrogenated fats, or microwaving, to eating them raw or steamed, the halt to slathering them with salty fats like butter, margarine or mayonnaise, but most importantly, the fading of my memory about trivial things as my wetware hard drive has become full of life’s experiences, allowing my natural unhappiness at aging’s infirmities to see yesteryear and its components as the Golden Age.
After running multiple simulations of these forcings in my program, I have consistently obtained the results that that damn devil gas CO2 is irrefutably 66.6% responsible for the perceived changes. The sooner we do something about it, the better we will all be.
Sure, sure but is it the “C” or the O2 that is the problem?
john vonderlin | January 25, 2014 at 1:41 pm | Reply
“…that damn devil gas CO2 is irrefutably 66.6% responsible for the perceived changes. The sooner we do something about it, the better we will all be.”
And you base this conclusion on what?
john vonderlin, thank you for your response. Am I right to guess you are a member of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation? He believed Americans who were born in the depression and fought in WWII were the Greatest Generation our country has ever produced because they were unselfish and did what was right. Need I point out this was a period with far less atmospheric CO2 than we have today?
Big cities in 1930’s were dirty filty places compared to today Max. Soot was everywhere. You might not have liked it. They were still bad even in the 1970’s when anything left outside started to turn black if it wasn’t scrubbed regularly.
Max_OK
Yeah. CO2 was a lot lower back in 1950 (311 ppm) than it is today.(396 ppm)
So were major crop yields and average life expectancy at birth (46 versus 68 years).
Max_CH.
Max_OK
To follow up on David Springer’s comment, you may have read about the “killer fogs” in London in the 1950s.
They’re gone there now, despite higher CO2 levels.
Max_CH
First time visitor,so my sample of this site is tiny. This is an extraordinary time for students of the atmosphere’s many inscrutable moves. Nary a mention of any of that in anything I’ve seen yet. The theme here, seems much more about the human’s zeitgeist.
I thought the difficulty of explaining the atmosphere was the spirit of the age?
Keep reading there is more talk here about uncertainty than probably anywhere else.
Thanks for the drive-by, davey. You should stop at skepticalscience, next. The blogs that have ‘science’ in the name will be more interesting to you.
I know that some people have a problem with using low pass filters on climate data but you just gotta laugh when this sort of things happens.
From a post on the Nature.com “Missing Heat” thread.
—-
An alternative visualisation of GISS data trends by Nate Drake using a Savitzky-Golay 15 year filter.
Source http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Original © Nate Drake, enhancement © RLH
“Filter on NON-detrended GISS LOTI data: …I ran a 5 pass-multipass with second order polynomials on 15year data windows as per the Savitzky–Golay method.” Nate Drake
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/NarwhaleNate/GISS_LOTI_S-G_Filternot-detrended_zps4a8d8e39.jpg
This shows ‘the pause’ or ‘global-warming hiatus’ rather well in GISS. Full credit to Nate Drake for providing such a useful and helpful image and apologies to him from me in having to enhance the dots and line to make them more visible.
I am trying to get him to do the full set, HadCrut4, HadSST3, AMO and PDO.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Napoleon Bonaparte
Just helping out ‘the cause’ :-)
BTW: Nate doesn’t think cascaded running means are FIR filters or can be implemented in WFT! Hence the need to prove me wrong and….
Judith, ” I realize that there is a lot for me to respond to in terms of critiques of my testimony, etc.” My only critique is that you were not hard enough on the carboncrats.
The “us” against “them” mindset pretty much describes politics but when you look only at AGW theory it’s probably more accurate to describe what’s going on there as the Left against –e.g., simple explanations, against nature, against facts, against the historical record, against modernity, against the scientific method, against Americanism…
Cost effectiveness of climate policies
Bjorn Lomborg observes:
The new EU policies appear to start to address economics. See:
EU lowers ambitions on renewable energy.
The more beneficial policies are, the more likely they are to succeed.
“Fossil evidence going back 1,700 years suggests that Pacific Sardine abundance naturally fluctuates over time”
Thanks! I had been asking what 60 year cycle was John N-G’s 60 years cycles adding up to zero gain.
Anything over that is a man-made sardine.
