by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
The Conversation
The conversation has two articles worth reading this week:
Science can’t settle what should be done about climate change. Excerpt:
So politics, not science, must take centre stage. As Amanda Machin shows in her recent book, asking climate scientists to forge a consensus around facts with the expectation that decisive political action will naturally follow misunderstands science and politics in equal measure. If democratic politics is to be effective we need more disagreement, not more consensus, about what climate change is really about.
The truth is out there – so how do you debunk a myth? by John Cook Provides some insights in the the SkS strategy.
Communicating uncertainty
Several articles on the topic of communication uncertainty:
Washington Post: How to convince your friends to believe in climate change: Its not as hard as you think. Highlights some of Lewandowsky’s research.
The Guardian: The communication of uncertainty is hindering climate change action. Highlights a new paper by Anthony Patt and Elke Weber.
Making Science Public: Global warming is dead, long live global heating? A discussion among Mike Hulme, Brigitte Nerlich, Warren Pearce about communicating the ‘pause’.
Fabius Maximus: Apocalyptic thinking on the Left about climate change risks burning their credibility. Summary: Epistemic closure has infected both Left and Right in America. Examples of this on the Right are legion. Today we look at an example on the Left, and its potentially severe consequences for this already endangered species in America.
Understanding Uncertainty: More deaths due to climate change? Maybe, or maybe not. By uncertainty ‘guru’ David Spiegelthalter.
Sea ice update
Check out this latest article from NSIDC. The summary: Arctic sea ice extent remained lower than average in January, and just within two standard deviations of the long-term average. Arctic temperatures remained above average, even as cold winter air embraced North America. The retention of more sea ice in September 2013 has increased the overall thickness and volume of the ice pack compared to recent years. Antarctic sea ice remains significantly more extensive than average.
Regarding ice thickness:
Preliminary measurements from CryoSat show that the volume of Arctic sea ice in autumn 2013 was about 50% higher than in the autumn of 2012. In October 2013, CryoSat measured approximately 9,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 2,200 cubic miles) of sea ice compared to 6,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 1,400 cubic miles) in October 2012. About 90% of the increase in volume between the two years is due to the retention of thick, multiyear ice around Northern Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago. However, this apparent recovery in ice volume should be considered in a long-term context. It is estimated that in the early 1980s, October ice volume was around 20,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 4,800 cubic miles), meaning that ice volume in October 2013 still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years. CryoSat will continue to monitor sea ice through the current growth season, and the data will reveal the effect of this past autumn’s increase on ice volume at the end of winter.
Steyn vs Mann
Mark Steyn continues his free speech crusade in an article Yes we can say that. Towards the end of the article, Michael Mann and the climate debate gets a mention:
Which brings us to Michael Mann, the fake Nobel laureate currently suing NATIONAL REVIEW for mocking his global-warming “hockey stick.” Of the recent congressional hearings, Dr. Mann tweeted that it was “#Science” — i.e., the guy who agrees with him — vs. “#AntiScience” — i.e., Dr. Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. That’s to say, she is by profession a scientist, but because she has the impertinence to dissent from Dr. Mann’s view she is “#AntiScience.” Mann is the climatological equivalent of those bozo imams on al-Arabiya raging about infidel whores: He can’t refute Dr. Curry, he can only label her.
He explains his aversion to appearing with anyone other than fawning groupies thus: “Getting on a debate stage signals that, while you might disagree, you respect the position of your opponent. #WhyWeDontDebateScienceDeniers.” But the reality is that he’s too insecure and dull-witted to argue. That’s why he’s suing me over a pun (“tree-ring circus”), why he threatened legal action in Minnesota over a song parody, and why he’s in court in Vancouver objecting to a bit of wordplay. “You can’t say that!” is the refrain of those who can’t hold their own. Michael Mann is seeking massive damages from me and this magazine. Nuts to that. But I would be willing to buy him a course in debating technique — because in free societies that’s how you win. I’d also like to buy the wee thin-skinned chap a sense of humor, but I don’t think there’s a course for that.
Another article from Mark Steyn: Stick yourself up. Excerpt:
“Reluctant public figure” and shrinking Nobel violet Michael Mann writes more newspaper columns than I do these days, buthis latest in The Guardian has one delightful moment of self-sabotaging omniscience, in which he does to the early typewriters what he did to the Medieval Warm Period. That’s a good example of why he’s careful never to expose himself to genuine debate, and why his cross-examination on the witness stand will be such a hoot. Seating limited. Book now.
Way back in 2012, when Mann vs Steyn first caught my eye, I stated:
JC message to Michael Mann: Mark Steyn is formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.
I’m not predicting how Mann’s lawsuit will turn out, but Steyn’s relentless hammering of Mann seems to be doing far more damage to Mann’s reputation that the alleged legal defamation.
JC note: Stay tuned, I have some interesting stuff to post next week.
How many chicken little heads are exploding in the deep hidden climate?
===========
I want to start a discussion on the Great Nye vs. Ham Debate t’other night.
Go.
Andrew
and that has exactly what to do with climate science?
Doc,
This is Climate, Etc. Not Climate.
Andrew
I refer to http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/piomas/
I quote “There it is, for the first time since 2009 the trend line on the PIOMAS sea ice volume anomaly graph is above the linear trend”
The January volume of Arctic sea ice is above the trend line for the first time since 2009. Now there are many ways of interpreting this. However, I suggest it is exactly what one would expect if Arctic sea ice is, in fact, recovering back towards 1979 levels from the lows of recent years.
Jim C, just as was the case in 2008 and 2009 (after 2007’s big declines) we are seeing a regression to the mean of a long-term downward linear trend. This is far from a recovery, though certain “skeptics” would like to paint it as such, perhaps out of wishful thinking or ignorance that actual malice or intentional anti-science. Fortunately, people like Neven are around that accurately characterize this regression to the long-term linear declining mean:
“And like I wrote two months ago, the fact that the anomaly trend line is now finally above the linear trend again, doesn’t mean the linear trend is reversed. It means that the decrease could be regressing to the linear trend, instead of deviating from it and becoming more of an exponential downward trend.”
We are most likely headed toward a seasonal ice-free Arctic in the next few decades, and this kind of regression toward a declining mean is at the heart of the accurately characterized “death spiral”.
The aptly named and more aptly illustrated “death spiral”, showing why discussion of a “recovery”, while a favorite among skeptics after a big down year, is a bit premature at best:
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv_september_average_polar_graph.png
Chicken Little alarmists pirouette in Fibonacci death spirals, leaving the audience breathless and headless.
==============
R Gates, you write “The aptly named and more aptly illustrated “death spiral”,”
Interesting that the graph you reference only goes to 2012. What happened to 2013? I suggest that when 2013 is included, and we put in an estimate of what the data from Jan 2104 suggests, the “death spiral” will look very different.
Jim C.,
I understand that hope springs eternal for you that somehow AGW will be shown as not occurring. The chorus was loud and strong in 2008 and 2009 that the death spiral had reversed or that a recovery was commencing. In hindsight, we simply were seeing regression to a long-term mean of linear decline. I strongly suspect this was the case in 2013 as well, and that we’ll see new summer sea ice low marks in the coming years, as we bob up and down along the linear decline– and everytime we bob up, we’ll hear the chorus of: “Look! Recovery!”
Also, it could be the case that the linear decline does accelerate to something nonlinear as we get closer to that summer-free Arctic, as the net energy in the Arctic (represented by less total mass of ice) increases.
I have a bet with Bob Droege. I claim that the Arctic sea ice minimum extent, according to NSIDC, in 2014, will be greater than in 2013. Do you want to join in, and claim that 2014 will be less than 2013? The penalty for the loser is to post a mea culpa on Climate Etc.
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist, perhaps you would like to share with the class why one would expect a linear trend of Arctic ice area shrinkage in summer due to an increase in atmospheric CO2?
“Do you want to join in, and claim that 2014 will be less than 2013? The penalty for the loser is to post a mea culpa on Climate Etc.”
_____
I think it is reasonably likely (at least 50% probability) that the summer Arctic Ice extent and area will be lower in 2014 than in 2013, but less likely it will be lower than 2012. However, it think it is also reasonably likely that one of years between 2014-2020 will see a summer low in both extent and area that is lower than 2012’s current record setting low.
“R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist | February 8, 2014 at 1:22 pm |
The aptly named and more aptly illustrated “death spiral”, showing why discussion of a “recovery”, while a favorite among skeptics after a big down year, is a bit premature at best:”
Well yes, the brain interprets the plot as showing the area of a circle, and not the radius, so one draws the conclusion that the difference between 1980 and 2013 is is 23 fold and not 4.8 fold.
Changes in things like rainfall in a particular month vary by a factor of 5 in loads of places, but generally not by >20.
So use the graphic and plot (average life expectancy minus age) for each birthday.
Going down the drain indeed.
R. Gates, you write “I think it is reasonably likely”
Never mind the fancy words. Do you want to bet?
“R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist, perhaps you would like to share with the class why one would expect a linear trend of Arctic ice area shrinkage in summer due to an increase in atmospheric CO2?”
_____
This is very easy Doc, and I’ve discussed it often here. As the oceans warm (since they are receiving the bulk of the climate system energy accumulation) we are seeing a measured increase in advection of energy toward the poles, but especially toward the N. pole, as this is the natural imbalance between hemispheres in terms of equator to pole energy advection. This energy is being advected both by ocean currents, but also of course via the troposphere. This energy is melting the ice from below, but also of course the general warmer tropospheric temperatures are adding to the melt (and also of course melting the permafrost). There will also of course be positive feedbacks to this melting as more exposed open water and open land (there is less snow in the NH on the ground in the summer), such that more warming leads to more warming– hence the feedback. All in all, it is very likely we’ll see an ice-free summer Arctic later this century.
Ah, so this bit:-
“In hindsight, we simply were seeing regression to a long-term mean of linear decline. I strongly suspect this was the case in 2013 as well, and that we’ll see new summer sea ice low marks in the coming years, as we bob up and down along the linear decline– and everytime we bob up, we’ll hear the chorus of: “Look! Recovery!”
Also, it could be the case that the linear decline does accelerate to something nonlinear as we get closer to that summer-free Arctic, as the net energy in the Arctic (represented by less total mass of ice) increases.”
was just bollocks designed to make your argument seem scientifically and statistically based.
“R. Gates, you write “I think it is reasonably likely”
Never mind the fancy words. Do you want to bet?”
_____
And the loser simply has to say, “Ok, I guess I was mistaken in my guess?”
@ Jim
I’ve been meaning to ask about this.
All the recent hullabaloo about Arctic sea ice seems to refer to the golden years of the mid-70’s, in this case, 1979, as some sort of ‘gold standard’ in Arctic ice. I am told that the fact that the current extent of Arctic ice is somewhat below that of 1979 is a certain sign of Global Warming. And not just Global Warming, but Anthropogenic CO2 (ACO2) Driven Global Warming, and without question a sign of our impending doom if ACO2 is not taxed and regulated immediately.
Aren’t the mid-70’s the period when I was reading story after story warning of the looming ice age and wasn’t the RECORD EXTENT of Arctic ice cited at the time as an unmistakable sign of our imminent wholesale conversion to peoplesicles?
If the RECORD extent of Arctic sea ice in the mid-70’s inspired fear of dangerous cooling, why, all of a sudden, is Arctic sea ice extent BELOW that of the mid-70’s a symptom of dangerous warming?
“Ah, so this bit:-
“In hindsight, we simply were seeing regression to a long-term mean of linear decline. I strongly suspect this was the case in 2013 as well, and that we’ll see new summer sea ice low marks in the coming years, as we bob up and down along the linear decline– and everytime we bob up, we’ll hear the chorus of: “Look! Recovery!”
Also, it could be the case that the linear decline does accelerate to something nonlinear as we get closer to that summer-free Arctic, as the net energy in the Arctic (represented by less total mass of ice) increases.”
was just bollocks designed to make your argument seem scientifically and statistically based.”
_____
No, designed to indicate what is most likely based on statistical and scientific analysis. It is very hard for the seasonal sea ice to survive a climate energy system that is constantly increasing. Paleoclimate studies are strong indicators that at these GH gas levels, we’ll see an ice-free seasonal Arctic Ocean.
It seems unlikely that the energy content of the planet is increasing.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_Net_zps9f7faaaa.png.html?sort=3&o=8
Rgates
So what were the chg levels when the arctic was last virtually ice fee around 4000 years ago and substantially ice free around 1000 years ago?
Tonyb
R.Gates you write “And the loser simply has to say, “Ok, I guess I was mistaken in my guess?””
Basically yes. Though it would be nice if one could bring in a little humor and humble pie.
Bob, you write “If the RECORD extent of Arctic sea ice in the mid-70′s inspired fear of dangerous cooling, why, all of a sudden, is Arctic sea ice extent BELOW that of the mid-70′s a symptom of dangerous warming?”
You are asking the wrong person. I was not taking any notice of Arctic ice in the 1970’s. All I know is that satellite pictures became available in 1979, and that was when the first accurate measurements of Arctic sea ice were made.
“It seems unlikely that the energy content of the planet is increasing.”
___
I’m thinking you mean energy content of the climate system. But anyway, if the energy in the climate system is not increasing, then some new physics will have to be developed to explain rising sea levels. rising OHC, glacial mass loss, melting permafrost, enhanced Brewer-Dobson, etc. Occam’s razor would tend to posit that indeed, Earth’s climate system is mostly likely gaining energy.
“Jim Cripwell | February 8, 2014 at 4:15 pm |
R.Gates you write “And the loser simply has to say, “Ok, I guess I was mistaken in my guess?””
Basically yes. Though it would be nice if one could bring in a little humor and humble pie.”
____
Honest skeptics, such as myself, love to be wrong, because it means our “provisional truths” have been modified or tossed aside. I’d be glad to taste some humble pie if indeed 2014’s summer sea ice at minimum is not lower than 2013.
Bob
The early satellite records date to 1972 although ate not strictly like for like to the methods used today.
Here is a paper on the early satellite data
http://www.meto.umd.edu/~kostya/Pdf/Seaice.30yrs.GRL.pdf
They seem to show a decline in the NH from the earliest records and a sharp decline 1972 to 1979 for the Antarctic. As we now know this region subsequently recovered strongly
Tonyb
Bets on year-to-year changes are not bets on climate. They are a crap-shoot. Bet on a decadal average versus the previous decade, whether temperature or sea ice. That is climate. I, for example, am confident that the decade 2010-2019 will be warmer than 2000-2009 by at least 0.1 C, and possibly more than 0.2 C.
The energy content of the planet includes both heat and work – in atmosphere, oceans, enthalpy, potential and kinetic energy and the internal energy of molecules. Anything else? gatesy habitual quibbles – with which he starts nearly every response – are all a bit tedious and are merely a passive/aggressive assertion of a ludicrously ill conceived conviction of his intellectual superiority. Reminds me of another commenter in this regard – one who drops whines about irony from on a high moral horse.
We are talking about ocean heat mostly – which is difficult to ascertain before 2004. At least some OHC ‘climatologies’ suggest a peak around 2004 – followed by a decline and a modest rise since.
e.g http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=106
ARGO since 2004 shows some annual to interannual variability – but I am not sure that much can be made of this without a few more years data. What will 2013 be like given the more recent downturn in CERES net? What will the rest of the decade bring with a downturn in TSI and a mooted increase in intensity of La Nina in the multi-decadal cool Pacific mode?
Oddly enough Jason shows 3.2mm/year sea level rise while ARGO in the period of the rise showed 0.69mm/year steric rise – with some loss of ocean volume. They can’t both be right. Other than that a litany of internal energy redistribution in an Earth system at a high plateau seems quite irrelevant.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=106
It seems more a load of spew – which is apparently acceptable discourse in this morass – than a rational argument.
General
The 0.69mm year matches that of many tidal gauges, a much more reliable indicator than satellites which don’t measure coasts.
It is very hard to determine an ‘average’ sea level change as it is a regional thing, with many places seeing a fall in ocean depth and many others remaining static. To complicate matters of course, in some places the land is rising and in others it is falling.
tonyb
Jim D
Hmmm. Let’s see how that stacks up using HadCRUT4, Jim.
Starting with an unusually cold year 2000 skews the picture a bit, Jim. And, besides, why not start with the first official year of the 21st century, 2001, rather than 2000?
But let’s go along with your game and start with 2000.
Average 2000-2009 = 0.457C (10 years)
Average 2010-2013 = 0.472C (4 years)
So the second decade is starting off a smidgen warmer than the first. If it continues at the 2013 level of 0.486C it will average 0.480C. This is around 0.02C warmer than the first decade and nowhere near the 0.1C to 0.2C warmer, as you imagine.
In fact, for the second decade to get to 0.1C warmer, as you suggest, would mean the next six years would need to be at 0.624C on average.
And to get to 0.2C warmer, would mean the next six years would need to be at a whopping 0.790C on average!
Come back down to Planet Earth, Jim – you’re beginning to lose it.
But, hey, if you want to place a bet that your prediction will come true, I’m sure there will be a lot of takers (including me).
Max
manacker, the last three decades have averaged 0.15 C warmer than the previous. It is no stretch to say 0.1 to 0.2 C. You can start in 2001 if you want, but that delays the result to 2020.
@ TonyB
Thanks Tony, but my point was not to discuss Arctic ice cover per se, but the fact that NOW discussions of Arctic ice anomalies almost always use the 70’s level as the reference standard while current Arctic levels that are somewhat below that standard are cited as a clear indication of not only dangerous warming, but dangerous anthropogenic warming.
During the 70’s however, the drumbeat, for the entire decade, was dangerous cooling and rapidly growing Arctic ice was often cited as evidence.
In other words, current event reporting during the 70’s presented the cooling trend, growing glaciers, and rapidly expanding Arctic ice cover that started in the early 40’s as ominous evidence of dangerous cooling. Now, current climate science compares current temperatures, glaciers, and Arctic ice cover with that of the 70’s and says that the current warming climate,
retreating glaciers, and shrunken Arctic ice cap are evidence of dangerous warming. And definitely anthropogenic, of course.
Why was 70’s ice a dangerous omen during the 70’s and (apparently) optimum in retrospect?
The 70’s was particularly special relative to the century before.
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/polyakfig2.jpg
…or not
I heard someone mention my name so I might as well weigh in.
Predicting one years minimum extent relative to the previous year is indeed a crapshoot as it is mostly due to weather and what kind of a melt season you get.
All the talk of recovery or a return to the mean belies how complex the ice cap is. Every melt season has been different since I started watching in 2007.
If making a stupid bet can get people to observe what is going on then so be it.
“You can learn a lot by watching”
By the way, ice extent has spent a couple days in record low territory by JAXA already this year, so alll the recovery from 2012 has already melted.
Jim D
Before you make silly predictions, you should check the arithmetic.
You claim that this decade (which you define as 2010-2019) will be 0.1 to 0.2C warmer than the previous decade, citing what happened in earlier decades.
Average 2000-2009 = 0.457C
Average 2010-2013 = 0.472C
To get to 0.1C warmer than 2000-2009, the average annual temperature of the remaining six years of this decade needs to be:
10 * (0.457 + 0.1) = 4 * 0.472 + 6 * x
6x = 5.570 – 1.888
x = 0.614C Oops!
To get to 0.2C warmer than 2000-2009, the average annual temperature of the remaining six years of this decade needs to be:
10 * (0.457 + 0.2) = 4 * 0.472 + 6 * x
6x = 6.570 – 1.888
x = 0.780C Ouch!
Do you want to make a bet right now that the average annual temperature (HadCRUT4)over the next six years will be between 0.614C and 0.780C?
If so, let’s get on with making the bet, Jim.
Max
manacker, yes, I am confident that the decade will be 0.1 C warmer at least. You only have to look at this and if the temperature stays within the rails, and crosses the mean for a bit, I win. The trend here is 0.16 C per decade.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/offset:0.1/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/offset:-0.1
Jim D
OK
You’ve staked your claim.
The decade from 2010 to 2019 will be between 0.1C and 0.2C warmer on average than the decade from 2000 to 2009, which averaged 0.457C using published HadCRUT4 annual values.
The four years 2010 to 2013 averaged 0.472C according to this same record.
If HadCRUT4 changes the past record in either direction ex post facto (so that 2000 to 2009 no longer averages 0.457C or that 2010 to 2013 no longer average 0.472C) this change will not be considered.
IOW the decade 2010 to 2019 must average at least 0.557C for you to win the bet.
How much do you want to bet?
Max
Jim D
To get more specific:
IOW the decade 2010 to 2019 must average at least 0.557C and the 6-year period 2014-2019 must average at least 0.614C for you to win the bet.
Are we on?
Max
manacker, I agree with those numbers .457 represents the average of the last decade, so .557 would be needed to meet my threshold, and that would show up in the 10-year running mean centered on 2015.0 in HADCRUT4 as seen in WfT. I realize I am penalizing myself by using HADCRUT4 rather than GISTEMP because it eliminates the polar cap where warming is likely going to be fastest. But the running mean difference currently stands at 0.112 for 1994-2003 versus 2004-2013, and that is with 1998 in the former period, which will be excluded by the time the bet verifies, possibly to be replaced by a similarly large El Nino in the later period. If we get a major volcano, that’s tough for me. We won’t know this outcome for 6 years.
Jim D
Believe we have established the criteria for our friendly wager.
You bet that the annual HadCRUT4 anomaly averages 0.557C or more over the period 2010-2019 (IOW that the decadal warming will be at least at half the 0.2C per decade rate projected by IPCC in AR4)
Since 2010-2013 averaged 0.472C, this means that 2014-2019 must average 0.624C or higher for you to win the bet.
If HadCRUT4 readjusts, tweaks, corrects or in any way revises any numbers prior to today of its record ex post facto, these changes will not be considered: the 0.624C or higher threshold must be met for you to win.
So how much do we want to bet?
I’d suggest $500 as a minimum, going to a charity, with the winner deciding which charity the loser shall pay
Shall we take this offline, with Judith giving us e-mail contacts?
Max
manacker, maybe $100, and while I am sure you would be as good for your money as I would, I don’t think we need to bring JC into this. Let’s just monitor the situation, and come to that arrangement as it becomes clear who would pay. The hard thing is to guarantee tools like WfT, or HADCRUT4, or this site, will still be around in 6 years. In fact the payment could be indexed to how far off the 0.1 it is, e.g. for every .01 above you pay 1$, and for every .01 below, I pay $1.
Jim D
OK. $100 it is. And HadCRUT4 is the metric – if it gets eliminated in the meantime, the bet’s off. The $1 per 0.001C idea is too complicated. Either this decade warmed over the previous decade by 0.1C or more – or it didn’t.
Since this is only half the rate predicted by IPCC, the bet is essentially one of whether or not the IPCC models are able to project decadal temperature trends (and hence make meaningful longer range projections). I say they cannot – you believe they can.
My suggesting we do this off line by direct email contact was simply to avoid boring a bunch of other bloggers here with the details of our bet – plus making it easier to settle in 6 years in case this site no longer exists.
Max
RG,
I can agree with your point about regression to a mean that is negative.
Death spiral is typical alarmist verbiage, and detracts from your credibility.
OK, manacker, $100 and no messing. We won’t need any more messages on this until closer to the time, but we should do annual updates as reminders, perhaps as each year fulfills on HADCRUT4. 2013 should be there soon.
This is a wonderful insight:
“But the evidence continues to grow that the barriers preventing effective climate policies reside primarily with us (rather than the uncertain predictions of climate science). And the focus on finding the perfect method of communicating uncertainty may in fact be simply reinforcing the sceptics’ framing of the problem.”
“This is a wonderful insight:”
Now you’re getting somewhere, R. Gates!
The certainties exist in the Manniacal fudge-stats and hiding of declines. And that’s not science at all.
We’ve seen the wheedle and the damage done, a little part of it in everyone.
“I’m not predicting how Mann’s lawsuit will turn out, but Steyn’s relentless hammering of Mann seems to be doing far more damage to Mann’s reputation that the alleged legal defamation.”
Not sure how you’re measuring that Judith, but I sincerely hope you’re correct. I dug deep for Steyn and I hope some of you other skeptics will do the same. I see it as a put up or shut up moment for those of us wanting to do something meaningful.
Well whaddya know. I was just going to post the same thing.
Nice to know that it isn’t necessary.
Nice to see an actual skeptical comment (notice no quotation marks) from a “skeptic” — in response to one of Judith’s opinions – an opinion stated with no supporting evidence or explication of logic.
How has Judith determined what is or isn’t “doing far more damage to Mann’s reputation that [sic] the alleged lefal defmation?”
My guess is from reading WUWT.
What’s your guess, PG?
By the rules of john cook, how to debunk a myth. The original statement by Steyn caused titters for a few days at WUWT. Now with the lawsuit, we are continually reminded of what Steyn said about Mann, and Mann is subjected to continuing attacks by Steyn. Mann attempts to deflect these attacks (e.g. calling me anti science), providing further fodder for Steyn.
heh.
“lefal” [sic]
Another comment, another new word. Combination of legal and lethal with a lisp.
Judith –
As you said (with a proper pat on Mr. Uncertainty’s back) you don’t know how the defamation case will be decided by the court – yet you think that his statements about you will likely prove more impactful to his reputation than if he wins a high profile case about whether or not he was defamed?
Mr. Uncertainty just left the room in disgust, Judith. You pat him on the back and then slap him in the face?
It’s also rather interesting that you think that Mann’s reactions have done more harm to his case than Steyn’s continuing constant stream of vitriol – including some directed at judges whose legal rulings he doesn’t agree with.
No doubt, his former legal team agrees with you. What else could be the explanation for why they fired their client?
“By the rules of john cook, how to debunk a myth. The original statement by Steyn caused titters for a few days at WUWT. Now with the lawsuit, we are continually reminded of what Steyn said about Mann, and Mann is subjected to continuing attacks by Steyn. Mann attempts to deflect these attacks (e.g. calling me anti science), providing further fodder for Steyn.”
Think it’s called “The Streisand Effect.” Law suits like Mann’s are to my way of thinking prima facie evidence of a certain fundamental looniness. There’s a court of law and the court of public opinion.
To sum up, you can win a lawsuit and still look like a jerk.
Oh geez. Back to the “skepticism.”
Die-hard fanatics will think that their current opinions will be vindicated by the outcome of the trial – not matter the actual outcome. Steyn will “look like a jerk” to some, and Mann will “look like jerk” to others. Nothing will change.
Anyone who does not have an existing opinion that will not be held irrespective of the court finding, will hear about an out come that Mann won and conclude that Steyn “look[s] like a jerk.”
It was nice while it lasted, PG. Too bad you couldn’t hold on longer.
Maybe next time.
One measurable way is that the lawsuit made it broadly known that Mann was falsely claiming to be a Nobel laureate. The claim was part of his court filing against Steyn, Steyn pointed it out in an article and the hoots of derision led the Nobel committee to publicly confirm that Mann is not a Nobel laureate.
Google “Mann Nobel prize” and measure away, Joshua.
By the way, the last time the law tried to shut up Steyn, the law was repealed and the parties arrayed against him became laughing stocks. My money is on Steyn.
jeffn –
You make an excellent point, Jeffn.
In fact, by coincidence, I was just in the supermarket checkout line and I looked up at one point and noticed that in each and every other checkout line people were discussing Mann’s “falsely claiming to be a Nobel laureate.”
I mean it’s not like that trope is just an obsession of diehard blogospheric “skeptics,” who already have their mind made up about Mann, or anything like that.
I’m quite sure now that you’re right, and his reputation is now horribly damaged in the eyes of Jill and Jack average.
How could I have been so wrong?
jeffn,
Very good point re the Nobel laureate claim. I broadly agree with Judith’s assertion about more damage being done as a consequence of the law suit than the initial Steyn jab did to begin with. I just wondered if she knew something I didn’t in this regard.
BTW – Jeffn –
What a wonderful description. “The law tried to shut up Steyn.”
Amazing what “the law” “tries” to do, isn’t it?
Why, I think that “the law” was standing in one of those checkout lines, explaining what she (the law is a she, isn’t it?) was “trying to do.” Tell me, does she have brown curly hair?
Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?
You must shop at different stores than I do, Joshua. The topic in my check out line has been the economy or the promise that if you like you insurance, you can keep it.
Global climate change/warming/stasis hasn’t been a topic at my grocers since warming stopped and Gore sold out to oil barons.
But among the climate interested it was a funny story that had legs. Like i said, google it and measure it.
jeffn –
http://bit.ly/1gfm3JF
4, 600,000 hits.
When I am in supermarket lines I talk about the weather. I tell them that Minnesota (where I live) has warmed more than any other US state. I tell them we have warmed almost two deg C or more in some locations. I ask them if they notice how our crops are failing and if they notice how much warmer it is. Pretty much all respond with incredulous disbelief or immediate laughing.
I think people missed Josh’s quip. Nobody paying any attention to Nobel prizes or the IPCC thought Mann had won their Nobel Peace prize. There are many who resent that the IPCC did win one along with Al Gore, and so any scientist who takes any credit as part of the IPCC process that won it, is immediately hit with that resentment. It is understandable.
Joshua,
“I’m quite sure now that you’re right, and his reputation is now horribly damaged in the eyes of Jill and Jack average.
How could I have been so wrong?”
Because you’re not as intelligent as Jill and Jack average as far as deductive reasoning goes.
Jack and Jill ran up CO2 Hill
The temperature failed to follow.
On the ice, Jack slipped, fell Jill,
Smacked climatologists, all in a row.
===============
ordvic
Well, we have established that as fact here at Climate Etc. long ago.
But I’m not sure how that explain why I couldn’t have known how deeply their opinions about Mann have been affected by Steyn writing about Mann’s claims about the Nobel – as Jeff explained.
Perhaps some evidence would help here. You know, something a tad more solid than saying “Google it?”
Joshua – You put a lot of weight on the winning or losing of a defamation lawsuit. The public doesn’t – they will still judge the people involved on their merits (or lack of). No matter how this case turns out, many will not change their minds. It’s jjust one battle in a long war.
Josh, No you’re right, you nor anyone else could have know how the public would react to Steyn’s article. I tried to find articles by the nyts and came up empty. I only mention that as it was only reported on the right or so it seemed to me. It also did not make it into polls as far as I know thus my statement of you nor anyone else. It seems the times finds no news value there even though Mann has recently derided the times. There is one article by the Examiner by Thomas Richard where he showed the questions he sent to the IPCC and their answers. It couldn’t sound worse for Mann, they soundly rebuked him. The deductive reasoning here is that the public became aware the rebuke and reacted accordingly. Until there is some unbiased polling no one can know the extent of the damage. Whether or not jeffn made a fair supposition would have to be in the eyes of the beholder.
kim
Hickory, dickory dock
The temp fell like a rock
Then came the notion
It’s in the ocean
But ARGO showed this was a crock
Most people do not know who Michael Mann is, so Josh’s foolish statement on the grocery line chatter, means nothing.
More people DO know about Mann’s false claims now, and I think it should be obvious that false claims of being a Nobel Laureate are not looked at as a good thing except if you appreciate bad scams.
tintgt –
How did you determine that? A Google search?
You boyz crack me up.
tingtg –
http://tinyurl.com/kbpq77c
1,890,000,000 hits.
Joshua says: “How did you determine that? A Google search?”
No search needed, Joshua. Since Mann is suing for damages, it means Steyn was read. So either Mann’s lawsuit has nothing or Steyn had impact.
Reminds me of the Lance Armstrong aggression.
Joshua wrote: “Why, I think that “the law” was standing in one of those checkout lines, explaining what she (the law is a she, isn’t it?) was “trying to do.” Tell me, does she have brown curly hair? Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?”
What an interesting guy you are, Joshua. Yes, “the law” tried to shut up Steyn. He was prosecuted by the Canadian hate crimes police under article 13 – that was a law- for having the temerity to point out what Islamic bigwigs were actually saying about us infidels. The result was that he won and the law was repealed out of embarrassment over the whole episode. It was a nice little triumph for free speech ( you remember free speech don’t you? It was something liberals used to claim to value.)
Beyond that I’m surprised this little theme is still being debated a day later. Joshua challenged us to provide evidence that Manns suit hurt him more than Steyn and I did.
Jim D says:
“and so any scientist who takes any credit as part of the IPCC process that won it, is immediately hit with that resentment.’
Try this, Jim D. “and so any scientist who falsely claims to be a Nobel laureate”…
Let’s not forget that Mann slowly ratcheted up his claim on his page, making his false claim more exclusive.
Dr. Curry, either jump all the way in and join Steyn in his suit on purpose and by your own deliberate choice, and say so, or get some advice from someone competent on how to not drag yourself into it unwittingly by your own conduct.
While, yes, you can say anything that you want, yes you are also responsible for what things that you say, and clever lawyers who understand the precedents for such things will make expert decisions about what is best for their case. This isn’t a matter of your position or sympathies, but just of how to avoid inviting being put into a position you may not enjoy.
The only winner of your current approach, other than lawyers on all sides, is Mann.
Bart R bangs the table.
================
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hide+the+decline+youtube
Think you should try for just a tad more self importance there, Bart. Seems to me Professor Curry is doing pretty well without your sententious advice, and has been doing so for quite some time.
In a lawsuit like Mann’s, with freedom of speech at stake, everyone is free to proclaim “I am Spartacus!”
BartR, “Dr Curry either jump all the way in and join Steyn in his suit”
Before you give out unwanted advise perhaps you should know what you’re talking about first. It is not Steyn’s suit; it is Mann’s suit against Steyn.
“Before you give out unwanted advise perhaps you should know what you’re talking about first. It is not Steyn’s suit; it is Mann’s suit against Steyn.’
Details. Details. Bart don’t need no stinking details.
And injures his hand yet once again.
Bart, do you expect all people to follow your commands or is it just the ladies you think should bend to your will?
For examples of competent advice, don’t look to this thread; it’s barren of competency.
Dr. Curry has not been doing well. A jumped-up twerp Skydragon put the fear of defending a lawsuit into Dr. Curry with no more than a form letter and some puffery with no more weight nor merit to it than single ply toilet paper.
Mann v. Steyn, for further example, belongs to both plaintiff and defendant; if either had wanted no part of it, they both had the option to settle before it got to court as much as any party did. So, yes, it’s Steyn’s suit as much as Mann’s, or any other party to it.
Curry has zigged into involving her university’s name in a matter involving another university’s reputation through reckless attempts to play cutesy on Steyn’s behalf, and now Steyn’s exploiting her willingness to be his patsy in public. This doesn’t tarnish Mann’s reputation any further; Steyn took his shot all the way with Mann long ago, and hasn’t and couldn’t say any worse since the start of the suit, but Steyn has a lot he can do to cover anyone else who lends themselves to it with muck. So can Mann. And their lawyers on either side can then maneuver for whatever reason to thereafter say to a judge, “Your honor, Dr. Curry has been making statements we feel involves her in this matter,” and his honor will have to, I’m sure reluctantly, let them serve papers on Dr. Curry or her school to answer that to the degree Dr. Curry has invited it. Which she is doing, apparently without realizing it.
And while you might want to stand up and say you’re Spartacus, George, you’re not Spartacus. You didn’t make war on Rome’s legions, throw off chains, leave the comfort of your home, shed blood, take scars, march the breadth of the peninsula. You’re a guy who mouths off on blogs. If you want to say you’re Spartacus, earn it some, or you’re just another Clownicus. And if you think you can put yourself into a position where any party to the suit cares what you say, by all means, go for it as is your right. Invite the liability, so far as you think it’s fun. America’s a free country. Just remember that with freedom comes responsibility. Of, as it sounds like this is the first time you’ve heard of that concept, with freedom comes responsibility.
I am Clownicus! Laugh to be free.
=============
kim | February 8, 2014 at 10:19 pm |
Listen to yourself.
http://xkcd.com/481
While it is true both (or all) parties are party to the lawsuit it is the plaintiff who files a complaint with the court and serves a copy of the complaint on the defendant. The plaintiff is filing a suit or grievance against the defendant. It is the plainiffs action. Steyn has not filed a suit against Mann. It is Mann’s suit against Steyn not Steyn’s suit against Mann.
Dr Curry cannot join Steyn in his lawsuit as he did not sue Mann. Mann would have to bring suit against her and include her along with Steyn and co. For her to be involved it would have to be as a witness. Otherwise she could bring a suit against Mann but that would be a seprate lawsuit.
You are really dimwitted, barty. Why are you cautioning Judith? Are you a faux lawyer? Mann has defamed Judith, not the other way round. Manny is the one who has stupidly exposed his nasty little self to legal jeopardy. Google defamation per se. You are vying with joshie for bottom of the barrel dishonor. I don’t know why Judith doesn’t step on you fools. And if I were a scientist and another scientist called me an anti-science serial mis-informer, he would have multiple problems.
Barticus Pharticus has spoken…
ordvic | February 8, 2014 at 11:59 pm |
Hairsplitting vis “suit” vs. “action”. You’re just nitpicking to distract from the real point, that what people say or write can lead to bad results for them, ironically by attempting to construct a bad result for what I’ve said.
Which at least you do by discussing the content of what was said, instead of mere ad hom like the rest. I mean, look at poor DocMartyn’s crassly gender-biased defamation, whic seems to forget how many times I’ve bent his/her/its/their (I don’t know nor do I care which) arguments to my claims’ will by simply knowing the difference between heat and electricity. Just more reason not to use invalid premises in an argument, they reveal weakness.
Invalid premises, barty? What is your premise for Judith, or her school, being served papers to answer for something? What papers? Answer for what? Your dumb scenario, including quoting the lawyers petitioning the judge and the judge’s reluctant agreement…blah…blah…blah, is just some fanciful crap that you made up. Don’t you anonymous little nobodies have anything better to do than to hang around here sniping at Judith from the tall grass? Cowards.
Don Monfort | February 9, 2014 at 12:16 pm |
You seem to place disproportionate significance on the act of using the same words on some blog somewhere as on some person somewhere else. I don’t know the person somewhere else, and don’t want to. I’m not here because of the person somewhere else, and have no desire for that to change. I’m here for the world of ideas about climate. If you’re looking to Climate Etc. as a dating service, or way to overcome deep-seated feelings of loneliness and longings for personal affection, you’re doing it wrong.
Anonymity blunts the ad hom urge already far too prevalent in discussions in this topic. Were Dr.’s Curry and Mann anonymous, would there even be a case for defamation, or this silly and unbecoming feud carried on by people who ought be mature enough to rise above such shenanigans? I don’t care if the participants are men or women, so don’t resort to the sad gender-biases and invective of too many here. I don’t know what hair-color or skin-tone or speech defect or age or degree of baldness or eye-color or height of the participants, and I don’t care.
What “cowardice” do you impute to anonymity? It could only be cowardly, were the anonymity to protect something of personal value: have I ever here not put everything of value in the world of climate ideas on the line? There’s certainly no way for me to personally profit from the ideas I put forward and discuss. Then all that is left to be threatened that anonymity protects is personal security.. the implication being you’re making personal threats, Don. Is that what you’re saying? That you want to know my name so you can do me personal harm over my ideas?
Wouldn’t that make you a brutal thug, by inescapable logic of the only reason you’d want to know the name behind the person posting the ideas?
Is that your game? To silence ideas by physical intimidation?
That is just another load of gratuitous crap, barty. Although, I can see how my rough words have got you physically intimidated. It doesn’t take much to scare a coward. What papers, barty? Why should Judith, or her school, be served with papers? Are you trying to help poor little Judith, or to intimidate her into silence? Stop the diversionary BS and explain your premise, barty. Then I might stop tricking you into inferring that I am physically threatening your silly little anonymous butt.
BartR, The reason for the hairsplitting was you said Dr Curry should join Steyn in his lawsuit and she can’t even if she wanted to. She can be called as a witness but she can’t join Steyn unless Mann named her and served her. Defending herself against Mann’s insults is only natural. You seem to think she is unwittingly putting herself in a bad position. That is fine so You have an opinion. I doubt if you really care what happens to her so it is not a very sincere piece of advice.
I think that you have scared little barty off with that word ‘hairsplitting’, ordvic. Very intimidating.
With his head, Kim.
That explains a lot.
Don keeps on saying that “the pause is killing the cause”, while I assert that the Cause of the Pause is explainable by thermodynamic Laws.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/11/the-cause-of-the-pause-is-due-to-thermodynamic-laws/
Are you pretending to be a sigh-intist, webby? Dr. of Supercilious Curve Fitting. Thanks for the link. Is Dennis still with you, webby?
Don Monfort | February 9, 2014 at 1:48 pm |
Intimidating the whole internet there, Mr. Monfort? That is ambitious of tricky you.
If you don’t understand my premise, READ HARDER.
If you don’t understand you’re being laughed at or why, that’s fine, too. I’m sure it’s not the first time for you.
ordvic | February 9, 2014 at 1:54 pm |
If you were competent to make the statements you’re making, you’d be competent enough to know delivering them in this way is an ethical breach at the very least. You demonstrably don’t know what the heck you’re writing about, so why do you think anyone ought bother reading it, even not hardly at all?
Careful, barty. I might scare you into revealing your identity. Not intentionally, of course. I don’t really care who, or what you think you are. Are you going to be pretending to be a lawyer all day today, bartski? Please lecture ordvic some more on competence and ethics. That is entertaining. Shouldn’t ordvic be served with papers, or sumptin?
Science has always been about interpreting the data. I guess you wouldn’t understand that since you are not a scientist.
WEB,
True it is about interpreting data. And the interpretation process leaves a ton of room for uncertainty. When your interpreters are telling you they can read the daily weather forecast from 1,000 years ago based on a couple dozen words they have found and think they know the meaning of, you should accept it with several grains of salt.
I read the stuff on debunking a myth, apparently the CAGW believers still think they just need to convince more people. They don’t appear to recognize that most people did support their views and they have lost that support. The idea of debunking the myth as simply altering how you give information rather misses the point. The first issue is the credibility of those giving the information, in the UK there are comics considered more reliable. When there are clear attempts to manage what information people can access, when key players are perceived as corrupt and when you mix science with a range of environmentalists fantasy. People simply wont listen, and this isn’t a neutral state they also get angry. Surely there must be some good psychologists that could advise them, they seem to be more out of touch with reality than the rest.
And recover their senses one by one.
=========
kim
The first sense recovered is that of “smell”
Max
Lewandowsky’s four arguments to persuade your doubter friends (without invoking science or consensus) boiled down to
1. Risk management. Uncertainty implies risk. Insurance is something we do even with a small risk.
2. Nuclear. Going towards more nuclear power is a solution many can agree with to some extent. The only argument there is safeguards. It also leads to conversations about solar, hydrogen, alternative energy in general.
3. Disease. No one will like the spread of disease in a warmer world.
4. Defense. If even the defense departments are concerned about responding to a changing climate, rising sea levels, opening Arctic, it is real.
Jim D
You’re right in saying that Lewandowsky’s arguments do not “invoke science”.
And they certainly do not “persuade doubter friends”.
Max
I think he is being realistic that science is not going to persuade the remaining hard-core doubters. Their minds are elsewhere and they don’t trust any amount of scientific evidence, as we have seen, so he suggests some different tactics to try to come to common ground on things we do and don’t want.
Jim D
Right.
Lewandowsky’s (weak or contrived) arguments are not going to convince anyone who has a bit of scientific/technical savvy plus a rational skepticism and has studied the issue a bit.
This is why a growing number of scientists are becoming skeptical of the forced consensus view of IPCC.
Add to this the debacles of Climategate, Himalayagate, Hockeyshtickgate, etc., the “pause” in warming and the unusually harsh recent winters across the northern hemisphere, and it is no wonder that CAGW skepticism is on the rise.
Abe Lincoln was right.
Max
manacker, I also don’t think Lewandowsky’s four arguments work. We have seen them all here. “Skeptics” don’t believe in insuring against risk, don’t want to move away from fossil fuels even towards nuclear, don’t care about health effects related to the spreading tropics, and could care less whether their countries’ defense departments (and industries) are planning for climate change. They are set in their ways and nothing will shift them from status-quo thinking.
Jim D,
1). There is risk and then there is risk. People do not insure against every risk. They have to believe there is at least a reasonable chance of it occurring and have some idea of what the damage it might do them.
2) I have over 10 years in nuclear generation. Don’t know what sweet Lew’s comments are, but I support it and am likely to be far better versed on the issues than you.
3) Good example on the “communicating” thing. The spread of tropical disease meme was shot to pieces some time ago. Anyone using it immediately gets identified as someone who doesn’t let fact get in the way of a good story.
4) That defence depts are showing interest in the state of Arctic ice cover is natural and only a sign that Arctic ice is diminishing. You do realize that the next step is to demonstrate what risks are entailed by less ice.
timg56, in this context, insuring against risk is taking into account climate change in infrastructure planning (100-year floods, sea-levels) among other things.
The nuclear argument was about a possible common ground. Hansen also promotes nuclear power these days.
Disease, yes, I don’t know. The spread of bark beetle, fire ants, killer bees, etc., maybe. Someone said malaria, etc., won’t spread, but I don’t know how they can be sure. We got West Nile in the US.
Defense departments have to take change seriously, and industry. If they don’t they get caught napping by their competitors. It just makes sense for security and the economy. Watch what they do, not what they say.
So Jim D, why aren’t insurance companies offering CAGW insurance then?
What would you say is the right rate per $1,000 in North America? Say in Wisconsin, where I live? What should I be paying for CAGW insurance and what would it cover?
The truth is out there – so how do you debunk a myth
Go to goggle and type in John Cook Liar and you’ll see how that works.
How do you debunk a myth?
Not by creating a myth of your own. When I saw the “elevator graph” showing how skeptics see the global warming, I asked the author where he got it from. He answered “I made it:.” So he is probably the only skeptic to use that graph.
Warmists, if you want to debunk a myth, please use a real graph and debunk it. Debunking your own fake graph does not help you.
Dancing back to the age of gold,
fingersand toes blue with cold,
likely yer’ll find the cupboard’s bare,
dancing mania not un rare,…
say, don’t go there
bts.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13097/5-historical-manias-gripped-societies-then-disappeared
Hi Beth
I have a new article up on WUWT concerning the closure of the railway to the West of England due to a storm caused by ‘climate change.’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/09/black-swans-dispatches-from-the-front-line-of-climate-change/#comment-1562693
What we need are a few hundred strong serfs for a couple of weeks and the line could be repaired for next to nothing
tonyb
Tony,
Lovely thread on WUWT. I am but a lowly and underweight serf
but.I will come ter dig and delve as best I can. I have worked
on railways before.
jest a serf.
It may be politically incorrect to say Michael Man is nucking futs but George Bush the Great — Kyoto Fighter– was called a lot worse by the Left.
I wonder if professional sportsmen and women will be embodied by this suit to sue professional journalists and bloggers who accuse them of laziness, stupidity and crying foul?
“JC message to Michael Mann: Mark Steyn is formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.”
The Streisand effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
From Cato …
What Would It Cost to Eliminate All Risk in the World?
http://www.cato.org/blog/what-would-it-cost-eliminate-all-risk-world
Few want to put a price on reducing carbon output. And when they do, nobody wants to pay it.
My latest blog on 3 things that Greens need to do better in their messaging on Global Warming: 1. Stop Name Calling; (2) Find common positive ideological values with Deniers to achieve desired objectives (e.g., solar energy); (3) Call out the Republican Party’s manipulation of scientists like Dr. Curry in advancing their hidden agendas for special interests big-business.
http://greenenergy.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-greens-dont-get-about-republican.html
Spot the ironyest of them all.
============
As much at it pains me, kim – you did get that one right.
As a big fan of unintentional irony (of which a certain person in these here parts is no doubt the….er….King), I have to give you credit.
(1) Stop Name Calling
(2) Find common positive ideological values with Deniers
There is a perfect English word, that rhymes with ‘anchor’, which describes you to a tee.
Stephen Segrest, There is a relatively easy way forward. The IPCC puts ECS in the range 1.5 to 4.5. There are plenty of sceptics that would put an overlapping range on ECS. So – put the two together, and agree on what should be done if ECS is indeed in the overlap. In time, if the range for ECS changes, so can the agreement.
DocMartyn — In the highly respected Pew Research Poll I cited in my blog, 40% of Tea Party Republicans “deny” that Global Warming (from whatever source) is even occurring. So, what word should be used to identify these folks? It would be incorrect to identify them as skeptics.
kim — when you call me “Spot the ironyest of them all”, I must be dumb because I don’t know what you mean.
Stephen Segrest. you are so dumb that you didn’t read my quote of your work where you state:
1. Stop Name Calling;
(2) Find common positive ideological values with Deniers
I had assumed that using BOLD was a bit of a giveaway, but obviously not for someone with a room temperature IQ.
No go away, contemplate the difference between the terms denier and skeptic, and don’t bother coming back until you reach enlightenment.
DocMartyn | February 8, 2014 at 5:27 pm |
“There is a perfect English word, that rhymes with ‘anchor’, which describes you to a tee.”
Banker? Canker? Pranker? Stanker? W…
Oh I think I got it. Can I have an easier riddle next time please?
“DocMartyn — In the highly respected Pew Research Poll I cited in my blog, 40% of Tea Party Republicans “deny” that Global Warming (from whatever source) is even occurring. So, what word should be used to identify these folks?”
You would call them the folks with common sense…
http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm
Pew poll at top of link.
27% of adults nationwide deny the earth is getting warmer and an additional 5% are unsure.
People who identify with the Tea Party are only 22% of the population now according to Gallup. Of those only 38% are Republicans.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/164648/tea-party-support-dwindles-near-record-low.aspx
So basically you cherry picked a group “Tea Party Republicans” who are fewer than 10% of adults nationwide. Yet over three times that many people don’t think the earth is warming. The skepticism is a little wider than you imagine.
Dr. Curry,
I stay tuned for the simple reason that this blog is an indispensable source of reliable information. Brava !
As to Mann and QWERTY keyboards. I have used one of the early mechanical typewriters and can confirm that the reason the layout was as it is, is because otherwise the key falling back would be hit by the next key rising up if the commonly used key sequences were on the same area of the half circle. Happened often enough as it was with the QWERTY layout.
Mind you, my typing is hardly better now than then.
I KNOW how to type/spell damit, it’s just my finger don’t :-)
“It is estimated that in the early 1980s, October ice volume was around 20,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 4,800 cubic miles), meaning that ice volume in October 2013 still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years.”
I thought someone had written a paper recently that said there were some ~60 years cycles to the Arctic data :-)
I think Steyn has alluded to the problem that lies at the heart of the M. E. Mann-ian palaver.
Until, Mann produced his runaway warming algorithm, he was just another professor on the campus at Penn State, each year chained to the drudge of inculcating a bunch of students on the miasma of green guff otherwise known as anthropogenic global warming.
He needed a hook, lets face it the American and most western European governments were literally throwing money at climatology labs and faculties – “prove it” they beseeched and
“we’ll give you more!”
Champing, Mann bit, with dollar signs like a cash register ringing up in his eyes, wow he must have thought – there’s not only money in this but fame – even world renown.
What was not to like?
All he had to do was produce some wildly skewed statistics run it through a computer programme purposefully so designed. That, the previous thousand ± years were by comparison pretty cold with recent [post 1850] temperature data, fix some, rehash the T figures, “splice and dice” as they called it. Conveniently did it bin the Mediaeval warming period and hey presto, a flat line but ending in a exaggerated uptick and the magic of dodgy computer algorithms produced the desired result, a hockey stick graph.
The world’s media and press went mental but no surprise there it wasn’t far to leap, so too did the world’s autocrats in Brussels and those redistribution zealots slumming in the UN-IPCC. Manna, it was computer sent and the political propaganda machine went into overdrive – it was what they were waiting for!
Man[n] made warming was real and thus, we must save the world by shutting western industrial capacity and at the same time as making the taxpayer pay for a mess of useless palliatives – green technologieswhich would, will cast the western world into darkness and regress the west back to the dark ages.
Although – never mind that some guys called Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick had thoroughly and ably filleted said Hockey stick.
Mann, was feted like some sort of international rock star after his infamous graph was released on a gullible world.
Now though, Mann is out on a limb, the world has stopped listening, worse than that most people see him for what he is, a charlatan and one who has an impregnable ego at that, thus, showing him up in his true hue – as a pedantic and pompous one trick pony, frightened of his own shadow.
Refusing to release his data, refusing all debate, do the hounds close in.
Mann’s religion, is being tested and he has been found wanting but like the ranting zealot that he is. Mann, keeps preachifying that [incredibly] he is STILL right and now pathetic in his umbrage he plays the victim card.
Victim?
By claiming that, a consensus of big oil-denier conspiracy is ranged against him – how darkly ironic, when one recalls the warmist claque he was so proud to be a part of, laid claim, shouted it from the rooftops and shills of the green mania chimed in unison and used it as major justification that – 97% of scientists agree and the consensus of “the science is settled”…….
Hansen has withdrawn – GISS had had enough, Al Gore, is just a big joke. It’s time for you, better get back to your Penn state bunker and plan the exile, Steyn is coming and the fat lady gets ready to sing the goodbye refrain.
+100
Ross McKitrick? Is that the guy that called a scientists that presumably he never met, a “groveling, terrified coward” – with nary a bit of concern expressed about such vitriol? Not from Judith or, at least as far as I’ve seen, any other “skeptic” with the exception of a mild rebuke from Mosher?
Is that the Ross McKitrick that you’re speaking about?
Joshua
Here is the quote from Ross to put it into context
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/345-4/#comment-54838
Personally I think this sort of name calling is unnecessary and counter productive and you would hope people as senior as Ross would know better
Tonyb
tony —
I’m not sure how much context explicates the reasoning that leads someone to say:
Someone that Ross has presumably never met.
That said,
Kudos –
And between you and Mosher, that makes it about 1.5 out of perhaps thousands (you’re the 1).
Oh, and tony –
For more context, my explanation for just how motivated was the reasoning that led Ross to think that vitriolic behavior was somehow justified:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/345-4/#comment-54877
Three comments for Joshua to avoid speaking statistics. What’s the significance of that?
==============
Speaking of unintentional irony.
How many blog comments have drifted off into the ether – where “skeptics” are arguing about the precise % of the “consensus” to make it clear just how much the precise % of the “consensus” is completely irrelevant?
Dang, kim. You managed to reverse your unintentional irony score 180 degrees in a matter of seconds.
That’s impressive.
“Joshua
Ross McKitrick? Is that the guy that called a scientists that presumably he never met, a “groveling, terrified coward””
Well I have never met you and have a far worse opinion you, you little race-baiter and misogynistic fraud.
Joshua
I know it’s hard for you, but try to stay on topic and avoid ad homs.
Ross McKitrick is the guy who, along with Steve McIntyre, showed that Mann’s hockey stick was bogus.
Their analysis was validated by the Wegman panel (under oath before a congressional committee), and this was in turn corroborated by a panel from NAS, also under oath.
IOW the Mann et al. hockey shtick was thoroughly discredited even before “Mann’s Nature trick” (to hide the decline) was exposed.
Max
Athelstan, await the imminent letter from Mann’s lawyers with trepidation but a good heart. We fellow Anglo-Saxons stand behind you, but won’t necessarily help with the legal fees.
Tony B
Agree with you that Ross McKitrick’s choice of words in that blog comment was poor. He should have referred to Wagner’s behavior when apologizing to Trenberth (a fake apology, if there ever was one) as “groveling” – not that he, himself or his character was groveling.
It’s just like when you reprimand your children: you should tell them that their behavior was bad – or that they made bad choices, rather than telling them that they were bad.
Max
Doc –
A testament your consistency in reasoning, Doc. Thanks for providing even more evidence.
Some folks just never learn.
manacker –
Ad hom? I see a few ad homs in this little subthread – not a one coming from me. Made even that more interesting by the fact that one of them comes from you.
Some folks just never learn.
Joshua
See my comment to tony b above.
It’s your behavior that is snarky and evasive – NOT YOU.
McKitrick gained some public prominence because of his work, together with McIntyre, of thoroughly debunking Mann’s hockey shtick, not because of a poorly worded comment on a blog site.
He should NOT have made derogatory comments about Wagner’s character as he did – but rather about Wagner’s behavior in apologizing to Trenberth, which actually did appear “groveling”.
Got it now?
Max
manacker –
What does your comment to tony have to do with your ad hom:
Now I consider that a very lame way to cover over ad homs, but it doesn’t apply here anyway:
A statement of what is “hard for me” is a statement about me, not my behavior.
Some folks just never learn.
Oh, and btw, manacker –
This is beautiful:
Suppose I said that your behavior there was “groveling” for McKitrick, because he’s a prominent “skeptic” and so you prostrated yourself before him in a figurative sense to mitigate a legitimate criticism of his behavior.
And I love the “which actually did appear “groveling.”
Suppose I said that statement of your was behavior that is completely consistent with behavior I often see from “skeptics” – which despite their putative skepticism, in fact reflects a behavior of willingness to jettison any sense of subjectivity as they confuse fact with opinion to characterize the behavior of others. Suppose I said that your behavior of saying that Wagner appeared “groveling” is nothing other than a continuation of your consistent behavior of not showing that you realize that just because you have an opinion, it doesn’t make it fact, and someone else might say that Wagner’s behavior does not “appear groveling.”
Not an ad hom, right?
er….jettison any sense of objectivity.
I hate it when I do that.
Joshua – please stop forcing them to lose control of their emotions.
JCH –
Some folks just always display a behavior of being overly-emotional and not rational. I’m not saying that they are whiny people, who write ad homs and then because of a lack of integrity try to paper over those ad homs by claiming that they weren’t really insulting the person or trying to denigrate that person’s argument by denigrating them personally.
I’m not saying that they are actually overly emotional people who are like children who are prone to little outbursts of name-calling.
I’m not saying that anyone here is that kind of person, only that their behavior is of the sort that one would associate with that kind of a person.
Good thing I don’t use ad homs, eh?
Josh
Wipe the spittle off your face – you got a bit carried away in that last rant.
But it’s fun to watch you emote.
Max
If data you fabricate
Declines you eradicate
And facts you manipulate
In order to validate
A shtick meant to demonstrate
That warmth will accelerate
And you rise to a Laureate
With honors most profligate
But if others then demonstrate
That your work can’t substantiate
The claims that you promulgate
And your methods they castigate
As the work of a reprobate
Whom e-mails incriminate
With involvement in Climategate
At first this may irritate
And later can aggravate
And finally infuriate
To the point that you bloviate
And start to pontificate
That your critics prevaricate
But at last you deliberate
In order to exonerate
It could well necessitate
That you may have to litigate
Say, fellow serf, I liked yer run-away-pome. Has a helter-skelter
sim-u-larity ter one by Robert Frost that a toff posted on me blog:
‘Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their ballance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices,
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis ….’
bts
Apology ter Robert Frost, ‘balance.’
Yes, Beth, there is certainly much similarity between manacker’s poetry and that or Robert Frost.
Not to mention that of Shelly, Keats and Burns, cummings, Plath, Ginsberg, Dickinson, Neruda, Shakespeare, Wild, and Longfellow.
Of course, his discussion of the science reminds me of Einstein and Hawkins, Galileo, and Newton.
Of course, everyone that I agree with about climate change reminds me of thousands of great geniuses, while everyone that I disagree with about climate change remind me of Machiavelli, Lysenko, and Hitler.
Funny coincidence, isn’t it?
Touche Joshua, lol.
In all this discussion about the damage to Dr. Mann’s reputation resulting from a couple of one-liners by a political columnist in a rag that less than 5% of the population has ever heard of, it is hard to imagine what anyone could SAY about him in that venue that could be more damaging to his reputation than simply reporting his actual behavior over the last few years, personal and professional, and publicizing it widely.
Manacker,
+25. You found 25 ..ates without having to reiterate!
Beth –
Having the honor and integrity to recognize a point scored is worth 100 x any point that’s been awarded by a teammate.
Plus, you’re a damned fine poet.
May you some day be lifted from your toiling in serfdom.
“Josh;
everyone that I disagree with about climate change remind me of Machiavelli, Lysenko, and Hitler.”
The Prince by Machiavelli, is his best and by far most read work.
It is satire and drips with sarcasm; Machiavelli is a pains to emphasizing the benefits of free republics, rule by the people, as opposed to monarchies, hereditary dictatorships. He is taking the piss out of the Medicis throughout and his work was aimed at the general populous and not the aristocracy, as can be noted by his writing in Italian, and not Latin.
You may believe that name dropping may make you appear an intellectual with depth, but get it wrong and you proclaim that you are just a pseud.
PS Have you looked up the vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by party?
The Senate
Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%)
Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)
House vote on the Senate version of the Bill
Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%)
Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%)
I can’t believe that a lot of CAGW proponents aren’t cringing at this spectacle and the prospects for more scrutiny of Mann’s hockey stick, which carries more baggage than Zsa Zsa Gabor after a divorce!
The infamous “Shtick” rises once more out of its rotten sepulcher, like an immortal vampire.
Will a new hero emerge to drive a wooden stake into its evil heart?
Stay tuned.
Judith Curry
Interesting post. My reaction to the essays you posted:
John Cook is right – “the truth is out there” – it’s just nowhere to be found on SkS.
Amanda Machin calls for more disagreement (dissenting opinion) rather than more consensus to make politics more effective in our democratic system. Makes sense. Demo-cracy = rule of the people, and “the people” are apparently not convinced that the consensus crowd (and guys like Cook) are giving a straight story.
Brian Palmer in “how to…” (brainwash your friends) advises, “don’t get caught up in the scientific discussion”. Huh? On second thought, this is probably good advice, as the science has not been playing along with the CAGW story recently. But, unfortunately for his posit, “personal conviction” does not trump “science” (except in religion).
The Guardian blurb states that “the communication of uncertainty is hindering climate change action” (a shot across your bow?). As it should. Asking scientists to sweep “uncertainty” under the rug so “politicians” can “act” is a dangerous path IMO. Evoking the “precautionary principle” in order to act despite uncertainty of the need to act is simply an exercise of “ready, fire, aim (ouch)!”
The Mike Hulme et al. “Global Heating” essay makes the point that while the warming of the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has stopped for now, the planet is still “heating” (with the “missing heat” going into the ocean). This is a nice hypothesis, but there just aren’t any meaningful data supporting it (no real OHC data prior to ARGO and questionable or marginal results since). And, even if it were so, the few thousandth of a degree the oceans are supposedly warming per decade will have no impact on humanity or our environment.
The “Fabius Maximus” essay on apocalyptic thinking is IMO the most interesting article cited in your post. It cites excerpts from an alarmist book by Tom Engelhardt, “Ending the World the Human Way”, shooting holes in the logic and concluding that the apocalyptic “focus on climate change has diverted resources from other vital programs”. No doubt.
The “Understanding Uncertainty” blog reacts to a paper warning that “heat related deaths in the UK will rise 257% by 2050 because of climate change”. The author presents data, which show that global warming has resulted in a far greater decline in cold-related deaths than the increase in heat-related deaths. ( I’ve seen another study by Howard Maccabee, covering several geographic locations and coming to the same conclusion).
All good stuff. Thanks for posting it.
Max
PS (No comment on the sea ice update or the latest chapter in Steyn versus Mann)
PPS Looking forward to your post next week
Moving this to a more current thread.
I keep an eye out for news on Joule Unlimited, the company that is attempting to use cyanobacteria to create ethanol and diesel. There hasn’t been much news that I can find and I am wondering if no news is bad news. The only thing I’ve found lately is this:
“Audi did not offer any estimate as to when synthetic fuel might be ready for sale to consumers.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewdepaula/2014/01/31/audi-tests-synthetic-e-fuel-derived-from-microorganisms/
I am very interested in this topic. My main interest is cellulose ethanol. Here at least two production plants have been built which, in theory, can each produce around 25 million gallons of ethanol per year. However, they are not yet in production. This sort of technology is littered with projects which show promise at the pilot plant level, but fail when they try full production.
The problem is that it takes a lot of money to build a production plant. To keep costs reasonable you either need a partner with deep pockets, or some form of government guaranteed loan. My guess is that Joule has not, as yet, acquired either. From shovels in the ground, to production starts, is at least year, and from what I gather construction has not yet started.
Actually, Joule has several backers, including Audi (the car people) and Flagship Ventures, a venture capital firm. They have already built a successful demo plant and are in the process of building a commercial plant. So, unless something has occurred that we don’t know about, they have funding.
http://www.jouleunlimited.com/news/2012/joule-secures-70m-private-equity-investments-growth
jim2 and Jim Cripwell
Joule synthetic fuel
Right now, Joule has produced ethanol at a rate of 8,000 gal/acre/year. Joule hopes to get to 25,000 gal/acre/year.
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/09/joule-commissions-1st-renewable-fuels.html?page=all
This is a much more efficient use of land than corn ethanol, which produced 1 ton of octane equivalent per acre. I ton = 334 gallons, so Joule is 23 times as productive today, and hopes to get to 75 times as productive.
They also hope to get production cost down to $1.28 per gallon, although I’ve seen no details on how this was calculated.
The USA uses around 3.3 billion barrels of gasoline per year. 1 gallon of octane equivalent is equal to 1.2 gallons of ethanol, so this equals roughly 166 billion gallons/year, requiring 21 million acres (about 12% of the size of Texas). They could get this down to 6.7 million acres (or about 4% the size of Texas).
Corn ethanol, on the other hand would require around 3 times the amount of land as all of Texas, and considering that total arable crop land in the USA is around 430 million acres, it would require 170% of all the cropland in the USA to produce enough corn ethanol to completely replace gasoline.
So, IF this really works out on a large scale, and IF Joule can really get costs down to the level they now project, Joule will have a truly viable replacement for fossil fuels at only a relatively small premium in cost and using at most around 5% of the total arable crop land in the USA to completely replace gasoline.
That’s how I see it anyway.
Max
jim2, you write “So, unless something has occurred that we don’t know about, they have funding.”
I don’t know, but I suspect you are wrong. The reference you gave was from 2012, and is $70 million. This is peanuts for what is required to build a commercial facility. We must be talking in excess of $300 million. So, I suspect my guess is right. Funding for building a commercial facility is not yet available.
Jim Cripwell – Note that the original article is from January, 2014. It appears that you didn’t even read the article, yet you continue to assume a posture that indicates you know about this company. It is obvious you don’t know anything about it.
From the article:
1/31/2014 @ 11:58PM |5,041 views
Audi Says Synthetic ‘E-Fuel’ From Microorganisms Is Better Than Gas Or Diesel
Hydrogen and natural gas are among the alternative fuels starting to get more attention as car companies work to reduce emissions. But Audi is exploring yet another option that you may not have heard much about yet: e-fuels.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewdepaula/2014/01/31/audi-tests-synthetic-e-fuel-derived-from-microorganisms/
It’s doable and inevitable. Making robotic factories out of bacteria for all sorts of molecules is just a matter of understanding the cellular machinery and its construction/operating code (DNA). We know how in principle to build computers using DNA for the hardware. Faster and cheaper at that too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing
There’s more in heaven and earth, Horatio…
Obama mentioned this technology in a 2012 election speech in Florida and was met with such derision he never mentioned it again. Feds should be on this like ants on meat. God knows they wasted far more on photovoltaic and fusion already with nothing to show for it.
Joule’s plants are scalable. A thousand acre plant is one thousand one acre plants. Logistics of getting CO2 delivered to the plant most economically is another story. There are many thousands of power plants in the US with nameplate capacity over 1 megawatt. Capturing CO2 from flue gas is cheap enough and a perfect match. Waste water is always available in sufficient quantity as is non-arable land.
From the original article:
This means we can optimistically expect a 5-year development cycle between lab proof-of-concept and commercial pilots for this type of bio-tech. I wonder what they’ll be piloting 25-30 years from now!
“Joule was founded in 2007 by Flagship Ventures, and has raised at $110 million in funding to date from Flagship and unnamed investors.
The company’s first “SunSprings” demonstration plant is located in Hobbs, N.M., and was commissioned last September and funded by Joule’s $70 million round of funding from early 2012.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2013/04/joule-renewable-gasoline-jet-fuel.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+industry_5+%28Industry+Energy+%26+the+Environment%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
“Washington Post: How to convince your friends to believe in climate change: Its not as hard as you think. Highlights some of Lewandowsky’s research.”
Wow. Brian Palmer flat out recommends lying to your friends. He writes:
“Say that you, too, were once reluctant to accept the idea of climate change. It helps your audience identify with you. Now you’ll need a compelling argument to explain why you came around.”
This isn’t the solution. Lying is the problem. And Brian Palmer is a lying liar recommending it.
The left is rife with dishonesty – people like Alinsky recommend lying. We in the US need to vote out the liars.
Telling the ‘noble’ lie is okay because the ends justify
the means, Plato said so regardin’ his planned utopia
ruled by a philosopher king who understood things better
than the plebs. Sound familiar?
Once again, climate is the accumulations of all the local weather over a number of years.
Climate Scientists promised, a few years ago, the snow would be a thing of the past.
At that time, I said, it will snow more as oceans get warmer and are covered by less ice.
The local weather has many locations with more snow and cold.
Even Warmer Oceans will expose even more water to fierce cold winds and that will cause more snow.
Water is coming out of the oceans and is being dumped on land and that causes more cold air.
Earth cannot get much warmer than now. It has not got much warmer than now in ten thousand years.
Current temperature is well inside of the plus one on this histogram and it is not headed out and it has a lot of margin before it exceeds the temperature of the past ten thousand years. If you have you reviewed my website. If you have, you should have already seen this page.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page27.html
If Arctic sea ice really totally disappears, the increased snowfall will be tremendous. Watch for it, you ain’t seen nothing like the snowfall that will be coming.
Read the snow and cold news. It is snowing because the oceans are warm and wet and snow makes cold.
Ice volume on land is growing. Albedo of Earth is, or soon will be, increasing.
Climate Scientists do not understand that warm oceans provide the moisture to replenish ice on land. Ice decreases when it is cold and the source for moisture is covered by ice. That is why all ice ages end. Think about it. It snows when oceans are warm and wet. It does not snow when oceans are cold and frozen. You don’t get lake effect snow from a frozen lake. You don’t get ocean effect snow from a frozen ocean. You rebuild glaciers when oceans are wet.
Oh, and just to add, Springer –
The point is also that you accepted a technical explanation from a self-styled expert on blind faith – because it confirmed your preexisting belief and, you felt, justified your vitriolic tendencies.
If you think about it – it is a perfect specimen of “skepticism” in many different ways.
Thanks for just being you.
WTF?
I recall asking you to go ahead and point out where comments were not in chronological order.
Right here:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/29/the-big-question/#comment-445082
Brandon sounds more sure than in the comment following mine:
I’m really happy you finally, after all this time, have caught me making a mistake. Is that all you got? Just something trivial about a bug in WordPress? If that’s all you got it’s kind of pitiful that you’re harping on it over and over.
Corrected quote from Brandon. It was the second comment following mine.
———————————————
I recall asking you to go ahead and point out where comments were not in chronological order.
Right here:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/29/the-big-question/#comment-445082
Brandon sounds more sure than in the comment following mine:
The word “communication” is starting to be like the old Chinese word for a court torturer, the “caresser”. It just sounds a whole lot better than what it represents.
If you want to insinuate, manipulate, patronise and presume…just do it! But don’t communicate anything to me. Deal?
No need for that comment mosomoso –
You’ve made it quite clear that you’re no fan of communication quite a while ago.
Joshua, you might have added that I’m no fan of insinuation, manipulation, patronising and presumption. But let’s keep it short then and say I dread the threat of “communication”.
Caresses come in loud and clair
At six o’clock at Senna Square.
================
Yo, where’s Springer?
4:59
then
5:04
then
5:02
Mr. Accountability is on line #2.
By golly you were right, Joshua. Comments sometimes don’t appear in chronological order! It’s a miracle!!!!!!!
Maybe Curry will let you do a guest post on how you were right one time.
Oh wait. She probably doesn’t like you very much. Never mind.
Springer –
The point isn’t that I was right.
The point is that you were absolutely wrong.
You were absolutely wrong about something that you were absolutely certain about.
And based on your absolute certainty on an issue where you were absolutely wrong, you felt justified in being insulting.
The behavior is instructive, because it a perfect example of “skepticism.” All it would have taken was a healthy respect for uncertainty for you to have prevented that error, and the follow on vitriolic behavior that was based on poor reasoning.
Accountability, Springer. It isn’t that difficult. Give it a shot.
Interestingly, the example Joshua highlights shows I was mostly right, but slightly misguided. I explained why our hostess’s responses land directly below the comments she responds to, even if that puts them out of chronological order. As I explained at the time, it happens because of a bug with leaving comments via the WordPress dashboard.
Where I was misguided is at the time I was under the impression only the administrators for a site could leave comments via that dashboard. It turns out that is not the case. Anyone who runs a WordPress blog can do it at any site. The difference is they can only leave comments via the dashboard in response to people who replied to one of their comments.
As you can see above, mosomoso made a comment. Joshua responded. mosomoso was given an alert about this in his dashboard, and he responded via that dashboard. Because it was made via the dashboard instead of via the page’s commenting feature, it broke chronological order.
The reason comments appear out of chronological order is exactly as I described. The feature is just a bit more accessible than I thought at the time.
The fact remains that Joshua was observant enough to notice where you and I were not. Proof positive that even a blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn!
hmmm –
Hmmmm.
I thought that I had responded to that, but I guess I forgot to…
So “mostly right…” and “exactly as I described?”
Here’s what was said:
Joshua just completely ignored my explanation for my comments to mock me some more. It’s weird because he does so while quoting me saying:
Which as I pointed out above, is completely true. The problem is I just didn’t realize that includes administrators from other WordPress blogs so I misunderstood what Joshua was referring to.
You’ll note this is no worse, and is probably better than, Joshua’s bastardization of my quotes. I said the reason comments appear out of order is “exactly as I described.” That is true. The process with the WordPress software which causes it to happen is exactly what I laid out. Joshua, however, pretends that quote applies to what I said about his comment.
That sort of thing is silly. I already acknowledged what mistake I made and the extent of its effect. I can’t imagine why anyone would think this issue should be pursued further than that.
Joshua has never had the opportunity to point out even the slightest mistake made by minds far better than his. I way we show mercy and let him have his chew toy. It’s no skin off my nose that’s for sure. I’m not perfect just nearly so. :-)
Giving it a shot, Brandon. I haven’t used the admin dashboard in a long time.
Plans go awry, centre’s sometimes fold. I well remember, was it
so long ago, when the ‘CO2 – is – bad – and – pesky – humans –
like-wise’- mantra ruled. A few murmers but all the team had to do
was communicate more effectively, say it LOUDER, CLEARER, OFTENER, sack a fer editors, black ball a few journals mebbe,
and it’d sink in fer prols not too quick on the uptake … All yer
need is *good,* i.e., well managed, well massaged communication,
trumps evidence any time.
Here’s something for week in review.
RGates refuses to believe that a block of ice at temperature 237K with emissivity of 0.98 does not have a radiant emission of 175.325 W/m2.
Yet a blackbody calculator using Stefan-Boltzmann law finds exactly that result.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
Are all skeptical warmists skeptical of Stefan-Boltzmann law or just R.Gates?
You are twisting the entire argument Mr. Springer. We were taking about net LW radiation up from the ice surface in Antarctica. In the long wave part of the spectrum the emission is not at all what you characterize. Very sneaky of you to change the premise of the argument. Mostly the ice just loves to absorb LW.
“Gates
In the long wave part of the spectrum the emission is not at all what you characterize.”
What is the emission spectrum of ice at 237K then Gates?
I take it you think that Stefan and Boltzmann were in the pay of big oil or were religious fundamentalists?
“I take it you think that Stefan and Boltzmann were in the pay of big oil or were religious fundamentalists.”
——
Huh?
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: Mostly the ice just loves to absorb LW.
Are you saying that the Arctic and Antarctic ice absorb more LW than they emit? Where is that absorbed LW (sufficient to cancel, according to you, the LW emitted according to the classical laws) coming from? Is it radiant energy that has been transmitted from equatorial regions to the poles? Clearly it can’t be coming from the sun?
No we weren’t talking about net radiation. I provided a link specifically pointing out that net was in the range of 50-77W/m2
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/chapter05_06.htm
figure
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-8B.htm
But I’m very glad you now agree that radiant emittance of ice at -36C is 179W/m2.
Net upwelling varies a lot from time to time and place to place and isn’t controlled by temperature alone. Radiant emission however is completely determined by emissivity and temperature. It’s important we know that number too ergo Trenberth’s famous heat budget cartoon gives us a global average upwelling of 390W/m2 and downwelling of 324W/m2 for a global average net upwelling of 66W/m2.
The cartoon:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-6.htm
66W/m2 average net upwelling is, I might add, pretty darn close to the average net upwelling longwave in Antarctica. Wow.
Are we clear on all this now?
Mr. Springer said:
“No we weren’t talking about net radiation. I provided a link specifically pointing out that net was in the range of 50-77W/m2.”
—-
You do of course see how impossible this would be from a LW perspective, yes? I sure hope it is clear by now impossible it would be for the Antarctic ice to maintain a net upwelling of 50-77 w/m^2 LW.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: You do of course see how impossible this would be from a LW perspective, yes? I sure hope it is clear by now impossible it would be for the Antarctic ice to maintain a net upwelling of 50-77 w/m^2 LW.
It is clear by now that your writing on this topic does not make sense and is not in accordance will well-tested scientific laws of energy radiation. On this topic, David Springer’s posts express the scientific knowledge your posts lack.