Bjorn Lomborg further writes:
Very clear impact on 100s millions of deaths from smoking.
Any confirmed deaths due to global (equivocated as “climate change”)?
Any confirmed deaths due to catastrophic majority anthropogenic global warming above natural global warming since the Little Ice Age?
Lets focus on where we can make greatest benefit.
BREAKING NEWS
Math-and-Science “COLD” XKCD strip lambastes denialism
Conclusion It’s past-time for Climate Etc math-and-science fans to taste the apple of climate-change science.
But it looks like GISS at least has stopped rising!
http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Original ©Nate Drake, enhancement © RLH
“Filter on NON-detrended GISS LOTI data: … I ran a 5 pass-multipass with second order polynomials on 15year data windows as per the Savitzky–Golay method.” Nate Drake
We’ll know that global warming has paused when the Earth’s big heat-reservoir stops expanding.
Conclusion Earth’s energy-budget remains unbalanced.
As the technorati who read XKCD know full well!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052885/abstract
“We find that there is a significant oscillation with a period around 60-years in the majority of the tide gauges examined during the 20th Century,”
Looks like we may need to wait only a few years then :-)
AFMD: It looks like the 60 year pattern is in all the temperature data sets as well.
Fish, tides, HadCrut, HadSST, AMO, PDO all contain 60 years!
How co-incidental is that?
AFMD: And the fish bit seems to have been going on for a LONG while
“Fossil evidence going back 1,700 years suggests that Pacific Sardine abundance naturally fluctuates over time. These cycles average about 60 years” ~ Voices of the Bay ~ voicesofthebay@noaa.gov ~ http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/education/voicesofthebay/pdfs/pacificsardines.pdf ~ (Dec 2011) Fishery Basics – California Fisheries
See N-G on the last thread explain how 60 year cycle nets to zero since 1950.
You’re going to have to wait a long time.
red – SLR
blue – SAT
The pause is being caused by La Nina dominance, a characteristic of the south side of the PDO. We are in the negative side of the PDO, which Chef says will last a few more decades. He is the Einstein of the Outback: the Crocodile Dundee of IQ, “That’s not an IQ. (Get’s out his), That’s an IQ.”
There is simply no way he is wrong.
lolwot | January 25, 2014 at 3:20 pm |
“See N-G on the last thread explain how 60 year cycle nets to zero since 1950”
And if that was one full .sine wave cycle..
Then it would all be down to any underlying trend.+- natural variation wouldn’t it?
60 year cycle contribution negligible over a 60 year period
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1950/scale:0.5/mean:60/plot/gistemp/from:1950
Sun is hopeless explanation too, completely wrong direction since 1950. Puts a little more on the man caused plate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1950/scale:0.01/mean:132/offset:-0.7/plot/gistemp/from:1950
Lolwot: So it’s all a co-incidence that fish, tides, HadCrut, HadSST, AMO, PDO all contain 60 years? Going back millennia?
And lateral gravitational vectors are in no position to modulate climate?
A 60 year cycle comes back on itself after 60 years. Why would you expect it to contribute any warming since 1950?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1950/scale:0.009/mean:12/offset:-2.9/plot/gistemp/from:1900/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1900/scale:0.2/mean:60/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1900/scale:0.01/mean:132/offset:-0.7
Because there is a longer trend as well? A single trend would have been seen LONG ago.
There’s no evidence for any particular longer cycle.
if the 60 year cycle couldn’t have caused it, there’s no reason to think the warming is caused by a longer cycle.
Well I would call:
Medieval Warm
Little Ice age
Present
part of a cycle. Wouldn’t you?
Can be explained by non-cyclic forcings, no need for it to be a cycle
Lolwot:
1. The cycles ARE there.
2. Temps are tiptoeing along Scenario C = no forcing
The history of climate-change cycle-seeking is not encouraging, is it RichardHL?
Because cycle-seekers perennially fool themselves XKCD-style, ain’t that right?
But the tides COULD mean that gravity is behind this all along. Lateral tides operating at about 60 degrees to the orbit plane would be the Greenland to Scotland ridge.
Modulate thermohaline circulation. Possible.
And where does the Jet stream form? Now how COULD a lateral tide affect that? Polar/Ferrel cell boundary anyone.
Just asking.
From Wiki:#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Field_tidal.png
Look where the lines are horizontal and wonder.
Sorry, make that tangential to the surface. Horizontal locally.
The best fitting variable
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1950/scale:0.01/mean:12/offset:-3.3/plot/gistemp/from:1950
Lolwot: I’m not going to repost all the urls for the 60 + longer trend as I am mobile at present.
Now the question is, that longer trend, has it reached a peak yet or not?
And how did we get to the Little Ice Age we are now recovering from?
The 60 year cycle peaked in 1985. It’s currently in a trough. It’ll start rising again soon.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:60
Lolwot: This say we are at the top, not the bottom of a cycle.
http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Lolwot: Abstract metrics such as AMO/PDO are not a indicator of absolute direction, only relative.
lolwot, He’s using the AMO. You’re using the PDO?
That isn’t a cycle, that’s global temperature, a mixture of many factors. Note that the 60 year cycle you imagine you see in that data does not correlate with the PDO.
Lolwot: You do know the difference between Relative and Absolute don’t you? And lead/lag?
Lolwot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:720
and plug in
GISS
HadCrut4
HadSST3
AMO
PDO
and you may get a clearer picture.
Cascaded Triple Running mean with a low pass corner at 15 years, two octaves from the 60 year signal.
Single mean at 720 to remove the 60 year signal
The snag.gy is a higher order filter showing essentially the same thing.
Standard audio filter stuff. Used in other power environments as well.
Cascaded Triple Running Means are a simple form of FIR Low pass filters with a near Gaussian response characteristic if you use a 1.2067 inter stage multiplier. (Thanks Vaughn Prat).
Lolwot:
PDO
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123
AMO
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/plot/esrl-amo/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123
just GISS and HadSST to go
lolwot – I personally think the AMO is astrology. The followers are awaiting for the arrival of AMO bleakness. They hate the world.
RichardLH,
“And you base this conclusion on what?”
I’m sorry but my relative weighting in my program of the significance of all the changes in the last fifty years. both to me and the fruit and vegetables I consume, is proprietary information. Besides, if I told you, you might find something wrong with my adjustments, and hurt my feelings. my reputation and my chances to obtain grant money.
Why should he tell you, Richard, when all you’ll do is try to find something wrong with it? Sorry to be so explicit, john; you are very funny.
=================
“I’m sorry but my relative weighting in my program of the significance of all the changes in the last fifty years”
That’s all right, I believe we have a 60 year cycle to account for.
Fifty, sixty, what’s a decade among friends?
=========
Given the length of the high quality record and natural variation I’ll go with it for now.
If I did the calculation right, we emitted CO2 equivalent to 790,066,915,314 bushels of corn. That’s a lot of bushels! The 2013 corn production was 13.8 billion bushels. As you can see, this much CO2 is a huge benefit to the world!!
re – http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/24/open-thread-6/#comment-442023
Let me Google that for you.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=interdecadal+pacific+oscillation
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/25/another-year-another-nail-in-the-cagw-coffin-now-includes-december-data/#comment-1549276
I have always maintained that, in theory, the cessation of global warming could increase faster than 12 months per year. According to this analysis, 2014 added 14 months to the flatlinging. The extra two months are added at the beginning of the period.
The original claim was no statistically significant global warming since 1995.
Now they are saying no statistically significant warming since September 1996. I expect it will keep coming forward like this.
Naw, it’s oozing backward.
========
2013 was ENSO neutral, lowest solar max in a century, and still in the top ten warmest years. Clearly a signal that something else is going on.
GISS has it 7th. I’m guessing that is because the arctic was colder in 2013. NOAA and UAH have 4th warmest. Since the back-to-back La Nina events, the world has has been warming at .6C per decade, and that will continue well into 2014.
The nails are actually coming out of the coffins. How many are there now? A dozen? More?
TSI as opposed to SSN was at a peak in 2013.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
But longer term cooling is in the cards.
“TSI as opposed to SSN was at a peak in 2013.”
____
A “peak” over what timeframe? All peaks are relative. Overall of course, TSI is at the lowest relative point in a century at least.