M. Marler,
The problem with Mr. Springer is that he keeps changing the topic just enough to wiggle out of his errors. The initial topic was always LW radiation being upwelled from the ground in Antarctica, and he initially said it was 179 w/m^2 in this post:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/03/why-is-there-so-much-antarctic-sea-ice/#comment-449144
Before apparently recognizing his error in calculation and revising that down quite a bit (like cutting it by 2/3 at least).
Now, to be fair, I would not have thought the net upwelling LW was as high as even 50w/m^2, and the discussion did lead me to do more research and find that it can peak around that level in certain areas of Antarctica, though it is often much lower, and even near zero at times.
R. Gates, “The initial topic was always LW radiation being upwelled from the ground in Antarctica, and he initially said it was 179 w/m^2 in this post:”
It is, based on “average” temperature. There is some debate how useful “average” is though. The lowest temperature recorded in that Antarctic is around -89.2C which would be about 65 Wm-2 of upwelling. What the net is depends on your choice of reference. Since there is advection to the Antarctic you would need to know the minimum, maximum and average advected energy (and mass) to figure that out.
“Now, to be fair, I would not have thought the net upwelling LW was as high as even 50w/m^2, and the discussion did lead me to do more research and find that it can peak around that level in certain areas of Antarctica, though it is often much lower, and even near zero at times.”
Since you are a fan of the SSW events and BDC I am surprised you didn’t know that Stratospheric advection of Ozone, Water Vapor and the energy in the air mass transferred from the tropical stratosphere is estimated to be around 53Wm-2 or roughly a 50C warming at the poles. That “average” advection from the tropical stratosphere is based on a much shorter data time frame meaning less certainty that it is a realistic “average” and the energy/mass transfer to each pole tends to vary on not yet known time frames. There is around 18 to 25 Wm-2 of uncertainty as best I can tell which could be up to 20C at the poles or as little as 3C in the tropics. (Brierley et al and Toggweiler et al are good sources.)
For some reason people seem to forget that “shifting” westerlies mean a shift in the Hadley, Ferrel and polar cells which would also shift the BDC. That is a pretty important part of climate dynamics that is not modeled very well. You seem to have picked up on part of that but never tried fitting all the pieces together.
No one is agreeing with you Gates.
Your knowledge of radiative physics: FAIL
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: The problem with Mr. Springer is that he keeps changing the topic just enough to wiggle out of his errors.
I disagree with you about what the topic was, and I’ll note that you evaded my questions. You have persistently denied that the polar regions are net radiators of LW IR to space. Are you changing your mind about that?
R.Gates has been exposed, again, as a thermodynamic illiterate.
In my opinion the most obvious mistaket in the climate field is that there is some sort of linearity in the response to increased CO2 concentration. A study of the history of world average temperature shows discontinuities and singularities in the record. Climate change is is a is an on/off phenomena, not a continuous one.
Look at the evidence.1910 to 1940, A period of steady global temperature increase 0.15C/decade culminating in the extraordinary reversal in 1940 to an equally rapid fall. This is beyond the realm of ordinary differential equation dynamics and can only be explained by quantum mechanics, or piecewise linear dynamics. But forget about any mathematical continuous process. My theoretical climate model (underlined above) makes this clear.
A lot of “skeptics” make the mistake of assuming that climate scientists attribute all of the change in global temperature to CO2 forcing when solar and aerosol influences are also important forcing terms that were noticeable in those periods. It helps to see the IPCC report for an idea of how much they attribute to probably being CO2. Not all of the swings for sure, just a background accelerating rise.
Thank you JimD for your reply. However the aerosol theory requires some independent verification. You can’t just trot it out when convenient Only mad Hitler ruffled the world in 1940, there were no major volcanic events. The sky over Britain was as clear as the rest of Europe, as people watched Spitfires dog fighting high in the sky.. But no evidence of unusual aerosols.
Before 1940, it was quite possibly solar. Sunspots increased by a factor of three between 1910 and 1940 indicating growing activity.
Thanks again JimD for your reply. In 1940 I was ca wireless operator in the RAAF, so was familiar with the 11year sunspot cycle. In 1940 I was able to listen to the BBC news direct from Daventry in Australia every night. I don’t recall any unusual propagation conditions, indicative of excessive sunspot activity in 1940. In my own theoretical model I used 11 year central , Moving average smoothing but still the 1940 singularity came through sharp and clear.
If you were able to compare 1940 with 1910 it would have been a lot stronger.
The Conversation deletes any comment for no reason than it dissents. No questions are allowed.It changes the rules on how to comment when it suits.
The mods/deleters even join in the conversation attacking the odd brow-beaten dissenting view allowed through.
It is not a Conversation, but a tightly controlled government propaganda site.
It is not a science outlet.
Yes, I have been ‘blocked’ @theCon, simply for sending comments from home email & receiving their “your comment has been deleted” spam @my gmail.
Absolutely correct. They continually delete comments that do not support their far left ideological beliefs. But does provide a window to show us how extreme left the university types have become.
This hasn’t been my experience. I’ve been critical of John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky’s latest article where they grossly misrepresented work by Robert J. Brulle, and my comments were allowed. Stephan Lewandowksy even “responded” to me (he wrote a comment in response, but it didn’t actually respond to anything I wrote).
I also got a prompt response from them when I sent them an e-mail complaining about an earlier piece. I’m not satisfied with their response, but I have no reason to believe further communication won’t resolve the issue.
Brandon,
No one said the Conversation deletes every comment. But it’s well know that many are and the site’s editors have a far left bias. They delete comments they don’t like. A couple of days ago I had the below comment deleted from this John Cook authored thread: https://theconversation.com/the-truth-is-out-there-so-how-do-you-debunk-a-myth-22641
No other reason than they just don’t like the question.
A question for Wyatt and Curry re Stadium Wave
Is the amplitude of the wave greater when the planet is colder?
And are the waves mostly asymmetrical with fast warming and slow cooling?
Comment:
My question is about the waves with roughly 900 year period; i.e. the wave that gave us the Minoan, Roman, Middle Ages and Modern warm periods and intervening cold periods. My question about the amplitude is prompted by two charts:
1. James Hansen and Sato (2011) Figure 1: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf suggests that the amplitude of the changes in ‘global deep ocean temperatures’ was increases as the planet cooled over the past 50 million years. (To what extent this is a result of increasing temporal resolution as we get closer to the present I do not know).
2. Coxon and McCarron (2009) Figure 15.21: http://eprints.nuim.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf shows rapid temperature rises 14,500 and 11,500 years before present. This figure is for the temperature changes in Ireland but they also occurred in Greenland and Iceland. The temperature rose from near glacial temperatures to near current temperatures in 7 years 14.500 years ago, and in 9 years 11,500 years ago. There were many lesser waves in between these; easy to spot low points are at: 16,000, 15, 500, 14,500, 13,800, 13,000, 12,600, 11,600 (read from the chart to the nearest 100 years).
In regards to the Streisand Effect’s power: I am one of Californiacoastline.org’s greatest fans and most prolific users. I regularly link to it in my postings, use its “Time Comparison” feature to make historical observations, and as a location sharing device much more graspable to my correspondents than GPS. Yet, fairly frequently I accidentally hit the URL for the Streisand lawsuit, which is just below the web’s database URL and am reminded once again of Babwa’s selfish and extremely ineffective foolishness.
This lawsuit situation reminds me of a long ago letter to “Dear Abby,” in which a high school girl sadly wrote she had asked everybody in school, who was spreading the untrue rumor she was a tramp, but had been unsuccessful in finding out or of squelching the rumor. Abby’s answer was that her best solution was to shut up, as she was now the source keeping the rumor alive. (Do I win a prize for the first Climate Science/Dear Abby connection on this forum? If so, a small chunk of Arctic ice to put in my freezer would be nice.)
I think Dr. Curry is right, rolling in the mud with your opponent almost always produces lots of dirty laundry for both participants. I suspect Mr. Steyn already has a cleaner on retainer, Mr. Mann should start looking in the Yellow Pages.
I don’t know whether Mann will win a judgement or not, but I hope this suit will encourage people like Steyn to behave better.
Americans have both freedom of speech and freedom to sue. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Max_OK: I hope this suit will encourage people like Steyn to behave better.
Exactly which of Steyn’s behaviors would you correct, and how?
“Exactly which of Steyn’s behaviors would you correct…?”
I believe the offending behavior is spirited ridicule, and that Max would like the court to administer an attitude adjustment.
Mann is winning.
This clearly grates.
i LOL
lolwot
Huh?
What are you smoking (sniffing or shooting), lolwot?
Max
“Many “climate skeptics” wonder why the defendants would want to get the complaint dismissed rather than put Mann through a trial in which he would have to take the witness stand and discuss his work under oath. I can understand their enthusiasm for this but for me the priority has always been the broader cause of free speech”
That says it all.
Steyn has put climate skeptics in a real hole.
Potential newspaper piece: “A climate scientist has successfully sued a climate skeptic who had called his work fraudulent. Climate skeptics were unable to substantiate their fraud allegations in court”
Yeah I can see how that headline will do a LOT of damage to Mann! LOL
The real joke is to imagine that this will somehow be overshadowed by:
“Steyn’s relentless hammering of Mann seems to be doing far more damage to Mann’s reputation that the alleged legal defamation.”
Who is going to care about a loser relentlessly hammering Mann? (and who the hell is even reading what Steyn writes other than the faithful?)
Even if Steyn wins, this will still be a tragedy of enormous proportions – I mean that’s the reason why Steyn wanted the case dismissed, right? Because bringing it to trail will cripple our free speech rights. “Skeptics” were on here a couple of threads back hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from their fainting couches at the development.
But if Mann wins, it will take us decades to establish the ability to voice out opinions in public again – that is if it doesn’t turn out to be a fatal blow to our free speech rights.
In fact, it will probably reverse the enlightenment.
Too late. The englightenment already reversed by climate boffins.
Mann and Styen constitute a circus. Mann is the ringleader however and Steyn a reluctant conscript.
Pass the popcorn.
I just supported the cause of freedom by buying a Scary Conservative mug at Steyn’s online store.
http://www.steynstore.com/page11.html
Won’t you do the same?
Andrew
Re “the truth out there”: A few people decided to check the David Jones (head of BoM) claim: “We know every place across Australia is getting hotter.”
I have no trouble believing in a bit of general warming over a longer cycle from the 19th century, and a maybe over a shorter cycle since 1980. So I would not have been surprised to see it reflected in my locale’s records. It wasn’t.
No recent trends to warming or cooling were apparent, but I discovered one period where annual average max temps were markedly hotter over a decade. It was also the decade when most of our monthly max records were set. It was the period from 1910 to 1919. (1915 was our hottest year post 1907, followed by five other years n that decade, followed by 1907. Pity we don’t have a reading for the scorcher in 1902, our driest year, and Australia’s driest on record.)
Moreover – and more surprisingly – the double-whammy “strong” La Ninas of 1916-8, while wet for much of the country, brought us only okay to average rain. They were considerably hotter years here than the powerful Ninos of 1982-3 and 1997-8, and even the weak (but notoriously strong in effect) Nino of 2002-3. Really!
And get this. Rainfall was better here in those super-El Ninos than in the 1916-18 powerful and double whammie La Nina! I’m not making it up.
All of this only applies to my locale (others differ wildly) but since I seriously doubt the validity of a Great Australian National Temperature, I thought my own locale would be a good place to take a peek. Every part of Oz getting hotter? The truth was out there indeed. Or, more correctly, the truth was in there – in BoM’s own records.
Seems there’s a bit to learn. Even if you are the head of BoM.
mosomoso, your data only suggests that because it hasn’t been adjusted to remove the First World War effect. Once that adjustment has been made, you will find that the period 1910-19 is clearly colder than 2000-2009.
The WW1 effect. Wasn’t WW1 the last time we had a “quiet sun”? Australia got to bake and parch while in Europe they shivered in mud. That’s not the “normal” era our climate stabilisers are planning to dial us back to, is it?
Mosomoso
Have the historic figures you have found been adjusted down? Many records in australia were taken using glaisher screens with duplicates in stevenson screens. The records from Adelaide use only the Stevenson screens for the sake of ‘consistency’ which are an astonishing and unlikely 1.5c cooler than glaisher.
Tonyb
Tonyb, I have no idea what adjustments have been made, or are about to be made. I treasure our local records while I have them. Our temp records have already been shortened up to 1965 on Elders, Weatherzone etc. Who knows what will happen to my pretties on the actual BoM source site in the near future? (I don’t think anyone can fiddle with our rainfall records starting late 1900s – and don’t they tell a story!)
A few years ago, on the Elders site, I happened to check a daily min around October 17 just because it had been so cold that morning. It was indeed a freak temp, not far off the October record, which had been for October 1. By afternoon, that morning’s temp had been adjusted by BoM. Now, you and Faustino have to guess which way it was adjusted. Go on. Have a guess. Don’t be shy!
I did, of course, mean 1800s not 1900s when I spoke of my region’s rainfall records. That was not an adjustment!
Our driest years post 1881 were, in order, 1902, 1915, 1993, 1909, 1994, 1901, 1940…
Most striking in the record of our “extreme” 1890s is the autumn/winter total drought of 1895 after typically lavish growth in the warm season. When the howling dry westerlies came in late winter, all you needed was one match for the whole north. Now they tell us a mid-spring fire is unprecedented in NSW!
I’m sure it was all worse than they thought at the time, with many worrying trends. When isn’t it?
mosomoso, that’s a very silly suggestion. What our climate superiors seek is a return to the Golden Age which gave us, well, whatever you think the perfect climate should be, ignoring the fact that we are looking at global temperature averages rather than local or regional climatic conditions. The difficulty of working out what exactly the Golden Age settings were or should be is, of course, the reason why so much computing power is needed. Of course, the peasantry can not appreciate such subtleties.
Tony, http://www.john-daly.com/screens.htm refers. Warwick Hughes of the Tasman Institute concludes that “Nicholls et al (1996) have not presented the data and associated historical records that would be required to support valid conclusions as to the Glaisher / Stevenson difference revealed by the Adelaide experiment. The onus is on Nicholls et al to do more with this data and related records if their findings are to be considered along with those of Parker (1994). At the very least there is a need to compare these data to other temperature records from the Observatory as well as records from other sites.”
The WW1 effect.
The weather effected the outcome at Passcendale,apparently the British had not learnt from Agincourt,where the plough proved mightier then the sword.
http://blog.metservice.com/2013/10/the-weather-at-passchendaele/
Tony, I should add that Neville Nichols of the BoM responded that “The extra detail Warwick Hughes provides on the Adelaide comparisons of thermometer exposure confirms the conclusions of Nicholls et al. (1996). Warwick’s figures show that mean temperatures in the Glaisher stand are biased relative to the modern Stevenson Screen. So, as noted in Nicholls et al. (1996), 19th century temperatures, which were often measured with open exposures such as Glaisher stand, are biased warm relative to 20th century temperatures.”
Faustino
Yes, I’m aware of the daly report and in fact met David Parker at the met office just a few weeks ago.
Tonyb
maksimovich, those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it. My WWI reference was a joke, but has brought forth some interesting material. One of the major problems with British leadership was that they thought the plebs were expendable, they were prepared to send hundreds of thousands to their death on the basis that they had more men than the Germans and would eventually prevail. Or so I’ve been told.
Faustino,
But there we degrees of expendable. Aussies and Canadians were regarded as more expendable than British plebs.
I think this calls for a poem from Beth the serf to explain this. :)
Scampering down a hidden decline,
Shot like a rabbit, the run defined.
=============
Given the fact that Obamacare is such a colossal failure as to send Congressional Democrats scurrying away from Obama like the cockroaches they are, Obama can’t afford to screw up his anti-coal, anti-fossil fuel legislation – although, given his shining talent for incompetence, I’m sure he will mess it up anyway.
From the article:
WASHINGTON — In marathon meetings and tense all-day drafting sessions, dozens of lawyers, economists and engineers at the Environmental Protection Agency are struggling to create what is certain to be a divisive but potentially historic centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change legacy.
If the authors succeed in writing a lawsuit-proof regulation that is effective in cutting carbon emissions from America’s 1,500 power plants — the largest source of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution — the result could be the most significant action taken by the United States to curb climate change.
But if the language in the regulation is too loose, there could be little environmental impact. And if it is too stringent, it could lead to the shutdown of coal plants before there is enough alternative power to replace them and, ultimately, to soaring electric bills, power blackouts and years of legal battles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/us/epa-staff-struggling-to-create-rule-limiting-carbon-emissions.html?_r=1
and retard the USA (and the world) economy, jobs growth and improvements in human well-being for decades with ongoing effects of the damages lasting for perhaps the whole century.
Retarding the economy is like hitting a bad golf shot. The damage is done and cannot be undone.
Or they could switch coal to natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner anyway.
“Or they could switch coal to natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner anyway”
Oh, like he switched from electric cars to natural gas cars and trucks?
Good thinking, Jim D.
And tax them for his stroke of genius.
Some “skeptics” are too wedded to coal, and I don’t understand it. With the natural gas alternative there is no upside to coal, unless you consider it a publicly funded job-creation program for miners.
“Some “skeptics” are too wedded to coal, and I don’t understand it. With the natural gas alternative there is no upside to coal, ”
Yes there is. There is a cost to replacing existing assets and there is a cost of wasting precious gas assets on electricity generation, and the increase in demand for gas causes (will eventually) an increase in the price of gas for all consumers and industry. More cost s to business, more industries move off shore, more jobs move off shore. All this for no real benefit.
Maybe also, Australia doesn’t have much natural gas, which is tough for them, but this was about the US where the reserves seem to be increasing with time.
Peter Lang
I like natural gas as a convenient, clean fuel.
And it looks like there is a large supply in the USA today, with directional drilling and fracking technology.
In fact, the USA has become the world’s largest natural gas producer.
And, yes, it even has promise as a motor fuel for heavy vehicles (buses, trucks) – as you in Australia are aware.
But I agree with you that it is a “premium fuel” for these reasons and should not be wasted in the long run for electrical power generation, when there are even larger resources of coal (as there are in the USA as well as Australia).
But coal power generation needs to “clean up its act” (“clean coal”) to get rid of the real pollutants resulting from its combustion (sulfur, heavy metals, soot, etc.). This is not impossible – in fact, it is being done in most locations of the developed world today. Coal is still the least expensive fuel for power generation, even with all the added flue gas cleanup costs.
So the Obama administration’s announced “war on coal” is not only silly (it will have zero impact on the world’s future climate) – it is also counterproductive for the long-term economic welfare of the USA.
But unfortunately for US taxpayers, the Obama administration is listening to goofballs like “science czar”, John Holdren (the guy who still believes in the “population bomb” and wanted to shoot massive amounts of sulfuric acid into the stratosphere to “save the planet” from global warming).
“Ol’ King Coal” got the industrialized world up and running, thereby improving our quality of life and increasing our life expectancy at birth immensely.
And I predict that “Ol’ King Coal” will be around a long time after Obama and his crowd are long gone from power.
Max
PS I also like nuclear, but the politics in many countries are stacked against it even more than coal.
manacker, so the difficulty with “clean coal” is that it is more expensive than natural gas, as dirty coal already is without cleaning up. Now, a big “skeptic” argument has been about the price of energy and keeping it down at any cost, so what happened to that one? It seems favoring coal is irrational from any viewpoint: price and cost to environment.
jim2
No matter how the new EPA regulation is written, it will have an imperceptible impact on our planet’s climate.
James E. Hansen et al. recommended an even tougher battle against coal: shutting down all coal-fired power plants by 2030, replacing them with non-fossil fuel fired plants (ostensibly nuclear?)..
Guess what this impact this draconian move would have on our planet’s climate by 2100? (Hansen et al. did not provide an estimate of this, for a very good reason.)
Using IPCC’s arguably exaggerated 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at equilibrium of 3C, and assuming that “equilibrium” would be reached by 2100, this would theoretically avert an additional 0.08C warming by 2100!
Big deal.
(If you want to see the calculation, let me know).
These politicians are really floating around in never-never land.
Max
Jim D
Don’t know where you are getting your cost data, but clean coal in most parts of the USA is less expensive than natural gas, even at today’s extremely low natural gas prices.
As Peter Lang points out, natural gas is inherently a more valuable fuel than coal (easier to transport, more convenient to use for domestic heating, ability to use directly as a motor fuel, can be used directly for producing fertilizers and chemicals, etc.), so its long-term price will settle out higher than coal.
The USA has the world’s largest coal reserves. “Clean coal” technology exists and is in use in much of the USA.
So once the current “war on coal” madness dies out with the departure from office of the current administration, I predict that coal will be back as the top energy source of the USA.
Max
Australia is about to become the biggest gas exporter in the world. US 665 trillion cubic feet – Australian 437.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=14431
It seems jimmy dee is talking through his hat again.
Gas is cheaper than coal is the US for electricity generation – by a considerable margin. In Australia – the Stanwell power station just announced the closure of a gas plant and reopening of a 1980’s coal plant.
Yes, GS, Australia has gas. Enough for many decades of its own power. Coal is so 20th century. They need to move on.
“Some “skeptics” are too wedded to coal, and I don’t understand it. ”
It seemed like the Chinese mobilizing to use vast amount of their national coal was a good direction.
So, in terms of any war on poverty in history, it had very good results.
But this is wedded to the assumption any government should should have a government policy regarding uses of energy.
If the premise is that a nation should be totalitarian, rather valuing freedom, then that **was** a rational policy for the Chinese.
That people who have been educated, and live in far wealthy nations, can’t imagine that government should *not* be involved with managing a nation use of energy, this is a fundamental problem. And is why, you don’t understand it.
‘Maybe also, Australia doesn’t have much natural gas, which is tough for them, but this was about the US where the reserves seem to be increasing with time.’
and
‘Yes, GS, Australia has gas. Enough for many decades of its own power. Coal is so 20th century. They need to move on.’
Hard to keep up with some people.
US costs?
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
Jim D
The IEA has estimated that a “gas price of $5 per MMBTU could spur a return to coal”.
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/27/iea-says-u-s-gas-prices-of-us5-could-spur-return-to-coal/?__lsa=7484-ab62
From historical highs around $10 per MMBTU, US natural gas price has been at a decade low, but has recently risen above $5 due to the extreme cold weather there.
Current coal price is around $2.40 per MMBTU and this appears to be the breakeven point with $5 gas at 85% capacity factor. Natural gas has the advantage that it is more competitive than coal at a lower capacity factor (for example as a standby plant or in intermittent service).
But it is likely that natural gas prices will remain above $5 and possibly even return to much higher values.
All of these comparisons are based on “clean coal” technology and no forced carbon capture and sequestration, which would, of course, favor natural gas.
Max
Demanding that coal be as clean as gas will tip the cost in favor of gas, and rightfully so. It has already become competitive and seems to be getting more abundant too. What’s not to like? NG can be the transition fuel to the next-generation 21st century energy mix, while coal is left where it belongs, in the ground along with tar-sand oil.
Jim D
I’m not going to get into a lengthy discussion with you about “demanding that coal is as clean as gas”. “Clean coal” technology is already in place.
I simply pointed out that if natural gas prices stay much above $5, “clean coal” is competitive with natural gas in the USA (as IEA tells us).
The market will determine whether or not coal or gas is used.
And natural gas is inherently a higher value fuel than coal (because it is more versatile), so it is likely that its price will again rise to levels as we saw a few years ago.
But I have nothing against the use of natural gas to replace coal in power generation, as long as this makes economic sense.
Max
jim2, Australia has a lot of gas, there are several major LNG export projects coming onstream shortly, many fracking prospects. But because the domestic price now reflects the high export prices, several gas-fired generators are being mothballed and mothballed coal-fired stations revived, as they are now more economical.
JimD – Australia has a lot of natural gas. It’s just a matter of developing it.
From the article:
The US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) estimates that ‘technically recoverable’ shale gas resources in Australia are 396 trillion cubic feet (tcf). One tcf is approximately equivalent to Australia’s annual
domestic gas usage. Western Australia (WA) alone was estimated to be holding the fifth largest reserves of shale gas in the world – approximately double the amount of gas held in WA’s offshore conventional fields.
http://www.csiro.au/~/media/CSIROau/Divisions/CSIRO%20Earth%20Science%20and%20Resource%20Engineering/PDFs/Australias%20shale%20gas%20resources.pdf
@Jim D…
This is a really stupid argument: you should retract it and avoid such empty rhetoric in the future. You sound like that stupid Okie.
I usually don’t have any use for your arguments, even to waste time refuting them. But here I agree with your general point. So I’m going to try to explain (as I see it).
What most commenters here (on both sides) don’t seem to understand is the complex nature of commodity markets. Historically, there are tremendous advantages to “locking in” prices for expected commodities needs. This leads to the development of futures markets of some type as a cultural institution. (I’m referring to cultures going back to Classical Greece and Rome, although I’m talking about patterns I’ve seen in study of original texts, and thus can’t point you to any modern historical study I could recommend.)
Our modern incarnation of commodities markets extends to the key raw materials of power generation: coal, oil, and gas (methane, more or less pure). The primary economics of choices among these products is polluted by fluctuations on various time-scales due to speculation and normal market fluctuations. One of the major problems with longer-term investment in these resources is the natural human tendency (IMO) to treat short-term situations as permanent. I don’t know of any general solution to this problem, I’d guess it would qualify as a “wicked problem”.
The “skeptical” objections to placing burdens on coal, tax or regulatory, seem to derive from the belief that such burdens would raise the price of energy relative to what the “free” market would provide. This belief seems unwarranted to me, although I can’t say it’s wrong. Subsidies on energy have played a critical role in evolving the “Western” system of competing nation-states, and the (somewhat) free-market capitalism that enabled the Industrial Revolution that, in turn, determined the winners in that competition.
Most of these subsidies have been military/political (e.g. the 1953 US intervention in Iran) although direct financial subsidies aren’t unknown. Given the critical role that energy, and the technologies and cultural capacities involved in producing and using it, have played in supporting military success since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, I would regard such a situation as (having been) inevitable.
Such subsidies can reasonably be considered investments at a cultural/societal level, where the nature of the “playing field” determines the outcome of the capitalist competition that takes place on it. A simple analogy would be that people wanting good baseball games invest in a great playing field, giving (reasonably) equal opportunities to all competitors. The competing teams don’t pay for the field, their audience does.
Another analogy would be the tax-supported development of the Interstate Highway system in the US. This provides a reasonably “level playing field” for various shippers and their customers, although at the same time it “tilted the playing field” in favor of trucking vs. railroads. The advantage of being able to locate businesses without reference to expensive rail lines probably (IMO) enhanced the growth of industry and other commerce in a more distributed fashion. At a cost to central cities, of course, but overall, at the state/Federal level, the tax base is probably relatively enhanced.
When it comes to energy, the various subsidies/investments by nation-states (and other economically self-contained polities) had a definite impact on their military capability. They also seem to have resulted in large, comparatively well-educated and prosperous “middle-classes”, themselves an enormous advantage to a nation-state needing the ability to wage modern, mechanized warfare.
For most non-socialists, this is a highly desirable outcome, ideally extending to everyone in the population the ability for self-development at least somewhat according to personal choice.
Tax and regulatory burdens can be considered the opposite of these subsidies: “anti-subsidies”. Just as subsidies tend to favor accelerated growth of industry, modern commerce, and an educated and intellectually self-reliant populace relative to what an “undisturbed” market would, such anti-subsidies would tend to impede it.
This, IMO, is why most proponents of an educated and intellectually self-reliant populace tend to object to such burdens. For some, it’s “only when necessary”, for others, there’s clearly a denial of any possibility of necessity.
For me, “only if necessary” means there should be a search for solutions that meet the requirements (a global shift away from the net dumping of fossil carbon into the global climate/eco-system) without impeding the progress of the Industrial Revolution by increasing the price of energy. Others see it differently: Some deny the possibility of a problem/risk, some insist on impeding or reversing the Industrial Revolution without looking for such “low-regrets” solutions. Some, IMO, want to use the risk, and the “need” to reduce fossil carbon emissions, as a stalking horse for their own (socialist) religious/ideological agenda.
As regards coal, IMO the approach most consistent with ” solutions that meet the requirements […] without impeding the progress of the Industrial Revolution by increasing the price of energy” would be a set of long-term regulations to compel reduced emissions of real pollutants and net CO2 emissions over a time-frame consistent with investment in R&D and roll-out of the necessary technologies.
“Tilting the playing field” in favor of methane is an appropriate long-term strategy, but should be undertaken as a subsidy: a societal investment. Preferably through enhanced R&D, on a time-frame appropriate for roll-out of improved gas technology to replace coal technology as it becomes obsolete.
This is hardly inconsistent with “free-market” capitalism, as long as every investor and competing business has equal opportunity and regulatory environment. Just like the Interstate Highway system, such a shift to methane would incent the growth of industry in different directions, but the “free-market” among competing private investments and businesses would remain.
Of course, I speak from a perspective of believing that most of the investment in methane technology (storing, transporting, using) could be prevented from being “sunk costs” through an immediate societal investment in “bio-methane”.
AK, I read your comment and agree with most of it. I would add that it is very reasonable to subsidize some new and developing energy sources (or nuclear power development) while penalizing others, and this can also maintain energy prices. There is no reason that a new energy policy has to raise prices, especially for those who can least afford it. Subsidizing can also be selectively aimed at lower incomes (fuel stamps, like food stamps), but I know conservatives don’t like this concept on principle. In the big picture, the ultimate goal is to leave selected fossil fuels in the ground, and don’t waste energy-developing resources on them. Use those resources in more forward-looking directions for the 21st century.
@Jim D…
I see two problems with this:
Selective energy subsidies for those with lower incomes misses the entire point. Consider, for example, how the advantages to everyone, including the poor, of being able to buy stuff over the internet depends on low fuel prices for, e.g., FedEx and UPS. Where low energy prices really benefit is in enabling more efficient distributed enterprise, which benefits the customer. In a competitive environment, profit margins tend to be slim, and higher energy prices are simply passed on to customers.
You are also, IMO, misusing the word “conservatives”. A conservative is somebody opposed to what they see as social change. Since the building of the Reagan Coalition, there’s been a tendency to regard “Republicans”, “conservatives”, and “free-market proponents” as synonyms. This isn’t true, and wasn’t even then. As a Libertarian I found it hilarious to be part of a “unified” political block that also included religious nuts who opposed abortion (my position is more nuanced today but I still oppose laws against it). Same for the mass of “crony capitalists” who made up the Republican party pre-Reagan, and as we discovered got their heyday during GWBush’s disastrous time at the helm.
There’s a great deal of overlap between libertarians (functional, not party members) and proponents of some sort of “free” market. Personally, my studies of the history of the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Counterrevolution (socialism) have forced me to a more nuanced perspective than Ayn Rand’s “Intellectual property is a part of nature” meme. Along with studies of cultural and genetic anthropology. Most libertarians, IMO, take a more simplistic approach, many of them believing in ideals with no proof, or even scientific study. (Remind you of anybody?)
That doesn’t make them wrong, but it does, IMO,
oftenusually lead to simplistic approaches to complex problems.@AK | February 9, 2014 at 11:50 am |
Before we subsidize or penalize any energy source, I would like to see:
1. Proof that the hypothesized feedbacks subsequent to CO2 emission exist.
2. That the effect of higher levels of CO2 aren’t neutral.
3. That the effect of higher levels of CO2 aren’t actually beneficial.
A cost benefit analysis is in order. The problem is that we don’t understand the costs or the benefits, IMO.
@jim2…
See, this is an illustrative example of what I mentioned above: “Others see it differently: Some deny the possibility of a problem/risk […]” One of several reasons I usually don’t bother with your comments.
There are manifold risks associated with digging up fossil carbon and dumping it into the climate/ecosystem. Many of these risks are unquantifiable. The insistence that a risk that hasn’t been “proven” doesn’t exist is simple denialism, no better than socialists using “global warming” as a stalking horse.
The appropriate response to unquantifiable (but probably small) risks is to take low-regrets actions to mitigate them. “Tilting the playing field” in favor of gas fits that definition. There is absolutely no reason coal-fired power plants should be allowed to dump any real pollutants into the air; giving them a grace period is tantamount to subsidy. Granted, CO2 shouldn’t be considered a pollutant (tho black carbon should), but given the risk it’s perfectly fair to require coal-fired power plants to keep their net emissions below some level. By some appropriate date.
The difference between “low-regrets” and “high-regrets” is between time-frame involved, which determines how much extra cost is added to the cost/price of power due to these regulatory burdens.
And there’s no real reason the burden of regulation shouldn’t be enhanced with a subsidy of tax-supported research towards better technology. In fact, there’s an obvious trade-off between the extent/timing of societally funded R&D and the cost of the regulatory burdens.
Thus for methane, as well. Societally funded R&D could constitute a very valuable subsidy, which would probably pay for itself in spin-off technology as well as helping to develop an improved energy infrastructure.
Jim D,
Energy is clearly not an area of expertise for you.
We own the second largest wind generation capacity in the nation. We are not building any more and just sold off rights to a neighboring utility. We also get 30% of our base generation from coal. Why, because it is reliable and low cost. Solar? Probably not in my lifetime. We have been buying gas gen and hydro is still the biggest source.
Bottom line is that a lot of factors go into developing a utility’s mix of generation and there are very good reasons why coal is still in the mix.
@AK | February 9, 2014 at 3:57 pm |
Your “manifold risks” exist only in fantasy land, they aren’t a scientific fact. You go on and on about mitigation without first demonstrating there is something to mitigate.
And if you want a no-regrets policy, you should be advocating for nuclear power, not some pie-in-the-sky carbon tax or cap and trade and certainly no government money for wind, solar, or bio-diesel.
It’s time to be rational and stop chasing after solutions to fantasy fears.
Renewable energy needs storage capabilities to be developed before it can be fully tapped. Without this we are limited to a route to nuclear via natural gas, maybe biomass, also towards electric vehicles with a slight possibility of hydrogen. Yes, it will be tough, but so will climate change, and I suspect we will be dealing with both in some measure.
@jim2…
Denial in action. This sort of thing gives warmists, and people using “global warming” as a stalking horse for an ulterior agenda, something to use against real skeptics to smear them by association.
Generalissimo Skippy | February 9, 2014 at 12:55 am |
“Australia is about to become the biggest gas exporter in the world. US 665 trillion cubic feet – Australian 437.”
Interesting. So a cubic foot isn’t the same in both places? Our is 12 inches cubed. What’s yours?
From the article:
AN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The “polar vortex” of early January and the deep freeze not long after resulted in record demand for natural gas, Bentek Energy said Monday.
The extreme winter weather in January resulted in seven out of the 10 biggest demand days on record for the U.S., said Bentek, an unit of Platts.
January natural-gas demand averaged 102 billion cubic feet a day, nearly 8 bcf a day higher than the previous maximum monthly average demand and, all told, 241 bcf more natural gas consumption than any other month on record, Bentek added. Natural-gas spot prices soared above $100 per million British thermal units.
Shutterstock.com Enlarge Image
The freezing weather also fast-tracked demand expectations. Bentek had projected a similar level of demand around January 2019, when liquefied natural gas exports are expected to become a new source of natural-gas demand for the U.S.
Natural-gas demand, however, was well in the rear view mirror on Monday, when energy stocks fell after a weaker-than-expected reading on manufacturing data.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/polar-vortex-brought-record-natural-gas-demand-2014-02-03
jim2, clearly the polar vortex was contrived by those greedy providers of natural gas. Is there nothing those capitalist rascals will not do to turn a profit?
More voodoo science from the Met Office:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625
Paul
The so called national rainfall records back to 1766 are as fanciful and as contrived as the global met office sea surface temperatures back to 1850
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/
The records back to 1910 have some validity, but to 1766, I think not
Tonyb
> Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office’s chief scientist has said. Dr Julia Slingo said the UK’s variable climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms. “But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added. “There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.” <
Has she no shame? Slingo your hook, Dr Julia.
Lucia has a good thread on the Mann lawsuit.
It’s an interesting thread, but a jury would not be selected from a group that consists mostly of Michael Mann bashers.
Dr. Julia Slingo sez:
We don’ know what caused the storms – it coulda been “climate change” (sho’nuff! – when climate changes, it’s safe to bet that “there’s a link to climate change”).
We don’ know ’bout those heavy rains, either.
(An’ right now it isn’t getting any warmer.)
But we know for sure that “a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events”.
Huh?
Where’s the flaw in this logic?
Max
There is a new oscillation,identified in the SH a monthly baroclinic mode,where persistence ( of storminess) is identified.
http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/ThompsonPapers/KerrScience2014.pdf
Interesting – a southern version of the MJO. Las time I looked causes of the MJO were not well understood.
Very interesting. There is much more to be learned about climate.
RE: Steyn vs Mann
I’ve forgotten where Dr. Mann was employed during the “Hockey Stick” construction, altho I do remember him saying after the CG that releasing certain emails of his would damage certain reputations. I’m wondering what &/or if there’s a connection.
I’m thinking the same as Mr. Steyn; discovery should be a hoot.
If Mann was worried about discovery do you think he would be suing? And don’t forget who didn’t want to go to court.
What I would like to see is some of the people on the committees that “certified” Mann’s results correct – although some of the committees wouldn’t go so far to say the result was correct. Some merely stated Mann hadn’t done anything wrong, as I recall.
Perhaps discovery is a a bigger problem for Steyn/NR. Mann obviously has no fear of it; they seem to be afraid of it.
RE: JCH | February 9, 2014 at 6:15 pm |
“. . . Mann obviously has no fear of it; . . ”
So whose reputation(s) was he concerned about damaging by releasing his emails? I’m guessing Mr. Steyn wasn’t one of them . . .
Are talking about the former attorney general?
Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies proposed by their advocates would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits?
The question is about the probability of success in the real world given the real world diplomacy, trade, conflict, international and domestics economics and politics, etc.
The expected benefits must be clearly specified in terms of climate damages avoided. They must be measurable benefits (of climate damages avoided) and the dates by which those benefits would be realised.
Are you kidding? Did the U.S. known “the measurable benefits and the dates by which those benefits would be realized” when it decided to purchase Alaska and Louisiana?
Max – that is such an inept analogy. The benefits of more land was obvious and still is. The benefit of mitigation policies is highly questionable and an excellent case can be made that such policies are out and out harmful.
Peter, I have some idea on the fate of Australian carbon billions destined to be tipped into anything with the title “European Union” attached to it.
On the other hand, I can’t bear to think about it.
Mosomoso,
Thanks for the comment. I wonder why everyone avoids answering this question. That alone tells a story. That is, there is no justification for high cost mitigation policies. The policy analysis work to support a case has never been done. If it had, the proponents and advocates would be quick to point to the relevant research that supports their case.
It’s interesting to note that the question is also dodged on The Conversation.