The peak of the current cycle happened late last year at just under 1962 W/m2.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/tsireconstruction_zps0ee199b5.png.html?sort=3&o=52
You really don’t have a clue do you gatesy? And think everyone relies on narrative like you do?
Canman said:
Yes. The chart is revealing. Renewables have been around for ever, and were the first energy harnessed by man. Yet their contribution to modern day energy supply is minuscule and decreasing as a proportion of total energy supply. There are physical constraints that are unlikely to be circumvented in the foreseeable future, if ever.
In contrast, nuclear fuel is effectively unlimited. The issue slowing the world getting access to cheap nuclear power (cheaper than fossil fuels) is the effect of the public’s unjustified fear of it. This has slowed development and raised the cost enormously. This shows just one of the many irrational, unjustified blocks that are causing nuclear to be so much more expensive than it could and should be: http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf
From todays GWPF newsletterr:
“Germany is set to become the first nation in Europe to charge owners of renewable energy plants for their own use of electricity, part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s effort to contain rising power bills. The solar industry says such a payment would curb investments in the technology in the nation that has the most installations of photovoltaics in the world. –Stefan Nicola and Marc Roca, Bloomberg, 24 January 2014”
“The government giveth, the government taketh away.
-Ancient words of wisdom”
“Germany risks undermining its industrial base if it fails to undertake radical reform of incentives for the country’s renewable energy sector, its new economy minister said in a clear signal of his support for industry. Export-oriented German companies have warned that a surge in power costs, caused largely by the green power incentives, will make them internationally uncompetitive and some have even threatened to move out. “We have reached the limit of what we can ask of our economy,” Gabriel said. –Madeline Chambers and Vera Eckert, Reuters, 21 January 2014 ”
German wind energy giant Prokon filed for insolvency on Wednesday, leaving tens of thousands of investors worried about their money. Prokon, which builds and manages wind parks, has been a leading player in Germany’s ambitious plan to switch to renewable energy. It managed to attract 75,000 investors through a successful advertising campaign. But after months of speculation that the company was close to ruin, Prokon filed for insolvency. –The Local, 23 January 2014
LOL this week’s XKCD cartoon “COLD” applied equally to cherry-picked economic data as to cherry-picked climate data.
Who would guess from *YOUR* posts, Peter Lang, the aggregate production trends of wind-and-solar energy?
The world doesn’t “wonder” … it applauds!
wow, impressive renewable levels, out of a global annual 170,000 TWh, renewable’s supply almost 0.6%.
Doc MArtyn
Yes. Put another way, those fringe renewables (wind, solar and geothermal) combined generate the same amount of electricity as Madagascar uses per year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production
But there’s a big difference. Madagascar’s power is generated when needed, exactly, ever second of every day of every year. Wind and solar come and go as nature dictates. They are useless without back up and/or storage bot of which are expensive. And the more of the intermittent renewables are added to the system the more unstable and unreliable the system becomes and the higher the costs become of trying to make the system reliable despite the unreliable generators.
Also, the more intermittent renewables are added to the grid the less effective they are at reducing emissions per MWh of electricity supplied (see Figure 1 here: “CO2 avoided versus wind’s share of electricity generation” http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/05/21/co2-avoidance-cost-wind/ )
Damn you global warming. Damn you straight to hell!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2545153/U-S-braces-coldest-month-century.html
OK, I’ve had about enough of this “hiatus”. Gimme more globalclimatewarmingchange.
Yah ain’t a fan of , are yah GaryM?
Let the denialist spinning, claptrap & demagoguery continue!
fan,
If I loan you a few bucks, will you use it to buy a sense of humor?
Whops! Shoulda been:
Thanks for the smiles!
From the article:
…
With a GDP per capita multiplied by 10, and a price of oil that remained about constant in constant money, the conclusion is simple: the real price of oil has been divided by 10 for a US citizen. In the same time, the efficiency of oil use – the amount of mechanical energy or the number of degrees in a room you can get for the same amount of oil – has been multiplied by several units, let’s say between 3 and 10. For cars, for example, in half a century technical progress has allowed a multiplication by 8 to 20 of the service you can get out of the same amount of oil, depending on what you count (power or kinetic energy, see below)
The French car of 1950 : an engine of 375 cc, 9 horsepower (6 kW), max speed of 60 km/h (roughly 36 mph), 500 kg (a little over half a ton), and 4.5 litres of gasoline for 100 km (≈ 50 miles per US gallon).
The French car of 2008 : an engine of 1400 cc, 70 horsepower (50 kW), max speed of 160 km/h (roughly 100 mph), 1000 kg (1,1 ton), and… 5 to 6 litres of gasoline for 100 km (≈ 40 to 45 miles per US gallon).
When we go from left to right, for a gasoline consumption that has remained about the same, we move twice the mass, at a max speed multiplied by 3, get 8 times the engine power, and 20 times the kinetic energy at full speed.
We have seen above that in the same time- since 1950 – the real price of a litre of gasoline has been divided by 2 to 3. With a “mechanical efficiency” mutliplied by 10 to 20 in the same time interval, we get to that astonishing conclusion that in half a century the real price of a mechanical kWh derived from oil has seen its price multiplied by 30 to 60 ! And oil would be more expensive for the end consumer ?
***
30 billion barrels and me…
After this little analysis, that shows that our “intuitive” opinion on the price of oil products is totally wrong, let’s end with a little calculation: a comparison of the price of one kWh coming from oil with one kWh coming from… our muscles.
A well-trained man can, at most, yield half a kWh per day of mechanical energy when using his legs, and 10 times less when using his arms (see details here). If this worker has been paid at the minimum wage in occidental countries, say 15 euros or dollars per hour (payroll taxes included), one kWh of mechanical energy will cost about 200 euros (or dollars) with legs, and 2000 with arms. Well, in a litre of gasoline there are 10 kWh of thermal energy (through combustion), of which an engine will get 2 to 4 kWh of mechanical energy.
With gasoline costing about 1 euro (or 1 dollar) per litre, a mechanical kWh coming from oil will then cost 25 to 50 cents, that is…. 500 to 10,000 times less than a mechanical kWh coming from human muscles in industrial countries. Let’s be now totally immoral: even with slaves, that nobody pays, but that still have to be maintained alive, which means feeding them, a roof (particularly in the mid-latitudes in winter), defending them against predators and diseases, etc, a rough calculation would show that a mechanical kWh still costs several euros at least, that is 10 to 100 times more than with an engine. A 100 horsepower (70 kW) tractor provides the same power than 100 horses or 1000 farm workers ; no wonder rural areas emptied !
So the final word on the price of oil is now easy to get: given the fact that fuels have enabled a multiplication by 100 to 1000 of our ability to transform our environment (because mechanical energy is nothing else than the ability to create physical flows that will change the environment), the price of fuels is not high, it is nil. The only good question is to know what will happen when this stops to be true…..
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/oil/oil_price.html
…
Morgan goes a step further though. He says cheap energy has been central to the extraordinary economic growth generated since the Industrial Revolution. And without that cheap energy, future growth will be permanently impaired. It’s a bold view that’s solidified my own thinking that higher energy prices are here to stay. The link between cheap energy and economic growth is fascinating and worth exploring further today. Particularly given the implications for the world’s fastest-growing and most energy-intensive region, Asia.
Real vs. money economy
First off, a thank you to Bob Moriarty of 321gold for tipping me off to Morgan’s work in this well-written article. Morgan’s book is worth getting but if you want the skinny version, you can find it here.
Morgan begins his book outlining four key challenges facing economies today:
The biggest debt bubble in history
A disastrous experiment with globalisation
The massaging of data to the point where economic trends are obscured
The approach of an energy-returns cliff edge
The first three points aren’t telling us much new so we’re going to focus on the final one.
Here, Morgan makes a key distinction between what he terms the money economy and the real economy. He suggests economists around the world have got it all wrong by focusing on money as the key driver of economies. Instead, money is the language rather than the substance of the real economy. The real economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and economic growth as well as the increase in population since 1750 has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy.
…
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1967941-why-shale-oil-boosters-are-charlatans-in-disguise
Gosh DocMartyn … just think of how incredibly strong your (and Peter Lang’s) “decadalist” arguments would have seemed twenty years ago!
And then, reflect upon how weak “decadalist” arguments will seem twenty years from now.
Hmmmm … kinda thought-provoking, ain’t it?