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This week at WUWT Christopher Monckton of Brenchley reported “Satellites show no global warming for 17 years 5 months,” as evidenced by his graph of rss monthly data showing a flat OLS line.”
I confirmed Monckton’s finding of no warming during this period based on rss data, but the other sattelite-based measure, uah, does show warming as do gistemp and hadcrut3 (see linked graph). Is Monckton unaware of these other sources?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/plot/rss/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/trend/plot/uah/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/plot/uah/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/plot/gistemp/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996.67/to:2014.08/trend/plot/none
Max_callow, Cub Reporter: This argument is so tedious. Who cares if there’s no warming, slight cooling, or slight warming? The issue is the abysmal failure of the models on which this whole tottering mess is built. But you guys don’t want to talk about that, do you?
Andrew Montford on BBC said last week that there had not been any warming at all for two decades.
When pressed on the inaccuracy by Richard Betts, Montford offered the hilarious excuse that he couldn’t keep all the facts in his head. ‘Cause, you know, who could expect him to prepare for a radio interview by committing to memory a fundamental piece of information.
“Prolly also explains why Judith forgot to mention anything about OHC in her Congressional testimony.
Pokerguy sez “Who cares if there’s no warming, slight cooling, or slight warming?”
About everyone here cares except you, Pokerguy. It’s a favorite subject of conversation. Our hostess JC talks about it frequently. She even went to Congress and talked about it.
I think you envy modelers because you would like to model but can’t. I can empathize. I envy rock stars because I can’t play the guitar and sing.
Nice try Max Callow, but you’ve only made my point for me, which is always considerate. Why is it you don’t like to talk about how badly the models have performed? Is it really that painful?
Repeat after me: “The models on which CAGW projections are based suck.”
Max_OK
Is there a “pause” (or “hiatus”) in the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” record, as published by HadCRUT4?
It depends on the time length of the “pause”.
All surface records show slight cooling since 2002 (or over the past 12 years). All but GISS show slight cooling since 2001. So we have an observed “pause” in global warming that has lasted at least 12 years.
1998 is a bad year for starting a trend since it was a record high year due to a very long and strong El Nino, so I would personally avoid using it as the starting point (which some have done). But it is true (as confirmed by Phil Jones) that there has been “no statistically significant warming” since 1998.
But I’d say the answer is that there has been an observed pause of 12-13 years in the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” record.
Would you agree?
Max_CH
Max –
Try: observed short-term pause in the slope of the long-term statistically significant and dramatic rise in the globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly record.
poker guy said in his post on February 9, 2014 at 1:11 am
” Why is it you don’t like to talk about how badly the models have performed? Is it really that painful?”
__________
Climate models weren’t the subject of my post, but I don’t mind talking about climate models. The models presented by the IPCC in back in the 1990’s haven’t done badly. All have projected a long-term rise in global temperature, and that’s what’s happened. The rise falls within the range of the model projections. A poor performing model would be one that projected a long-term decline in temperature. I doubt you can find a model like that.
You may find the linked Guardian article on climate models interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/01/ipcc-global-warming-projections-accurate
Re comments by manacker on February 9, 2014 at 1:55 am
Max_CH said:All surface records show slight cooling since 2002 (or over the past 12 years). All but GISS show slight cooling since 2001. So we have an observed “pause” in global warming that has lasted at least 12 years.
Max_OK replied: Yes, you could say the surface records (hadcrut3 and gistemp) show slight cooling over the past 12 years, if you want to disregarding the lack of statistical significance in a period as short as 12 years. But if you like short periods, both records show warming over the last 6 years.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1978/plot/gistemp/from:1978/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2007/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2007/trend/plot/none
I see John Cook is still saying he studied 11,944 papers and 97% agree with him. Well, if you leave the 7,930 that had no conclusion, maybe.
Joshua, I hadn’t heard that one about Montford, but maybe he does have trouble keeping “facts in his head.”
Woops, wrong place.
Max –
This was his excuse for going on the radio and getting the basic science so wrong that even I knew he was blowing smoke.
Right. He went on the radio to talk about climate change, but couldn’t be bothered to study if the climate is changing.
Almost enough to make on think he’s a “skeptic” and not a skeptic. Perhaps even more amusing is that no “skeptics” show up to call him on his lameness and lack of accountability. Real shocker, that.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/2/1/the-headless-chickens.html?lastPage=true#comment20764163
My distinguished cuz, Montford, is somebody. Prolly doesn’t care much what little nameless nimrod trolls have to say.
“Son, delusional and self-congratulatory Is no way to go through life.”
Dean Wormer to John Cook, permanent frat pledge.
“Son, delusional and self-congratulatory Is no way to go through life.”
Fits somebody here to a T.
BREAKING NEWS: JAMES HANSEN’S NEW COMMUNICATION
Global Temperature Update Through 2013: A Discussion
Conclusion Nature and science support Hansen’s worldview. The denialist community will look mighty sick if-and-when Hansen’s end-of-pause prediction comes true.
———
Question How about the law for Mann/Steyn?
MORE BREAKING NEWS: SCIENCE WINS IN COURT
An insider’s story
of the global attack on climate science
End Result A New Zealand denialist front-organization declared insolvency rather than pay a court-judgment.
Prediction New Zealand’s experience of denialism will repeat itself in the United States.
Conclusion Nature and science are both looking pretty solid for Hansen, public opinion and the courts are both looking pretty solid for Michael Mann, and both outcomes are mighty sobering for climate-change denialists.
Some Common-Sense Advice NR/CEI/WUWT/Steyn would be prudent to ramp down their rhetoric, both scientifically and legally.
In fact, NR/CEI/Steyn would be well-advised to just plain retract and apologize.
Frequent and intense La Nina are likely for decades – like we have seen post 1998.
Let me Google that for you – http://lmgtfy.com/?q=interdecadal+pacific+oscillation
Hanging hopes on an El Nino seems more than a bit silly.
Hmmm … Perhaps Michael Mann’s optimal strategy is take his case to a jury in summer of 2015 just in time for the end-of-pause record global temperatures that James Hansen’s predicts.
This strategy would work well with a jury; poorly with a judge.
Conclusion NR/CEI/Steyn legal strategies boil down to:
• BEST Retract and settle immediately.
• FAIR Take the Mann case to a judge ASAP, and abide by the result (NO appeals).
• WORST Take the Mann case to a jury, in 2015 or beyond … during a Hansen-predicted global heatwave. Ouch.
These options aren’t complicated, Climate Etc readers!
Fan
How ’bout if it doesn’t?
Will you (and Hansen) “look mighty sick”?
Or will you just dodge and weave?
Max
Yes lets not forget the last prediction
Early model predictions of global warming proved accurate,the Pacific Ocean seems charged for a potential super-El Nino,and global temperature is poised to reach record,perhaps dangerous,levels.
by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy, Ken Lo, David Lea and Martin Medina-Elizalde
DRAFT March 29, 2006
SUPER EL NINO IN 2006-2007? We suggest that an El Nino is likely to originate in 2006 and that there is a good chance it will be a “super El Nino”, rivaling the 1983 and 1997-1998 El Ninos, which were successively labeled the “El Nino of the century” as they were of unprecedented strength in the previous 100 years (Fig. 1 of Fedorov and Philander 2000). Further, we argue that global warming causes an increase of such “super El Ninos”. Our rationale is based on interpretation of dominant mechanisms in the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) phenomenon, examination of historical SST data, and observed Pacific Ocean SST anomalies in February 2006.
Yah got an actual link to an actual article, maksy?
Plenty of Hansen’s initial drafts are freely available on the arxiv server … where they can NEVER be erased … and early drafts can FOREVER be compared to final drafts.
So now’s yer change to post up!
Uhhh … if yah can. And if yah can’t … well, that says something too, eh?
The Cause of the Pause is explained by thermodynamic Laws.
The SOI is bounded and has reversion to the mean characteristics. All natural fluctuations are being obscured by the relentless forcing control knob of CO2.
Manacker, there is no climate-change “pause” … `cuz no pause has even started yet!
Plain Common-Sense We’ll know that global heating has “paused” when seas stop rising and the polar ice stops melting.
But neither of those things are happening, are they manaker? Multiple redundant multi-national datasets affirm plainly that Hansen’s warming predictions are basically right!
It’s Obvious To Climate Etc Readers that Manaker-style denialist logic is comparably feeble to Maksimovich-style phantom and/or cherry-picked literature claims.
Yah got an actual link to an actual article, maksy?
It did not pass peer review, or at least it was not accepted in its present form,which a lot of his papers do not,where they often have to repackage and send to alternative journals.
So you’ve got nothing, maksimovich? Nothing at all?
While Hansen recruits colleagues by the score?
Conclusion Denialism’s in mighty bad shape … and getting worse, eh?
Got plenty,ie the anomalous currents that enhance the decay of the WP el nino,are already operating in the area of the Indonesian archipelago.
“All natural fluctuations are being obscured by the relentless forcing control knob of CO2.”
—–
Indeed. The HCV, along with other human activities is likely now the dominant long-term climate change agent during the Anthropocene, but for various reasons certain personality types would like to remain in denial of the growing obviousness of the situation.
‘This result is another link in a growing chain of evidence that internal climate variability played leading order role in the trajectory of 20th century global mean surface temperature.’ Swanson et al. 2009.
The inability to reconsider assumptions has it’s roots in cognitive dissonance. What seems obvious is that the world is not warming – or even cooling – for decades and that climate is nonlinear and dynamic.
RE: Fan of M.D. (and obviously pharmaceuticals) Conclusion Denialism’s in mighty bad shape … and getting worse, eh?
I’m wondering who’s in denial now . . .?
[…]
The judgement was actually court costs, because their suit was judged junk. From the linked article:
As for Mann: he aggressively attacked would-be auditors instead of engaging with them to explain the technical issues, ignored evidence that didn’t suit his “hockey stick”, and they regularly misrepresented critics’ statements by taking them out of context. He’s the one who brought suit. But I doubt he’ll have to declare bankruptcy if he’s judged liable for court costs, I’m sure there are plenty of deep warmist pockets ready to bail him out.
Looking for an explanation for Mann v Steyne – as mostly I don’t give a rat’s arse.
Came across this from Steyne which is pretty funny.
‘Meanwhile, Kerry’s Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, has been caught on tape and uploaded to YouTube (apparently by the Russians) attempting to broker a Ukraine deal that would as an additional benefit “f**k the EU”.
I’d be very happy to endorse the first UK political party to adopt “F**k the EU” as its official slogan, but I’m not sure it’s for the US State Department to be road-testing the phrase. And, of course, the attitudinal rhetoric is in forlorn contrast to the shrinking of American power in the world: Talk butchly and carry a small twig.’
For those who don’t know, Steyn is a musical theater critic who became a conservative commentator and Islamophobe, showing generally poor judgement in these areas, before making public accusations against Mann that he has yet to prove. It doesn’t look promising based on his past.
“Islamophobe.” What’s that, anyone who says a discouraging word about global jihadists? At any rate, Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn soundly trounced the people who tried to shut them up in Canada, so what can you mean to say that his past promises little? In exactly what sense?
As far as I can tell, he has some conspiracy theories about Islamic planned takeovers of Europe and America. Not sure, but he may have written books on it, so I would call that a fear of Islam, hence the word. Interesting character. His early writings were on Broadway musicals.
BREAKING NEWS
From the outstanding Duffel Blog
No comment needed `cuz it’s truer-than-true.
More Sobering News
For Climate Etc’s technology optimists
• F-35 Delayed After Fourth Prototype
Becomes Self-Aware And
Has To Be Destroyed
• Pentagon Scraps ‘Lightsaber’ Weapons Program
After Gross Misconduct, Numerous Injuries
Have fun! ;)
Islamophobe is someone who wins a free speech case against Islamic fundamentalists.
The operator, Dorothy Parker, has a 3:00 AM phone call for Michael Mann.
==============
As God is my witness, I thought puppies could fly.
=================
Just so, Skippy.
GS, the complainants weren’t fundamentalists but regular Canadian Muslims who did not like Steyn’s anti-Islamic hate speech.
However, I would concede that the Canadian Islamic Congress are not moderates either having just read the Wikipedia on them.
Even Klan members should be entitled to free speech. That doesn’t make it right, though.
JimD, “As far as I can tell, he has some conspiracy theories about Islamic planned takeovers of Europe and America.”
No conspiracy there. The “game plan” for Islam is to convert all the world to Islam, pretty much the same as the fundamentalist Christian game plan. Fundamentalists of any religion need to be taken seriously.
Shaleema Watson we crossed threads here some blogs back when I expressed dismay at the intemperate tone in commentators on Tamino’s second? Blog on Judith.
I am pleased to see that you tried to correct it in his recent Control Trolls article and am sorry that he took this to mean you were a control troll instead of a supporter of his views.
I made a call then for Mosher and Robert Way to distant themselves and from the views on that blog. Likewise Joshua et al.
But I have not heard a peep out of them although I suspect they have all read the offending blog.
angech –
I agree that there are not infrequently comments on that blog that are “skeptical” and not skeptical – such as those that say that Judith is a ignorant, or anti-science, or a “liar,” etc.
Not only is there no excuse for that kind of intemperate tone (except juvenility), it’s also just plain and simply a reflection of poor analysis and motivated reasoning.
Unambiguous enough?
Huh.
I read tamino rarely.
Why?
He is a jackass.
Dont get me wrong. he does good math.
But as a person he is a absolute tool, jackass and does not help the cause
Further he spent a long time refusing to acknowledge a mistake he made when the Statisician RomanM pointed out one of his errors. Not only that he did not let Roman post..
Same with Lucia who is banned from Tamino’s.
The man is a jerk, jackass, punk. If I were Ben Santer I’d say something about meeting him in a dark alley
M/J Thank you both for your replies, I am extremely heartened by your responses . wIll try to stick on topic now.
However,
I did leave a comment on his recent blog “Cherry P” which he used to show trend lines on noise going downwards for 15 years are not significant from a preceding upwards trend.
I gently reminded him that this would mean the preceding upwards trend was equally meaningless by his logic.
He is presently quite stunned by this as he has been unable to reply.
angech –
From my observation, and as we can see here at Climate Etc. on a daily basis, partisans in this debate are never, and I mean never, “stunned” or stymied by a counter argument.
They are always right about everything and quite certain of it. In fact our friend mosher displays that trait as well as anyone.
On Cook and Lewindowsky and convincing ordinary people to change their minds. What happened to telling the truth in such a way that an ordinary person could understand it.
When one has to resort to scare tactics, hyperbole and conning them them by finding out their other beliefs and prejudices and cajoling them into a particular viewpoint.
It is just plain ethically wrong.
There are some who can’t see the truth when it is presented to them. They range from the dragonslayers and outgassers to warming denialists. There are various less obvious grey shades too who won’t accept that CO2 could possibly explain the warming that has already been seen, even when its magnitude given by physics is correct, and the consensus just connects the observed warming to this physical explanation.
Jim D, there are also climate change denialists, who deny that climate changes ‘naturally’ and insist on anthropogenic explanation for the late 20th century warming.
The consensus AGW physics is wrong. The heat exchange at the surface is not solved properly. By definition, assuming no change in absorption of the solar energy by the surface, there cannot be any quantitative change in the total terrestrial radiation to space (atmospheric + surface) nor any change in total surface cooling flux (evaporation + convection + radiation, including direct to space) in a new steady state, after a change in atmospheric CO2. Whatever the surface absorbs, will be transferred to the atmosphere and space and even IF more CO2 reduces the radiative surface cooling, the other modes of heat transfer will have to increase so that the total surface cooling is exactly equal to the absorbed solar energy.
“The consensus AGW physics is wrong. ”
Publish your work and somebody might pay attention, otherwise, your “opinion” will be appropriately ignored
Edim, it is the same principle as adding insulation. Keep the inside heating (from the sun) constant, reduce the rate at which heat can escape from the roof and walls (top of atmosphere), the inside gets warmer.
Jim D, of course reducing heat loss or insulating warms the system (at the same energy input), but I don’t think that radiatively active atmospheric gases insulate the surface (decrease overall heat transfer coefficient). Furthermore, in the new steady state the heat loss must be the same as before, by definition.
Yabbut the warming doesn’t have to be on the surface. Lapse rate feedback puts same temperature clouds at a higher altitude (they need more altitude for adiabatic cooling to dewpoint which doesn’t change) where there is now less CO2 above to effect GHG warming and more CO2 below which impedes DWLIR from cloud to ground more than before.
Evidently the energy can go into the deep ocean below 700 meters without passing though the ocean surface somehow too as according to ARGO more energy is accumulating in >700m than in <700m. Maybe still some issues with ARGO or it somehow isn't telling the whole story.
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess. – Ronald Coase
Mann v Steyne seems to be about the accusation of torturing data – which has of course a long and honourable history in science. Max Planck for instance fudged an equation that went on to be quantum mechanics. Mann fudged a time series that went on to being the infamous hockey stick.
Steyn’s summary of the proceedings thus far.
‘1. Dr Michael Mann’s lawyer, John Williams, filed a fraudulent complaint falsely representing his client as a Nobel Laureate, and accusing us of the hitherto unknown crime of defaming a Nobel Laureate.
2. After Charles C W Cooke and others exposed Dr Mann’s serial misrepresentation of himself as a Nobel Prize winner, Mann’s counsel decided to file an amended complaint with the Nobel falsehood removed.
3. Among her many staggering incompetences, DC Superior Court judge Natalia Combs-Greene then denied NR’s motion to dismiss the fraudulent complaint while simultaneously permitting Mann’s lawyers to file an amended complaint.
4. The appellate judges have now tossed out anything relating to Mann’s original fraudulent complaint, including Judge Combs-Greene’s unbelievably careless ruling in which the obtuse jurist managed to confuse the defendants, and her subsequent ruling in which she chose to double-down on her own stupidity. Anything with Combs-Greene’s name on it has now been flushed down the toilet of history.
5. So everyone is starting afresh with a new judge, a new complaint from the plaintiff, and new motions to dismiss from the defendants. That’s the good news.
6. The bad news is that Mann’s misrepresentation of himself as a Nobel Laureate and Combs-Greene’s inept management of her case means that all parties have racked up significant six-figure sums just to get back to square one. In a real courthouse – in London, Toronto, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney – Dr Mann would be on the hook for what he has cost all the parties through his fraudulent complaint. But, this being quite the most insane “justice system” I have ever found myself in, instead the costs of the plaintiff’s vanity, his lawyer’s laziness and the judge’s incompetence must apparently be borne by everyone.’
Of course we all know that Michael Mann has always acted properly and never tortured data.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/05/11/the-maestro-of-mystery/#comment-340175
And that he has absolutely nothing to hide.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/14/why-i-want-mike-manns-emails/
A medical doc once advised me, “Stay out of hospitals”.
In the USA good advice from a lawyer should be, “Stay out of courtrooms”.
Heh, ‘Manndacious’.
H/t, that’s StevieMac, three months short of seven years ago.
===============
Steyn wails and flails
Mann silently prevails
Be careful, lowlot and others, people – and history – tend to judge a person by the company they keep.
Mann ‘silent’ lolwot? Mann the … er …reluctant publicist, lol.
……..rising oceans……. record crop destruction……. record
wildfires ……..expanding deserts……. increasing disease
…….. et Al … Michael Mann Malthus
Mann’s Mann-date
Our Mann-date is to Mann-ipulate the data in order to Mann-ufacture a shtick that we’ll Mann-age to cloak in the Mann-tle of science, in such a Mann-er that it Mann-ifests unprecedented future warming in support of the CAGW Mann-tra.
A Protest Resignation
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/25/prominent-anthropologist-resigns-protest-national-academy-sciences
Those interested in electricity generation will likely find Graham Palmer’s peer reviewed book interesting and informative. John Morgan has written a review just posted here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/02/09/book-review-energy-in-australia
Thanks Peter, very interesting and useful in the debate re the viability of renewables.
Hi, am I right in think that the real issue is not whether we have had global warming to date but rather whether or not burning all remaining recoverable fossil fuels will cause a catastrophe as James Hansen has warned. To my mind we need a belt and braces inquiry to verify or falsify that extremely serious warning. I wondered whether a second safety net of scrutiny (in addition to peer review) would be warranted to settle the matter one way or the other because if Hansen is correct then we should be acting very differently than we are. I had a go detailing a proposed type of “outsider review” process in a blog post:
http://directeconomicdemocracy.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/could-this-be-a-way-to-scrutinize-climate-science-enough-for-the-skeptics/
stone100, you write ” To my mind we need a belt and braces inquiry to verify or falsify that extremely serious warning.”
Sorry, this cannot be done. It is beyond the capability of science, physics. The situation is that we have a hypothesis of CAGW, the foundation of which is an enormous amount of hypothetical evidence. It is impossible to prove that this evidence is wrong. By the same token, the evidence is so broadbased, that it quite possible that is it correct.
In the scientific method, we rely on empirical, measured data to prove whether any hypothesis is right or wrong. In the case of CAGW, the scientific method cannot be applied under the control of scientists, since we cannot do controlled experiments on the earth’s atmosphere.
We are going to have to wait for Mother Nature to give us the necessary experimental data to show whether CAGW is right or wrong. How long this is going to take, we have no idea.
“We are going to have to wait for Mother Nature to give us the necessary experimental data to show whether CAGW is right or wrong”
So much for big claims requiring strong evidence then
The temperatures that Hansen warns of occurred in History when there were no Polar Ice Cycles to adjust Albedo. This a different world and we are not headed back. Now, when oceans get warm and melts polar sea ice, the snow monster is turned on to increase Albedo. The high temperatures in our future are bounded by the same snowfall that has bounded all the high temperatures of the past ten thousand years. The timelines of the cycle will stay similar to the past.
A roman warm time was followed by a cold time was followed by the medieval warm time was followed by the little ice age was followed by the modern warm time and next is another cold time. The snow has already started falling. Snow is not something only in our past. More snow is in our immediate future.
Herman, are you saying that even with 8x current CO2, increased snow cover will prevent much global warming?
Isn’t the whole point that burning all of our fossil fuels will push us into a totally different sort of climate from what we have had for the past ten thousand years?
Stone100
Herman, are you saying that even with 8x current CO2, increased snow cover will prevent much global warming?
There is not enough fossil fuel to get to 8x, but, if there was, the increased snow would increase Albedo as much as necessary to prevent much global warming.
The temperature that Polar Sea Ice melts and freezes is a fixed set point and when it is exceeded, snowfall will and does stop warming.
Increased CO2 causes some warming, if nothing else changes. Everything else changes.
stone100, following Climategate, there was an external review of the surface temperature record, and basically a re-do from scratch. It was led by Richard Muller (a Berkeley physicist from outside climate science) and funded by the Kochs, also initially supported by skeptic Watts and lukewarmers, Curry and Mosher. Watts and Curry have backed away from joining publications as the BEST results showed that the East Anglia land temperature record was essentially correct, and now Muller is being accused by skeptics of being an AGWer all along so the study is discounted by them. This is probably the way any future independent study would go if the skeptic worldview is not supported by it. It is not necessarily going to lead to closure.
JimD, to my mind it was a bit of a tragedy that that external review looked into the issue of recent temperatures. From what I can tell, the recent temperatures are beside the point and a distracting sideshow. The real issue is whether burning the known recoverable fossil fuel reserves will have a big future impact. Hansen’s warnings don’t seem to me to be based around recent temperature changes. They are based much more on paleoclimate data. Even if a review into that didn’t lead to closure at least the debate would be a lot better informed than it is now. It isn’t really about converting hardcore alarmists or deniers. It is about informing the billions of people who’s actions are going to direct what happens and who are going to live with the consequences.
stone100, yes, back in the Climategate days the skeptics had a major problem with the temperature record because it was associated with UEA and Jones while the other one was associated with GISS and Hansen. That was the motivation Muller had to provide a new one. Hansen’s estimates of available carbon are higher than most. He says 10 trillion tonnes of carbon, which is 20 times what has been burned already. To put it in perspective, some proposed limits say we should not burn more than about a trillion tonnes total, including the half that we burned already. I think by the time we get to the first trillion tonnes, probably around mid-century, we will realize what path we are on and stop doing it, well before Hansen’s 10 trillion. Getting anywhere near Hansen’s number would be the ultimate in collective human stupidity.
JimD with global coal consumption continuing to accelerate I think it there is little room to relax about it. The skeptics are getting more and more political influence from what I can see. If people keep saying that climate sensitivity is only 1 oC per doubling and it turns out that there is a 50 year lag between increasing the CO2 and seeing the bulk of the effect and then we get hit by a 3 oC sensitivity and by then we have locked in a 4x increase in CO2 because everyone believed the warnings were being proved wrong by events………
stone100, I agree entirely. There is some urgency, and keeping below a trillion tonnes does require action starting now. The targets proposed at Copenhagen are being ignored by some, but they are the correct idea to control the warming. It needs to be 10-20% of the current emission rate per decade continued linearly down for as many decades as it takes to get to zero emissions.
“This is probably the way any future independent study would go if the skeptic worldview is not supported by it. It is not necessarily going to lead to closure.”
yep.
The only way I know of convincing people that the record is reliable is to force them to sit down and do the work themselves.
JeffId came close. He and RomanM ( of climate audit fame) created their own method. That method showed a warmer world than Hadcrut.
Of course, there was no follow through on completing the record and publishing. So we took some insights from Their approach. We took the following suggestions.
1. use unadjusted data
2. use all the data ( short segments)
3. use kriging
4. dont use anomalies, but rather estimate the field at every time step.
The answer: hadcrut runs a little cool, but is essentailly correct. The interesting bits are purely technical and of scientific interest but they are not paradigm shifting differences.
So, skeptics will never actually do the work themselves.
1. they criticized the RSM method of Hansen, we didnt use that method
2. they criticized the CAM method of CRU, we didnt use that.
3. they criticized the first differences method, we didnt use that.
4. They suggested various standard approaches to geo statistics.
we took those suggestions.
5. they suggested testing methods using synthetic data. we did that
and showed our method was better than GISS and CRU.
On the question of method the skeptics basically have nothing.. here are the remaining complaints.
A) Some dont like the uncertainty calculations
B) Some are reversing position on scalpeling.
C) Some dont like the regional expectation. they think it’s adjusting stations.
There remain questions about the data. These are always difficult to adress.
A) UHI and microsite. This debate will go on for a long time as its
fueled by anecdote.
B) dataset integrity. Ongoing discovery of the existing record means
the data will change as new stations become available and as
“merging” or identifying duplicate stations is a heuristic process.
To put it simply, you could get 100K stations right, but any skeptic finding 1 mistake will generalize from his example.
In the end they attack Muller personally.
One would not want to be on a team with Mosher…
Unless the goal is right answers.
“also initially supported by skeptic Watts and lukewarmers, Curry and Mosher. Watts and Curry have backed away from joining publications as the BEST results showed that the East Anglia land temperature record was essentially correct, and now Muller is being accused by skeptics of being an AGWer all along so the study is discounted by them.”
JimD, this sounds about right for Watts. I have no idea why you included Mosher as someone who “initially” supported; has he backed away in any way? And Curry does not seem to have backed away either; near as I can tell she completely accepts the work showing that the temperature record is essentially correct, but does not accept the work showing the dependency on CO2 – totally independent issue. I don’t see how that’s backing away from anything. Is she somehow obligated by honesty to accept whatever BEST publishes from now on?
miker, no, clearly Mosher remains a supporter of BEST and stands by the work they did. Curry withdrew from co-authoring a paper with Muller on it, as far as I can tell, and has criticized Muller for his interpretation of the data. I thought she was going to have her own paper on it, but that doesn’t seemed to have happened, so there might be some distancing from the results.
http://berkeleyearth.org/papers
Curry is a co-author on everything but the attribution paper.
Muller is plausible, but likely very wrong, on attribution. The consequences of him being right are that we’d now be testing the low temps of the low temp end of the Holocene without the effect of AnthroGHGs. If so, we’re doomed once the hydrocarbons are depleted.
Far better for us that most of the recovery from the Little Ice Age has been from natural causes. Fortunately again for us that this is the more likely, because just why would natural forces be suspended just because AnthroCO2 arrived on the scene?
======================
Now I’ll tiptoe out on the twigs and speculate, breezily, that moshe well understands the rationale of Muller’s attribution argument, there is the woosh of Ockham’s cleaver about it, but doesn’t necessarily accept it.
Attribution, she’s a bitch.
Don’t know how, just scratch that itch.
Puff the Magic Climate,
Lived by the See Oh Two.
Nature turned and bit him, someplace rich.
================
kim – you’ve never heard of albedo? Mankind can easily alter the climate with albedo. Requires no fossil fuels. Just one of many low-tech solutions to an ice age.
JCH,
Funny how one who thinks we are courting danger by impacting climate by human action can so blithly toss out how easy it would be to influence climate by human action on albedo.
It’s always all been about the albedo, buddy.
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
=======================
Some examples of subordinate questions that may help to understand what is involved in answering my earlier question here: http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/08/week-in-review-9/#comment-451089
(I’ve used Australia’s ETS as an example but it applies to all the advocated mitigation policies):
1. How much would Australia’s ETS change sea levels by 2050 and by 2100? Provide the answer in units of length, with mean, standard deviation
2. How much would Australia’s ETS, if it lasted, change global average surface temperature? Answer in units of temperature with mean, standard deviation.
3. How much would it change the productivity of the land? Answer in $ of change to GDP, with mean, standard deviation and probability distribution.
4. What is the probability distribution of climate damages avoided if the ETS lasted to 2100? Answer in real 2013 dollars, with mean, standard deviation.
5. What is the probability that the ETS would last to 2100?
6. What is the probability that the world will implement Australia’s ETS?
7. What is the probability that the world will implement any global ETS?
8. What is the probability that a global ETS will survive for 100 years?
9. What is the probability a global ETS, if implemented, would be maintained for 100 years with high participation rate (e.g. at least 80% of all GHG emissions from all man caused sources from all sectors of all economies in all countries of the world)?
For some hints, this may be of interest: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/
ETS
Carbon Trading Schemes
emissions trading systems
None have worked and there is not reason to believe any could or should work. Drive up the cost of doing everything at everyone’s expense other than the rich, getting richer, traders.
Jim Cripwell, so Hansen says that burning all known fossil fuel reserves will increase atmospheric CO2 to 8x current levels and cause a 20 oC temperature rise and that that fits in neatly with how things were in the Eocene when CO2 levels were last like that. Is it really beyond us to verify whether that is in the right ball park? Are you saying that there is a chance that we will burn all of the fossil fuels and get CO2 8x current levels and not see serious climate change?
I think what he’s saying is that science has no idea what effect our huge emissions of CO2 will cause.
It might cause a collapse of the carbon cycle resulting in CO2 jumping to 5000ppm by 2100 causing the extinction of life on Earth.
Therefore we should definitely keep emitting huge emissions of CO2.
stone100, you write “Is it really beyond us to verify whether that is in the right ball park? Are you saying that there is a chance that we will burn all of the fossil fuels and get CO2 8x current levels and not see serious climate change?”
In a word, yes.
stone100, having said a simple “yes”, I should add that IMHO, what little empirical evidence that we have gives a strong indication that adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels, has a negligible effect on global temperatures. But this is just an opinion. It does not meet the standards of the scientific method.
The chance that we will see serious climate change is uninfluenced by burning fossil fuels. Man is puny, in spite of all the vanity.
Jim Cripwell, we have increased CO2 by 40%. If we expect a 3 oC change for each doubling in CO2 and a time lag, then it is no surprise that so far there is little in the way of climate change. BUT that is totally different from saying that burning all known fossil fuel reserves and getting a 8x change in CO2 won’t be massive. An 8x change is not puny.
Edim, 0.7 oC gets lost in the random noise, 20 oC does not get lost in the random noise.
stone, you write ” An 8x change is not puny”
You are changing the subject. Of course 8x is not puny; it is huge. Bit it is a change of CO2 concentration, not global temperatures.
I am talking about global temperatures, which is what your original question was about. What I am saying is that for all the billions of dollars spent studying CAGW, there is no science, physics, to show that it is any more than a hypothesis. There is no empirical data to shows that it is correct. By the same token, there is no empirical evidence to show that it is incorrect.
I would point out that the latest IPCC AR5 relies for part if it’s most important conclusions on “exert judgement”. How anyone can interpret this as following the scientific method is beyond me.
lowlot, life on Earth thrived during the Eocene, and the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which occurred at the end of the Eocene, is associated with a sharp drop in C02 levels and temperatures, (also meteorite strikes, for the sake of completeness) so you haven’t shown your extinction fantasy to be anything more than just fantasy.
The basic physics of the climate forcing effect of a given CO2 concentration are known aren’t they and they fit in with the geological record of proxies for temperature at those times?
Like I said this is exactly what I want the “outsider review” to assess.
This is no less verifiable than anything else in geology. We can’t do experiments on plate tectonics but we take the evidence for plate tectonics as being sound. If we knew that Hansen’s warning was as sound as plate tectonics, then we sure as heck ought to be acting differently.
If we can’t prove to a reasonable level of satisfaction that continued CO2 emissions are safe, that is in itself a strong reason we can’t risk it.
phatboy, I actually also wondered about how bad it would be to have a +20 oC climate as per the Eocine. Perhaps it might be OK, perhaps the tropics would only be slightly hotter than today and the whole world would be in a sort of rainforest climate. BUT we ought to be told that that is where we are going not that we won’t see a change.
stone100, we just don’t know where we’re heading. We may have 8x CO2 levels if we burn all known fossil fuel reserves, but that’s a very big ‘if’, which is almost certainly never going to happen. And we don’t know whether this will lead to +20C, but this figure is probably on the high side – given Hansen’s propensity for alarmism.
lowlot, just as we cannot prove to a reasonable amount of satisfaction that steps taken to reduce emissions won’t be at least as damaging.
Or even if it’s do-able at all.
Phatboy, if everyone thinks Hansen is just alarmist nonsense, then isn’t it a no-brainer that we will burn all recoverable reserves of fossil fuels? The rate of consumption is increasing exponentially. We will get better at digging it out of the ground faster.
Producing synthetic liquid fuels out of coal for aviation and road transport should soon speed us on our way towards x8 CO2.
Oh, I don’t think that whatever Hansen thinks will have any significant impact on the rate of fossil-fuel burning. In fact, his outspoken alarmism may have the opposite effect, as it makes it easier for influential people to dismiss him as a crank.
Besides which, the world, collectively, is already moving away from fossil fuels as fast as it can affordably – many would argue that it’s faster than it can afford.
So if, despite this, fossil fuel use continues to rise, there seems to be little hope that we can do anything about it, and the pragmatic approach would be to looking at what it would take to adapt to whatever changes may occur.
Phatboy, I can’t get my head around why people are comfortable to leave Hansen’s warning hanging in the air. To my mind we need to totally nail it one way or the other. Either it is sound (like plate tectonics) or it needs to be unveiled as a terrible muddle. To my mind rigorous formal “outsider review” is urgently needed.
stone100, they’ve been making liquid fuels from coal in certain parts of the world for around two-thirds of a century already.
We are not moving away from fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use is increasing exponentially. Exxon mobile spends $100M per day prospecting for reserves whilst Hansen says we must leave 80% of current reserves in the ground.
stone100, I couldn’t agree more. Hansen, and his acolytes, should unconditionally submit their work, and their workings, to the rigorous scrutiny of as wide an audience as is possible.
.
I don’t agree that we are doing what is needed to move away from fossil fuels nor that doing so wouldn’t work. We have tariffs that ensure (stupidly IMO) that in europe sugar is produced from sugar beet even though that costs 2x as much as cane sugar. The whole sugar beet industry only exists because of that. Likewise a huge renewable energy industry would exist if and only if there was an analogous tariff placed on extracting carbon from the ground. OR (if that is your bag) owners of extraction rights could be paid a fee to set them aside like landowners are sometimes paid to set aside agricultural land.
stone100, please try to read more than the first half of the sentence before replying.
Phatboy, I put a lot of (unexpert) thought into how a process of “outsider review” would be most effective and fair to all concerned (including the public). It would be great to get some feedback as to whether it sounds naive or unworkable. I’m sure Hansen just wants to ensure that his warning is heeded, and if he is right, then this seems to me the best hope to ensure that. This is a link to a post I wrote about “outsider review”. :
http://directeconomicdemocracy.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/could-this-be-a-way-to-scrutinize-climate-science-enough-for-the-skeptics/
stone100, if you really want stupidity, one of the biggest previously coal-fired power stations in the UK is now burning wood pellets shipped over from the USA.
Or the fact that a large proportion of my electricity bill goes towards subsidising already-rich landowners for erecting wind turbines on their land.
Or the fact that more than 10% of my income disappears into the tax I pay on fuel (effectively a carbon tax) just to travel to work and back, when not a single penny of that tax goes towards measures which will enable me to use less fuel.
And if I’m feeling the pinch, what hope is there for the poor millions?
stone100, having taken no more than a quick look at your link, I think your ideas are worthy of wider consideration, although it has to be said that the end-result might not be what you would expect.
I’ll have a better look when I have enough time to do it justice.
Thanks for having a look. I really don’t know what I would expect the outcome to be. I really hope Hansen is totally wrong but my gut feeling is a fear that he is spot on. I have the impression that he is 100% acting in good faith but I’m a sort of liberal hippy in general so I guess I would think that. I totally understand that people trust people depending on political tribal affiliations and I have that weakness as much as anyone..
stone, in your article you say:
“That “climate skeptic” campaign has demonstrably succeeded in derailing any effective attempt to move away from using fossil fuels.”
I strongly disagree. There was never any effective attempt to move away from fossil fuels.
lolwot
“causing the extinction of life on Earth”
Huh?
Where did that carbon in the fossil fuels come from?
Life on Earth.
And from an atmosphere that had much higher CO2 levels than today.
A significant portion is inaccessible, even with modern recovery technology.
And what is accessible could arguably get us to around 1000 ppmv in the atmosphere, when it has all been 100% consumed (according to WEC 2010 estimates)
Plants would love it.
Animals love plants (and humans are animals, too.)
Good news for everyone, lolwot.
Rejoice! Don’t be a chicken little.
Max
stone 100
I have not seen anywhere where “Hansen says that burning all known fossil fuel reserves will increase atmospheric CO2 to 8x current levels and cause a 20 oC temperature rise”, but I can tell you that this statement is ludicrous.
The WEC made a study of all proven fossil fuel reserves on Earth and a second estimate of the “total inferred possible recoverable reserves” still remaining on our planet.
This latter estimate is much higher than most of the “peak oil” or “peak fossil fuel” projections out there today.
It tells us that by 2008 the world had used around 15% of all the possibly recoverable fossil fuels that were ever on our planet, leaving 85% still in the ground.
The first 15% got us from an estimated “pre-industrial” CO2 concentration of 280 ppmv to the 2008 concentration of 385 ppmv, so the remaining 85% will get us to:
385 + 0.85 * (385 – 280) / 0.15 = 980 ppmv
That’s it, stone.
8x current levels would be exaggerated by a factor of 3:1 so fuggidaboudit.
Max
Manacker, I got that from what I thought was the most standard mainstream source for info about expected climate change (I’m new to all of this) : http://m.rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20120294.full.pdf
“Burning all fossil fuels would produce a different, practically uninhabitable, planet. Let us first consider a 12 W m−2 greenhouse forcing, which we simulated with 8×CO2. If non-CO2 GHGs such as N2O and CH4 increase with global warming at the same rate as in the palaeoclimate record and atmospheric chemistry simulations [122], these other gases provide approximately 25% of the greenhouse forcing. The remaining 9W m−2 forcing requires approximately 4.8×CO2, corresponding to fossil fuel emissions as much as approximately 10,000 Gt C for a conservative assumption of a CO2 airborne fraction averaging one-third over the 1000 years following a peak emission [21,129].
Our calculated global warming in this case is 16◦C, with warming at the poles approximately 30◦C. Calculated warming over land areas averages approximately 20◦C. Such temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural regions in the world [130]. Increased
stratospheric water vapour would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer [131]. More ominously, global warming of that magnitude would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans [132,133].”
“…..Let us now verify that our assumed fossil fuel climate forcing of 9W m−2 is feasible. If we assume that fossil fuel emissions increase by 3% per year, typical of the past decade and of the entire period since 1950, cumulative fossil fuel emissions will reach 10 000 Gt C in 118 years.
However, with such large rapidly growing emissions the assumed 33% CO2 airborne fraction is surely too small. The airborne fraction, observed to have been 55% since 1950 [1], should increase because of well-known nonlinearity in ocean chemistry and saturation of carbon sinks, implying
that the airborne fraction probably will be closer to two-thirds rather than one-third, at least for a century or more. Thus, the fossil fuel source required to yield a 9W m−2 forcing may be closer to
5000 Gt C, rather than 10 000 Gt C. Are there sufficient fossil fuel reserves to yield 5000–10 000 Gt C? Recent updates of potential reserves [114], including unconventional fossil fuels (such as tar sands, tar shale and hydrofracking-derived shale gas) in addition to conventional oil, gas and coal, suggest that 5×CO2 (1400 ppm) is indeed feasible. For instance, using the emission factor for coal from IPCC [48], coal resources given by the Global Energy Assessment [114] amount to 7300– 11 000 Gt C. Similarly, using emission factors from IPCC [48], total recoverable fossil energy reserves and resources estimated by GEA [114] are approximately 15 000 Gt C. This does not include large ‘additional occurrences’ listed in ch. 7 of GEA [114]. Thus, for a multi-centennial CO2 airborne fraction between one-third and two-thirds, as discussed above, there are more than enough available fossil fuels to cause a forcing of 9 W m−2 sustained for centuries”
Manacker, they are not my numbers, they are from the link and the excerpt from that link that I pasted. I started this off by saying that this is a very dire warning that deserves a lot of attention and perhaps “outsider review” to either verify or refute it in a rigorous, formal way. You saying it is nonsense doesn’t give me enough reassurance I’m afraid.
Stone100, you sound like me some time ago and your position is extremely rational. I don’t know how familiar you with the debate so I am sorry if these points are already well known to you.
1. By 8 x CO2 I assume you mean 8x 275 ppm, pre-industrial levels. I am pretty certain even with the worlds increasing demand for energy, we could get to that sort of level for many centuries, and certainly not before newer technology replaces fossil fuels.
2. Bear in mind also, the scientific debate (were it allowed to take place) concerns sensitivity to CO2. CO2 on its own is not much of a problem. The effect is logarithmic. That is to say you need to get a doubling of CO2 to get a 1 degree rise in temperature. So 2,200 ppm would only give you about a 3 degrees rise in temp – not 20 deg C. The “3 degrees” per doubling is an estimate of sensitivity to the forcing from CO2 based on how scientists have accounted for the earths energy budget and the amount of warming that was seen in the late 20th C. Since the warming hasn’t continued, but the rise in CO2 has, this has lead to understandable skepticism about the sensitivity to the additional CO2.
3. Your remarks about “drilling down” to examine the claims and findings of scientists such as Hanson is extremely pertinent in my view. What you are talking about is “due diligence” and for something as important as climate change, this ought to be done. The IPCC is not due diligence – it’s an assessment of the science as it known from a particular cut off date. The have been many claims and poor science that has survived peer review that have contributed to the alarm surrounding mans influence on the climate, and in the normal state of affairs that wouldn’t matter so much. Similar errors and biases occur in other scientific fields. It’s just that this one has such a profound societal impact, it has attracted a lot of attention that has uncovered unsound conclusions that should not be the basis of policy decisions.
One can only point to the floods in the UK, where government has spent money on expensive ventures in an attempt to curtail emissions, that really can’t be argued to have any affect on the climate at all, and not enough on defending against climate change that would have occurred whether we influence it or not.
Agnostic, Hansen explicitly states that the predicted effects from 8x CO2 take into account the logarithmic aspect of climate sensitivity to CO2.
Our consumption of fossil fuels is increasing exponentially and the rate of acceleration is not tapering off. We know where the coal is and it is getting cheaper and easier to dig it up as technology improves.
To me it looks just as if the scientists told us an asteroid was heading for collision in 30years and we all say, don’t worry it will miss. Or the doctor says we have cancer and need chemo to cure it and we say, we’re not sick yet, let’s wait.
stone,
more like the doctors saying “Our diagnostic model indicates you have a 50% chance of developing cancer in the next 50 years.”
Would you start a chemo regime based on that?
I had an indication for cancer a couple of years back. I didn’t make any treatment decisions until I went in for a biopsye, which came back positive. You know, empirical evidence.
timg56, I don’t think Hansen is saying that we have a 50% chance of catastrophe if we burn all the fossil fuel reserves. I think he is saying it is a near certainty. More equivalent to the situation after the biopsy has been through pathology review.
From what I can see, the skeptic stance is like that of someone who distrusted oncologists as a breed. I totally understand that.
My wish for “outsider review” is to guard against the conceivable danger of a “group think” in the field.
stone100
That’s a bad source, stone.
Hansen has taken questionable proxy paleo data from carefully selected perios in our geological past (PETM) and interpreted it subjectively using the argument from ignorance that “we can only explain this if we ASS-U-ME…”
The PETM was supposedly the result of massive geological upheavals, where thousands of ppm of methane plus CO2 were ejected from the Earth’s crust to the atmosphere – not from human combustion of fossil fuels.
Hansen then makes the leap of faith that the modest warming humans could cause from burning all the remaining fossil fuels on our planet would be multiplied by a factor of four as a result of methane hydrates being released from disappearing permafrost and the ocean floor.
This is a Hollywood scenario from an eco-activist, stone.
Not serious science (even though it is cloaked in all the scientific mumbo-jumbo).
Stick with the IPCC projections (which are already exaggerated enough).
These have CO2 increasing to 700 to 1000 ppmv over the next 100 years from human fossil fuel combustion (and, as I pointed out to you, optimistic estimates on how much recoverable fossil fuel there still is in the ground put 1000 ppmv at the upper limit when all is used up).
This is 2.5 times the present level (not 8 times, as Hansen’s fantasy would have us believe).
Hope this helps you see this in a more realistic light, stone.
But, hey, if you want to accept Hansen’s paper as the gospel truth, go right ahead. As the saying goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute”.
Max
Manacker, you say it is bad science, but if you were a peer-reviewer, and you had been given Hansen’s paper to peer review then a decent editor would require a MUCH more rigorous piece of analysis from YOU, before taking your rejection seriously. The editor would say either give a point by point properly referenced hatchet job, or else another more thorough peer reviewer will be called in. The author would then get to rebut the rejection, pointing out any errors made by the reviewers. You all say the Hansen warning is not to be trusted but then why is there NO WHERE on the web a rigorous step by step scientific argument against it. Just a load of offhand casual comments.
there is a chance that we will burn all of the fossil fuels and get CO2 8x current levels and not see serious climate change
Any significant climate change will come from natural variability and a trace will come from the trace gas, CO2.
Ah but manacker how can you call estimates of fossil fuels “optimistic” when you aren’t factoring in new discoveries?
And you citing the IPCC as a source? Purleaze..
The uncertainty monster says you cannot know how much fossil fuels man will find and develop technology to extract.
You also cannot know the response of permafrost and ocean fraction
“The PETM was supposedly the result of massive geological upheavals, where thousands of ppm of methane plus CO2 were ejected from the Earth’s crust to the atmosphere – not from human combustion of fossil fuels.”
As if nature cares where the CO2 comes from. Man or nature it will have the same effect.
Oh and the evidence is that the PETM emissions was SLOWER than the human caused CO2 emission today.
Stone100, using your analogy, you absolutely do not want to have chemo therapy if you are healthy.
The taking “account” of the logarithmic effect of additional CO2 is simply the attribution of positive feedbacks implied by the additional forcing. If the feedbacks cancel out then all you are left with is the logarithmic affect. It’s possible even that feedbacks are slightly negative. The point is that natural variability and unknown, or not properly understood climatic factors may be vastly more important. For example, you only need a few percent change in cloud formation to completely negate any effect from CO2, and the corollary is true too.
Secondly, you are assuming (as does Hanson) what you are looking at is “something bad” like a cancer. Ask yourself this: what should the earths temperature be? It has been warmer in the past without industrialisation and that is generally good for the biosphere and society. It’s been calculated that about 2.2 deg above industrialisation would be of event benefit to society, and extra warmth and CO2 is definitely good for the biosphere. Vegetable growers add CO2 to greenhouses to increase yields and greenhouses also increase average temperature.
Thirdly keep some perspective about mans contribution to the carbon budget. It’s only about 5% of the annual cycle. There is also extremely plausible research indicating that CO2 levels would have increased somewhat anyway in response to the entirely natural warming since the little ice age.
Fourthly, you won’t find many skeptics (you have to filter out the shrill, extreme and nutty voices of both sides of the debate – and although Hanson has made some good contributions I am afraid he is generally considered one of the most extreme voices) who do NOT think alternatives to fossil fuels are essential for the progress of society. Contrary to what you might think, fossil fuels are dirty, expensive, difficult and dangerous to transport and mine, and limited in energy density. You do not need to invoke climate change to make a case from society moving away from it. I suggest you take a look at thorium liquid salt fusion – just google it. There is a nice 5 minute youtube presentation which will give you a quick overview. There is also fusion development, the most interesting in my view is Polywell electrostatic inertial fusion.
Your position is rational but Malthusian. You are taking the position of “if things continue as they are” to base your concern, which is not unreasonable in itself – but things NEVER continue as they are. Just look at the enormous changes in society in just the last 20 years, one of the biggest changes – the internet – is driving even faster changes.
The problem with climate change alarm is that it distracts us from the real problems the exist for us right now. We have big problems to solve right now, that are completely known and certain, and spending money and intellectual effort on a highly uncertain non-problem at an indeterminate point in the future when we will vastly more wealthy and technologically capable is illogical. The money, time and effort that has gone into mitigating climate change ought really be put into adaptation and making society robust to changes in climate and extreme weather regardless what causes the climate to change.
Finally I strongly object to low density power generation such as solar and wind. I don’t mind them per se, but they impact the environment hugely since they require so much area and they are generally intermittent and uneconomic. High density modular power generation such as could be provided by thorium, which is existing technology is what we should be investing our resources.
Agnostic, how much money is being invested into thorium? Exxon mobile spends $100M per day prospecting for more fossil fuels, that says a lot to me.
What totally stuns me is Hansen’s recent review article actually has a comment thread. Why isn’t it chock full of tightly argued refutations of his work? Instead there is one comment. One comment! It looks to me as though this is no more than neigh saying. My gut feeling is that no proper counter argument is put to Hansen because there is no proper counter argument. Please prove me wrong. Please either put a counter argument or get someone else to on the comment section on this link: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648
further to what I just wrote -the single comment on http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648
was replied to in detail by Hansen himself!
http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=76063
Stone100,
Many of Hanson’s more outlandish claims have been tightly refuted. A lot of these arguments have been kicked about ad nauseum for years and this may be reflected in the terse and impatient replies you might get here to your concerns. Another problem skeptics have had to deal with is the “settled science” meme which leads to gate keeping of ideas and criticisms, and is used to justify closing down any debate. Hanson may well have had refutations posted in comments which have simply been deleted. That is an all to common phenomena.
In order to balance the impression you have been left with by Hanson – who I must stress is in my experience one of the most extreme alarmist voices – this excellent presentation from Richard Lindzen should give you some context in order to grasp the problem:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02148/RSL-HouseOfCommons_2148505a.pdf
This will go some way towards refutation of the case for alarm, and is fairly good summary of how we got to where we are. You will, if you google around, see comments and opinions that Richard Lindzen, who was the chair of atmospheric sciences at MIT, a climate scientist before it was fashionable, is “widely debunked”. I suggest that rather than being influenced by those views you examine the strength of his arguments and then look for refutations of those. Then look for refutations of the refutations. After a while you will get a feel for who has the stronger case. You may struggle to get anything cogent at alarmist sites….at least I did. If I asked for refutation of a skeptical argument at places like skepitcal science or real climate I was accused of being a troll and/or my comment was deleted. It was a significant factor in the development of my currently skeptical view.
WRT to thorium, it is worth researching – it absolutely is being developed. Very fascinating and promising. This youtube will give you a quick overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY
China is very very interested in it and is racing to acquire the high ground in technology:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html
Pease keep posting here. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything – check for yourself. Ask for evidence and check there is not a countering view that may be more plausible or supported by the evidence…for BOTH sides of the argument.
Thanks for the links, I will check them out.
Agnostic, thanks for all of your help with this. My first impression is that the story recounted in wikipedia about Lindzen’s attempted claim that climate sensitivity is a 0.5 oC rise per CO2 doubling seems to show him in a pretty bad light. Furthermore, he claims that the limited warming we have seen from the 40% increase in CO2 somehow backs up his low climate sensitivity estimates. That seems SO dodgy to me. To me it is very difficult to imagine that their wouldn’t be a lot of inertia in the system. Almost all of the 40% CO2 increase so far has been very recent. He basically seems to be spinning a tale as far as I can see.
To my mind, the crucial data is the Paleoclimate data. It rests of whether that is sound or not. Hansen claims that it shows evidence of the positive feedbacks that justify the 2 oC or even 3 oC climate sensitivities. Isn’t there even fossil evidence that shows how warm in was in the arctic in the Eocene? You can’t quibble with a fossil crocodile can you?
Anyway all of this controversy is why I think we need “outsider review” of Hansen’s warning. Lindzen is not giving us that in a credible manner. Rather than having a maverick mouthing off, we need a sober, data point by data point investigation.
Thanks for the link Agnostic – an excellent presentation from Lindzen.
Stone100 – if you are looking at wikipedia for a fair appraisal of Lindzen you won’t get it. Wikipedia is known to have been the venue for the “editor wars” where biased information and misrepresentation takes place – most notably by William Connelly who is an arch-alarmist. I know that sounds awful, but that really is the depths to which this debate has sunk. I would suggest getting to grips with the pdf I linked – it’s easy enough to follow. There is one mistake in there though, a fairly minor one but it rubbed some people up the wrong way when it first came out.
Lindzen does NOT claim 0.5 C per doubling. If that is what was in the wiki article then it is completely wrong. Again refer to the PDF I linked.
Lindzen is NOT the only one claiming low sensitivity. One the consequences of the hiatus in warming is that it necessarily implies lower sensitivity, and there are a number of papers that have come out recently that point to a greater role for natural variability in late 20th century warming and thus lower sensitivity for CO2.
You may or not be aware of this figure:
http://skepticalswedishscientists.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ipcc-ar5-black-observation-now-below-and-outside-all-38-climate-model-predictions.png
which was in the IPCC AR5 draft report. It shows observations against model projections. Models represent our current best understanding of how the climate works and its response to CO2. Since the warming has stopped despite man having emitted over 30% of all CO2 he has ever emitted in just the last decade, it argues that our current understanding of how the climate works and responds to CO2 is incomplete (to be generous).
Reasons for the hiatus have been given variously as aerosols or increase in energy being stored in the deep ocean to be released later. But that then begs the question of why that physical mechanism, not actually described in anyway, would suddenly start working in the last decade but not work in the previous 2 when we had warming. It’s also curious as to how that heat got there when it wasn’t picked up by the much better sampled sea surface temperature measurements.
Personally, I find justifications AFTER the fact unconvincing.
I don’t suggest that Lindzen has all the answers, but I do suggest that he presents a plausible argument that the case for alarm over man-emitted CO2 is weak or at least vastly exaggerated. But due to the nature and polarity of the debate (especially in the US) any criticism or dissension from the party line will attract character assassination. Just look at the kind of criticism Dr Curry has received. I don’t think there is a more objective and cautious voice in the whole field.
Anyway all of this controversy is why I think we need “outsider review” of Hansen’s warning. Lindzen is not giving us that in a credible manner. Rather than having a maverick mouthing off, we need a sober, data point by data point investigation.
I could not possibly agree more that an “outsider review” is absolutely desirable and necessary. In the commercial sector, in a venture that would cost just a fraction of the proposals to mitigate climate change, it would be required by law. A due diligence team, drawn from outside the climate science community to examine every conclusion, the data that was used in the drawing of them, all the assumptions, the previous work those conclusions drew on, the data from them and so on. It would not be easy or cheap, but in comparison to the cost of mitigation it would be utterly trivial.
Finally I would ask, as respectfully as possible, that you be very cautious about characterising someone like Lindzen as just a “maverick” “mouthing off” and “not in credible manner”, at least until you have looked carefully at the evidence and his discussion of it. He has had a long and distinguished career and is no nut-job mouthing off. A maverick he may be – but science has always progressed because of mavericks challenging the orthodox and the consensus. In actual fact he is not much of a maverick – in the sense that broadly speaking most serious scientists on both sides of the “conclusion” agree on a great deal of the science – and there is probably more agreement than in many other fields. the disagreement rests on certain highly uncertain aspects of the climate, such as sensitivity, and is fuelled by over-confidence.
Agnostic, I did read the link you sent and thanks for the warning about wikipedia being a battle ground.
So, so much rests on whether the sensitivity is a 1oC rise per doubling or a 3oC rise per doubling. It basically is what divides the alarmists from the deniers as far as I can see. I don’t think anything much can be gleaned from the lack of us seeing much effect so far. Melting of ice and release of the ice cold water into the ocean currents could well create ample inertia. As far as I can see everything rests on what is going to happen and the real test of the climate sensitivity estimates is the paleoclimate record.
I’m glad we agree about the need for “outsider review”. Avoiding fossil fuels has a multi-trillion-dollar price tag and the lives of billions of people are at stake. This isn’t everyday science that can muddle along with an everyday level of scrutiny. The debate is like between whether an asteroid will collide with the Earth or miss it.
stone100
Your 8xCO2 from burning all remaining fossil fuels on Earth is a pipe dream, no matter how many times you repeat it on this thread.
Come back down to Planet Earth, stone.
We have increased CO2 from fossil fuel combustion by around 120 ppmv since 1750.
And you say we will now increase it by another 8×400 = 3200 ppmv?
That would mean that to date we have only used up 3.6% of the recoverable fossil fuels that were originally on our planet!
Don’t you see how ridiculous this assumption is?
If you don’t, I can’t help you.
Max
Manacker, when I read Hansen (where I got that from) it all seemed sound to my uneducated eye. I’m not familiar enough with all of this for it to strike me as ridiculous or not. Presumably the peer reviewers thought it sound BUT my whole issue is that perhaps “outsider review” is also warranted.
Stone100
– I assume you meant 1.0 or 3.0. The IPCC central estimate was for 3.0 for a range of between 2.0 and 6.0 which has revised in the latest report to 1.5 and 4.5 but with no central estimate because the pause in warming has caused it to become more uncertain.
– manacker is quite right in what he says, although the manner in which he says it is unnecessarily rude. He is actually an excellent commentator here giving a generally accurate, well argued and well researched assessments that form a skeptical ointment of view. He is worth reading and his arguments are worth examining. However the state of things has gotten to the point where the arguments have been so thoroughly thrashed out there is a good deal of impatience when they have to be made again.
Turn the same skepticism you showed regarding Lindzen on to Hanson. Hanson is an activist – and subject to the biases and exaggeration for effect that goes with that calling. Lindzen, is merely an outspoken critic – usually a pretty normal thing in science.
@manacker; cut the guy some slack. Nothing he has posted here is unreasonable, it’s just wrong, but that’s a pretty common state of affairs if you ask me. Being dismissive and condescending does nothing to convince anyone that your arguments have merit.
I concur. Stone appears to be a reasonable commentor. Even if there is disagreement, he’s far more desirable to engage with than say lolwot, who keeps posting graphs as proof the world is going to end.
One other thing – the paleo record. My god that is an area that has caused the most controversy and scandal in science since I don’t know when. Paleo records such as the Vostok ice cores show temperature variations over long periods of time that are an order of magnitude larger than anything that we are wringing our hands over today.
Wait till you get to know the story about the hockey stick graph, Steve McIntyre, and the climategate emails. Boy oh boy. If it all rests on paleo the there is no hope for science. Paleo is waaaay too uncertain to be basing far-reaching societal restructuring on.
manacker, Hansen’s baseline for 8xCO2 was 310 ppm (the 1950 level). His source for the high carbon resources is the Global Energy Assessment (2012) where he shows that estimated energy resources (not reserves) for coal exceed used coal by factors near 40 implying the tonnage he uses without stating the actual number.
Agnostic, stone100 refers to a Hansen paper that only uses deep paleo, not tree-rings, so that is not relevant. As far as I know there is no controversy about the Eocene warmth and CO2 evidence presented by Hansen.
Yes, to my mind everything rests on Hansen’s paper about deep paleo. Hansen makes it very clear from what I can see that he is talking about interpretations based on when plate tectonics caused release of CO2 from carboniferous rocks. Like I said, can we really dismiss fossil crocodiles as being some weird artifact not indicative of warm temperatures at high latitudes?
The climate gate stuff has NOTHING to do with Hansen’s warning from what I can see.
I’m getting the impression here that many people here haven’t even looked at what Hansen actually writes -sorry if I’m mistaken about that.
http://m.rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20120294.full.pdf
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648
I’m not saying that Hansen is correct, I’m just saying that we need to be focused on working out whether he is or isn’t and not messing about with trivia such as climate gate or whether we currently are already seeing subtle climate change.
@jim d
Yes of course. Point taken.
@stone100
Most peopple here are very familiar with Hansen’s work. He is regarded as a very extreme voice even by the alarmist/warmist side of the debate. To a certain extent he is not taken that seriously which is why you are struggling to get people to engage on it.
The global warming scare really got going with James Hansen and a famous congressional hearing he took part in in 1988. He presented 3 scenarios and it’s effect he anticipated it would have on world temperature; scenario A, increasing emissions, scenario B, stopping increase of emissions at the year 2000, and scenario C, stopping emissions altogether at the year 2000.
Here is the scenarios against observed temperature: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/HansensPredictions1988_files/image005.jpg
As you can see, despite the fact we have had emissions closer to scenario A, we have in fact had a temperature increase lower than scenario C.
How does that work as a refutation for you? That’s not me refuting him, it’s nature, the greatest authority of them all.
Agnostic, to my mind it shows that we can’t model the inertia of the climate and it also shows that Hansen was foolish for not being realistic about his inability to do so. It doesn’t reassure me though that the global warming isn’t going to happen just as dramatically as Hansen warns but just a few decades late. The paleoclimate record from the Eocene etc indicates how big the final effect will be but not whether it takes 20years or 50years for the effect to be felt. The predictions of the precise timing are always going to be iffy. We don’t know how things are going to play out as vast amounts of ice cold melt water get dumped into the ocean currents and such like. But those are just time delays, they are not protecting us by reducing the final effect.
Of course extenuating ameliorates the eventualities and waiting for go.dotEquilibrium never comes. Radiate all you like, Mama Gaia, but save just a little glow for little ol’ me. Please, please, please stash a little warmth in the deep ocean for the last page of the Finis Holocene known to man.
======================
It’ll be true love if she saves just enough for mankind to survive without catastrophe the recognition of the onset of the next glaciation. She may be asking for the stones to arise, though.
==========================
8 x 0 = 0
Edim, basically what I’m asking for is a process to scrutinize whether it is a case of there being a reasonable bet that an 8x increase in CO2 could be benign. If a rigorous process of “outsider review” came to that conclusion, then it would be a great relief to me.
stone, you write “If a rigorous process of “outsider review” came to that conclusion, then it would be a great relief to me.”
Fair enough. The scientific method cannot do this, because we cannot do controlled experiments on the earth’s atmosphere.
stone100, we’re at scrutinizing. Before the climategates and the plateau in global temperature there was no scrutiny at all. The fake consensus was basically bullied into the scientific community and the public. If there was any scrutiny at that time, there wouldn’t be any consensus. For example, not only do the warmists refuse to look at the solar evidence, they are busy trying to stop anyone else looking at it too.
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/0332.txt
Edim, I think the problem is that they could easily just get so swamped with information requests that they became bogged down with dealing with them. That is why the one off investigation of the underpinnings of the warning of a catastrophe from burning all fossil fuels needs to be a contained one off investigation. The climate scientists could then get the whole “outsider review” over and done with.
To my mind what is needed by all sides is for a totally fresh set of people from a totally different background to meticulously reexamine the predictions for catastrophic climate change. The issue is not whether climate scientists are any less reliable than any other scientists; the issue is that in this case the stakes are so high that a totally extraordinary belt and braces level of assessment is needed. As a general rule, when assessing scientific findings, people working in the same scientific field are those most able to spot weaknesses that would simply be overlooked by outsiders. What is more, it would be an extremely arduous task to review some scientific work in an unfamiliar field, so people working in the same field are used by journal editors for scrutinizing scientific work. That peer review process however does little to allay the main concern of climate change skeptics. Their concern is that the field of climate science as a whole has a political agenda or at the very least a worrying level of group think. We need a one-off rigorous investigation expressly designed to be entirely robust against any such danger. I pasted how I thought it might be done below as an excerpt from the post:
I think it would be perfectly feasible to apply a process of “outsider review” as a second safety net for this extraordinary case. The expense and effort would be trivial considering the context. It would be vital to keep the focus very tightly on examining the veracity of the key underpinnings behind the predictions of catastrophic consequences from burning all known recoverable fossil fuel reserves. Perhaps the ideal starting point would be a “global all stars” paper submitted specifically for this purpose, by the climate science field, laying out their best evidence for such a prediction. The team of reviewers could be assembled by a search committee chaired by prominent climate change skeptics (eg perhaps the Koch brothers, Vaclav Klaus and Nigel Lawson). If that search committee had any sense (and I trust they would) they would recruit a team of people who -whilst perhaps being totally unfamiliar with climate science- nevertheless had the capability to get up to speed and do the necessary work over the course of a year of extremely intense full time work. Perhaps the team would be made up from geologists, physicists and chemists from the petrochemical and mining industries along with mathematicians and software engineers previously working in quantitative finance or whatever. By all means they could all be screened by the search committee as having political inclinations that garnered the trust of the skeptics. Salaries and compensation to employers for leaves of absence could be on a pay what it takes basis.
The plan would be to drill down and stress test every point of the argument, word by word, data point by data point. Hopefully it would be possible to provide the team with comprehensive supplementary data and perhaps even access to actual mud cores and ice cores. The computer climate models could be rebuilt from first principles. At the end of the exercise the team could make publicly available their point by point assessment of the science. Just as happens in the current scientific peer review process, the climate scientists could then rejoin with a rebuttal, either clarifying points of misunderstanding, conceding and correcting mistakes or making the case that the reviewers are plain wrong. Unlike the peer review process, this whole exchange would be fully publicly available.
By confronting and dealing with the politics of the science we would be able to get to the point of having a true scientific argument/consensus rather than a political wrangle/PR campaign. We could then focus the political debate on addressing the policy implications.
I don’t think this idea is fancifully naive. Nigel Lawson has already taken part in a face to face meeting with climate scientists organised by the Royal Society in an attempt to build bridges. He has stated that regrettably no progress came of it and that he was not told anything he hadn’t heard before. Nevertheless, the fact that the meeting took place at all demonstrates an encouraging level of good faith from both sides
“Edim, basically what I’m asking for is a process to scrutinize whether it is a case of there being a reasonable bet that an 8x increase in CO2 could be benign. If a rigorous process of “outsider review” came to that conclusion, then it would be a great relief to me.”
——
There is enough controversy and uncertainty surrounding 2x CO2 levels. 8x is simply to theoretical to be of much use. Even 2x will likely take the planet back to a mid-Pliocene like climate. Will it be beneficial for life, and human life specifically? We are very adaptable animals, but there will be winners and losers.
R. Gates
Before you fret too much about the temperature impact of doubling atmospheric CO2, let’s look at this prospect logically.
We are at almost 400 ppmv today (and doing jes’ fine, thank you).
The maximum we could reach from consuming all inferred possible recoverable fossil fuel resources on our planet (some day in the far distant future) is a bit less than 1000 ppmv (or 2.5 times the current level).
Now I personally believe that long before we have burned up all fossil fuels we will have come up with economically viable substitutes, so we will never get to the 1000 ppmv, so your 2xtoday’s level is probably a practical upper limit.
Several recent observation-based studies point to a mean 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at equilibrium of around 1.8C. IPCC still clings to its model-predicted “upper limit” of 4.5C, with a new range of 3 +/- 1.5C.
So, if the more recent studies are correct, we could eventually reach 1.8C warming above today. Tol tells us that the first 2.0 to 2.5C warming above today will most likely have a net beneficial impact for humanity, so this is good news.
If the higher IPCC mean value is correct we will exceed the 2.5C warming at equilibrium when CO2 levels have reached 700 ppmv. That’s when added CO2 emissions will start to have a postulated negative impact on humanity, and that is unlikely to occur in this century.
But so many things will change from now to then that it is silly to get all excited about this virtual hobgoblin, Gates.
Max
manacker, with no policy 700 ppm will be reached within 100 years, and the IPCC sensitivity makes that 4 C above preindustrial. It is 5 W/m2 forcing.
Jim D
You make yet another proclamation:
As the song goes, “it ain’t necessarily so…”
While 700 ppm may be an upper limit to a “business as usual” scenario by 2114, it is very likely on the high side.
And face it, Jim, “above preindustrial” is a silly convention.
We are at almost 400 ppmv CO2 today and doing just fine. So let’s look at “above today” and not “above preindustrial”.
We sure as hell don’t want to go back to the Little Ice Age.
Using IPCC’s arguably exaggerated model-derived mean 2xCO2 CS at equilibrium of 3C, 700 ppmv would theoretically get us to 2.5C warming above today.
Tol tells us that the first 2 to 2.5C warming above today would likely be net beneficial for humanity.
So your upper limit case for year 2114 still has us in the beneficial range using IPCC’s arguably exaggerated 2xCO2 estimate and assuming equilibrium is reached.
Your hobgoblin is a paper tiger, Jim.
Max
manacker, everyone else except for you uses preindustrial as a base. The reason is simple. We already have up to a degree of pipeline warming if you start at 400 ppm, and the only way to account for that is to start from a period that didn’t have pipeline warming. The 450 ppm target from Copenhagen is based on 2 C since preindustrial. That is what counts for policy.
Manacker,
Yes. Furthermore, if ignore the built-in assumptions about the increasing costs of energy – in effect allow for cheap energy – global warming could be net beneficial to above 4 C warming (above pre-industrial). That is all this century and beyond (see figure 3 http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/climate_change.pdf.
Agriculture and health are the big beneficiaries; the negatives are small if we allow cheap energy.
Stone100
>>> swamped with information requests that they became bogged down with dealing with them.
That’s just an excuse. It’s trivial to put data online and post a link to it, just as everyone else has been doing in other disciplines for decades now. That should include methods and source code used to arrive at any conclusions. There would then be no need for FOI requests, or attempts made to deny such requests, which raise questions about the validity of the science. Such obstruction means that the science and conclusions are more easily open to criticism and raise suspicions as to the motives and agenda, true or false.
Transparency and shared load + many eyes makes light work = better science…
is a case of there being a reasonable bet that an 8x increase in CO2 could be benign.
Yep, an 8x increase of a trace gas that has much less influence as it increases is most likely benign.
Also, the 8x increase is highly unlikely.
Jim D
When one looks at “impact” of AGW (Tol, for example), one starts with today’s situation. And the Tol study shows that the next 2.0 to 2.5C warming above today will be beneficial for humanity.
The warming we have already experienced is past – and we are doing just fine despite it (or arguably partly because of it, if you accept Tol’s conclusion).
Copenhagen was a joke (as you know).
“Policy” is a joke – nobody is taking it serious anymore.
The only reason that the IPCC crowd start with 1750 is because the warming sounds scarier that way.
But fewer and fewer people are falling for it, Jim.
Max
“Several recent observation-based studies point to a mean 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at equilibrium of around 1.8C. IPCC still clings to its model-predicted “upper limit” of 4.5C, with a new range of 3 +/- 1.5C.
So, if the more recent studies are correct, we could eventually reach 1.8C warming above today. Tol tells us that the first 2.0 to 2.5C warming above today will most likely have a net beneficial impact for humanity, so this is good news.”
Your numbers are wrong. That amount of CO2 and sensitivity produces far more than 1.8C warming above today. For one thing you aren’t factoring in other greenhouse gases, nor the negative aerosol forcing.
Even with your own numbers we will fly right past the 2C to 2.5C limit from Tol that you hilariously put so much unjustified confidence in.
manacker, the imbalance shows that there is more warming even if we stopped emitting now. It is very misleading to disregard the pipeline warming due to this imbalance. If politicians did that, it would be an unforgivable miscalculation with consequences. At least they have learned enough not to do that.
Yep, gotta fear the pipeline.
…well, not assume the pipeline is zero, at least. Not much to ask.
Jim D
I’m really not going to get all excited about the magical “pipeline”.
Using circular logic, Hansen et al. pegged it at 0.8C
IPCC told us in AR4 that it represented 0.6C warming over the next century.
So it’s peanuts, even if you believe in this hokum.
The whole principle upon which it is based (a planet in perfect “climate equilibrium” in year 1750, prior to human climate “perturbation” due ti industrialization) is a bit too anthropocentric in a Biblical way for me to get too worried about, Jim.
But, hey, it’s a free world – and you can believe what you want to.
Max
lolwot
In your hysterical frenzy about certain doom, you have apparently overlooked the many recent (partly) observation-based studies, which show on average that the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at equilibrium is around 1.8C, rather than 3C as posited by IPCC based on model predictions.
If you’d like, I can give you the links so you can get up-to-date.
Max
manacker, the pipeline is the imbalance which has been increasing during the pause. There is more catching up for the surface to do now, but the OHC increase is the signal that it is there in the background.
Regarding the WashPo article there is in fact a science of persuasion, but it is not the science of scientific communication. It is the science of marketing.
David, what do you see as the difference?
Max, the science of scientific communication (which I do) studies how science is communicated. Persuasion is not part of it.
I quote “stone100 | February 9, 2014 at 9:22 am |
Phatboy, I put a lot of (unexpert) thought into how a process of “outsider review” would be most effective and fair to all concerned (including the public).”
I understand what you are saying, and I am trying to explain why this is impossible. Sometime, I might try and write my thoughts on the differences between scientists, engineers, lawyers and doctors. There are Supreme Courts in our various democracies, who rule what the law, as passed by politicians, means. There is no such body in the field of science. There is no way of appointing such a body in a manner that anyone would agree is fair and equitable.
The Supreme Court of Physics is the hard, measured, empirical, preferably replicated, data. CAGW is a “wicked” problem, in the words of our hostess. It is IMPOSSIBLE, and I use the word advisedly, to get the requisite empirical data to prove or disprove the hypothesis of CAGW.
No outside scrutiny is going to change this.
Jim Cripwell, I understand what you are saying. BUT to my mind if a bunch of oil industry scientists, chosen by the Koch brothers, spent a year unpicking Hansen’s evidence and at the end of it said that they too came to the same conclusion as him and that 8x CO2 would probably cause a 20 oC temperature rise. Then that would say a lot to me.
stone100, you seem to be indoctrinated by the AGW propaganda. The oil (and gas) industry has been backing the scam from the beginning. Almost all industries (except maybe coal), banks, bureaucracies etc support it. Look up Enron and global warming. Look up climategate and big oil.
Edim, I suggested the search committee choosing the “outside reviewers” might be chaired by the Kochs, Vaclav Klaus and Nigel Lawson. Are you really saying that they are part of as you put it “a AGW scam”? If so, they are DEEP undercover.
stone, you write ” Then that would say a lot to me.”
That is being done, though not in the specific way in which you write. There is no body of skeptics which has been “appointed” by anyone, but there are skeptics who have been doing exactly what you are suggesting. I am one of them. Whether they are writing science, or merely skeptical mumbo-jumbo, you have to judge for yourself.
As just one example, the internet is one of the liberating options for science. Anyone can put down their thoughts, and anyone, all over the world, can read them. There are hundreds of skeptical blogs where qualified scientists have been dong exactly what you suggest. What you need to do is read what has been written, and make up your mind as to how valid the science is.
if you don’t know where to start, I can give you some thoughts. But be advised. My opinion is going to be very biased. But don’t look for any “official” skeptical body of scientists. Unlike the IPCC, there is no “official” skeptical science.
That’s not stones falling out of the sky, just big numbers.
==============
Jim Cripwell, if anyone does a line by line, data point by data point, critical review of Hansen’s work that lays out a coherent scientific argument saying that Hansen’s work is vitally flawed and we are unlike to see a big temperature effect from 8x CO2; then I want to see it. I haven’t seen anything like that.
stone, you write ” I haven’t seen anything like that.”
Fair enough. I suspect you are never going to be satisfied.
stone100, I don’t know enough about the Kochs and Nigel Lawson to comment and I don’t really care. They’re not relevant, IMO. Mr. Klaus I respect from what I know, but I don’t know much. Scientific observation is what really matters anyway, but if you think outside reviewers are needed, why not scientists like Dyson, Lindzen, the Russians (sorry don’t have names), Scaffeta, Spencer, Svensmark, Christy, Courtillot… ? There must be many more. Just pay them to do that, some could even volunteer, I don’t know.
Regarding testing, it is possible to conduct controlled experiments to observe the effect of atmospheric CO2 on the surface temperature and other important factors like surface heat fluxes (solar SW, surface LW, latent, sensible, geothermal), CO2 concentrations and other meteorological variables. This is can be done only locally, but it’s possible, I think. Necessity is the mother of invention. The experiments would likely be inexpensive and much cheaper than a low cost satellite for instance. Again, it wouldn’t prove anything, mostly because the experiment is not global, but it would be very a interesting observation.
sorry.. a very interesting observation. :)
Sorry, stone, I missed the main point. No-one can prove the Hansen is wrong. He might be right. We do not have the empirical data to say whether CAGW is anything more than a hypothesis.
My point is that I hate to see billions of Canadian tax dollars go to waste on the basis that people like Hansen MIGHT be right, when they haven’t provided the empirical evidence that the hypothesis of CAGW is scientifically valid.
stone 100
8x today’s CO2 level is flat out ridiculous to start off with (as I pointed out above).
There is not enough recoverable carbon down there to get anywhere near 8x.
But even using IPCC’s arguably exaggerated model-predicted mean 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at equilibrium of 3C, it would only get us to 9C warming – not 20C.
Using more realistic (at least partly) observation-based estimates of several recent studies of 1.8C, it would get us to 5C warming.
My advice: get your numbers straight.
Max
Edim
I’d have to agree with you (and disagree with Jim Cripwell) that it should be possible to test the AGW hypothesis empirically (as the cosmic ray / cloud hypothesis is being tested under controlled conditions simulating our atmosphere at CERN).
I do not know how this would have to be done in order to be truly representative of our climate system, but I cannot imaging that if only a fraction of the many billions of dollars going into “climate change research” and related programs were to be diverted to such a test, this would be impossible.
I believe that the biggest problem is not technical feasibility of performing such a test, but fear that the results would not support the model-generated AGW story, IOW an inherent fear the modelers have of empirical data.
Just imagine what would result if such an empirical test would show that, yes, CO2 does have a greenhouse effect in our climate, but the effect and its impact are only around one-fourth of that predicted by the models (and, as a result, AGW is no future problem for humanity even under the worst future CO2 scenarios).
A multi-billion dollar big business would collapse overnight. Poof!
And the modelers could all go back to weather forecasting or some other gainful occupation.
Max
Jim Cripwell | February 9, 2014 at 3:25 pm |
“No-one can prove the Hansen is wrong. He might be right.”
He may well be right. Just not about the thing he thought he was right about!
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/HansenUpdated_zpsb8693b6e.png
We appear to be tiptoeing down the dotted line proposed by Scenario C. So it appear he was right about that and not the rest!
It seems by long term average they really mean an average from 1981 to 2010. Not that long-term is it? The really long term average says we are cooling and likely headed for a new ice age – unless man-made warming has averted it, of course.
Anyone talking about a long-term decline is therefore talking not from data, statistics or actual knowledge but from a pessimistic worldview. Neven did not predict this new minimum would likely rebound when it actually happened. We know this because his old apocalyptic posts, in common with all alarmists, are still online for posterity. What we have from Neven, Gates et al is just parrot-like repetition of one of the many alarmist after-the-fact excuses for being wrong all the time: The only thing they have deep experience of! Indeed I don’t recall any alarmist ever being correct with any prediction, while skeptics are proved right all the time – merely by being skeptical.
JamesG, this is supposed to be a science blog or at least a blog for citizen scientists like myself. Do you think on a science blog you can just make things up? We scientists and citizen scientists are skeptical of all claims not backed by solid evidence. Where is your evidence that “we we are cooling and likely headed for a new ice age” ?
Uncertainty is not what you think.
It’s not what http://understandinguncertainty.org/more-deaths-due-climate-change-or-maybe-not thinks, either, apparently. Status of ‘guru’ or no, this blog’s post really blew it.
From the abstract of the actual journal paper, not the Guardian article that poorly reports it:
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/01/08/jech-2013-202449.short?g=w_jech_ahead_tab
A significantly raised risk of heat-related and cold-related mortality was observed in all regions. The elderly were most at risk. In the absence of any adaptation of the population, heat-related deaths would be expected to rise by around 257% by the 2050s from a current annual baseline of around 2000 deaths, and cold-related mortality would decline by 2% from a baseline of around 41 000 deaths. The cold burden remained higher than the heat burden in all periods. The increased number of future temperature-related deaths was partly driven by projected population growth and ageing.
First, “cold-related” mortality is a sadly misunderstood phenomenon. Correlating mortality to temperature without removing for season and adjusting for extremes produces if not a meaningless and misleading result, one that can at best be characterized by huge uncertainty. So heat-related deaths would be expected to rise by 257(+/-20)% by the 2050’s from a baseline of 2000 deaths, and cold-related mortality would decline by 2(+/-20)% from a baseline anywhere between 0.03% to 80% of 41,000 deaths.
See how Uncertainty needs to be handled to properly understand results?
See how that changes the interpretation?
tell me they didnt run a regression relating temperature and deaths.
Steven Mosher | February 9, 2014 at 11:51 am |
I don’t have access to the article, but it appears to be a single factor ANOVA, yeah. Amazing it got published, and moreso that anyone who finished high school wouldn’t catch the error.
What could be better? Bill and Melinda Gates take on the Al Gorean – Malthusian misanthropists:
http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/
More on the WashPo article. Most notably it uses what is to me a new word for skeptics, calling them “rejectionists.” No doubt this is part of changing the message (without changing the position). Has anyone seen it used before? I wonder if it will catch on?
Second they frame the article thusly: “There’s an extensive body of research on how to persuade those who view science with suspicion. It’s called the science of science communication.”
This implies that skeptics are suspicious of science, which is false. They are suspicious of the scientific claims of the alarmists, and with good reason. In fact skeptics typically offer more science than the alarmists, because the skeptics are often countering simplistic arguments. The skeptics have to go into more detail in order to do this.
The bald claim that skeptics are suspicious of science is part of the feel-good but false alarmist claim that the science is on their side. Other versions of this false claim are that skeptics are ignorant or anti-science, or that there is a failure of communication, which is also implied.
And as I said above this article is not about communication, it is about advocacy and persuasion (and people who are losing an argument).
Rejectionists is a more accurate term for most of the “skeptics” here. Skeptics allow for the truth of AGW including its possible large impact on temperature just needing more evidence to be persuaded, while rejectionists give it no chance of being true by virtue of the science being twisted by influential parties (your basic conspiracy theory). This distinction between “skeptics” and skeptics is well known here.
Science serenades, man weeps.
=======
… and, intimidated Western academics who cannot admit the ‘hockey stick’ and the analogy of a ‘greenhouse’ are pure propaganda and Michael Mann is a fraud, are refuseniks.
David, I believe some here at CE who identify themselves as skeptics are suspicious of science. I think their skepticism is selective, so I don’t consider them true skeptics. It would be more accurate if they called themselves “climate science contrarians.”
Max_OK
You’ve pointed out to David “what you think” motivates “skeptics” (a “suspicion of science”).
You got it backwards, Okie.
“Science” (i.e. the scientific method) is based upon rational skepticism, rather than faith or blind belief in scripture, prophets or oracles.
And what motivates most skeptics is rational skepticism.
I know this is the motivation in my personal case.
And inasmuch as you cannot provide any evidence to support your claim, I remain rationally skeptical of its validity for other skeptics here, as well.
Max_CH (a rational skeptic)
Max Callow, Cub Reporter spouts with his usual lack of thoughtfulness and self-awareness: “I believe some here at CE who identify themselves as skeptics are suspicious of science.”
What an absurd claim. Science my callow young friend, is science. You might as well say, “skeptics are suspicious of hammers.” The utility and value of any tool lies in the skill and care of the user. Of course what you’re really trying to say is that skeptics are “anti-science.” Like Dr. Curry according to M.M. But perhaps even you can dimly hear how moronic that really sounds
It’s useless trying to get you to see the lies, distortions, and conflicts of interest in the climate scientists whom you admire so much, because they espouse a view consistent with your own politics. At most, you dismiss such things as unimportant. You’re lazy Max, intellectually lazy.
But you’re young. I wouldn’t give up hope for yourself just yet.
Yea Max,
I am so suspicious of science I have spent the past 18 years working to get students interested and excited about the subject.
The constant attribution of motive is idiotic. Too bad you don’t have a monopoly on that. It is common to both sides. At least try not let it become your one trick pony, as Josh has done.
1. All skepticism is selective. Ask Pyhhro.
2. I’ve yet to meet or read a skeptic who was suspicious of science. They
tend to have an idealistic concept of science ( see cripwell, see popperians)
Witness the fits the had at WUWT when J.Ravetz posted.
3. That said, they do misuse the word skeptics.
They are refusniks. They refuse to believe or consider anything that challenges their world view. Like liberals and alarmatarians..
stone100, you write “I don’t think this idea is fancifully naive. Nigel Lawson has already taken part in a face to face meeting with climate scientists organised by the Royal Society in an attempt to build bridges.”
Sorry to disillusion you, but you are viewing the world through rose-colored spectacles. The Nurse/Lawson conflict was not any sort of bridge-building exercise, but a nasty confrontation between two bitter rivals. The final meeting was a definite non-event , which accomplished nothing, and about which we know very little.
What happened, was that there were a series of nasty, open, letters between Lawson and Nurse, in which they called each other all sorts of horrible things. Finally, and foolishly, Nurse offered to put Lawson right, by having some of the Fellows of the RS brief him on the science CAGW. Lawson responded in a way which Nurse had not expected, and offered a scientific discussion between two groups of experts. This was the last thing Nurse wanted, so he found an excuse not to have such a meeting. However, Nurse had put his head so far into the noose, that he could not afford to do nothing.
So a secret meeting took place where a few FRS’s told Lawson things he knew already. But to suggest it was some sort of bridge-building exercise between “gentlemen” in the true meeting of the word, is ludicrous.
Jim Cripwell, in the Spectator article, Lawson says that his disappointment was that the FRS people were unwilling to discuss climate change policy. I can see the point that it is vital to first determine whether we face real peril and only then consider how best to react. It would be goofy to suppose that we should cloud our judgement about whether we face such a peril by “taking into account” how hard it would or wouldn’t be to adapt to it / avoid it whatever..
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/diary/9087961/my-secret-meeting-with-the-royal-society/
Let ’em eat bread, and the cake that they’ve ate they can keep, too.
==============
stone, I think you are slightly misinterpreting what Lawson wrote in the Spectator. Lawson is a politician, not a scientist. He is concerned with policy, and the huge expense the belief in CAGW is costing us. But he knows that the issue of whether the science is correct or not is of vital importance. If you read the article thoroughly, you will see that Lawson also refers to the scientific basics.
I had not actually read that particular article, which I found to be interesting, but I don’t think it alters what I wrote. This was not a bridge-building exercise, but the inconclusive end of a nasty confrontation between two bitter rivals.
Hi Kim
I have a new article up at wuwt
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/09/black-swans-dispatches-from-the-front-line-of-climate-change/#more-102910
Always pleased to have your input, and of course comments from anyone else here
Tonyb
If Lawson didn’t yet think a policy was needed why did he want the scientists to discuss policy rather than science? Apparently he is at the stage where he thinks that now the discussion is about policy because the science is settled, so to speak. If the science wasn’t settled, he needed to discuss that with them first, and that was their assumption about the meeting, that his scientific advice was lacking.
Tony b
Great article. It is always reassuring to know that maybe, just maybe,in spite of what some say, things have not changed all that much. Your historical perspective, in some cases longer than anyone else, is always appreciated.
tony b
Thanks for the link to your WUWT article about the history of the Dawlish seawall. Your description is so vivid, it almost puts the reader right there, shivering in the wind.
Sort of takes the wind out of the Met Office sails.
But I suppose there may have been some Victorian doomsayers back then, tying the storms and destruction to divine retribution for man’s sinfulness.
It appears these types have been around throughout human history. They’re just a bit better organized (and financed) today.
Max
Jim D you write “If Lawson didn’t yet think a policy was needed why did he want the scientists to discuss policy rather than science?”
I suspect you are butting into a conversation you know nothing about. What Lawson was concerned with was that the scientists have no idea what will be the result of the policy, if their ideas are implemented. In other words, a bunch of academics who have no interest in the real world, and the suffering that will result as a consequence of them getting the science wrong.
Ceresco kid and max
Thanks for your kind comments. I can see the teignmouth section of the sea wall which also carries the railway from my house . It’s a great sight in summer to see the steam trains on it. We do not pay enough attention to renewing our infrastructure. Hopefully they will learn lessons.
Tonyb
Jim Cripwell, so Lawson wanted a conversation about what are, in his view, hypotheticals. Namely, suppose the consensus is right, then what? Wouldn’t that be a waste of his time given he doesn’t believe the hypothetical in the first place, or does he believe it without wanting to tell anyone? Surely the more useful conversation to him is on his doubts about the consensus view.
The recent story about 900,000 year old footprints briefly exposed by storm waters in Norfolk helps to provide us moderns with an interesting glimpse of the ancient UK shoreline during the time of them humans before we humans.
Whoa, tb, 147 comments at the Bish’s on Slingo and these storms. The ‘clustering and persistence’ of these comments disturbs the roadbed of my train of thought.
=========
I don’t always lecture about back radiation but when I do… I always prefer to start with Kiehl, Trenberth, and Houghton. :-)
I so wish there was a preview to check html.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-6.htm
Although you should probably start with the updated version.
http://echorock.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Staff/Fasullo/my_pubs/Trenberth2009etalBAMS.pdf
Or even an improved surface radiation version.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif
I like the article about the projected changes in mortality, its just one prediction after another but I think there are some issues with how the crystal balls are placed. There are a number of claims that don’t seem credible. There is the point that heat related deaths increase after the temp reaches 17 – 18C that is around 62 F, it doesn’t seem to anywhere else. But the average daytime temp in 2013, a warm summer didn’t even reach that level. The prediction is around 12000 excess deaths by 2080 with a temp increase of 2-5C Spain in 2003 in a summer of multiple heatwaves and an average daytime temp of 21.8C had around 3,000 extra deaths. We must be real softies in the UK.. This isn’t science its astrology using a pseudo scientific method, I hope someone writes about how to convince people that this is credible.
‘Of the recent congressional hearings, Dr. Mann tweeted that it was “#Science” — i.e., the guy who agrees with him — vs. “#AntiScience” — i.e., Dr. Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. That’s to say, she is by profession a scientist, but because she has the impertinence to dissent from Dr. Mann’s view she is “#AntiScience.”’
Apparently, Mann’s lawyers are unable to shut down his Twitter account.
It still continues to amaze me that folks are still pushing the ” have to communicate better” argument. If you are having this much trouble, perhaps it’s the message and not the delivery.
And if it is a delivery problem, here are some suggestions.
1 – Don’t have non-scientists like Cook and Lewandowski as your point men.
2 – Don’t keep rebranding the message. The ever changing name for the problem doesn’t help the cause.
3 – Don’t threaten us with constant warnings of disaster. At least not without some evidence. (And no, models are not evidence. Providing an indication of what might happen is not evidence.)
4 – Don’t whine about how it is bad Big Oil and Fossil Fuels giants funding your opponents, when you are getting tens of millions in gas and oil money.
5 – Find a way to shut Mikey Mann up.
Solball revisited:
In looking up the lyrics, I discovered that ‘Stewball’ was a rewrite of a ballad about an actual horse race in County Kildare, Ireland, in 1752. The winning horse was named Skewball, and he won the race against a grey mare owned by a unpopular fellow whose family had acquired their extensive landholdings as payment for service to Oliver Cromwell in his brutal 1649 invasion of Ireland.
The name of the grey mare’s owner: Sir Ralph Gore.
http://www.tbheritage.com/Portraits/Skewball/Skewball1.html
With h/t to Kim for the idea, here’s a rewrite to be sung to the tune by Peter, Paul, and Mary:
+100
This result is another link in a growing chain of evidence that internal climate variability played leading order role in the trajectory of 20th century global mean surface temperature. Freely evolving general circulation model trajectories have been shown to have large global mean surface temperature excursions similar to that observed in the early 20th century (8). These excursions appear to be consistent with fluctuations in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC), which significantly impacts the northern hemisphere temperature (10, 11, 23). The apparent internal variability of the THC has been shown to have a different relation of the SST to subsurface ocean temperatures from that expected for forced variability in the North Atlantic (24), consistent with the THC at least playing a partial role in the internal variability identified here.
A vigorous spectrum of interdecadal internal variability presents numerous challenges to our current understanding of the climate. First, it suggests that climate models in general still have difficulty reproducing the magnitude and spatiotemporal patterns of internal variability necessary to capture the observed character of the 20th century climate trajectory. Presumably, this is due primarily to deficiencies in ocean dynamics. Moving toward higher resolution, eddy resolving oceanic models should help reduce this deficiency. Second, theoretical arguments suggest that a more variable climate is a more sensitive climate to imposed forcings (13). Viewed in this light, the lack of modeled compared to observed interdecadal variability (Fig. 2B) may indicate that current models underestimate climate sensitivity. Finally, the presence of vigorous climate variability presents significant challenges to near-term climate prediction (25, 26), leaving open the possibility of steady or even declining global mean surface temperatures over the next several decades that could present a significant empirical obstacle to the implementation of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (27). However, global warming could likewise suddenly and without any ostensive cause accelerate due to internal variability. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, the climate system appears wild, and may continue to hold many surprises if pressed.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120.full
I noted in passing Maxy’s request for evidence that the planet is cooling. The evidence for multi-decadal variability is immense. It is known without much doubt that decadal variability added to warming between 1976 and 1998 – and is currently causing the temperature hiatus. For decades to come – creating a ‘significant empirical obstacle to the implementation of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions’.
Sensitivity here is the non-linear sensitivity appropriate to a complex and dynamic climate system. So the current state is non-warming – or even cooling – over decades followed by a nonlinear shift to a different climate state. One that could be well outside the expectations of steadily increasing temperature on either the warm or cool side. Thus the incredible conundrum they find themselves in – the conviction that they are utterly and immutably correct – and are morally and intellectually superior to any ‘other’ – and the refusal of reality to cooperate. The refusal to understand and incorporate a conflicting reality goes deep. We have of course seen this before.
But it also creates a dilemma for the world. A nonlinear sensitivity – on both the warm and cool side – and the reality of a non-warming world for decades in direct contradiction to the collective wisdom of the Borg collective. In a political environment of green overreach and a majority desire to prove them therefore wrong. A significant political obstacle to mitigation is probably an understatement. .
And of course AMOC is declining – http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/10/1619/2013/osd-10-1619-2013.pdf
“I noted in passing Maxy’s request for evidence that the planet is cooling. The evidence for multi-decadal variability is immense. It is known without much doubt that decadal variability added to warming between 1976 and 1998 – and is currently causing the temperature hiatus.”
_____
This would be called “skirting the issue”. GH gas increase as a forcing to the climate is about altering the energy balance of the climate. There is every bit of evidence to support the contention that the overall energy balance of Earth’s climate is set on “accumulate” and that increasing amounts of energy are being accumulated in the system Regarding that system, there are various components and forms of energy. The largest and most stable is the ocean, and the weakest, lowest thermal inertia and smallest is the tropospheric sensible heat portion. Those who would constantly point to the weakest and most unstable portion and try to suggest variations in tropospheric sensible heat can tell us much about the gains or losses in the system overall must have other motivations besides actual science.
“Sensitivity here is the non-linear sensitivity appropriate to a complex and dynamic climate system”
Yep
But even here, “appropriateness” is a difficult metric to measure with precision; time-dependent as well, of course
‘This result is another link in a growing chain of evidence that internal climate variability played leading order role in the trajectory of 20th century global mean surface temperature.’ op. cit.
The 1998/2001 climate shift is in fact the critical political issue for mitigation over the next generation. The inability to process this is the fundamental dilemma of the Borg collective. The need to continue to believe that the knob is set to warming – and the likelihood of non-warming for decades at least. Hah hah.
The 1998/2001 shift was missed by ERBS – but the change large warming in SW – and cooling in IR – before that is quite evident.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/WongFig2-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=115
Based upon the revised (Edition 3_Rev1) ERBS record (Figure 3.23), outgoing LW radiation over the tropics appears to have increased by about 0.7 W/m2 while the reflected SW radiation decreased by roughly 2.1 W/m2 from the 1980s to 1990s (Table 3.5)…
In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. AR4 s3.4.4.1
ISCCP-FD data – which shows 2.4W/m2 warming in SW and 0.5W/m2 cooling in IR for the same period as ERBS to the 1990’s.
The overall slight rise (relative heating) of global total net flux at TOA between the 1980’s and 1990’s is confirmed in the tropics by the ERBS measurements and exceeds the estimated climate forcing changes (greenhouse gases and aerosols) for this period.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=82
The 1998/2001 climate shift was captured in ISCCP-FD data. Which shows warming interrupted by Mt Pinatubo followed by a big shift after 1999.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zFD/an9090_TOTnet_toa.gif
It was also captured by Project Earthshine.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ProjectEarthshine-albedo_zps87fc3b7f.png.html?sort=3&o=59
‘Earthshine changes in albedo shown in blue, ISCCP-FD shown in black and CERES in red. A climatologically significant change before CERES followed by a long period of insignificant change.’
The albedo knob rules and is set to cooling.
“The albedo knob rules and is set to cooling.”
____
Uh oh…knob must be broken with record levels of OHC and ice mass loss and sea level rise. What’s up with you albedo knob?!
In my world you don’t get to pick and choose data based on predilection. Except where there are obvious discrepancies between data sets. In this case the data sources are consilient – and consistent with the theory of Earth systems as a nonlinear system.
Hard to miss really – but they keep missing. Not even a possibility in the Borg collective zeitgeist.
How relevant is decadal warming of the ocean when most of the recent warming comes from cloud changes – which has since turned around?
How relevant is Arctic ice when the stadium wave seems poised for another round?
It is what the data says.
Joshua | February 8, 2014 at 2:20 pm |
“It’s also rather interesting that you think that Mann’s reactions have done more harm to his case than Steyn’s continuing constant stream of vitriol – including some directed at judges whose legal rulings he doesn’t agree with.”
I read where Curry said it was harming his reputation. What did Curry say about his case being harmed too?
Climate models are wrong because they are all based on an assumption of there being isothermal temperatures in a planet’s troposphere in the absence of so-called greenhouse gases.
Don’t you find it interesting that they say that the greenhouse gas water vapour does most of the warming, perhaps 30 degrees of it, with carbon dioxide helping with the other 3 degrees. Water vapour may well vary in different regions. There may be only a third of the mean in a dry desert area for example, so the IPCC authors are, in effect, telling us that water vapour is raising the temperature by only, say, 10 degrees in a dry desert area. Thus the mean temperature in such a location would be below freezing point.
I don’t care how many peer-reviewed published papers in respected journals there may be supporting this absurd conjecture, I’m not falling for the bluff. It’s not supported by physics.
The temperature has already been raised by the gravitationally induced temperature gradient in the troposphere which the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us must happen as an autonomous result of the spontaneous evolving of thermodynamic equilibrium. It does not happen as a result of any lapsing process. There is no surface at the base of the Uranus troposphere and there is no solar radiation or internally generated thermal energy reaching that layer. Gravity has trapped thermal energy over the life of the planet and the whole temperature plot in the Uranus atmosphere is maintained by gravity, and so too is the case on Earth.
I am the Australia author of published articles and papers on climate matters, and my new book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” will be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble by early in March.
The radiating temperature is 255 K. The surface temperature is 288 K which is warmer due to the convective lapse rate (gravity if you like). The only reason these levels are different is the GHGs between them. Without GHGs the surface would also be at 255 K, and gravity be of no help. Maybe you will need an Erratum in your book.
Jim D
Wiki tells us the following about lapse rate:
Are you saying the “lapse rate” would be 0 without greenhouse gases?
(I hope not.)
Max
when do you get your nobel prize
BREAKING NEWS
LOL … pretty much any scientist’s psychic powers suffice to predict that your book will be short on history, short on equations, and short on calculations.
Is that a good guess?
manacker, no the lapse rate would be zero without gravity.
Jim D
Thanks for clearing that up, Jim.
Max
Jim D – do you assume that the surface temperature of the Moon should be 255K? The Wikipediahss a mean temperature at Moon’s equator 220K.
If you know the Moon’s albedo it is possible to get its average effective surface temperature. It is just physics.
Jim D – do you know the Earth albedo with or without GHG? Just physics..
CG, in physics, you change one thing at a time to understand something. Set the albedo at 0.3 with no GHGs and you get 255 K. Now add GHGs and you get 288 K. Voila, GHG effect is 33 K. 255 K applies to the top-of-atmosphere effective radiation.
I used the temperature calculator at http://www.geo.umass.edu/courses/climat/radbal.html. With a Moon’s albedo 0.12 and no greenhouse effect the calculated temperature is 269.87K.
The Moon rotates slowly and has a large temperature range. Strictly it is mean T^4 that is decided by the radiation balance, and the mean value of that is weighted towards the higher values compared to the mean value of T. You can also get 319 K as the temperature for a nonrotating Moon, still short of the dayside max. The Moon’s temperature range is a factor of four, so you have to take T^4 into account. Earth’s range is +/- 10%, so the mean is a good approximation.
Could we agree that the Earth’s (Moon’s) rotation and a resulting day/night temperature difference makes things a little more complex?
Less complicated for the earth where 255 K holds as an effective radiative temperature. It is equivalent to 240 W/m2. This number leads naturally to the Kiehl-Trenberth energy diagram which gives a more detailed perspective of the atmosphere’s effect on the surface where 288 K corresponds to 390 W/m2.
Jim D – ” Earth’s range is +/- 10%” . That’s 20% total. 1.2^4 is more than 2. I can’t accept your argument.
Sure, CG, you can keep it in W/m2 if you prefer. Some people find effective radiative temperatures more intuitive, but they are not central to the energy budget. 288 K really means 390 W/m2.
I prefer you to tell me why your approach fails for the Moon, with no atmosphere, and supposedly a much simpler radiative body.
Curious George wrote: do you know the Earth albedo with or without GHG
Albedo is being measured. On this link, http://www.bbso.njit.edu/, under the Projects tab, Click on Earthshine.
A new update to this data is overdue and hopefully will be published soon.
CG, it works for the Moon too. You get 293 W/m2. You can choose how to convert that to a temperature. There are several choices, but if you want one effective temperature to compare with 255 K, it is 268 K.
Max,
The lapse rate would be very high without the greenhouse gases as it is on the moon, not zero. On the moon the radiating level is essentially the surface.
“On the moon the radiating level is essentially the surface.”
Exactly, and on Earth the (effective) radiating level is NOT the surface, but higher above where the average temperature is lower. That is the reason for the GHE on Earth, not the so-called GHGs only. The bulk of the atmosphere (N2, O2) plays an important role by convecting the absorbed solar energy to the ERL. Even more important is H2O – it carries most of the energy absorbed by the surface to clouds and atmosphere where it’s radiated, again mostly by H2O.
Jim D: I agree that theoretically on a Moon with a zero heat capacity and a perfect heat conductivity – which is what you calculate – the temperature should be 268 K. But the mean temperature on a moon’s equator is 220 K.
Maybe you have over-simplified. Are you sure you are not over-simplifying for the Earth as well?
CG, the night side gets to 100 K, so the concept of a mean temperature on the Moon is not as useful. Even on the Earth, 288 K is a mean and global warming might make it 291 K, but the central Arctic may warm by 10 C and other places only 1 C even with a 3 C global average rise. Talking about global climate sensitivity is all about the mean which is 288 K. This is 15 C and we know without GHGs the mean would be 255 K which is -18 C, and you don’t have to be an expert to realize that is really chilly. People can relate to these temperatures.
“we know without GHGs the mean would be 255 K.” Actually, we don’t know; we think. And there are good reasons to think so. But you did not offer a iota of a proof that we can safely disregard the day/night cycle, temperature variations, and thermal capacities. You are building on sand. You don’t even concede that this simplistic approach does not work for the Moon.
CG, no, all you need to know is 255 is colder than 288. The days will be colder, the nights will be colder, the poles will be colder and the equator will be colder without GHGs. It’s all relative. Reverse for adding them.
knock yourselves out guys
http://diviner.ucla.edu/science.shtml
Steven, thanks.
From teh Diviner link that Mosher left.
I happen to know that the unchanging temperature 80 or more centimeters beneath the lunar surface is -23C or 250K.
Contrary to what the article implied however Apollo 15 and 17 were not “near the equator”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Apollo_landing_sites.jpg
In fact Apollo 15
appears to be at around 60Nis 23N latitude.What does this tell us?
@VPh: There may be only a third of the mean in a dry desert area for example, so the IPCC authors are, in effect, telling us that water vapour is raising the temperature by only, say, 10 degrees in a dry desert area.
Surface temperature depends logarithmically on the level of GHG’s. Your calculation is based on a linear dependence, which will give wildly inaccurate results.
BREAKING NEWS
These are pure common-sense questions to ask, in view of Big Carbon’s destructive practices, corporate amorality, and deep pockets, eh?
You are surely not so foolish as to believe there vested interests on only one side of this issue?
Doug… Yes, he is surely foolish enough… And don’t call him Shirley.
You gotta be kidding, fanny. And research? Get a grip.
The ‘pause’ has been caused by anomalous wind conditions in the Pacific and global warming is OB.
Thank God they worked it out using a model
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html
They must really think we are stupid.
O course, this wasn’t known when the “science was settled” many years ago, We learn something new about climate every day … pretty unsettling, what?
A toilet upwells when conditions allow it. Maybe this one will upwell forever. Because that is your only hope.
These clever fellows have discovered how El Nino/La Nina work. They are so smart!! (But one of them should check if some of that Westerly-headed water isn’t also diverted to the poles.)
“jim2 | February 9, 2014 at 11:13 pm |
These clever fellows have discovered how El Nino/La Nina work. They are so smart!! (But one of them should check if some of that Westerly-headed water isn’t also diverted to the poles.)”
—–
Of course there is a large advection of warm equatorial water to the poles. At with a higher heat content of that water, even more warmth at the poles.
The general principle of how ENSO works is well understood, but what is less understood is why the oscillations are so erratic. Based on my background in studying these kinds of processes, I took a shot at it here:
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/10/the-southern-oscillation-index-model/
The SOIM
Professor Curry, in conclusion,
ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY = SANITY
Our beautiful, bountiful universe and humans could not be
1. Orbiting around the Sun in 1543.
2. Powered by the source of energy that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
The scientific revolution began when we accepted #1.
The scientific revolution ended when we refused to accept #2.
You may want to reformulate a little. No one is suggesting that the universe is powered by a fission of U235.
Yes, Week in Review is not Open Thread, but I thought this was a good grin anyway…
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/opinion-academic-assessment-gone-mad/2011045.article
“…more delusional types would make valuable members of the Planning and Budget Committee.” No doubt.
Oh no, I am totally screwed:
“We are sure that all staff would agree that the impression we make on others is a key part of our effectiveness as professors and colleagues. We will therefore establish a Standing Committee to Review and Evaluate Wardrobe and Employee Dress (Screwed). Screwed will be charged with a monthly assessment of academic clothing, accessories, eyewear, perfume/cologne, hairstyle and nail care.”
That’s funny, but the US government passed that point long ago, sad to say.
Nat, the setting is different, but the reality was adopted by the Queensland Public Service over 20 years ago, alas. For example, the ratio of bureaucrats to medical staff in Queensland Health went from about 40:60 to 60:40 in a decade or so, many more senior bureaucrat positions were created, and one medic told me she had five extra layers of reporting over her (she left). A nurse almost killed someone by deliberately ignoring my doctor son’s instructions. I said “Presumably she was dismissed.” He said, no the process is that several people meet to discuss the incident then everyone carries on as before.
For once the academic community lags behind.
“the ratio of bureaucrats to medical staff in Queensland Health went from about 40:60 to 60:40 in a decade or so”… This has already happened throughout North American universities too. There needs to a Vice President for the Climbing Wall after all. (Just an aside, but when I was in college, we were perfectly capable of finding naturally occurring cliffs for hare-brained stunts, which of course we wanted to do as much or more than the kids do today. Powerful drugs could be obtained in the aftermath of the inevitable accidents.)
Faustino, I was living in Randwick near Prince of Wales Hospital during the health administration boom of the 90s. To sit in a coffee shop at lunch time was like being in your own little Canberra for a while. Everyone was talking heatedly about something called EO – and you just knew it wasn’t a new style of bedpan.
Nat, no cliffs at LSE, but I climbed from the top of the lift shaft to the roof and then crossed to the roof of ITV so as to infiltrate the pop show “Ready, Steady, Go!” and flash a poster promoting Rag Week. I used to run up walls at high school, a pity parkour wasn’t around then.
OH NO, it’s EO!
So Faustino, do you remember what act played RSG! that day?
Nat, I recall an American singer, twisting and singing “Would you like to swing on a star?” He turned, saw me behind him, and stopped, jaw dropping at the unscripted sight of me with a large poster, angled to be caught by the camera on the singer.
I was there by invitation for the next Rag – I danced with The Soul Sisters, Francoise Hardy performed.
This is just a wild guess, but it sounds like Dave Van Ronk, who used to sing that song at a time when few would.
Judith
On Arctic sea ice, the minimum coverage for 2013 is 60% larger than previous year and the largest since 2007. BTW the variability in sea ice coverage is within two sigma of long-term average hence it’s not statistically significant. It could be due to chance and natural variability.
“On Arctic sea ice, the minimum coverage for 2013 is 60% larger than previous year and the largest since 2007.”
____
That’s sooooo last year. Current Arctic sea ice is running well below last year for this date and very close to record low levels. Unless we get a huge spurt in Arctic sea ice growth in the next six weeks (when we’d normally see the maximum reached for the year), we are going to start the 2014 melt season at or near record low levels for the start of the season. Lesson: One season or even a handful of seasons do not reverse a long-term downward spiral.
R. Gates
The relevant data is minimum sea ice as this determines the amount of ice that will be carry over the following year. The minimum Arctic sea ice occurs on Septembers. Check the data. BTW the long-term average is not a handful of seasons. Your “long-term downward spiral” is within two sigma deviation. A random function creates a trend that’s not statistically significant.
“The relevant data is minimum sea ice as this determines the amount of ice that will be carry over the following year.”
——-
The relevant data is the longest term trend we can see. It is heading down to an ice free summer Arctic sometime later this century. There is a very high probability the HCV is playing a big role.
R. Gates, you write ” Current Arctic sea ice is running well below last year for this date and very close to record low levels.”
I am not sure I understand what you mean by “Current Arctic sea ice” It is my understanding that there are three measures of sea ice, namely, volume, area and extent. I am not sure which one you are using, but I suspect it is extent.
When I first got interested in sea ice, I read up the physics, and it was my understanding that the most important metric for assessing what might happen to the season’s minimum is sea ice volume. Comparing this season with last season, in October 2013, sea ice volume from Cryosat2 was 50% greater than last year. The latest data from PIOMAS, Jan 2014, shows that it is above the trend line for the first time since, IIRC, 2009. Yet there is no mention of volume in what you wrote.
In your opinion, what is the best metric for assessing what might happen in this melt season; volume, area, or extent?
“In your opinion, what is the best metric for assessing what might happen in this melt season; volume, area, or extent?”
_____
Each season is so unique that I think it is very difficult to use any of those as a specific predictor for the season ahead. People far smarter than me put all this into complex models that still can’t get it exactly right. I think the best long-term indicator of the health of sea ice is volume (best would be mass, but that would be difficult to assess). Volume has been on the decline, bouncing up and down around a nice linear decline for quite some time. Any single year is a crap shoot, with 3-5 year periods a bit more certain of declining, and decadal periods even more so. 2007 set a low mark until 2012 came along. We have lots of energy being advected into the Arctic as well as warming happening right there. I personally will start to look at the status of the ice in about 2 months–once we’ve passed the NH winter peak. But you and I have the gentleman’s bet that 2014 will be lower than 2013– which is pretty much a crap shoot at this point.
Gates
Care to qualify your statement that Arctic Sea Ice is running well below last year for this date? This link shows it is above last year, even if only by a smidgen. It ain’t over til its over and we have a few more weeks of very cold weather up there including the 30 below this week.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
R. Gates, you originally wrote ” Current Arctic sea ice is running well below last year for this date and very close to record low levels”
Then you write ” I think the best long-term indicator of the health of sea ice is volume”
As I pointed out to you, this year the sea ice volume is significantly greater than it was last year. In the light of this fact, your two statements don’t seem to make sense.
Consideration as to the validity of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient is of vital importance to understanding what is happening in Earth’s troposphere. Anyone is entitled to disagree with the brilliant 19th century physicist, Loschmidt if you so choose, but you can’t prove him wrong, whereas I have proved him correct. And no, the WUWT article which ran a wire up the outside of a cylinder did not rebut it because the wire also develops a temperature gradient which prevents perpetual energy circulation.
I’m not talking about convection or pressure or solid surfaces absorbing solar radiation. I am asking anyone to explain why the base of the Uranus troposphere (altitude -300Km) is 320K according to Wikipedia (Uranus / Troposphere) as there is no surface there, no incident solar radiation, no internal energy generation and no reason for any net upward convection.
” Uranus’s heat flux is only 0.042 ± 0.047 W/m2″
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus
Furthermore, there is very close to perfect energy balance at TOA according to measurements from Voyager 2, so any internally generated thermal energy, which some seem to think is responsible for maintaining the 5,000K temperature in the small solid core (thousands of Km below the troposphere) would be far less than 0.042W/m^2. That’s a tall ask for so little energy. And it’s got to keep all that atmosphere hot too, or so they seem to think.
Now consider Venus. Its surface cools by about 5 degrees during its 4-month-long night. So its internal energy is not succeeding in keeping its surface at around 730K. But for the Sun’s energy, it could easily have cooled right down in a few centuries. (So too could Uranus.) But the Sun’s energy raises the temperature of the Venus surface by 5 degrees spread over the course of the next 4-month-long Venus day. But it cannot do that by direct radiation which is less than 20W/m^2.
For the back radiation enthusiasts, such back radiation coming from that initial new solar energy would also be less than 20W/m^2. But you would need over 16,000W/m^2 of direct radiation to actually raise the temperature. That’s about five times the Solar energy that even reaches TOA, so obviously the energy cannot be amplified within the Venus atmosphere.
The required energy does not come from radiation at all. Nor does pressure create energy and we have no reason to believe the pressure changes much at the surface anyway. For any increase there would be a cancelling decrease, and thus no net change in temperature due to pressure changes.
So can anyone else explain Venus and Uranus temperatures?
In a word: Gravity. There is a large mass of gas between the radiative level that controls the top temperature and the surface. It gets warmer as you go deeper in any gas. It is an effect of compression. You need to talk to more actual physicists, I think.
Jim D.,
Arguing with dragons is bound to amount to the same result as arguing with unicorns.
R. Gates, yes, I realize this (possibly Huffman), but I think this one is close to rediscovering that the atmospheric lapse rate is controlled by gravity.
The warmists are the real sky dragons. So gravity (pressure) has an effect after all? What about “Venus very likely underwent a runaway or ‘moist’ greenhouse phase earlier in its history, and today is kept hot by a dense CO2 atmosphere.” This is from SkS.
The consensus AGW is all over the place and not even wrong. That’s worse than wrong.
Edim, obviously pressure has an effect on temperature, and pressure is affected by gravity. GHGs affect the effective radiating level temperature, and gravity/pressure determines what happens between there and the surface.
Pingback: The Southern Oscillation Index Model | context/Earth
“Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.”
Bravo Mr. Lindzen!
Although Edim neglected to say so, this is a major component of Lindzen’s argument for why “denier” is preferable to “skeptic”.
I have nothing to do with the Dragons, but I make it very clear in my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” that pressure has nothing to do with it. High pressure does not support high temperatures. You need a better understanding of kinetic theory and thermodynamics. Temperatures have to be supported by energy input that balances the inevitable energy losses. The question is, how does the necessary energy input get into the surface of Venus in order to actually raise its temperature by 5 degrees over the duration of it 4-month-long day?
Andrew Ingersoll pointed out that that energy does not come from direct solar radiation or atmospheric circulation. But he couldn’t work out (as I have) how it does in fact get into the Venus surface.
The surface of Venus is 460C for the same reason the earth is 460C at a depth of 20 kilometers into the lithosphere. A 90 bar troposphere of pure CO2 does the same thing on Venus that 20 kilometers of rock does on the earth.
P.S.
Cranks publish their theories in books. Real scientists do it in journals. Visiting physicist my ass. Visiting crank. Go away.
SpringyBoy,
He is one of your ilk … one of your fellow members of Team Denier.
The objective is FUD and you all display great teamwork in raising this particular substance.
@WHUT…
Nah, he’s just like you: a blind man in a room with an elephant. His notion is based on taking one little piece of the physics, and assuming it causes everything. And like you, he doesn’t have any idea how the geostrophic “force” works.
IMO he’s just trying to plug his book.
AK,
You’re another one of those Team Denier members, not understanding how the polytropic process works.
Edim (@ 3:45am) is not correct. The surface of Venus cools by 5 degrees in a mere 4 months during its night time, so it could easily have cooled right down in a few centuries. Then it warms again by 5 degrees during its 4-month day time, obviously using energy from the Sun. However, less than 20W/m^2 of direct solar radiation reaches its surface, and that is clearly not what is raising it above 730K.
I’m not sure what you mean. I think pressure has an effect on the surface temperature.
What happens to the solar energy that is incoming at the TOA that does not reach the surface?
Hint: It heats the atmosphere.
No Bob. Most of the solar energy at TOA what doesn’t reach the surface is reflected without heating jack diddly squat. About 35% of TSI in fact is reflected.
I’m sorry to have to keep harping on the Trenberth cartoon but you boys need to learn the team’s story before trying to defend it, eh?
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-6.htm
Note that of 341W/m2 incoming at TOA that 107W/m2 is reflected vs. 67W/m2 absorbed atmosphere.
Please please please get a clue.
Of course the dry adiabat is controlled by gravity. And a non-convecting atmosphere is isothermal. The key is understanding that gravitational potential energy is part and parcel of thermal energy. Raise a pound of air above the surface and its temperature declines in direct proportion to the increase in gravitational potential energy. It takes energy to lift that pound of air and the air retains the energy so long as it remains lifted.
@DS: Raise a pound of air above the surface and its temperature declines in direct proportion to the increase in gravitational potential energy.
Correct. (Agreeing with DS when he’s right instead of disagreeing with him when he’s wrong saves an order of magnitude in time.)
Furthermore as can be seen from the Wikipedia article on lapse rate, the constant of proportionality is 1/c_p, the reciprocal of the specific heat of the atmosphere at constant pressure. This is true for any atmosphere. (Different atmospheres may have different c_p’s.)
Global warming: Australian scientists say strong winds in Pacific behind pause in rising temperatures
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/scientists-find-explanation-for-global-warming-pause/5248456
It amazes me how people assume they know what “normal” should be. The authors assume that once the trade winds return to “normal” warming will resume, but a colder stratosphere means that the trade winds will shift with the Hadley and Ferrel cells that will adjust to the change in geometry.
I think Climate Science needs more people that are less certain.
And I think blog science needs people who are less certain. La Nina dominance means anomalous winds. What is amazing is how hot it gets when the winds relax. It’s like the mercury is spring loaded.
Check out my latest for modeling the Southern Oscillation Index
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/10/the-southern-oscillation-index-model/
The SOIM is spoice.
WHT: A 40 year periodicity in the PDO? I don’t think so.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/PDOLowpass_zpsa9b3df25.png
JCH, “And I think blog science needs people who are less certain. La Nina dominance means anomalous winds. What is amazing is how hot it gets when the winds relax. It’s like the mercury is spring loaded.”
But where is it going to spring back to? Ferrel theorized that there could be a single convection cell per hemisphere regime, equator to pole. That is likely not a sustainable regime and it doesn’t have to be symmetrical to both hemisphere, i.e. the weird NH polar vortex. If you look at the paleo data, rough as it is, there have likely been 100 plus year ENSO/SOI regimes/pseudo-oscillations. So the blog science skeptics aren’t “Certain” that things will change, they are just “Certain” that people that are certain are full of it.
It seems like our taxpayer funded consensus climate scientists are spending about half their time denying that there is a pause and the other half thinking up excuses for the pause. The pause is killing the cause.
FYI and re comments previously about open source science:
http://gelookahead.economist.com/slideshow/rise-of-the-citizen-scientist/
Reply to Curious George: U-235 fission is one example of neutron repulsion.
2. Powered by neutron repulsion, the source of energy that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
If you doubt the validity of the above conclusion, ask any member of the UN’s IPCC, the UK’s Royal Society, the US or any other National Academy of Sciences, or the Swedish or Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee to publicly address three figures of precise experimental data (Figures 1-3, pages 19-27, my autobiography) that falsify standard post-1945 models of stars and nuclei.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Chapter_2.pdf
U238 has three more neutrons than U235, yet it is not fissile easily. With all due respect, the neutron repulsion does not seem to work in a very straightforward fashion.
Judith Curry,
we have to find such a solution which is not mired by any that kind of uncertainty as caused by climate sensitivity based on the hypotetic model simulations.
An advise for the key question can be found in a quote from the link http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/02/what-scientific-ideas-are-ready-for-retirement ; excerpt: ”Fiery Cushman —’ Newton is famous not for showing that apples fall, but for explaining why. So, if the implicit theory is wrong, then a lot of people are barking up the wrong trees.’”
The IPCC ‘implicit theory’, according to which human CO2 emissions dominate the global warming, can be regarded as wrong and ready to be given up, because any recent CO2 increase in atmosphere has not been proved to dominate the global warming, and because human emissions to atmosphere have not even been proved to dominate any increases of CO2 content in atmosphere; look e.g. at my comment http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/29/the-big-question/#comment-447001 .
In order to make this easier to be understood even by politicians – at least by openminded ones – I regard as necessary to explain all the mechanism related to the minimal, even indistinguishable share of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on the recent global warming:
FIRSTLY LET US PROVE THAT ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 EMISSIONS DO NOT DOMINATE ANY INCREASE OF GLOBAL CO2 CONTENT IN ATMOSPHERE. According to natural laws, the CO2 content in atmosphere is controlled together by all CO2 emissions from CO2 sources to atmosphere and all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to CO2 sinks. All CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks together determine how much CO2 from all CO2 emissions together stays in atmosphere. As nowadays the anthropogenic CO2 emissions to atmosphere are about 9 Gt per year and total CO2 emissions to atmsphere are about 220 Gt per year the anthropogenic share of any increase of global CO2 content in atmosphere, and the anthropogenic share of total CO2 content in atmosphere are both only about 4 % at most. This agrees with what even Segalstad and Salby have expessed: Tom V Segalstad ; http://www.co2web.info/Segalstad_CO2-Science_090805.pdf : ”The rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 in the last century is not consistent with supply from anthropogenic sources. Such anthropogenic sources account for less than 5% of the present atmosphere, compared to the major input/output from natural sources (~95%)”; Tom V Segalstad; http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm : ”Carbon isotopic trends agree qualitatively with fossil fuel CO2 emissions like stated by IPCC, but show quantitatively a fossil fuel CO2 component of maximum 4 % versus the 21% claimed by IPCC”; and e.g. my comment on Salby’s claim; link http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 .
SECONDLY LET US PROVE FURTHER THAT EVEN THE IMPACT OF MERE INCREASE OF ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 EMISSIONS ON THE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONTENT WOULD BE MUCH MORE MINIMAL THAN THE IMPACT OF THE REAL INCREASE OF ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 CONTENT IN ATMOSPHERE. You need to understand the reason for that. Let us state at first that there would be a dynamical balance if any one of CO2 sinks and sources do not change, and even the atmospheric CO2 content would have reached a balance with them. If we then cause the recent, record-breaking increase of 6% a year concerning only anthropogenic CO2 emissions, it makes the CO2 emissions increase about 0.5 Gt a year. We see that it would explain only 0.25 ppm of recent, annual increase the atmospheric CO2 content of about 2 ppm, even if all the amount of the increase would stay in atmosphere. In reality the annual increase of man-made CO2 emissions of 0.5 Gt make all potential CO2 sinks and sources be sychronized to get a new dynamic balance: the most is absorpted by sea surface sinks and biosphere, and even sea surface sources lessen CO2 emission from them. That makes this additional CO2 emission of 0.5 Gt a year hehave like the total annual CO2 emissions, that is to say, as from 220 Gt a year there stays only 2 % in atmosphere i.e. about 2 ppm, from the annual anthropogenic increase of 0.5 G there stays 2 % in atmosphere, too, i.e. only 0.005 ppm.
THIRDLY LET US PROVE THAT THE RECENT TRENDS OF CO2 CONTENT IN ATMOSPHERE ARE CONTROLLED BY TRENDS OF SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ON AREAS WHERE SEA SURFACE SINKS OF CO2 ARE.; link http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 : ”When interpreting Tisdale’s claim on Global SST anomalies and on NINO3,4 SST anomalies during 1976-2009 you can find that during the same time periode there has been no essential rising or sinking trend on the tropical sea surface temperatures. Instead, the global mean sea surface temperature has had a continuous trend of warming. What is the meaning of this? It means that the global sea surface temperatures used by Endersbee in his calculations have been controlled by warming of the sea surface waters outside the tropical sea surface i.e. mainly the warming of the sea surface waters of higher latitudes where the sea surface CO2 sinks are. As a consequence, the partial pressure of CO2 has been rising in these as sinks acting surface waters, which has been making CO2 absorption from the atmosphere to the sea surface sinks become slower. Because of that, the CO2 content in the atmosphere has been increasing. It means that more CO2 from the total CO2 emissions to the atmosphere has remained in the atmosphere to increase its CO2 content, in order to reach a new dynamic balance between CO2 emissions and absorptions. As the warming of oceans is the dominating reason for the increased content of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and as nowadays the human yearly portion ( about 8 GtC CO2) of the all yearly CO2 emissions ( little over 200 GtC CO2) to the atmosphere is about 4 %, the human role on the recent yearly increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is also about 4 %. For instance when CO2 content in the atmosphere increases 2 ppm per year, the human portion of that is only about 0.08 ppm.”
Every one of those three points (‘firstly’, ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’) is able alone to prove that the anthropogenic CO2 emissions during the industrilized period have not dominated the recent global warming. Actually the influence of them on the global warming has been so minimal that it can not be distinguished in reality.
I’m with Capt Dallas. I think its foolish to believe we know what the normal temp, sea level, ice extent or other “climate measure” is when we we do not have long term accurate records. Is anyone surprised that in 163 years since the end of a little ice age that the planet has warmed 1C? We can solve this issue by sending all the researchers home for the next 60 years and just recording data. Somewhere around 2075 we may have enough to know something. Between now and then, the net result will be a lot of money saved that is currently being spent on hysterical chicken little models and forecasts and employing people in some occupation that create something more productive.
If you think my comment is shallow tell me why the period used to compare anomaly temperature against is the right one. Why not pick any other time period of a representation of what is normal? Simply put, there is no normal. Climate changes get over it.
“If you think my comment is shallow tell me why the period used to compare anomaly temperature against is the right one. ”
1. There are several periods that people select and the rational is primarily data driven. Let’s take satellite records: until there was 30 years built up the period selected was just the complete years from the first complete year of the record. For GISS it was 1951-1980. This has to do with the number of records available during that period. At the time it was selected that peroid gave you the max. For CRU its 1961-1990. They use a little different approach if you separate the hemispheres and look for the period where both the NH and SH are well represented you pick 1961-1990.
For climate models folks use different baselines.
2. There is no “right” one, and the selection of period really doesnt matter.
Once you select a period you calculate a scaler and the scaler does nothing to trends.
3. You misunderstand the meaning of the term “normal” . Normal means
“normal for the base period” it doesnt mean normal for the system.
This is a technical term and you are reading it as if it had its ordinary meaning. Put another way when somebody like me says ” a 1C departure from the 1950-1981 normal” that is a short hand description of the math.
A) calculate the average (“normal”) for the base period.
B) subtract the average from the actual and you get a “departure” from
“normal”
semantics is not your forte.
Steven Mosher, “semantics is not your forte.”
Perhaps not yours either. Determining the proper baseline period of any data set is one thing, determining what is “normal” for climate another. Since william is referring to possible recovery from the period formerly known as the little ice age, he is suggesting that an increase in any of the surface temperature data set could be “normal” or expected. You might call that the long term persistence unicorn.
Since the end and for that matter the beginning of the LIA is pretty much a matter of science by decree, the amount of “abnormal” warming depends on whether whoever selected the baseline for their data set considers that to be the climatic “normal” which everything declared “unprecedented” is to be related to.
Somehow or another during this grab ass baseline selection process, the baseline mean has been determined to be the norm. In AR5 since the models were not cooperating, 1961-1990 makes a better looking “normal” since it captures more of that 70s and 80s slightly colder period. It was only about 0.08C, but model beggars can be choosers.
Given the shift to that “unprecedented” OHC increase because of the limited number of polar stations to pad the global mean, some have neglected to notice that the rate of OHC increase is perfectly consistent with deep ocean recovery from the LIA. If you consider the land amplification of the “surface” station data and what is likely a pretty good paleo ocean reference location, the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, you can get a pretty fair indication that the LIA was real and “global”.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/12/2000-years-of-climate.html
One “normal” for the surface stations, the OHC, mean sea level and paleo all get together, you might be on to something.
It’s true — it’s ‘official now — we all living in the Age of the Hoax. It doesn’t say much for us Westerners. Spencer’s site is now giving license to spread fears of…
CANDIDA OVERGROWTH.
The Left and the right finally have figured out a way to come together and it’s running a sting on a sleepy and ignorant population for fun and profit.
CALIFORNIA’S CLIMATE PROBLEMS
An op-ed in today’s nytimes.com bemoans the drought and unseasonably warm weather in California’s Central Valley. Excerpts from the piece follow:
“A high-pressure system parked off the Alaskan coast had produced not just our high temperatures but also soaring levels of fine particulate matter in the air and more than 50 rainless days, worsening a three-year drought, the most severe in half a millennium.”
“Some farms in the western Valley — crippled by cuts in water allocations, salt buildup in the soil and depleted aquifers — now resemble the dust bowl that drove so many Tom Joads here in the 1930s.”
“The current crisis raises the obvious question: How long can we continue to grow a third of the nation’s fruit and vegetables?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/opinion/the-dust-bowl-returns.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0
For a report on record high temperatures in California, see:
http://www.wunderground.com/news/california-records-highs-fire-danger-drought-20140113
California should grow an endangered delta smelt fish, not fruits or vegetables.
Seriously, these are hard decisions to make. Like many others.
Do you BELIEVE that the weather would have been wetter if only humans had emitted less CO2? Of course if humans had not emitted CO2 there would also have been fewer of those pesky farms also
Max_OK
Reckon all them Okies whut went out there frum the Dust Bowl to California will hafta head back.
Max_CH
Max_OK
From your blurb on CA:
Sho’nuff.
That’s what experts always do, Okie.
Otherwise, nobody listens to them (and pays them).
Max_CH
Rob, good question. I don’t know the answer.
Do you know if CO2 has moderated the California drought’s effect on the crops?
CO2 is supposed to be plant food, but the plants may be too stressed to be hungry.
Delta smelt, salmon and sturgeon populations have gone down by 90% since we started monitoring them and the water shipments to the desert in the central valley of California continue. Fruits, nuts and vegatables are ok to grow but cotton? Cost per acre feet to farmers is rougly 10% of cost to residential users. We can’t water trade because on pre existing water rights of first property owners, first deed to water flowing past. It usd to be $4. per acre foot to farmers and $44/acre foor to residential users and even higher retail prices up north. Farmers don’t pay the cost of electricity to ship the water south and kill the fish. Droughts are natural. If you look at fallen leave lake it shows tall tree stumps 3 feet in diameter in areas now covered by water from the 165 years of extra wet periods. I will search for an article I recall and post a link later.
Scott
Max_CH quips “Reckon all them Okies whut went out there frum the Dust Bowl to California will hafta head back.”
_____
They would have to be exhumed first.
_____________________________________________
Referring to experts offering dire warnings, Max_CH says “That’s what experts always do, Okie.Otherwise, nobody listens to them (and pays them).”
_____
We don’t pay experts to be Pollyannas. However, experts do offer good news as well as bad news.
The interesting article about natural drought in the lake tahoe basin at Fallen Leaf Lake
Duration and severity of medieval drought in the Lake Tahoe Basin, by JA Kleppe, DS Brothers etc
published online 16 Sep 2011 in Quaternary Science Reviews.
quote ” Droughts in the western US in the past 200 years are small compared to several megadroughts that occurred during Medieval times”
Scott
“Do you BELIEVE that the weather would have been wetter if only humans had emitted less CO2?”
In the global mean, precipitation is modeled to increase with increasing temperature – with good reason – water vapor capacity of the atmosphere should increase.
What again are the reasons to expect a decrease in precipitation?
Eunice,
The usual response is that shifting wind patterns will change regional weather, including precipitation. And rest assured the changes are always described as bringing drought & flooding.
I think this is the article link about megadroughts in California.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.08.015
Scott
This video tells a sad story about the California drought’s effect on livestock that depend on grass. All of the ranchers horses are starving because the draught has left them with no grass to eat. Rather than sell his horses to be slaughtered, he’s giving them away to whoever can afford to buy feed.
Max,
Way to tug at our heart strings.
Another good example of fluid dynamics determining thermodynamics.
Second reply to Curious George.
Neutron repulsion is both subtle and unexpected, but it is the source of energy that powers the cosmos from cores of
1. Heavy atoms like Uranium
2. Some planets like Jupiter
3. Ordinary stars like the Sun
4. Galaxies like the Milky Way
the “power beyond the dreams of scientific fiction” that Lord Francis William Aston discovered by carefully measuring the exact mass of every atom.
That data is plotted in Figure 1 of my autobiography so you can see neutron repulsion in every one of the 3,000 known atoms except three: H-1, H-2 and He-3.
Study the data and you too will realize Aston’s promise to humans on 12 Dec 1922.
From “How to convince your friends . . .”
You’re not a scientist, and evidence doesn’t persuade people who reject climate change.
Go to sleep. You cannot think about it. Trust us. Believe, little sheep.
Meanwhile, I suspect many folks like myself would be convinced if only models were tracking observations, Al Gore and those like him who sensationalize random weather events were put out to pasture, the paleo reconstructions gave s sense of solid statistical approach such that one could trust that temperatures in the last 10K years were in fact cooler, inconvenient studies such as the one indicating the Atlantic and Pacific were .65 degrees “C” warmer than today didn’t show up, and if the solutions hammered home such as super expensive solar and wind weren’t pushed so hard.
‘Variations in solar UV influence temperatures in the upper stratosphere such that the polar vortex winds strengthen in response to enhanced solar activity 43 and thus provide another route whereby the direct influence of solar radiation higher in the atmosphere may influence the climate below, having an impact on the jet stream winds and establishing weather patterns identified with the positive phase of the NAO and SAM.’
https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/climatechange/Public/pdfs/Briefing%20Papers/Solar%20Influences%20on%20Climate.pdf
‘The changing position of the westerly wind belt influences the strength and position of cold fronts and mid-latitude storm systems, and is an important driver of rainfall variability in southern Australia.
In a positive SAM event, the belt of strong westerly winds contracts towards Antarctica. This results in weaker than normal westerly winds and higher pressures over southern Australia, restricting the penetration of cold fronts inland.
Conversely, a negative SAM event reflects an expansion of the belt of strong westerly winds towards the equator. This shift in the westerly winds results in more (or stronger) storms and low pressure systems over southern Australia. During autumn and winter, a positive SAM value can mean cold fronts and storms are farther south, and hence southern Australia generally misses out on rainfall. However, in spring and summer, a strong positive SAM can mean that southern Australia is influenced by the northern half of high pressure systems, and hence there are more easterly winds bringing moist air from the Tasman Sea. This increased moisture can turn to rain as the winds hit the coast and the Great Dividing Range.
In recent years, a high positive SAM has dominated during autumn–winter, and has been a significant contributor to the ‘big dry’ observed in southern Australia from 1997 to 2010.’
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/history/ln-2010-12/SAM-what.shtml
‘Solar irradiance variations are related to those in the solar toroidal magnetic fields. The fraction of the solar irradiance that reaches the Earth’s ground level and low troposphere is emitted by the solar photosphere. That fraction does not significantly vary since the quiet photosphere does not significantly vary during the cycle. The variable part of the solar radiation flux is mainly emitted by the chromospheric parts of the CAs. That radiation component does not reach the Earth’s troposphere since it is absorbed in the higher, stratospheric terrestrial layers. Tropospheric solar-driven variations should therefore be due to stratosphere–troposphere coupling.’
http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/reviewsolarforc-ssr.pdf
SAM and ENSO are causally related through South Pacific Gyre. More or less cold Southern Ocean water pushed into the Peruvian Current as the polar westerlies vary. Decreased solar activity in UV drives SAM negative and pushes more cold water northwards. This sets up a series of cloud, wind, and current feedbacks across the Pacific – starting with cold water upwelling in the eastern Pacific and culminating in a sea level pressure decrease at Darwin, Australia. The changes influence tropospheric temperature, biology and hydrology across the planet.
Solar UV activity provides the critical mechanism for understanding ENSO variability – at decadal to millennial scales. It suggests that prediction at the centennial scale is advanced with the lower solar activity over centuries amplified in this way through the climate system. Lower activity leads to a negative SAM and intensified La Nina. Lower activity over centuries to come – from the current solar ‘Grand Maxima’ – seems pretty likely. We have certainly not seen in the past century anywhere near the ENSO extremes seen over the Holocene.
testing
The WP article was a hoot. Because “climate change research” itself gives such little warrant for belief in AGW, now the True Believers engage in “climate change ***communications*** reseach”. Ie. they are reduced to researching propaganda techniques in order to convince people of what the actual data does not. The lack of self awareness and self criticism makes their descent into self-parody all the more hilarious.
testing
David Springer, I’ll make two comments in response to this. If I’m correct, you should be able to use the WordPress dashboard to respond to the first and have it appear between the two.
Let’s see if it works. Timestamp of the comment above is 9:30; timestamp of this one should be 9:31 or 9:32.
Figured it out. Neither admin nor dashboard required.
Are you sure?
No it’s using the dashboard but the subscriber dashboard which has like nothing in it compared to higher levels. It’s been years since I used it. Looks a lot like twitter bootstrap but didn’t look for their css getting loaded. I’ve done a couple or three game projects with bootstrap responsive, socket.io, canvas, and some other interesting libs.
Ah, so it’s basically the same thing.
Also, it amuses me we’re now having a nested conversations. WordPress settings can’t keep us down!
You are very easy to amuse. :-)
Ah sorry. To use the dashboard requires an invitation from the blog owner. So I can’t try it after all.
I just proved my claim. You’ll note my comment above is out of order. I was able to do that because the comment it responded to was made via a Reply feature specifically targeting my comment (which David Springer was able to do via the Dashboard since the comment he responded to was made via the regular Reply button targeting his comment at the top of the fork).
He and I could now add an unlimited number of comments in the same location, all of which would appear above Springer’s comment here and additional comments people might make.
So it does work like I said.
David Springer, you should get notifications whenever someone Replies to one of your comments. When you do, click the Reply button displayed with the comment. Type in your message there, and whatever you post should break chronological order. That’s how I did it.
I figured it out already. Used the subscribe dialog in right meta data panel and get email notification of comments. I press reply in email and it launches a browser pointed at
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/08/week-in-review-9/?replytocom=453035#respond
subscriber-level dashboard and me logged in. Far as I know it only requires a wordpress subscription and then use the automated subscription service Curry enabled in right meta panel.
Interesting. I guess there are other ways to access the same feature, all tied to the same WordPress bug – WordPress doesn’t display the Reply feature when the maximum nesting level is reached, but that feature still exists and can be accessed.
I can always get the second comment in any thread! Unless you do it first. I hope no one else is reading this.
Come to think of it, it should be possible to access the hidden Reply feature just by modifying the URL of the page you request from WordPress.
Yup, you can. I tested it here just by typing the right string into the URL. That means all you need is to know in order to break chronological order is what to modify a URL string to.
So I guess that means my earlier description is inaccurate. The only way to inadvertently break chronological order is to use WordPress’s Reply feature via notifications/subscriptions in the like. However, anyone can intentionally do it if they want to.
That’s a strange thought. No wonder I hadn’t considered it before.
I live to discover things like that. You are easy to amuse and I have no life. LOL
We need to include Joshua in our memoirs now. Personally I’m thinking of an appendix “Blind Squirrels” but that’s just me I’m such a labeler.
I’ve been doing it for weeks, and provided step-by-step instructions a few days ago.
AK it was 12 days ago you left the instructions and I didn’t see them because you put them out of order a day after the fact between two comments I’d already read (see below). I stumbled upon it after using the auto subscription service and noting that comments delivered to email address still had reply button even though already at deepest nesting. I posted the URL that the button launched to Brandon and Brandon said hey I bet you can just modify a URL and that’s all it takes. So I tried it and that was all it takes. Then I had a bit of fun with it. *shrugs*
I just got an interesting update from CARB- I wasn’t aware of the new scientific consensus-
……“The 2013 update incorporates the latest scientific consensus which indicates the need for accelerated emissions reductions in the coming decades to achieve climate stabilization. This update calls for a midterm statewide greenhouse gas reduction target, and specific reduction targets for each of the key sectors to guide California’s path toward an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
The 2013 Scoping Plan update includes input from a range of key state agencies. It is also the result of extensive public and stakeholder processes designed to ensure that California’s greenhouse gas and pollution reduction efforts continue to improve public health and drive development of a more sustainable economy.”
To view the 2013 Scoping Plan update, click here:”
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/2013_update/draft_proposed_first_update.pdf
Jim D and Curious George
I noticed your comments above indicating that you subscribe to the “belief system” that promulgates the idea that the internal boundary between Earth’s surface and its atmosphere acts like a true grey body, when in fact black and grey bodies are defined in physics as bodies which do not gain or lose thermal energy by any other means than radiation.
I will accept that the whole Earth + atmosphere system acts like a true grey body, and likewise the Moon. But the Sun cannot raise the mean temperature of Earth’s surface to anything like 287 or 288K with direct radiation striking the surface. And the only thing that back radiation can do is slow that portion of the surface cooling which is itself due to radiation. It has no effect upon the rates of cooling by conduction (molecular collisions at the boundary) or evaporative cooling, and these processes can accelerate to compensate for any slower radiative cooling.
I’m sorry to have to tell you that any postulated process whereby one way radiation from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface could actually raise the temperature of the surface beyond what the Sun can do would violate the laws of physics. Radiation doesn’t work that way. The electro-magnetic energy in radiation from a cooler source is immediately re-emitted by a warmer target due to a resonance process as this paper explains. None of this EM energy goes through the complicated process of being converted to thermal energy.
Now, if you still don’t believe me, then show me your calculations that predict the correct 320K temperature for the base of the Uranus troposphere (at altitude -300K) where there is no surface and no significant direct solar radiation or internal energy generation. You could also try Venus, where the 730K surface is warmed by 5 degrees during its 4-month long day, but less than 20W/m^2 of direct Solar radiation reaches its surface. How does the required energy get into the Venus surface to make it hotter still? Once again, back radiation cannot do this.
Planetary atmospheric and surface temperatures cannot in general be calculated using SBL and radiative flux, because there are non radiative processes that also play a major part through the “heat creep” process which is explained in detail in my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” available form Amazon et al sometime in March.
Visiting Physicist | February 11, 2014 at 2:54 am | Reply
“But the Sun cannot raise the mean temperature of Earth’s surface to anything like 287 or 288K with direct radiation striking the surface.”
A black or grey body is a uniformly lit plane. The earth is a rotating sphere lit by point source. The sun can and does heat vast expanses of the surface well above 288K.
The average temperature of the global ocean basin is almost precisely 4C which also happens to be the temperature of a blackbody with radiant emittance of 241W/m2 which also happens to be the mean solar power illuminating the earth at top of atmosphere.
That’s all well and good except for the fact that the earth is a grey body with albedo of 0.30 but the ocean temperature is higher than it should be. I submit the ocean is the actual greenhouse and that sunlight penetrating to depth at the speed of light warming the water while cooling must be accomplished by mechanical transport of the warmed water to the surface is the mechanism. The atmosphere in this situation does little more than provide enough pressure at sea level for a liquid ocean to be possible.
Visiting Physicist | February 11, 2014 at 2:54 am | Reply
“It has no effect upon the rates of cooling by conduction (molecular collisions at the boundary) or evaporative cooling, and these processes can accelerate to compensate for any slower radiative cooling.”
They can accelerate but that doesn’t mean they do. Conduction can’t increase until the surface temperature rises as it is constrained by the difference in temperature between the surfaces in contact. There is very little conduction over the ocean due to the air and water at the interface being almost the same temperature at all times. Evaporation is constrained by relative humidity but I agree it is able to accelerate nearly all the time over the ocean but not so much over land.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that any postulated process whereby one way radiation from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface could actually raise the temperature of the surface beyond what the Sun can do would violate the laws of physics.”
Granted but the average power reaching the ocean at the equator is 500W/m2 which is sufficient to heat the ocean surface there to over 300K and indeed we find the average tropical ocean surface temperature to be 303K. You’re going way off the reservation trying to treat the earth as a uniformly illuminated plane. This is why climate models use gridded cells, duh.
I might also mention that the earth’s global ocean is more or less isothermal at the bottom pole to equator 24/7 365 days a year just like Venus’ 90 bar troposphere. That’s not a coincidence IMO.
Drop the Uranus crap. It’s troposphere temperature is a guesstimate. It was never measured and cannot be directly observed except by dropping a probe into it and that has never been done.
“How does the required energy get into the Venus surface to make it hotter still?”
Well at least that’s a measured temperature unlike Uranus. The Venusian surface is effectively isothermal. Wind is almost non-existant at the surface as the 90 bar of CO2 in the troposphere is more like a liquid than a gas so that can’t explain how it became isothermal from equator to pole and stays that way through the 122 earth-days night cycle.
The earth at a depth of 20 kilometers into the lithosphere is the same temperature as the surface of Venus. The 90 bar CO2 troposphere on Venus does the same thing that 20 kilometers of rock does in the earth’s lithosphere. The geothermal gradient from Venus’ molten core is simply extended into the troposphere because, unlike the earth’s troposphere, Venus’ is as impenetrable by thermal radiation as rock and as thermally non-tranmissive as rock. I’d say it’s not exactly rocket science but in fact it was a Russian rocket and probe that first found that the Venusian surface was isothermal. So it kind of is rocket science.
Now go away, crank, and plug your stupid crank book elsewhere.
Observation Switch to energy-balance measures and you will be convinced.
Like plenty of other thoughtful, foresighted, rational folks!
That’s ordinary thermodynamical rationality, eh edbarbar?
Energy balance?
Up is warming – down is cooling by convention.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_Net_zps9f7faaaa.png.html?sort=3&o=8
For you people who believe government regulation is the cure for every ill, consider how business are dumping New York due to the excessive regulation there. So, in an effort to squeeze every drop of money out of business, the regulations are having the opposite effect. There are plenty of states that will welcome high dollar businesses, and that have a much better regulatory environment.
From the article:
The Big Apple’s fabled Wall Street district steadily is becoming more of a tourist hub than a financial hub.
New York’s share of jobs in the securities industry dipped below 20 percent earlier this year to an all-time low, according to government statistics.
Moreover, jobs lost after the financial crisis are being replaced in the city at less than half the rate of the rest of the country. Two decades ago, New York had 30 percent of all such jobs.
The securities industry has recovered 54 percent of the jobs lost nationwide after the 2008 financial crisis, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But Wall Street has recouped only 23 percent. The workforce has been hollowed out — 167,000 employed at securities firms, down from 191,000 in 2008.
“The numbers say there are a lot of Wall Street jobs that don’t need to be in New York,” Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist who tracks the local business scene, told Crain’s New York Business. “That has all sorts of implications for the city’s tax revenues.”
http://nypost.com/2013/12/08/job-stream-from-wall-street-turning-into-a-florida-flood/
David Springer
You say: “Conduction can’t increase until the surface temperature rises” which is not correct because the rate transfer of thermal energy by conduction increases as the temperature gap widens. In general the thin boundary layer of air at the base of the troposphere will cool faster than the surface itself in the early hours of the evening. So if back radiation slows radiative cooling of the surface more than it slows the cooling of that air, then that gap widens and the rate of conduction increases.
The Venus surface in fact cools by about 5 degrees over the course of its 4-month-long night, and is warmed by energy that came from the Sun over the course of its 4-month-long day. That energy from the Sun is nearly all energy that was first absorbed in the atmosphere. So it is already thermal energy, and radiation from the colder atmosphere cannot transfer that thermal energy into the far hotter (730K) surface. Pressure does not maintain high temperatures: temperature is the independent variable in this case and it requires a net energy supply when it is rising. .So how does the necessary energy actually get into the surface? That is what I have explained and no one else has.
(It’s 12:30am here so don’t expect a response for a few hours.)
With an as yet undetermined appendage
Visiting Physicist | February 11, 2014 at 8:29 am | Reply
fails to fully quote me. I wrote:
And he leaves off part then pretends to tell me it’s the gap whereas “constrained by difference in temperature between the surfaces in contact” must mean something different.
Visiting (No PhD) Physicist: You say: “Conduction can’t increase until the surface temperature rises” which is not correct because the rate transfer of thermal energy by conduction increases as the temperature gap widens.
He goes on to say:
“The Venus surface in fact cools by about 5 degrees over the course of its 4-month-long night”
I’d like to know how that was measured. The record for how long a Venusian surface probe survived is one hour. I question whether that’s a reliable fact or some kind of guess.
Source for diurnal surface temp change on Venus please?
Testing a WordPress issue.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
According to NASA Venus diurnal temperature change is approximately zero.
Venus Atmosphere
Surface pressure: 92 bars
Surface density: ~65. kg/m3
Scale height: 15.9 km
Total mass of atmosphere: ~4.8 x 1020 kg
Average temperature: 737 K (464 C)
Diurnal temperature range: ~0
Wind speeds: 0.3 to 1.0 m/s (surface)
Mean molecular weight: 43.45 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (near surface, by volume):
Major: 96.5% Carbon Dioxide (CO2), 3.5% Nitrogen (N2)
Minor (ppm): Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) – 150; Argon (Ar) – 70; Water (H2O) – 20;
Carbon Monoxide (CO) – 17; Helium (He) – 12; Neon (Ne) – 7
So you’re Harry Dale Huffman, right?
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hdhsciences
So you think you’ve falsified plate tectonics too?
Wow.
Somebody here (I can’t remember who) pointed me at the sun last week.
Of course it needs to be adjusted. It’s Climate Science.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/10/historical-and-present-total-solar-irradiance-has-been-tinkered-with-again/#more-103003
Andrew
From the article:
The potential for a golden age of gas comes along with a big “if” regarding environmental and social impact. The International Energy Agency (IEA)—the “global energy authority”–believes that this age of gas can be golden, and that unconventional gas can be produced in an environmentally acceptable way.
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• Nuclear’s contribution to energy security
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• The next big shale venues beyond 2020
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Interview by. James Stafford of Oilprice.com
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http://oilprice.com/Interviews/The-Golden-Age-of-Gas-Possibly-Interview-with-the-IEA.html
jim2, Do Korea and Japan have loads of NG at their disposal?
What about Poland? Don’t forget about Poland.
How is it going for India and Pakistan?
Like climate, energy is global and not provincial. Every time you bring up this subject, the immediate thing that comes to mind is the disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots” when it comes to natural resources. What exactly is your point? That the USA can hobble along on the Bakken crutches for a few more years?
David Springer.
Venus temperature measurements can also be made from Earth. Frankly I forget where I first read about the 5 degrees of cooling, but I suppose it could also be calculated in a manner such as in Section 8 of this paper.
Why wouldn’t it cool? The diurnal variation on Earth is about 10 degrees. Yes, the Venus atmosphere is over 90 times the mass of Earth’s atmosphere, but its night is about 240 times as long. Yes the mean day and night temperatures may well be the same at locations which are in the middle of the 4-month day and night, but the sunlit location has warmed by 2.5 degrees by then and the location that is half way through its night has cooled by 2.5 degrees. I think I once saw in some publication a range of 732K to 737K for the whole planet. It’s close enough for NASA to call it isothermal, but to be strictly isothermal would be impossible.
You need to give references for claims like diurnal temp range on Venusian surface. You know, like an actual scientist does in a paper fit to be published in a peer reviewed journal?
Or maybe you don’t know. ;-)
And a link to sky dragon slayer principia-scientific for a reference.
Isn’t that just precious?
LOL
Ban him, Curry. He’s a dragon slayer sock puppet.
“Why wouldn’t it cool?”
Is that how science works now? If we don’t know something we substitute a guess like it’s a fact?
Visiting Physicist is Doug Cotton.
Even worse. Doug Cotton is lower shelf crank. Huffman is a cut above that.
@VPh: I think I once saw in some publication a range of 732K to 737K for the whole planet.
Assuming the position of the Sun in the sky is at all relevant to Venus’s surface temperature, wouldn’t you expect Venus’s poles to be colder than her equator?
Yes David, well NASA needs to supply references to support their claim that Venus surface temperatures are strictly isothermal at all times. In other words, they are implying that at any point on the Equator, or any line of latitude, that not even, say, 0.1 degree of warming or cooling would be recorded during an 8-month rotation, or a full orbit of the Sun.
I would suggest that all rotating planets with atmospheres experience some temperature difference between night and day. Physics does not support any concept whereby the surface of Venus would not cool to some extent during its 4-month-long night. The atmosphere is not a perfect insulator. And if the temperature falls by x degrees then, in order to give the impression of isothermal temperatures, it would rise by x degrees the next day. It does not matter how small that x is, my point is that it would require an energy input and that must be from the Sun by non-radiative processes, because radiation is not enough.
A score of landers have documented surface conditions on Venus.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=0f651a9775ca2e52b965137529c293d8&act=attach&type=post&id=13007
JC SNIP
What’s the diurnal temperature range of the earth’s lithosphere at 20 kilometers deep where temperature is same as Venus’ surface?
ROFLMAO
Curry deleted you once today for “serial twerking by Springer” or some such potty mouthed limp larikan bluster. Do you have turrets or something? Are you trying for a banning?
Sorry about that. I guess she deleted Skippy twice for same offense and it was in my mailbox but no longer on the blog.
Sorry didn’t notice – should we try to be serious and staid rather than colourful and topical. The drive by snark – practiced relentlessly by springer under my handle has no purpose at all other than as juvenile attempts at cyber bullying.
I guess I am wearied into silence by persistent harassment.
Are you just being childish? Or are you trying to shock casual visitors into noticing that comments aren’t necessarily in sequence? If the latter, you’ve set your self a huge on-going job.
AK –
Looks like inadvertently you gave Springer a new toy to play with.
@Joshua…
Oh no, I’m sure he worked it out on his own. He certainly would have given me credit if he’d noticed my detailed instructions how to do it. Wouldn’t he?
AK –
Of course. The timing is purely coincidental.
Seriously – what is the idea here Judith? What we have is persistent harassment from springer. Content less nonsense springing up everywhere. Such things as potty mouthed limp larrikin bluster. Do you have turrets or something? etc. etc. Following me around like a like an irredeemable but quite pathetic – as they all are – cyber bully.
You have an appalling sense of what is reasonable and what is over the top. If you are trying to redeem this morass that is CE I suggest you start with springer.
JC comment: A number of Springer’s comments have been deleted. I don’t spot everything that is objectionable, but i delete them as i see them (email me if i’ve missed something). As a guideline to commenters, please don’t write comments that nobody wants to read, not even the person that you address the comment to. This includes all personal sniping.
Judith
Sniping?
It’s more like tanks on the lawn at times.
Tonyb
I don’t regard highlighting harassment, sexism, agism, racism etc as personal sniping. I don’t follow springer around – quite the contrary.
My climate predictions date back to 2007 and I noted the pause back then.
Ahead of my time. My brain is an inference engine.
Write that down.
The above was to climate newbie webhubpaulpukitetelescope.
@DS: My climate predictions date back to 2007 and I noted the pause back then
Very good. It is now 7 years later. Do you have a climate prediction for 2021 , 7 years hence?
Yes I have a prediction. Seven more years of pause. Thanks for asking.
No math eh? Just gut feel eh? That’s the way these pseudoscientists roll.
Climatology is mostly about patterns that repeat. Human brain is a pattern recognition engine. Do you need math to know that it’s going to be cold in Minnesota in February?
The Hockey Team’s math isn’t doing so good in case you haven’t noticed. It’s in intensive and the prognosis is poor. The pause is killing it. LOL
@DS: Yes I have a prediction. Seven more years of pause. Thanks for asking.
So noted. TTYL.
Then what? Cooling? Warming? The rapture?
SpringyBoy, Now that I have ENSO figured out, guess that leaves volcanoes and the stadium wave.
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/10/the-southern-oscillation-index-model/
Forget about predicting volcanoes, and the Stadium Wave is gradual enough that we can make do with heuristics.
Never in thousands of hours of studying climatologists’ “explanations” of their conjectures about their greenhouse guesswork (and discussing such in thousands of climate blog comments) have I ever seen any valid physics supporting their claim.
I’m sure you know that they say the troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of greenhouse gases. (Roy Spencer certainly does say this in his posts.)
Now I say that valid physics can be used to prove that an isothermal troposphere would be an impossibility in a gravitational field. But Earth presents a somewhat complicated scenario wherein the surface appears to be heated entirely by radiation from the Sun and then it is assumed that the hot surface sends its energy back into the atmosphere where it somehow “lapses” upwards to cooler regions and thence by radiation to space.
I can demonstrate that this is not the complete picture by considering the Uranus troposphere, because it is simpler with no surface at the base (at altitude -300Km) and no significant input of energy below the methane layer which absorbs nearly all the very weak solar radiation near TOA. So if isothermal conditions are the expected state, then Uranus should surely exhibit such at around a temperature of 60K throughout its troposphere and in the thousands of kilometres below.
The fact that Uranus does not exhibit isothermal conditions, but instead has a thermal gradient very similar to the -g/Cp value, proves that gravity does cause a temperature gradient, as the brilliant physicist Loschmidt proposed in the 19th century, and thus the models are wrong because they are based on a totally wrong paradigm. Greenhouse gases do not raise the surface temperature by 33 degrees. Instead gravity raises it by about 40 or more degrees and then greenhouse gases lower it back by a few degrees. That is the relevance of Uranus, and Venus is similar.
DC
He’s from Uranus. Just arrived here last week.
Do you have a link to how the troposphere temperature of Uranus was obtained? There was a flyby of Uranus in 1973 by Voyager 2 but other than that nada so it isn’t a direct observation. You just made up the data again right?
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter12/Ency_Atmos/Planetary_Atmos_Jupiter_all.pdf
DS – for Uranus info see cited references here.
The wikipedia link to
“Possible Microwave Absorption by H2S Gas in Uranus’ and
Neptune’s Atmospheres”
suggests the atmosphere is convecting which blows your contention that it’s not isothermal due to gravity.
By the way, a non-convecting atmosphere should indeed have a lapse rate and I agree with Loschmidt. The problem with the dragon slayer mythology is that the gravito-thermal effect doesn’t make the bottom of the column warmer than it would be without gravity. It makes the top of the column colder by replacing, in one to one correspondence, gravitational potential energy for sensible kinetic energy. If we take the total of potential + kinetic energy of a pound of air at the surface and a pound of air at TOA they will have equal amounts of thermal energy and thus be isothermal so long as we define “thermal” as the sum of kinetic plus gravitational potential energy. The problem is this doesn’t make the bottom of the column where gravitational energy equals zero any warmer than it would be without gravity. Only when gravitational potential energy is non-zero does gravity cause a lapse rate. When only kinetic energy is measured alone (i.e. mechanical thernometer, thermocouple, IR thermometer) will the be a lapse rate.
The planetary atmosphere course text also states the gas giant atmospheres are convecting.
So Douggie is making up data. Again.
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter12/Ency_Atmos/Planetary_Atmos_Jupiter_all.pdf
“At pressures greater than about 1 bar, the giant
planets’ vertical heat flux is carried by convection.
Infrared radiation escapes directly to space at pressures
of 100 to 300 mbar.”
DS – I don’t have anything to do now with the Slayers and their incorrect notions about the processes that determine planetary surface temperatures. However, you are incorrect, because the temperature profile rotates about a pivoting altitude where the outward radiative flux from below that altitude equals that from above it. (This maintains radiative balance with the Sun as per SBL.) Such altitude I calculate to be at about 4Km or a little less, and this means the gravity gradient raises supported surface temperature by about 40 degrees, then inter-molecular radiation (mostly due to water vapour) reduces it by about a third, so it is something like a 27 degree rise. The supporting temperature is roughly the minimum daily temperature and it slows the rate of surface cooling in the early pre-dawn hours, as is observed. The mean temperature is about 5 degrees warmer because the mean diurnal variation is about 10 degrees.
I was quoting from a plantary physics textbook.
Good luck with your book.
For Max-ok and fan of more discourse, who are always reminding us that it’s somehow important that the young are climate catastrophe believers:
A majority of millennialist think astrology is a science.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Blog/2014/02/11/Majority-of-young-adults-think-astrology-is-a-science/5201392135954/
David Springer. Yes most gas giant atmospheres are contracting and thus converting gravitational potential energy to electromagnetic energy in excess outward radiation.
But that is not the case for Uranus which has a small solid core (about 55% the size of Earth) and is notable for the fact that there is no significant radiative imbalance at TOA, and hence no significant internal energy generation. I’ll leave it to you to find the references – they are there, but I’m busy.
So be the first (after me) to explain the Uranus troposphere temperatures easily found on Wikipedia.
David – all responses to your doubts are already documented in my book, the text and diagrams for which are already finalised as it enters the production phase over the next 10 weeks – longer than I thought I’m afraid.
Convection is not well understood by most physics students, I find. Many like yourself think of just the advection process, but even Wikipedia gets it right …
“Convection is the concerted, collective movement of groups or aggregates of molecules within fluids (e.g., liquids, gases) and rheids, either through advection or through diffusion or as a combination of both of them.”
However, the ground-breaking understanding of “heat creep” involving heat transfer up the temperature profile (in order to restore thermodynamic equilibrium) is something new which you won’t find in textbooks.
Visiting Physicist said @ February 12, 2014 at 11:05 pm
If there is an opportunity here to back out, delay, postpone … that would be wonderful for you. If you can ‘get out of it’, that would give you more room to maneuver, under better control, with better footing.
You might even be able to do some rewriting, or get editorial input, and end up with a book-product that would not have to be self-published. That would be much better, all-round.
tc
The origins of the lapse rate continue to confuse many, and in many different ways. I list here a few results of physics:
In absence of convection the equilibrium state of gas in gravitational field is isothermal. That’s a stable state as long as no input of free energy maintains convection. Stratosphere has many features of such a non-convective atmosphere.
Some dissipation is always involved in convection. Therefore convection stops without input of free energy.
Free energy is added to a stationary Earth system, if heat is added at a location of higher temperature than it’s released, i.e, when solar SW is absorbed at higher temperature than the LWIR that exits the Earth system is emitted.
Heating and cooling at the same altitude is a very inefficient driver of convection. In the actual Earth system the main driver comes from the altitude difference between the points if heating (mainly surface heated by sun) and points of emission to the space (to a significant degree the cold upper troposphere).
With exactly zero emissivity of the atmosphere all heating and cooling occurs at surface. Atmosphere is heated efficiently as long as it’s cooler than the hottest regions of the surface, but cooled always very inefficiently everywhere. Thus a strong temperature inversion develops above cold parts of the surface. Atmosphere is almost everywhere stratified and mostly almost isothermal.
The above is approximately true as long as radiative heat transfer within the atmosphere is much weaker than conduction. Because conduction is very weak only little radiative heat transfer is needed to change the situation.
With a very weak radiative heat transfer that’s however much stronger than conduction, the theory of an optically thin atmosphere can be used. As emission is weak, also dissipation must remain weak. that means that the convection is weak enough to be close to adiabatic and the dry adiabatic lapse rate applies almost everywhere up to a well defined and sharp tropopause. Above the tropopause the optically thin atmosphere is isothermal, if absorption of solar radiation is not taken into account. including that the temperature increases with altitude.
All atmospheric models are based on convective atmospheres where radiative heat transfer is much stronger than conduction. The theory of an (almost) isothermal atmosphere is a curiosity that cannot be described by standard atmospheric models, and is not the basis of any of those models.
The adiabatic lapse rate is determined by both the gravity and the specific heat of atmosphere at constant pressure. The numerical similarity between the lapse rate and strength of gravity is accidental and due to the closeness of the the specific heat to 1.0 when expressed in units of kJ/kg.K. In another system of units the values would be very different.
In thermodynamic equilibrium of gas under gravity the average total energy of molecules is not independent of altitude as the potential energy related to gravity adds to kinetic energy as an independent degree of freedom. The average potential energy is equal to the average kinetic energy in one direction according to the equipartition theorem.
The only source of confusion is about a non-convecting atmosphere which doesn’t exist in nature. All atmospheres convect and none are isothermal.
In other words the set of unicorns and the set of non-convecting atmospheres both have the same number of members. They are null sets.
The atmosphere has the tendency of becoming stratified, unless that’s prevented by convection driven by something. In practice that something is the combination of absorption at surface and emission at high altitude. Without that combination most of the atmosphere is stratified and not convective in the sense relevant for this issues.
Lapse rate = g / Cp where g is gravity and Cp is specific heat of the gas at constant pressure.
Lapse rate grows smaller as gravity grows smaller. When gravity is zero so is lapse rate. Therefore gravity establishes a lapse rate.
Visiting Physicist’s thesis is Perpetual Motion-based
Visiting Physicist’s line of argument, and the thesis of his upcoming self-published book, “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all”, is based on the superficially repackaged work of Josef Loschmidt, ranking 19th C. Perpetual Motion Machine physicist.
Loschmidt became the mentor of Boltzmann, who became a close professional associate of Maxwell. The 3 of them cut a broad swath across the physics of their time. All – as did others of their era – keenly turned the ‘perpetual motion question’ every way they could think of, trying to find a way to fit it to reality.
But Loschmidt was not satisfied, that no way could be found to establish perpetual motion, within the Laws of Physics. So he took the Second Law of Thermodynamics apart, and put it back together in a different form.
The modified 2nd Law allows for stratification of heat, within a gravity field. By establishing an isolated cylinder or column within the atmosphere, a sort of ‘Maxwell Demon’ process migrates the hotter molecules to the base of the vertical containment. This heat at the bottom is then available for practical uses. The heat replenishes ‘automatically’, under the influence of gravity.
Visiting Physicist is using Loschmidt’s construct, to rebut the Anthropological Global Warming argument that CO2 is driving planetary warming. Rather, he says, this is a natural stratification of heat, with thermal energy preferentially working its way lower in a gravity-gradient … a suggestion taken directly from Loschmidt.
An ‘Andreas Trupp’ has a compact & brisk academic-styled article posted, documenting the utility of Loschmidt to the modern-day perpetual motion (Free Energy, Zero Point Energy, etc) fraternity:
– ENERGY, ENTROPY – Is Loschmidt’s greatest discovery still waiting for its discovery?
Trupp provides citations for quotes of Loschmidt’s work, which is readily available on Google Books (in German).
Trupp presents “A proof of the stratification of temperature in gases subject to gravity”. At the heart of this “proof” is the claim that “For an equilibrium to exist, the pressure gradient would have to be linear throughout the gas”.
The argument leading to this claim considers forces acting on individual molecules, but that’s an erroneous approach as no relevant considerations can be based in that way on individual molecules. What’s relevant is the statistical average over relevant set of molecules. The density of molecules enters in that so that the result is an exponential rather than linear decrease of pressure with altitude.
Yes; Loschmidt struggled with Boltzmann and Maxwell, as they worked out the ‘kinetic theory’ or statistical treatment of gas-dynamics. They needed a method that would actually work … but it would not accommodate Loschmidt’s model. They split over this issue.
We are not living the 19th century. The fundamentals of physics have changed very much. Quantum Mechanics has taken over in many ways. That has changed also the basis of the statistical mechanics. There’s no place for the arguments of Loschmidt in that. He was simply wrong.
Pekka,
Thanks for all this. Your comments have been rather informative for me. Same for Ted.
Pekka Pirilä said @ February 13, 2014 at 2:35 pm
Indeed, the arguments of Loschmidt were rejected by his own peers, even in the 19th C.
Yet today, “Visiting Physicist” lionizes Loschmidt, and diminishes his associates, including Maxwell, for declining to support his ideas.
Visiting Physicist has written a book; is visiting different blogs seeking publicity for it, and trying to find a professional scientist who will collaborate on it with him.
Visiting Physicist is not seeking Perpetual Motion (not yet), but is deploying Loschmidt’s perpetual motion mechanism, to explain Global Warming, without relying on CO2. It may be, that he does this to gain initial acceptance of his writings.
Some readers have been ‘charmed’ by Visiting Physicist’s highly technical comments in the blogs. He can seem erudite, and he certainly is quite conversant in some areas of physics.
But the problem is, he has made of himself a Pied Piper, by setting out to mislead others to accept a view of physics that was immediately identified as fallacious, when it appeared during the 1800s, without being forthcoming about this background.
It is especially strange to me, that with his lauding references to Loschmidt, it was inevitable that someone would start doing Web searches, follow the ball of thread, and uncover that Visiting Physicist is actually promoting a set of concepts designed to support a Perpetual Motion Machine.
There are some good things about Visiting Physicist and his activities (he does well with explicit science-discussion). There are also some negatives, although not to a greater extent than is typical on these blogs. I do not see a need to drive him from public fora, or ban the publicizing of his book … but I do feel a need to put the source & inspiration for his Proposal on a ‘full disclosure’ basis.
(Anthony Watts intervened yesterday, and said he was blocking Visiting Physicist, but he did so on the grounds that ‘visiting physicist’ is a cloaking-identity, for a person who has previously been banned there, for violating site-policy. Under the moniker of Visiting Physicist, the conduct-problem does not appear overriding, to me, and if he is not otherwise unacceptable on Climate Etc, he is just another participant.)
Ted,
I agree fully that “Visiting physicist” is marketing false ideas. What I found somewhat worrying in your earlier comment was the way you introduced the text of Andreas Trupp. It was difficult to be sure, what you wanted to say about his text.
I have also noticed on several occasions in discussions on this site and elsewhere that many people who have in general quite reasonable views about science have difficulties in understanding the fundamental difference between an thermodynamic equilibrium state and stationary states that involve convection. A full thermodynamic equilibrium cannot include any convection or any other net transfer of heat between two subvolumes. It’s always isothermal.
Standard textbooks of thermodynamics discuss usually gravity very briefly or not at all. Barometric formula may be mentioned but typically assuming the temperature profile and telling that the profile of the real atmosphere is close to the one given by the simplified formula. It’s not surprising that people have difficulties in extending thermodynamics to situations where gravity is essential.
Pekka,
I’m sorry for not introducing Andreas Trupp more carefully … who appears in his article to be after a Perpetual Motion Machine Of The Second Kind … although he might well be content with Free, Zero Point or Limitless-for-Nothing energy & power, however it could be conjured!
Besides citing Loschmidt generally, Trupp makes a special plea using Venus, which is also a strong theme of Visiting Physicist:
4) III. [Proof of Stratification] Section III. is 3 paragraphs of detail on the ways Venus lends itself to support of Loschmidt.
====
But no – I did NOT mean to commend this field of ‘research’!
When we go to Google Books and search ‘perpetual motion’, we quickly find a flock of popular titles on the topic, clustered in the early 20th C. These carefully disclaim that they offer anything Free or Perpetual, but they know interest is still keen in the huge variety of ways such a machine has been attempted (although perpetual motion had fallen from grace, some decades before). These books made a generation of yeoman technical writers a solid living, and sent their kids to college in nice cloths. And they’re often very enjoyable books!
I would recommend to Visiting Physicist that he take his evident familiarity with the Loschmidt body of work, and craft it into an exploration of the anomaly that this otherwise fine scientist represents. The story really does have compelling elements to it, as indeed an all-too-human account.
Ludwig Boltzmann clearly held Loschmidt high regard … there are fairly clear signs even to a dabbler like myself, that Boltzmann protected his mentor from the full consequences of his folly, and is the main force behind having certain phenomena named after him. But that is generally the only familiarity one acquires of Loschmidt in school, and one images that the reason is his involvement with a subject that only later became Taboo (along with the fact that he ‘muffed’ his effort at it, when it was still not Taboo – as in fact it was not, at the time).
All should know, that Maxwell, Boltzmann and many others, all gave careful attention to Perpetual Motion and sought it as a Holy Grail. Searches of the 19th literature show that many if not most of our respected science pioneers, ‘put in their 2¢’. Loschmidt’s error & downfall, was NOT that he pursued a Perpetual Motion Machine, in & of itself. No – that was normal, then.
Though Loschmidt is very lightly covered in school, he was not only closely associated with Boltzmann & Maxwell, but was a meaningful partner in their combined 3-man effort that led to great fame for the others, while he ended up ‘written out’ of the bigger story.
There is a fascinating potential opportunity here for Visiting Physicist (who greatly admires Loschmidt) … but not in using his old perpetual motion mechanism to defeat Anthropological Global Warming.
Our literature teachers (and editors) always beseech us: “Write about what you know! (and love…)”.
I am not for one moment claiming that the gravitationally induced temperature gradient in solids, liquids and gases provides an opportunity to evoke perpetual motion of any kind. It doesn’t.
Have I made my point clear? You can do all the connecting up of wires or poles outside cylinders of gas, but because the solids also have a temperature gradient, the state of thermodynamic equilibrium for the combined system is static with absolutely no cyclic energy motion. I know WUWT thought they had proven Loschmidt wrong, but their failure to understand this rather obvious fact is all that it takes to counter their attempted rebuttal.
Yes, the Venus troposphere does indeed substantiate the Loschmidt effect, because the temperature gradient evolves spontaneously at the molecular level and is primarily determined by the state with isentropic conditions, though reduced (to about 8C/Km) because of the levelling effect of inter-molecular radiation. Frankly I don’t care about whether Loschmidt fully understood what he proposed. I don’t think Hans Jelbring did either in his paper early this century.
What has not been talked about is the inevitable “heat creep” up the temperature gradient. The surface of Venus and its troposphere all cool by about 5 degrees during its night. They do this by upward diffusion of kinetic energy and radiation to space mostly from upper altitudes in the carbon dioxide atmosphere.
The reverse happen in the 4-month-long Venus day. The carbon dioxide upper atmosphere absorbs most solar radiation and the resulting thermal energy moves downwards to hotter regions. It does so because the new energy mostly at the top of the troposphere has disturbed the thermodynamic equilibrium. The heat flow occurs in the direction which has a propensity to restore that equilibrium, in this case downwards.
You cannot prove this not to be the case.
Pekka:
The density does not affect the temperature. The temperature depends only upon the mean kinetic energy of the molecules. Likewise, in the isentropic state (representing thermodynamic equilibrium) only the mean (per molecule) sum of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy is relevant. That sum is what is homogeneous, regardless of density.
Hence, because PE varies we have a KE (temperature) gradient.
If you choose to misunderstand this explanation, then I suggest you choose some other valid explanation as to how the necessary energy gets into the surface of Venus to raise its temperature by 5 degrees in the sunlit hours, as in my comment at 9:21pm I’ll be all ears.
Correct so far
Wrong. The sum is not homogeneous, average kinetic energy of the molecules is. The total average energy of molecules increases with altitude in thermodynamic equlibrium. The potential energy is extra, not off from the rest.
Wrong
I suggest that you try to learn physics.
Cotton is right, Pekka.
In an isothermal atmosphere a gram of air at 10,000 feet has the same energy as a gram of air at the surface. Kinetic energy is displaced by gravitational potential energy at altitude which keeps total energy constant.
Adiabatic Lapse rate (ALR) is defined as:
ALR = g / Cp
where g is the acceleration of gravity and Cp is the heat capacity of the gas at constant pressure.
As g grows smaller in value so does ALR. When g reaches zero ALR also reaches zero. Ergo gravity creates the lapse rate.
Which part of that do you not understand?
The dry adiabatic lapse rate – ΔT/Δz = 9.8 K/km
g is the nominal gravitational acceleration of an object in a vacuum near the surface of the Earth
A derivation is given here.
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/…/AdiabaticLapseRate.doc
The formula assumes no heat transfer to or from the environment – it is not of course strictly applicable. Potential plus kinetic energy does not equal a constant because these molecules are constantly exchanging energy with the environment – including by gaining and losing internal energy.
That link is broken, Skippy. I’d like to see where it leads.
Pekka wrote
“A full thermodynamic equilibrium cannot include any convection or any other net transfer of heat between two subvolumes.” Correct
“It’s always isothermal.” Incorrect, because thermodynamic equilibrium is a state in which there are no unbalanced energy potentials, and so it must be an isentropic state, because only an isentropic state cannot experience an increase in entropy within the constraints of that isolated system. An isentropic state in a gravitational field must have a temperature gradient in the absence of chemical reactions, significant radiation or phase change.
You’re a beggar for punishment, Pekka. What do you want to come up with next in your invalid attempts to prove me wrong? I note you still can’t answer the Venus question, but that is because you are working with the wrong paradigm altogether.
Totally wrong as explained above.
Josef Loschmidt said @ 1876
Über den Zustand des Wärmegleichgewichts eines Systems von Körpern mit Rücksicht auf die Schwerkraft I, p. 135
Ted Clayton
Haven’t you heard of the 800 experiments done by Roderich Graeff virtually all of which displayed the gravitationally induced temperature gradient?
Haven’t you heard of the thermal gradient in the Uranus troposphere where there is no significant radiation, internal energy generation or even a surface at the base of that troposphere where it’s hotter than Earth?
Perpetual motion is impossible, so why bring in a red herring. The thermal gradient cannot be used to created such, because solids also develop a thermal gradient.
It’s time you stopped reading history and start looking at the development of the concept and how it is derived directly from the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
There are two distinct kinds of “perpetual motion” referred to as Perpetuum Mobiles of the First Kind and those of the Second Kind. These are named according to the law they violate, either the first or second law of thermodynamics.
The second kind aren’t really perpetual and aren’t prohibited by nature. It is the second kind which is referenced by Loschmidt. If we have a column of gravitationally confined gas with a warm base and cool summit then in principle we can construct a heat engine which reduces the gradient and produces work in the process. This can’t go on forever because as we reduce the gradient we reduce the total amount of energy in the column. As the column cools it shrinks until at some point the gas is so cold it becomes liquid and our gradient disappears.
Indeed we don’t even need the gas at the top of the column we only need a heat sink and the frigid cold of the vacuum (3K) outside the column will work fine for the cold side of our heat engine. So we can in principle keep running our engine until the gas temperature reaches equilibrium with the cosmic background radiation (3K).
The violation in this situation is of Carnot’s Law which establishes maximum efficiency of any possible heat engine i.e. we can’t extract energy from the gradient until there is no gradient left unless we have a heat engine with absolutely no parasitic losses and all the time in the universe to wait for the gradient to disappear the limit. Carnot Efficiency equals one minus Tcold divided by Thot. Ce = 1 – Tc/Th.
Perpetuum mobiles of the second kind aren’t prohibited by nature it is simply agreed by most that none are practically possible.
Where the sky dragon slayers leave the reservation is in the belief that Loschmidt’s gravito-thermal effect makes the base of the column warmer than it would be absent gravitational confinement. In fact it makes the top of the column colder while not changing the temperature at the base. This is because gravitational potential energy replaces kinetic energy as altitude increases in one to one correspondence. There is no gravitational potential energy at the base of the column whether it’s gravitationally confined or confined in a vessel so there is no temperature difference. The confusion comes about because thermometers measure average kinetic energy of the gas molecules and ignore gravitational potential energy. So we observe a lapse rate while in reality if we had a thermometer which meausures average total energy instead of average kinetic energy we would have no lapse rate.
That gravity establishes a lapse rate is a trivial inference from the adiabatic lapse rate forumula: ALR = g / Cp where g is the acceleration of gravity and Cp is the heat capacity of the gas at constant pressure. As g falls to zero so does ALR ergo acceleration of gravity creates a lapse rate.
Massive OWN GOAL by the deniers.
The idea of estimating free energy instead of temperature is at the heart of the CSALT model. And of course the CSALT model uses the surface temperature and keeps track of relative changes over the past 130+ years.
BTW, the basic measure when applied to lapse is also known as potential temperature, which is explained in many textbooks, including Curry’s “Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans”.
Do you actually listen to yourself webby – or is it just that you imagine everyone else is so stupid you can say anything you like?
Write this down – what you do is scale parameters to the to the surface temperature in a multiple linear regression. There is no guarantee that you have chosen the right parameters to scale and your idea of ENSO is a joke. .
Btw: dT/dz = -g/Cp is the dry adiabatic lapse rate where g is acceleration due to gravity in a vacuum at the surface of the Earth. It is equal to -9.8K/km. It assumes no transfer of heat to or from the environment.
In reality – these molecules are always gaining and losing energy – including as internal energy. PE+KE is not constant.
For God’s sake – move onto to something real, relevant and interesting.
Visiting Physicist said @ February 17, 2014 at 5:45 am
Did you read Dr. Graeff’s own synopsis?
Then Visiting Physicist concludes;
History isn’t auspicious on the prospects of your Proposal, is it?
tc
Yes, that’s where Loschmidt put his foot in it. He was right about the temperature gradient, but made incorrect deductions pertaining to perpetual motion. That does not disprove the existence of the gradient.
When are you going to explain the Venus and Uranus energy flow?
Hint: You need to assume the gravity-gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium first. If you think it is not, you will never be able to explain why these planets, especially Uranus, have not cooled right down. Venus cools by 5 degrees in a mere 4 months during its night.
If we would have a temperature gradient in the thermodynamic equilibrium, it would be easy to construct a perpetum mobile of the second kind. One easy alternative is to use the thermoelectric (Seebeck) effect.
Loschmidt was wrong on the temperature gradient.
If you wish to have a somewhat more detailed description of how the isothermal state is maintained under gravity you may look at this short explanation:
http://pirila.fi/energy/kuvat/barometric_derivation.pdf
If you are really a physicist, you are invited to tell, where this explanation fails. It should be understood that I’m not presenting anything new in that note, I only try to explain, how standard physics works in this case. Many people consider this outcome unintuitive (including Loschmidt, but evidently not Boltzmann), Sometimes simple physical facts are unintuitive until understanding has developed enough.
Visiting Physicist @ February 14, 2014 at 11:35 pm
It’s only been a 138 years now with this gradient-idea. There needs to an apparatus or physical observation that demonstrates the reality of the proposal. Data. Otherwise, it’s just unsubstantiated talk; no verification, no validation.
And, the gradient-idea was invented, explicitly in order to ‘manufacture’ a Perpetual Motion Machine. It’s not that easy to separate the gradient-proposal from the perpetual motion goal … the linkage between them wasn’t accidental or incidental.
tc
Pekka – Perpetual motion is impossible. All solids, liquids and gases develop the thermal gradient. If you attach a wire to a cylinder of gas, the wire has its own gradient and the wire and the cylinder become a new (combined) isolated system wherein a new state of maximum entropy will quickly develop with no further cyclic heat transfer or PPM of any kind.
You say “The total average energy of molecules increases with altitude in thermodynamic equilibrium” but this is impossible, because the whole underlying foundation of thermodynamic equilibrium is that it is a state of maximum entropy in which there are no unbalanced energy potentials. You have just described a system with more energy at the top and thus with an unbalanced energy potential.
Please try to explain the thermal gradient in the 350Km high Uranus troposphere with your assumption of an initial isothermal state, because the planet has had plenty of time to cool right down if it ever is going to do so.
Graeff has conducted experiments which ostensibly demonstrate the gravito-thermal effect. Graef is mentioned in a recent book on the topic of challenges to the second law. Loschmidt’s gravito-thermal effect is considered by the authors to remain the most substantive challenge there is… much of the sub-section dedicated to Loschmidt is free to read online:
http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=gravito-thermal+effect&source=bl&ots=51u8MF5WTI&sig=fsBRzYWWzmhOREvbkjnOAid7aAk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rfMBU7vREuKe2AXmtoE4&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=gravito-thermal%20effect&f=false
Checking what Graeff has done it’s easy to see that his methods are far too sensitive to many different sources of error to make a proper experiment possible.
It’s very easy to disturb the system enough to initiate convection. Even under perfect conditions approach towards the thermodynamic equilibrium is extremely slow.
Stratified atmospheres to, however, exist. Earth stratosphere is a good example. It’s temperature profile is very far from adiabatic lapse rate, which would be essentially the dry adiabatic lapse rate of about 10 C/km, because the stratosphere is so dry that the difference between the dry and moist adiabats is very small. The only reason for the existence of the tropopause around 10 km is that radiative cooling does not exceed radiative heating at higher temperatures. Therefore the heat balance does not drive any convection any more.
It’s probably futile to answer to “Visiting Physicist”, but a little more about equipartition.
One of the fundamental features of statistical mechanics is that every degree of freedom that’s continuous and related to energy reserves on the average an equal amount of energy. (Discrete degrees of freedom may take less, but the difference is very small if the energy levels are tightly spaced as the rotational degrees of freedom of multi-atomic molecules are.)
A mono-atomic gas under gravity has four degrees of freedom that are related to energy, three translational and the vertical position. All these receive on the average the equal energy. The average energy of each degree of freedom is also independent of the energies of the others. The average kinetic energy related to direction of x-axis is independent of kinetic energy along y-axis and z-axis. Similarly the average potential energy related to altitude is independent of the kinetic energy and vice versa.
While a single molecule looses kinetic energy going up and gains going down there’s another factor that compensates for that. The other factor is that those molecules are more likely to go up that have a larger kinetic energy to start with. These two factors cancel exactly in thermodynamic equilibrium leading to the same average kinetic energy at all altitudes. This is the point I discuss in more detail in the note linked to in a comment below.
If we select molecules from a high altitude in an equilibrium system, they have a larger total energy, but the same is true if we make any other selection based on some other component of the total energy like x-component of velocity. It’s much easier difficult to select based on altitude, but that does not change the conclusion.
I add again that discussion of thermodynamic equilibrium of the whole atmosphere is interesting only as a theoretical exercise, because the real atmosphere is never in thermodynamic equilibrium. Parts of real atmospheres may, however, be approximately isothermal as a significant part of the stratosphere is. (Heating by solar UV makes the upper stratosphere warmer, i.e. to deviate in the opposite direction from isothermal.)
Very weak persistent convection is enough to produce a lapse rate. That explains the temperature profiles of some planets. The surface of Venus does not receive much solar radiation, but it receives some. Upper parts of the Venus troposphere may also drive convection that extends also down from the altitudes of stronger solar heating.
Pekka Pirilä said @ February 17, 2014 at 3:12 pm
Futile for him, yes, but there is value & merit in such answers, for others who may be reading.
Particularly since Visiting Physicist speaks with an authoritative air, some could assume that he knows what he is talking about. ‘Keeping it real’ around here may not do VP much good, but it serves as a heads-up for the unwary.
More diffusely; regularly & repeatedly answering these claims, makes it less likely that the “influential” people whom Visiting Physicist hopes to send copies of his book, will have blithely placed their names on his list. [Professors Emeritus of the elderly kind, tertiary & backwater Chairs thinking to involve themselves in an under-recognized field, etc.]
=====
There is in paleoanthropology something of an analogy to Visiting Physicist (or Doug Cotton), in the person of Danny Vendramini, who conceived a Neanderthal Predation Theory (and much more…), authored a book about it (and a YouTube video), and sought out “influential” people to give copies of the book, and solicit their positive remarks, which he uses to give his work an aura of collegiate approval.
Vendraminin did get his book distributed, and collected a few ‘testimonials’ from legit worthies … before word got out that his Proposal is too far over the top to be a free-standing stable edifice. So a few years ago, he got his few glowing quotes from real scientists … and then, screeech!, that was the end of that.
… So yes, it does seem worthwhile to ‘speak to’ Visiting Physicist’s claims & assertions, though not likely for his benefit. [Had the very active (and authoritative) Dr. John Hawks ‘cleared his throat’ on Vendramini, it would have saved several people getting something unpleasant on their shoe.]
tc
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The linked unpublished document to which Pekka referred has two major errors.
(1) They have worked with density, whereas temperature is only a function of mean kinetic energy of molecules, not their density.
(2) The statement “The influence of the change of velocity to the vertical coordinate is second order in time differential and can be neglected. The time differential is also taken to be so small that collisions can be left out of the consideration.”
A proper understanding requires an understanding that kinetic energy is shared (with a propensity towards equalisation) during molecular collisions, which should thus not “be left out of the consideration.” The sum of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy is constant during free path motion between collisions. This is what leads to homogeneous (PE+KE) which has no unbalanced energy potentials and is thus the state of maximum entropy which the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will evolve spontaneously.
If you don’t believe me, then you need an alternative explanation for the thermal gradient in the Uranus troposphere and you’ll be hard pressed to be the first in the world to find a valid one.
Visiting Physicist said @ February 17, 2014 at 5:45 am
No we don’t.
He who has/makes a Proposal, is responsible for showing it to be valid.
The audience isn’t responsible for proving it false.
The suggestion that Proposals must be proven wrong, has it backwards. They must be proven true.
That’s what validation and verification are about – and they are the responsibility of the proposer.
Uranus is a ‘snipe hunt’. A ‘wild goose chase’.
tc
That’s fine, Ted, if you have no inquisitive mind or any motive to wish to find what is the truth of the matter – does carbon dioxide really cause warming? Is water vapour really doing likewise to a far greater extent? Are dry deserts really cooler than rain forests?
It’s your prerogative to not want to know, and I suppose those with a pecuniary interest in maintaining the status quo, have good reason to bury their heads in the carbon dioxide and not want to know.
A little history about the kinetic theory of gases: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26966144/ITALENC.pdf
And, as Callen said, Entropy is a function.
and the value of a function can increase or decrease. What is your point?
Pekka and others
(1) No advection is necessary for there to be a “lapse rate.” There is no advection in Earth’s outer crust, but the calculated thermal gradient is evident, reduced by about a third due to inter-molecular radiation.
(2) There will always be a propensity for a calm region of the atmosphere at night to tend towards the expected environmental lapse rate. That’s what the Second Law is all about – entropy always decreases.
(3) I consider the energy in rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom is still effectively kinetic energy that contributes to temperature measurements. Graeff was wrong in adjusting and dividing by the number of DoF’s. But, all in all, his experiments are probably reasonable evidence, though I don’t depend on such, and I deliberately avoid reference to them in “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all.” There is more compelling evidence on Uranus.
(4) Because the inflow of energy to the Venus surface when it is warming cannot be explained with any radiative forcing greenhouse effect, this conjecture is false everywhere, because physics is universal.
(5) Because all measured and estimated temperature data can potentially be explained throughout the Solar System with my hypothesis soon to be published in the above book (and which you probably do not understand or cannot imagine) then I’m putting my money where my mouth is.
Pekka
You wrote (regarding Graeff’s experiments) “It’s very easy to disturb the system enough to initiate convection.”
Now, Graeff acknowledged that he has had very little formal training in physics and, frankly, that is obvious. For a start he incorrectly multiplied by the degrees of freedom and was thus expecting steeper thermal gradients than really would be the case.
But he also went to a lot of unnecessary trouble to prevent convection. You also see convection as a problem But it’s not, because convection just “follows” the thermal gradient which evolves spontaneously as a corollary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This is what happens in the real world in calm conditions: the thermal gradient forms as the state of thermodynamics equilibrium. Then, if new thermal energy is absorbed, convection takes place in all accessible directions away from that source. For example, when the Sun warms Earth’s surface, convection will be only upwards away from the surface, because the air cannot move down through the surface, of course. But when new energy is absorbed at dawn in the upper troposphere of Venus, some of that energy moves downwards to what are warmer regions, but the energy flow follows the gradient and is helping to form a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
There! I just about given away most of the content of my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” which is now in the production stage with the text finalised. It should be available late April through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so I’ll leave it at that here.
D C