Conclusion climate-change “decadalism” amounts to a variant of climate-change “denialism” that is scientifically feeble, economically short-sighted, and morally contemptible.
There are folks who *love* climate-change “decadalism” … for selfish reasons. Chiefly politicians, demagogues, and despots.
Once again, the wonders of state run capitalism, at their very finest.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/369447/wash-rinse-repeat-argentinas-latest-crisis-andrew-stuttaford
You can’t fix stupid.
It is all-too-easy too, to decry the worst of private-sector capitalism
Why not celebrate (as Forbes now celebrates!) the cross-aisle checks-and-balances of successful hybrid systems? Just as those level-headed centrists Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton *BOTH* envisioned … right from the beginning.
Proposition Henceforth, let’s be “far-sighted cross-aisle uniters” not “decadal denialists”, eh GaryM?
…
So it should be no surprise that when I heard the news this week that Wendy Davis isn’t the person the media thought she was, my Fremdschämen gave way to schadenfreude. How to spin Davis’s embellishments is not my problem. It is a problem for the MSM which for some reason calls to mind The Sound of Music:
How do you solve a problem like Maria Wendy?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means MariaWendy?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!
The funny thing is that the liberal press — egged on by their research department at groups like ThinkProgress — was so convinced that its own infatuation was universal it never occurred to them that a) she might not be as awesome as they thought, b) that running for governor in Texas on a plank of “late term abortions for everyone!” is really pretty stupid, and c) that she’s not a great politician just because you like her.
The best evidence for this is the fact that she said the one thing — the one thing! — you shouldn’t say about your wheelchair-bound opponent: “He hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.”
I mean, bravo.
It’s just a shame she can’t run against Helen Keller. “My opponent needs to see the world through someone else’s eyes for a change!” “Ms. Keller refuses to listen to the voters!”
Still, I never quite understood how her now-moot version of her life story complemented her fight for late-term abortions. I mean her old tale was about how she was a single mom who managed to go to Harvard Law School, blah blah blah. Right? So the lesson was that having kids didn’t hold her back. So why would her life story give moral support for the idea that women need to have late-term abortions? Something doesn’t track there.
But now it turns out that her story is as operative as Anthony Weiner’s “My Twitter account was hacked” tale. The funny thing is the new, more accurate version of her life story is more helpful to the pro-choice side. It turns out that it was only because she had a generous and successful husband that she was able to go to Harvard. And it looks like she went to Harvard — instead of, say, Texas A&M — because she was more eager to go to Harvard than she was to be there for her kids (for the full, devastating, version of her story see Ann Coulter’s column. Mona Charen has a slightly more charitable take).
…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369402/how-do-you-solve-problem-wendy-jonah-goldberg/page/0/1
US energy independent by 2024?
According to this report by the API, the US (together with Canad) could become energy independent by 2024.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/report-us-canadian-energy-resources-could-provide-100-domestic-liquid-fuel
Max
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3086206820001/global-warming-alarmism/?playlist_id=933116642001#sp=show-clips
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1/1620382_751175584893422_210582498_n.jpg
These electric car owners better hope global warming continues!
From the article:
With temperatures dropping well below zero in many parts of the country this week, electric car owners are experiencing the most dramatic real-world cold weather test of EVs since mass-market battery-powered cars were introduced three years ago. PlugInsights, a research firm exclusively focusing on plug-in electric vehicles, received more than 100 responses this week to its short survey of EV owners in U.S. regions hardest hit by freezing weather. Respondents revealed that electric car performance and handling remained strong in sub-zero conditions, although driving range is diminished by approximately 25 percent to 50 percent, depending on the EV model.
Reduced range has pushed some electric car owners to leave their EVs in the garage, and drive gas cars when available, although most drivers are driving less—or not at all—generally due to the harsh conditions or outright driving bans, unrelated to range issues. Many electric car owners spoke about one key benefit of many electric cars: the ability to remotely preheat the car’s cabin, either by a timer of via a smart phone app.
http://www.plugincars.com/electric-car-drivers-report-cold-weather-impact-129218.html
What’s happening with the solar polar fields? The north polar field seems to be shifting again. Both north and south are remaining close to the zero line.
http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif