Week in review

by Judith Curry

A few things that caught my eye this past week.

Attorneys General Create Axis For Global Warming Shakedown  [link]

“Climate Hustle” goes to Washington: Skeptical film to premiere on Capitol Hill; Riveting panel with Gov. Sarah Palin [link]

Review of latest sobering sea-level science: What does the science say about #sealevel rise? An up-to-the minute analysis by Church and Clark.  [link]

Michaels and Knappenberger’s take on the new sea level rise paper [link]

“Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail”  [link]

Science relies on computer modeling: So what happens when it goes wrong?  [link]

This is really interesting: after tipping points, now stabilizing points? “Potential stabilizing points in Earth’s climate”  [link]

Tracking ‘marine heatwaves’ since 1950 — and how the ‘blob’ stacks up [link]

“Taxing food that is responsible for high greenhouse-gas emissions”  [link]

Meet the Scientist Who Puzzled Out the Secrets of Polar Ice: Claude Lorius [link]

An interesting view of some incentive problems in scientific research [link]

Cheers! Climate change & the meteoric rise of UK wine [link]

Factcheck: The steel crisis and UK electricity prices [link] …

248 responses to “Week in review

  1. Below is a message sent to the UN Secretary General, Presidents of the US National Academy of Sciences and the UK’s Royal Society, and the Editor of Nature on March 20, 2016:

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

    The intent is to remove any doubt about the knowledge of these holders of high offices in the abuse of science.

    • That looks interesting.

    • Scientist hope they will be able to find a way to keep us all safe from ‘space men’. They are going to develop lasers that are even faster then light to keep our planet hidden from aliens for what will seem like a really long time…

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/03/31/scientists-have-a-wild-idea-for-hiding-us-from-evil-aliens/

      and if we need to build an even bigger wall, we will pay for it too.

      • Over the 20th and 21st centuries, the projected change is 4 C. Find a past instance where that has happened this side of the Ice Ages and that change took thousands of years to play out, not a century. “Climate is always changing” is a refusal to see that something larger is happening and will continue for a century with consequences. It’s burying your head in the sand.

      • Over the 20th and 21st centuries, the projected change is 4 C.

        Projections made using unverified models with manifold unwarranted parametrizations.

        The only changes you can actually point to are real-world observations. Of regional changes. Nothing in the real world is outside the envelope of natural variation over the last few thousand years.

      • Not to mention that those models depend on pCO2 values not consistent with current policy.

      • You can deny it and you can deny we are measurably on track based on the response to rising CO2 levels so far. You are in effect saying, just because the observations support the science, you don’t believe it one bit.

      • You are in effect saying, just because the observations support the science, you don’t believe it one bit.

        Nope. The observations don’t “support the science”. They are consistent with the pseudo-science of “global warming”. But they’re also fully consistent with no effect from added CO2 at all. Or anything in-between.

        And you may have noticed that rising CO2 is notmeasurably on track” with cumulative emissions. It’s falling below.

        But that’s pointless quibbling. I agree there’s a risk to digging up huge amounts of fossil carbon and burning it. I’m saying that the current system of economic policy is on track to solve the problem, as the technology matures to the point it’s able.

        No socialist “solutions” needed.

      • AK, the evidence supports the science whether you want to define “evidence”, “supports” and “science” in a different way or not. You keep dropping in “socialist” accusations, when Paris is far from that. It is a bottom up approach, each nation strives for a collective goal and is accountable to everyone else as they should be in a shared global climate. Maybe you call a bottom-up approach “socialism”. Perhaps you mean “socialist” in the context of tending to support poorer nations as they adjust to climate change, but that is just humanitarianism to most people, so the term says more about your values than anything else.

      • You keep dropping in “socialist” accusations, when Paris is far from that.

        I’m not talking about Paris, I’m talking about you.

        The way you keep dismissing the current policy situation as “doing nothing about global warming” puts you in the socialist camp.

        What’s going on now, and has been since the ’80’s, would appear sufficient to solve the fossil carbon problem, by 2040-2060. We don’t really need much more than to continue the current policies that incent solar PV. (Maybe do more to incent ambient CO2 capture and conversion to gas/liquid fuel rather than hydrogen technology.)

        The massive growth of gas (or liquid fuel) CCGT is fully consistent with that goal: if solar PV continues its exponential price decline, within a decade or two it will be cost-effective to use it for electrolysis and ambient CO2 capture and create methane and liquid hydrocarbons that can be fed into the current system of distribution and power generation (including vehicles) in place of fossil fuels.

        All the current investment into distribution, storage, and use of gas/liquid hydrocarbons will continue to be highly valuable long after fossil fuels stop being used. No sunk costs.

        Following this approach, the technology for capturing ambient CO2 will also become mature (and much cheaper per Wright’s law), so that by 2040 large-scale capture and sequestration will be feasible at a tiny cost compared to today.

        If it’s needed. Which means we have several decades to advance the science before we have to worry about it.

      • AK, there are people opposed to replacing coal and oil. Some of these are in influential positions. These may be the last bastion to you, but these are the ones I am talking about wanting to do nothing. They include Republican politicians, the Cato Institute, WUWT and CE denizens, WSJ editorials and several lawyers that Judith keeps quoting here. If you don’t see this movement, what do you read here? Maybe I should just ignore them too and live in your world where things are moving along just nicely.

      • AK, there are people opposed to replacing coal and oil. Some of these are in influential positions.

        Of course.

        These may be the last bastion to you, but these are the ones I am talking about wanting to do nothing.

        You remind me of the people who claim to be against corporate corruption, but when you actually look closely, they’re just anti-corporate in general. Tarring everybody with the same brush is actually counter-productive.

        They include Republican politicians, […]

        Well, many of their constituents have something to lose from the end of the coal industry. They have to say something.

        […] the Cato Institute, […]

        The Cato institute publishes a number of viewpoints. I realize you’re somewhat color-blind in this part of the spectrum, but IMO there are voices on both sides there.

        […] WUWT[, …]

        I don’t read WUWT

        […] CE denizens, […]

        Some. Other less so.

        […] WSJ editorials[, …]

        I’m not positive, but I suspect you’ve generalized too far. WSJ also has many viewpoints.

        […] and several lawyers that Judith keeps quoting here.

        Perhaps. I haven’t noticed any sort of blanket POV.

        If you don’t see this movement, what do you read here?

        I see a bunch of different individuals with different opinions. I’ve argued quite strenuously with many of them, as well as many CAGW types. Perhaps you only read my comments when they’re responding to you?

      • AK, if this blog has a position, it is the do-nothing position, especially in the direction of mitigation. It would be just adapt, build resilience, but whatever you do, don’t attempt mitigate CO2 emissions. Surely you see that in the viewpoints posted for main topics. The denizens largely go along, and in terms of mitigation cost arguments you seem to too. To me, if it’s not going with mitigation, it is doing nothing useful.

      • AK, if this blog has a position, it is the do-nothing position, especially in the direction of mitigation.

        Well, since the necessary is already being done, why do more?

        That’s my take, but I’ll let Prof. Curry answer for herself if she wishes.

      • catweazle666

        Jim D | April 2, 2016 at 9:20 pm |
        “Over the 20th and 21st centuries, the projected change is 4 C.”

        Tripe.

    • David Springer

      [ ] AGW science settled
      [x] AGW science not settled

      Questions?

      • Nobody ever said AGW science is settled. U R lost.

      • When the President of the United States says 97% of the world scientists accept
        global warming that is translated into English as ” the science is settled “.
        When Senators of the United States Senate want to investigate scientists who don’t accept AGW, that is translated into English as “the science
        is settled”.

      • In testimony to Congress about global warming, Al Gore declared that “the science is settled” and he was right. The fact that CO₂ heats the atmosphere absolutely is settled science. The fact that the amount of CO₂ that humans have already emitted is causing warming at an unprecedented rate is also settled, and the longer we continue emitting CO₂ the worse it will get.

        http://www.thescienceisstillsettled.com/

      • The debate is over.

        On Friday, an international panel of hundreds of scientists will issue its fifth (and perhaps final) comprehensive scientific assessment of what scientists now know about climate change. Its central conclusion will be certain and unequivocal — human beings are altering the climate, with impacts starting to occur now.

        […]

        But the central portion of the artificial science debate — the one that has vexed policy makers for decades — is now over. Climate change is real, human beings are responsible for a good portion of it, and we need to take the issue seriously sooner rather than later and start to do something about it.

        http://www.livescience.com/39954-with-ipcc-report-climate-change-is-settled-science.html

      • It is settled enough. Now the ball is in the policy court.

      • It is settled enough.

        That’s what Pierrehumbert says as he describes Steve Koonin’s WSJ piece as “yet another argument for doing nothing about global warming”. Here’s what he said, that Pierrehumbert calls “doing nothing about global warming”:

        Society’s choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.

        But it certainly isn’t settled enough for “climate strategies beyond such ‘no regrets’ efforts [that] carry costs, risks and questions of effectiveness, so nonscientific factors inevitably enter the decision.

      • AK, you prove my point by listing policy options. That is where the debate is now. It is like the uncertainty cone of hurricane landfall. If you are within the cone, you take precautions rather than sit and hope it is wrong while blaming the forecasters for it.

      • AK, you prove my point by listing policy options.

        No, you’re dodging my point: that the science isn’t settled, because the policy debate depends on different ideas of how “settled” it has to be to justify rationalize which policy options.

        The only thing that might be called “settled” is that there’s risk, the magnitude of which cannot be firmly evaluated. And even that is hotly debated by proponents of the more socialist solutions, who claim certainty the science doesn’t support as an excuse for their agenda.

      • AK, a non-changing emission policy puts us at 700 ppm within a century, so the question becomes whether we want that or prefer something nearer 500 ppm if that can be technologically achieved instead. The primary policy decision is try or don’t try to mitigate, knowing what not trying leads to in CO2 content. The easiest route is using 20th century methods for energy and fuel, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that better choices exist given the climate-change component in modern-day decisions. This preference for stabilization doesn’t happen by accident, but is spurred by the uncertainties of what large-scale climate change does.

      • Devastating problems?

        Sanders is intellectually weak.

      • The primary policy decision is try or don’t try to mitigate, knowing what not trying leads to in CO2 content.

        Nope.

        That’s your opinion of what the “primary policy decision is”.

        My opinion is that the “primary policy decision is” is how much to consider spending on fixing it: what costs to global “society” might be worth accepting.

        Significantly higher energy costs than otherwise? Not on the table.

        Socialism, world-wide regulatory bureaucratic government, or general socio-economic reorganization to eliminate the current simulation of free-market capitalism? Not on the table.

        Look for solutions that don’t involve costs like those, or similar high-risk side-effects. Once you made a clear good-faith examination of the options, if nothing’s been found, then come back with such options.

        Given the current lack of certainty, or even real high probability of a serious down-side risk, especially from the greenhouse effect, the risk from higher energy costs and/or socialist world government regulatory adventures is simply too high by comparison.

      • AK, a non-changing emission policy puts us at 700 ppm within a century, so the question becomes whether we want that or prefer something nearer 500 ppm if that can be technologically achieved instead.

        No it doesn’t. That’s a straw man.

        The current “emission policy” situation includes a number of powerful initiatives and on-going changes involving fossil-neutral energy (especially solar PV). In order to achieve the “non-changing emission policy [that] puts us at 700 ppm within a century”, many changes would have to be made to current policy. All the various incentives and advantages for solar (and wind) energy would have to be shut down.

        The whole “Business as Usual” thing is a straw man. The world need only continue as it has for the last few decades, with perhaps some improved incentives for ambient CO2 capture, and the problems will be solved technologically.

      • AK, you are only looking at one side of the equation. Not a good decision strategy.

      • AK, you are only looking at one side of the equation. Not a good decision strategy.

        Nope. In fact, this strikes me as projection: accusing somebody else of what you’re doing.

        I’m looking at the risks of digging up huge amounts of fossil CO2 and dumping it into the system (air, thence to sea and various eco-sinks/sources). I’m also looking at the risks of massive world-wide socioeconomic and political changes.

        IMO there are plenty of options that will address the issue of fossil carbon without requiring any sort of massive world-wide socioeconomic and political changes. Until those options have been honestly explored, the precautionary principle should be used to rule out such changes.

        Or are you referring to my statement that “BAU” is a straw man? Sorry, but all sorts of things have been happening, and are continuing to happen, that will likely contribute to replacement of most fossil fuels by solar power (mostly used to create fuel from electrolytic H2 and ambient CO2) within a few decades. IMO.

        A bit of tweaking (relatively) is all that’s really necessary. “Free-market” capitalism and technology can do it with pretty much the current policies.

      • AK, the current emission “policy” is one that has already responded to mitigation calls even if not as fully as hoped for. It is not a clean experiment. If the fossil fuel industry had their way, emission growth would have persisted, and emissions would not already be flattening. Some will say it is just market forces, but there already has been a major realization that most coal will have to be left in the ground, and there is a reason for that. Rational thinking.

      • AK, my reference to one side of the equation is your looking at the cost of mitigation without looking at the cost of not mitigating. Just from carbon pricing estimates, mitigation comes out as the better deal by far when measured by the annualized effect on GDP. In the past I gave the analogy of bailing out the boat for the next century or two versus just plugging the hole. Stabilizing the climate is plugging the hole.

      • @Jim D…

        AK, the current emission “policy” is one that has already responded to mitigation calls even if not as fully as hoped for.

        On the contrary, it has responded much more effectively than anything people like you could have “hoped for.

        If the fossil fuel industry had their way, emission growth would have persisted, and emissions would not already be flattening.

        Typical collectivist thinking. There is no “fossil fuel industry” Remember how the Sierra Club got in trouble over getting in bed with the “gas industry”?

        No, the real work was done by folks like Exxon, starting in the ’80’s, with the focus on solar power. They knew enough about how technology develops to understand what could and couldn’t be done when.

        Peter Eisenberger, now an environmental science professor at Columbia’s Earth Institute, co-authored an internal report for Exxon projecting that solar wouldn’t become viable until 2012 or 2013. The report, written before he left the company in 1989, suggested that Exxon would do best to sell its solar assets; not surprisingly, the company did just that. What is surprising is that Exxon’s 25-year-old solar projections nailed the timing for the arrival of affordable solar power.

        […]

        Eisenberger said he helped hire many scientists to investigate energy options and conduct basic research at the company. After oil prices crashed in the mid-1980s, Exxon started looking hard at its assets. That’s around the time Eisenberger co-wrote, along with a physicist in strategic planning, Exxon’s internal assessment regarding the cost of solar power. The duo concluded that solar wouldn’t become worth the investment until about 2012.

        […]

        Eisenberger left for academia and in 2010 co-founded a alternative-energy company, Global Thermostat, at which he now serves as chief technology officer. The company works to reduce the cost of capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide and rendering it useful for synthetic fuels and materials. “Almost all the people that are involved in founding this company—and in helping me get going—were from Exxon,” Eisenberger said. “Every one of them. They’re the only people who didn’t think I was nuts.”

        Today, while the nascent solar power industry becomes increasingly competitive, Exxon is keeping an eye on developments. The oil giant continues to support research into photovoltaics, as well as biofuels and CO2 capture technologies. But as Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson told investors in May, the company isn’t investing in renewable businesses. “We choose not to lose money on purpose,” he said. [my bolding]

      • AK, my reference to one side of the equation is your looking at the cost of mitigation without looking at the cost of not mitigating.

        There isn’t any way to “look […] at the cost of not mitigating.” We simply don’t know enough about any of side of the problem to even make an estimate. All we can do is note that there’s a risk, we can’t even evaluate the magnitude of that risk.

        And BTW, many people consider a 2-meter sea-level rise by 2100 to be the biggest downside risk. That’s a nit. Even if it came by 2050, advancing technology would take it in stride.

        Stabilizing the climate is plugging the hole.

        Can’t be done. The climate is always changing, whether humans help or not.

        If you deny that, you’re the real denier.

      • @Jim D..

        And BTW, I’m not “looking at the cost of mitigation” so much as looking at the relative costs of various strategies for mitigation and remediation (i.e. ambient carbon capture). This whole discussion started with your (incorrect) statement that the science “is settled enough.

        Thing is, it isn’t settled at all. There’s no proof of any bad effects. There’s also no proof there aren’t bad effects. Balancing the risks from fossil carbon against the risks of massive intervention is certainly a policy discussion, but how “settled” the science is becomes just a political football when various policy options are debated.

        Just like Pierrehumbert, you’re dismissing as “doing nothing about global warming” any option that doesn’t support your socialist agenda.

        But it’s been done. It worked. Another few decades of the current mix of policies, as (probably, IMO) planned by the folks at Exxon in the ’80’s, and the problem will be solved.

        Too bad, but the world doesn’t need or want your socialist “solutions”.

      • Ahh, the old “climate is always changing” gambit. Not this fast, and not in the same direction for a couple of centuries. We are only a quarter of the way to what 700 ppm gets us to. The climatically significant change we have seen so far is small compared to the projected change, and that projected change is what can be mitigated. “Climate is always changing” is just a cop-out phrase that reads like “what global warming?”.

      • Ahh, the old “climate is always changing” gambit. Not this fast, and not in the same direction for a couple of centuries.

        Yes this fast, and yes in the same direction for 1-2 centuries. Several times over the last few thousand years.

        Besides, increased pCO2 hasn’t been enough to make a difference till maybe 60 years ago, if that.

        We are only a quarter of the way to what 700 ppm gets us to.

        But, as I pointed out above, current business as usual is on track to keep that from happening.

        “Climate is always changing” is just a cop-out phrase that reads like “what global warming?”.

        Wrong! Calling something a “cop-out” is just a straw-man argument. It’s like a child having a tantrum that you won’t give it what it demands.

      • The cost of strategies for mitigation has to be measured against the cost of no strategies, which is the social cost of carbon that economists have estimated around $40/GtCO2. Both costs have uncertainties, but the social cost of adding 5000 GtCO2 in annualized GDP terms is ten times that of mitigation.

      • OK, that went in the wrong place. It is above.

      • The cost of strategies for mitigation has to be measured against the cost of no strategies, which is the social cost of carbon that economists have estimated around $40/GtCO2.

        Nope.

        First of all, that “social cost of carbon” includes a whole bunch of highly questionable assumptions about things that are not settled science.

        Second, an unwarranted built-in assumption to those “economist”’s work is that the mitigation effort won’t crash our world economic system. This is the risk/cost that “strategies for mitigation” have to be measured against.

        Third, and most important, there are many strategies for mitigation/remediation. Those with serious risk of crashing the world economic system should be taken off the table. They should never have been on the table to start with.

        Of course, socialists using “global warming” as a stalking horse would describe any strategy that doesn’t advance their socialist agenda as “doing nothing about global warming”.

        Using the “social cost of carbon” as an argument to justify rationalize “solutions” that advance the socialist agenda is a straw man.

        The current situation is well on its way to solving the problem. It would appear to be a strategy being followed since the ’80’s. It would appear to be working. It would appear to be consistent with leaving the current successful system of “free-market” capitalism more-or-less unchanged.

        Socialist “solutions” just aren’t needed.

      • The SCC ($40/tonne, I should have said) is what you get with any mitigation policy including none because it is expressed per emission amount. It is the effect per emission. Against that you weigh the mitigation cost itself which AR5 WG3 puts at 0.06% GDP when annualized. The SCC for 5000 GtCO2 works out at 1% global GDP when annualized. And that is not even fair accounting because GDP measures effects in poorer countries with a reduced weight per person.

      • The SCC ([…]) is what you get with any mitigation policy including none because it is expressed per emission amount. It is the effect per emission.

        Nope. It’s an estimate using many unwarranted assumptions. But so what?

        The current situation is a “mitigation policy” (in a broad sense).

        Against that you weigh the mitigation cost itself which AR5 WG3 puts at 0.06% GDP when annualized.

        Figures don’t l1e, but l1ers can sure figure. Why would any sane person trust the IPCC WG3?

        And that is not even fair accounting because GDP measures effects in poorer countries with a reduced weight per person.

        All that arm-waving doesn’t change the fact that the socialist “solutions” involve high risks of crashing the world economic system.

        Of course, that may well be what they want. Some of them say so.

      • AK – scientists. A politician? Lol.

      • Policies are working. Emissions are flattening. Fossil fuels are being replaced as we speak. The “skeptics” clearly got it wrong with their myth that reducing emissions would collapse the global economy, because that is clearly not the case. The energy sector has new growth, fuel efficiency and energy security are improving, all as GDP grows.

      • The “skeptics” clearly got it wrong with their myth that reducing emissions would collapse the global economy, because that is clearly not the case.

        Nope. Like any myth, it’s based only tenuously on fact.

        The fact, for instance, that many of the proposed “solutions” would have (and would) “collapse the global economy”, But many wouldn’t.

        I’ll agree, however, that there have been quite a few arguments (here at Climate Etc., for instance) from the other side that are also straw men. The “skeptics” tend to cherry-pick current technologies and insist that they won’t be cost-effective in the future while ignoring the fact that the future technology will probably be wildly different, and much more efficient.

        Many of them are also as much in denial over Wright’s “law” as most proponents of CAGW. The vast majority of both sides, IMO, just don’t understand the (potentially) exponential nature of technological growth/development.

      • Yes, the whole collapsing the economy argument used a scenario of complete disregard for power security that energy providers would never have allowed in the first place. Various methods of energy storage or fuel generation from intermittent renewables will provide the needed buffer. We are not there yet, but this has to be encouraged, and, yes, with government seed money for innovation to allow the nation to remain competitive with new technologies in international markets, but you will call that socialism too.

      • […] but you will call that socialism too.

        Not necessarily. Back in the ’70’s I was a naive libertarian, ready to decry any violation of the ideal as socialism, and/or collectivism.

        I’ve studied a lot of history since then, and I also never really bought into the idea that you could get from here to there just by saying so.

        And the system of “free-market” capitalism we have today, descended from the winner of the Cold War, is hardly that libertarian. Problems of externalities have to be solved, they just don’t have to be solved with socialist solutions.

        I don’t see “government seed money for innovation” as a good solution to the problem, as the Solyndra fiasco demonstrates. There are other options.

        But as long as it doesn’t cross the line into crony capitalism, I wouldn’t decry it as socialism.

        My preferred solution (today, pending better ideas) is to require major energy suppliers such as gas (distributors and power plants) to use a small, but exponentially growing, fraction of their fuel as based on carbon extracted from ambient CO2 (air or sea surface). There are many reasons I regard this as far superior to a “carbon tax”. But many libertarians would probably decry my solution as “socialism”.

    • “Nobody ever said AGW science is settled.”

      Then why are people like you drawing conclusions from it?

      Andrew

    • JCH: The Impact of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer on Air-Sea Interfacial Heat Fluxes

      Thank you for the link.

  2. Look out Capital Hill: Sarah Palin vs Al Gore– sounds like science vs superstition and the scientific method vs. Al Gore casting chicken bones to foretell the future.

  3. “Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail”
    especially if that effort relies on curtailing fossil fuel emissions
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743

  4. Re Carbon Brief on UK steel.

    It’s so handy to have all these non-greedy people (journalists, activists, popes, politicians, sword swallowers etc) to run checks on all the greedy people (the ones who make stuff, power stuff etc).

    As if the UK steel industry could be affected seriously by a tiny little dent in its margin from power prices! Everyone knows that the greedy people operate on huge profit margins. That’s why they’re the greedy people!

    In fact, you’d wonder why Tata are even bothering to shut down operations. They have such huge margins (everyone knows) they could use their furnaces to make lots of brioche till the steel price goes up again. Everyone knows they could.

    • The greedy people possess hidden pots of gold obtained via secret rituals involving human sacrifice. For fun, sometimes they poison the local wells.

  5. The Article on English wine is interesting. The comment that it is helped by a 0.28C a decade rise in temperatures since the 1960’s is unfortunately not correct. If you were to measure from the depths of the cool 1960’s (peak time for articles on ‘global cooling’) then there was a brief peak some 15 years ago. However we have now fallen back to the summer temperatures of the 1940’s and 1770’s and 1730’s and 1540’s and……

    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/slide42.png

    I put most of this rise in production down to better vine selection, careful choice of sites, better husbandry and manufacture and a thirst for the out of the ordinary wines

    tonyb

  6. Two interesting stories I saw this week.

    First, an interview with Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association: http://www.carbonbrief.org/carbon-brief-interview-tom-greatrex

    Numerous quotes by Mr. Greatrex on Renewables (which mirrors things I’ve often stated on the CE Blog) where he says the energy debate shouldn’t be a circular, technology versus technology debate — it should be about the optimum mix of those different sources (e.g., on the integrated grid):

    “You need the features that you get from nuclear in terms of consistent, baseload, low-carbon supply, as well as the more intermittent renewable supply. You need all of those different things.”

    “I think we’re probably going to need pretty much all the tools in the box to meet those objectives. It’s not something where we can rule out something because, for whatever reason, some people have an objection to it. That goes for whether we’re talking about nuclear power, or some forms of renewable energy, or interconnection, or storage or any of those different things”.

    The second story discusses concepts of how system planning is performed on an integrated grid (where highly sophisticated models like GE MAPS are used):

    https://theconversation.com/the-cheapest-way-to-scale-up-wind-and-solar-energy-high-tech-power-lines-53597

    The Planning Models include features of simulating the integrated electric grid, such as transmission, different types of electric demand (e.g., peaking load), generator behavior (e.g., flexibility), weather data (e.g., for ELCC) and cost data for generators.

    • There is a somewhat mysterious discontinuity in the AC vs DC cost chart. Without it, DC would confer no advantage whatsoever over US distances.

      http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/wp-content/uploads/price-variation-hvdc-hvac1.gif

      From the article:
      In the present (and future) industry environment of liberalised competitive markets and heightened efforts to conserve the environment. In such an environment, the alternative for a transmission system is an in-situ gas-fired combined cycle power plant, not necessarily an option between an AC transmission and a HVDC one.

      2. System prices

      Second, the system prices for both AC and HVDC have varied widely even for a given level of power transfer. For example, several different levels of project costs have been incurred for a HVDC system with a power transfer capacity of 600 MW.

      http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/analysing-the-costs-of-high-voltage-direct-current-hvdc-transmission

      • Looks like the discontinuity is due to the need for a substation or some such for distance greater than 600 km.

      • Look up surge impedance loading to get an idea why long AC lines have problems.

        Another point. Keep in mind that for a single tie, that the sending and receiving ends both have to be able to survive the loss of that tie with no undue impacts. Typically exports and imports can’t percentage wise be large for distant systems with limited interconnections.

  7. On the “Climate Hustle” story — Sorry, Dr. Curry, but the article lost credibility with the statement:

    “including a riveting panel discussion on climate change featuring Gov. Sarah Palin”.

  8. The state AG’s would find easier targets on the other side of the climate issue. From 2010:

    “The $82 Billion Prediction

    “The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has an revealing article today about the creation in 2006 of a “short-term” hurricane risk prediction from a company called Risk Management Solutions. The Herald-Tribune reports that the prediction was worth $82 billion to the reinsurance industry. It was created in just 4 hours by 4 hurricane experts, none of whom apparently informed of the purposes to which their expertise was to be put.”

    http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/11/82-billion-prediction.html

    http://www.thegwpf.com/the-82-billion-prediction/

  9. Climate change & the meteoric rise of UK wine:
    “Perhaps more revealingly, says Mosedale, is that nearly two thirds of respondents (64%) perceived climate change as a general threat to wine production in the UK. Reasons cited for this were greater year-to-year variability, extreme weather and a greater potential for pests and disease from warmer, wetter weather during the harvest season.”

    That is most revealing that they blame late frosts and wet cool summers on climate change, it’s weather variability, and the wrong sign to associate with global warming. And wetter weather during the typical harvest season of late September to October is generally cooler than normal.
    The fate of UK vineyards is what first motivated me to investigate weather 12 years ago,. For 2014, I forecast an usually warm September, my daughter’s red grapes on her front porch had the most exquisite perfume and sweetness. My forecast for Sept 2015 was wet and much cooler than normal for most of the month. The grapes were inedible, foul.
    This year is a similar pattern with cooler wetter late Aug and much of Sept. And apart from late summer warmth in 2017, I don’t see another good summer like 2013/14 until 2025.
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zn9MUBGHRYJH1x7vt4E9fuYbHLROrMCpePuJcUQE1VI/pub

  10. Michaels and Knappenberger link is broken. Working link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/31/deconto-and-pollard-an-antarctic-science-fiction-disaster-2

  11. There’s a in vivo CLOUD experiment going on. What does it all mean?

    http://www.climate4you.com/images/CosmicRaysAndSunspotsMonthlySince195801.gif

  12. Two links to the hyped SLR paper.
    Actual Eemian highstand was 6.6-7 meters above present SL, reaxhed over about 3000 years at a global temp about 2C higher, and (Neem) as much as 8C higher in Greenland. Paper modeled 15 meters in 500 years. Off by an order of magnitude.
    How? Start with a regional Antarctic GCM that runs over an order of magnitude hot in hindcast over Antarctic observation since 1957 (up to ~5C warming versus observed ~0-0.25C. Then run impossible RCP8.5 for 2 centuries, reaching >1100 ppm in 2100 and >2200ppm in 2200. Then assume no subsequent sinking. Finally, import the Greenland summer melt mechanism for iceberg calving to Antarctica where there is no summer melt except on the peninsula.
    Climate junk science from Penn State. But it got the desired MSM headlines this past week.

    • The headlines, it’s always the headlines. Maybe the number of headlines generated by these scientists is part of their pay for performance contracts.

  13. Global warming has hampered food production to the point we are dying of eating too much. From the article:

    The past 40 years have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of obese adults worldwide, climbing to about 640 million from 105 million in 1975. If the current trend continues, about one-fifth of adults will be obese by 2025.

    Behind the global spike is greater access to cheap food as incomes have risen. “It’s been very easy, as countries get out of poverty, to eat a lot, and to eat a lot of unhealthy calories,” said Majid Ezzati, the study’s senior author and chair of global environmental health at Imperial College London. The price of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are often “noticeably more than highly processed carbohydrates,” he said.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/the-world-may-have-too-much-food

  14. An addition to the week, Judith…

    A really interesting and good post by ‘A Chemist in Langley’ a couple of days back. This blog is a generally a seriously good read on risk matters with its focus on risk communication.

    The current post is

    On chemical scare-mongering and science communication, it’s BPA’s turn this time

    https://achemistinlangley.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/on-chemical-scare-mongering-and-science-communication-its-bpas-turn-this-time/

    • Yep, that is a good one.

    • Lord protect us from any aspect of modern life that might lead to the shrinkage of alligator genitals.

      Small genitals are a major cause of increased rape. At least I think I read that in some research paper. And I am 100% against alligator rape. Female alligators are people too.

  15. “Inquisition: The top law enforcement officers in 16 states have formed a coalition to investigate and prosecute companies that don’t agree with them on climate change. In other words, those not practicing orthodoxy will be punished.”

    Sounds more like they are planning to commit what may develop into crime against humanity to me:
    “Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population or an identifiable part of a population. ”

    ” Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during peace or war. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. … political, racial, or religious persecution that may include the use of blasphemy laws or laws against defamation of religion or other similar wording, or inappropriate hate speech laws; and other inhumane acts may reach the threshold of crimes against humanity if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.

    “Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group within society for political reasons”
    (Wikipedia).

    • David Springer

      State district attorneys are cooperating in investigating and prosecuting companies not people. Legal actions against corporations don’t qualify as crimes against humanity.

      • Putting on your lawyer hat again David?

        BTW – I checked with the brother who is an attorney (former US prosecutor) and he confirmed that a charge of battery against Lewandowski is beyond being a joke.

      • David Springer

        I consult with a lawyer. Thanks for asking.

        And you’re right Lewandowsky battery is no joke. No one has a right to, by brute physical force, stop another person from walking where they have a right to walk.

        You’re an imbecile if you don’t get that or a dick if you get it and don’t care.

      • catweazle666

        David Springer | April 3, 2016 at 3:17 am |
        “I consult with a lawyer. Thanks for asking.”

        And as we all know, all lawyers are in absolute agreement on absolutely every point of law.

        Ain’t that so?

    • David Springer

      So good for them. We are a nation of laws. We should be narrow in what laws we pass and broad in enforcing them.

  16. David L. Hagen

    Vivid IR Image of Egypt’s Vegetation
    Satellite image of red River Nile evokes biblical legend

  17. Dear Mrs. Curry,

    It took some doing but I now have compelling evidence that blabbermouths can be denied their right to freedom of speech or a least the right to be read. I was put in moderation at Climate Etc. for exceeding the comment limit, which I understand is accounting for more than 50 of 1,000 comments. Actually, by my count I was already up to 50 in 500 before being stopped. So, to everyone who thinks free speech is the freedom to blab and blab and blab some more, it depends on where you are at. Here, as at most blogs, exercising you freedom too frequently can get you temporarily silenced.

    I hope you will take what I am now going to say as an observation rather than a complaint. Under Blog Rules you say “Climate Etc. aims to attract diverse perspectives and allow free discourse.” The aim is commendable, but the blog attracts mostly climate skeptics’ perspectives, which are of limited diversity. Consequently, when a believer, such as myself, comments he may get responses from more than one skeptic, simply because there are more of them than us here. When I am addressed, I feel that I should respond, but if I reply to everyone every time, I risk breaking the “more than 50 comments out of 1,000 rule.” I don’t think I would feel the need to comment as much if there were more believers to respond to the skeptics. While I can appreciate the need for such a rule, I think it comes at a price because it can stifle rather than encourages free discourse and the open exchange of ideas. If the comment count is all that matters, however, a partial solution would be multiple replies under a single comment.

    Despite the over representation of skeptics at Climate Etc., I believe it has greater diversity than other climate blogs.

    Best regards,

    Max1ok
    Blabbermouth

    • You took a lot of room – why not limit yourself a bit?

    • Max

      I think the problem is when there are an excessive amounts of comments in a short period, of which many are rather trivial or off topic. A few days ago your comments took up all but one position on the comments board -that is to say at the time I looked 9 out of 10 came from you.

      I personally do not want to participate in an echo chamber so welcome diverse views. I think that sometimes fewer comments and with more substance would outweigh those periods when people feel like being frivolous.

      I do agree that sceptics comments can be predictable and of limited diversity. the same can be said of warmists but, as you say, there seem to be fewer of those.

      best regards, your English friend

      tonyb

    • I think it would be great if the “skeptics” debated each other sometimes. We only get the DS versus DM kind of stuff when that happens. Speaking of which, it looks like DM got all his recent comment work scrubbed, so it could be worse.

    • Max, you raise a valid point. Actually when i put you in moderation, you had over 10% of the most recent 1000 comments. So your participation is highly valued here, largely as a minority perspective in the sea of skeptical voices here (admittedly, it is rare for consensus supporters to be in the minority). So in seeking balance, I ask that you be cognizant of not dominating the threads with too many comments, and make your comments count.

      • That was very polite. Impressively polite.

      • Judith,

        You are in a majority of one. Which is ok, since it is your blog. Still saying max is valued is pretty over the top for most readers. I can see that applying to Jim D. But if max manages to post one worthwhile comment in a hundred, it is as much due to random chance as anything. More than one commented has poised the question of how much is the result of max pursuing his stated objective of getting a rise out of people (which I personally am ok with) and how much is simply his lack of real knowledge on almost every topic he picks to comment on.

    • max1ok

      I never took you for a believer but here you are, way to go brother.

    • David Springer

      I don’t read blog comments here for the unqualified warmist opinions. I can get all of those I want at the seeming endless number of blogs that cater to them. You’d go to one of them if you didnt’ crave attention. You’d be lost in a sea of unqualified warmist dingbats. Seeking negative attention is what drives trolls. If you must troll here you need to at least obey the rules.

    • It’s Dr Curry, Dumba$$.

    • I want to thank Dr. Curry and others who responded to my post. I agree with your suggestions, and as Dr. Curry recommended, I will try in the future to make my comments count. Since there is a need for diversity at Climate Etc., I think I can best contribute by presenting substantive information that challenges the opinions of the skeptics who dominate the blog.

      Items of substance that caught my attention recently were Gallop Surveys about alternative energy and fracking. Results of the two survey’s are summarized below:

      In U.S., 73% Now Prioritize Alternative Energy Over Oil, Gas

      • 73% want U.S. to emphasize alternative energy rather than oil and gas

      • Support increased among both Democrats and Republicans since 2013

      • Higher support for alternative energy coincides with falling gas price

      “While a majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have favored emphasizing alternative energy over traditional fossil fuel sources since 2011, this year marks the first time a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents prefer an alternative energy strategy. The 51% of Republicans who now favor alternative energy is up from the previous high of 46% in 2011.”

      “In a time of notable partisan polarization, growing support for alternative energy among Republicans and Democrats represents a rare instance where a bipartisan coalition could form in support of an alternative energy strategy.”

      “Taken together, lower fuel prices and Americans’ growing concern about global climate change could provide the groundwork for a policy shift toward alternative energy solutions.”

      http://www.gallup.com/poll/190268/prioritize-alternative-energy-oil-gas.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles
      _________________

      Gallup Reports Rise in Opposition to Fracking

      “Opposition to fracking rises to 51% from 40% in 2015”

      “Drop in fracking mirrors Americas’ turn away from nuclear energy”

      “Republicans fuel drop in support for fracking”

      http:/In U.S., 73% Now Prioritize Alternative Energy Over Oil, Gas/www.gallup.com/poll/190355/opposition-fracking-mounts.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=lead&g_campaign=tiles

      • That was zippy.

      • That’s more political than anything else. Not science.

      • Max

        Welcome back.

        It would be interesting to see at CE an article from a green group-endorsing their policy of relying completely on renewables, such as our own green party.

        I like the idea of renewables but as we have seen with the demise of our steel industry- unfair competition and our sky high energy prices- fossil fuel or preferably nuclear have a big part to play. According to several sources our energy costs for industry are four times yours, primarily due to fracking and your lack of carbon based penalties. Cheap and reliable energy is the cornerstone of industrial societies and it will be decades before renewables can take centre stage.

        Tonyb

      • Tony, thank you. Greenpeace believes total reliance on renewables is within reach. I’m not so sure. Without breakthroughs in energy storage technology, I doubt the world will ever be able to rely entirely on renewable energy. But never say never.

        I too would like to see articles at CE on renewables and related subjects. I’m particularly interested in energy storage developments and micro grids. Two good sources of information I have ran across are

        http://energystorage.org/news/esa-storage-news

        http://www.ruralelec.org/6.0.html

        Perhaps representatives of these organizations would contribute to CE.

      • max1ok, nicely done, way to go brother.

      • Max

        Thanks. I will read the two links later but starting in five minutes is a tv programme on the Vikings discovering America.

        As regards renewables I think they suffer when used inappropriately.. For example much money has been spent in the UK on developing large solar farms and private installations using vast public subsidies. The uk is entirely the wrong place for solar. On the other hand we have a very long coastline with no where further than 70 miles from the coast so it’s a logical place for wave and tidal power but development to date has been virtually zero. Also, as you say, storage technology is vital. Without it renewables can not develop their potential.

        Tonyb

      • Arch, thank you for the compliments and encouragement.

        Tony, hopefully the UK’s problem will be solved by development of nuclear plants less vulnerable to natural disasters and attacks, and therefore more acceptable to the public. Disruption can be very expensive as Fukushima demonstrated. The cost of the disaster has prompted Japan to deregulate the power industry as means to more affordable power.

        http://www.forbes.com/sites/ucenergy/2016/04/04/after-five-years-fukushima-sparks-opportunity-as-one-of-the-largest-deregulations-begins/#497eadbc4ecf

  18. It looks as though Claude Lorius was way way way ahead of his time in understanding climate. It makes me wonder that if the likes of Mann and Hansen had been so humble and true to science whether there would be the controversy we see today. Although once it became political controversy followed really seemingly impossible to prevent.

  19. When computer models go wrong. Thoughtful article, but does not address basic fundamental issues in climate models. Grids to decently simulate convection cells (weather Tstorms) are 1.5-4 km a side (depending on whose model and definition of decent). Finest computationally feasible GCM grid is presently 110km, and CMIP5 typical is 250. NCAR says as a rule of thumb, doubling resolution by halving grid sides increases computation 10x. So there is on the order of a 6-7 order of magnitude intractable computation problem. Hence such vital processes must be parameterized, with the parameterizarion tuned to hindcast decently. For CMIP5, the protocol required from 1975-ye2005. But that is a period with at least some naturally rising temp, as from statistically indistinguishable 1920-1950. Without correcting for attribution between CO2 and nature, the models must run hot. And we see now that they definitely have.
    Meaning it is simply not possibly at present to adequately ‘decently’ model global climate. It isn’t about rounding error in irrational real numbers, or software bugs. Its a basic logic fail in GCM design.
    Thats why Mann’s hockey stick was so important to TAR. Not the ‘Nature trick’ blade. The no natural variation flat handle erasing MWP and LIA. Why the temperature history of ~1920-1945 rising w/o large CO2 increase, and ~1945-1975 not rising despite CO2 increase, are so important now. By themselves showing there must be a natural component to observed temp. And there GCMs MUST be wrong–as the pause has now proven by Santer’s 2011 published 17 year criterion.

    • GCMs are routinely used for long-term weather prediction and global climate simulations. And, guess what, if you don’t account for the CO2 effect properly, you can’t get anything resembling the current climate. Whether you take CO2 out or double it, there is a very large background shift in the energy balance. CO2 content is a first-order part of the climate, as important as things like albedo and solar strength. Paleoclimate demonstrates this much.

      • David Wojick

        Wow, Jim D, that is a lot of unsubstantiated claims in just five sentences. For all we know CO2 content is no “part of the climate” (whatever that means) much less a “first-order part” (whatever that means). Your second sentence seems to be the silly claim that AGW-based models cannot explain global warming without AGW. Not a surprise but also not science. Try a better model.

      • Of course CO2 is first-order. A substantial fraction of the infra-red you receive from the clear sky is from CO2. It is quantifiable physics how much effect it has both locally and globally. It is just one of those common knowledge pieces in science that the “skeptics” are missing.

      • CO2 content is a first-order part of the climate, as important as things like albedo and solar strength. Paleoclimate demonstrates this much.

        It most certainly doesn’t. Some of the evidence may be consistent with such a theory speculation, but there are plenty of open questions. For instance, from A 40-million-year history of atmospheric CO2 by Yi Ge Zhang, Mark Pagani, Zhonghui Liu, Steven M. Bohaty, Robert DeConto Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 16 September 2013.DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2013.0096:

        […] Several relationships remain contrary to expectations. For example, benthic foraminiferal δ18O records suggest a period of deglaciation and/or high-latitude warming during the latest Oligocene (27–23 Ma) that, based on our results, occurred concurrently with a long-term decrease in CO2 levels. Additionally, a large positive δ18O excursion near the Oligocene–Miocene boundary (the Mi-1 event, approx. 23 Ma), assumed to represent a period of glacial advance and retreat on Antarctica, is difficult to explain by our CO2 record alone given what is known of Antarctic ice sheet history and the strong hysteresis of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet once it has grown to continental dimensions. […]

      • Individual wiggles in CO2 and temperature, such as what you outline are very difficult to confirm. What we know is that the mid-Eocene with CO2 levels double now’s had iceless hothouse conditions with high sea levels. On a long-term scale paleoclimate tells the story of CO2 and temperature moving together. General cooling in the last 50 million years has coincided with the general CO2 reduction, and the connection is quantitatively understood from physics too because those changes correspond to large forcing changes.

      • Or take the Pliocene–Pleistocene transition, which would appear to be fully explainable as a result of circulation changes attendant on the closer of the Straits of Panama [Bartoli et al (2005)], but may be consistent with a strong role for CO2 as well [Bai et al (2014)].

        Refs:

        Bai et al (2014) Reconstructing atmospheric CO2 during the Plio–Pleistocene transition by fossil Typha by Bai YJ, Chen LQ, Ranhotra PS, Wang Q, Wang YF, Li CS Glob Chang Biol. 2015 Feb;21(2):874-81. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12670. Epub 2014 Jul 28.

        Bartoli et al (2005) Final closure of Panama and the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation by G. Bartoli, M. Sarnthein, M. Weinelt, H. Erlenkeuser, D. Garbe-Schönberg, D.W. Lea Earth and Planetary Science Letters Volume 237, Issues 1–2, 30 August 2005, Pages 33–44

      • David Wojick

        Jim D says “A substantial fraction of the infra-red you receive from the clear sky is from CO2. It is quantifiable physics how much effect it has both locally and globally.”

        Notice the scientific non sequitur. He jumps from the clear sky infrared to climate. This is the heart of the fallacy. CO2 is a GHG so of course it controls climate right? Wrong, clearly wrong.

      • This is only part of your knowledge deficit. If you have a specific question about the connection, ask it.

      • AK, If I’m reading the conclusions correctly there is some confirmation* of CO2 predictions and some that don’t confirm**?

        6. Conclusions

        An alkenone-based pCO2 record spanning the past 40 million years is presented for ODP Site 925—representing the first long-term Cenozoic pCO2 record constructed from a single site. Facilitated by improved methodology and careful consideration of assumptions, this record provides refined pCO2 estimates from a site that is characterized by limited long-term variability in oceanographic conditions. This record, therefore, reflects our most up-to-date effort to better constrain the Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2.
        *This new record confirms predictions from climate models regarding the role of CO2 in the cryosphere evolution in both hemispheres at several key time intervals (e.g. Eocene–Oligocene transition, MMCT, Plio-Pleistocene).*…
        This record also suggests that Miocene CO2 levels were higher than earlier estimates, which better reconciles a long-standing data–model discrepancy for the Miocene.
        **However, outstanding issues remain which include the presumed warming or deglaciation in the Late Oligocene and the abrupt and transient oxygen isotope excursion at Mi-1, both of which challenge our understanding of CO2 climate and ice sheet sensitivity.**

        We also evaluate spontaneous HCOEmbedded Image−CO2(aq) conversion, which is one variable that could impact CO2 estimates from the alkenone–pCO2 method. We conclude that the contribution from HCOEmbedded Image−CO2 conversion to the carbon fixed by alkenone-producing algae is minor, although this potential has increased by 40% from Late Eocene to the Quaternary. Finally, an exercise to evaluate potential CCM activity in haptophyte algae suggests that low pCO2 levels in the Neogene are more likely to trigger CCMs.

        http://d29qn7q9z0j1p6.cloudfront.net/content/roypta/371/2001/20130096/F5.large.jpg

      • GCMs are routinely used for long-term weather prediction and global climate simulations.

        Yes, let’s all do an affirmation of faith:
        Increased CO2 should increase thermal energy in the atmosphere.

        But, long-term weather ( past 7 days or so ) is not predictable.
        Here is weather forecast skill and 60% on this measure separates useful fromuseless:
        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7567/images/nature14956-f1.jpg

        Since the general circulation is responsible for weather, claims about features or changes other than temperature from GCMs are speculations, not predictions.

      • The point was, take the CO2 out of these models and they become useless, not even remotely representing the current climate. The effect of CO2 is a first-order part of the explanation of the global surface temperature.

      • Jim D, the question is not whether GCMs are used for long term weather prediction and global climate simulations. Of course they are. The question is whether the results are reasonably useful and reliable.
        For long range (3 month) weather, it is clear that the UKMet models are NOT useful. I submit as noted in my comment that the pause has now shown by Santer’s warmunist criterion that CMIP5 climate models are not, either. And that is not going to get fixed by AR6 and the next CMIP batch of tries.
        Separately, paleoclimate illustrates no such thing as your last two sentences. on centennial scales, CO2 is not a first order part of either MWP or LIA. On millennial scales, Vostok and EPICA ice cores both show that CO2 lags temperature by about 800-1200 years, and has for the last half million. Simple consequence of Henry’s law on the scale of one complete overturning of the global thermohaline circulation. Shakun’s effort to disprove this was a statistical joke. Essay Cause and Effect graphically illustrates why.

      • Decadal prediction is not the same thing as a doubled-CO2 projection. Projections use ensembles to average over decadal variations which are hard to predict in detail, but only account for about 10% of the long-term change in the next century. Projections are getting that other 90% which has more importance in the long term.

      • David Springer

        That’s BS. You can tweak climate models with any number of other mechanisms from changing parameters in clouds, ocean mixing, long term solar variation, cosmic ray fluctuations, and so forth.

        The best algorithm I’ve seen for tracking observed (direct & proxy) global Tavg trend is this:

        https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/25/loehle-and-scafetta-on-climate-change-attribution/

        Try reading it again only read harder.

      • …and none of those are as important as tweaking the CO2 level. If you hit the climate system with a 4 W/m2 forcing, equivalent to a 1% solar strengthening, it responds strongly (see the Ice Ages which are driven by albedo forcing changes of similar magnitude).

      • David Springer

        From the conclusions of Loehle and Scafetta 2011

        https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/25/loehle-and-scafetta-on-climate-change-attribution/

        6) Our result matches the historical record better than any other attribution study and better than GCM outputs.

        Open challenge to anyone to find a model with output of Tavg since 1850 with a better fit to observations than this one.

      • Scafetta is astrology.

      • Jim D: GCMs are routinely used for long-term weather prediction and global climate simulations. And, guess what, if you don’t account for the CO2 effect properly, you can’t get anything resembling the current climate.

        They have not yet been demonstrated to make accurate forecasts, no matter how CO2 effects are accounted for.

        Besides the CO2 not properly accounted for, the ocean temperature oscillations are not well- accounted for. Any parameter tuning that tries to match the last 60-120 years must take those into account.

        GCMs are great intellectual achievements. I expect them to be well-enough honed that their forecasts are dependable in about 50-100 years time. Not only will faster computers help, but accurate data over many areas for longer time spans that what are available now will be necessary to provide accurate estimates of all the parameters.

        GCMs to date provide a spread of simulated future climates. Exactly how the different parameter estimates and other details produce the spread is not well characterized. It’s disputed whether they can even be regarded as independent “samples” from a “population” defined as a true model plus random variations. Thus, we can’t depend on the mean to be closer to the “true” model than, say, one of the quartile sample paths or extremes.

        Someday a “one best” model will be chosen by experts [IPCC AR(12)?], and its performance at forecasting the subsequent 20 – 40 year record(s) will be shown to be accurate enough to have been used in planning. That will be an important maturation stage. Til then, the GCMs are too young and weak to carry a load.

        That’s approximately the same time span as quantitative modeling of the airlift capacities of wind designs from first principles.

      • We are already doing the experiment. Since 1950 we have added nearly 100 ppm of CO2 and the temperature has risen by nearly a degree. It’s forcing and response, as clear as can be, and quantifiable through physics. Physicists are not surprised at all that adding 100 ppm had this much effect. The consternation is among the “skeptics”.

      • David Springer

        Jim D

        Hand waving absent naming a specific model or paper doesn’t count as showing me a model which produces a better fit to observations than Loehle and Scafetta 2011.

        Good luck.

      • A one-line model of 2 C per doubling explains the temperature rise of the last century and a half. If in 1950 at 310 ppm you used that model to predict what temperature we would be at by the time we reached 400 ppm, you would have made a correct 60-year forecast.

      • The point was, take the CO2 out of these models and they become useless, not even remotely representing the current climate.

        Radiation doesn’t appear to be very significant to weather forecasts. Climate is likely a different story. RF would appear likely to increase surface temperatures in the global mean. However, other claims ( changes in weather, drought, storms, etc. ) would not appear to have a sound basis, because these are a function of atmospheric motion, which is not predictable, rather than the top-of-the-atmosphere radiative change, which is predictable.

      • Jim D: Projections are getting that other 90% which has more importance in the long term.

        That has not been demonstrated to be true.

      • Even “skeptics” place doubling CO2 in the degrees order of magnitude with natural variations in the low tenths. It is quantifiably true.

      • Two words: water vapor.

      • Jim D, “Even “skeptics” place doubling CO2 in the degrees order of magnitude with natural variations in the low tenths.”

        The real range of natural variability is about the same as a doubling, though “natural” can be debated.

      • Unforced natural variability, so we can rule out orbital effects, volcanoes and the sun. Couple of tenths, plus or minus, max.

      • JimD, “Unforced natural variability, so we can rule out orbital effects, volcanoes and the sun. Couple of tenths, plus or minus, max.”

        Right, so the majority of “natural” variability is hubris, over-confidence and “crap! that was unexpected!”. :)

      • The oceans to you.

      • Even “skeptics” place doubling CO2 in the degrees order of magnitude with natural variations in the low tenths. It is quantifiably true.

        Yes, close to that. Inverting Steffan-Boltzman yields about 1K. Observations are about 1.6K which is consistent with some positive water vapor feedback and some negative loss to the oceans.

        Questions, though: Is that harmful? Why, or why not?

        The models vary wildly with respect to natural variability, which should raise all sorts of flags as to their reliability:
        http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed/bloguploads/tas_ipcc_control1.png

      • Observations are actually 2 plus if you look at the CO2 and temperature rises in numerical terms.

      • @ordvic…

        AK, If I’m reading the conclusions correctly there is some confirmation* of CO2 predictions and some that don’t confirm**?

        That was the point I was trying to make. For the evidence to “confirm” a theory, all of it would have to be consistent, and at least a few bits would have to be inconsistent with any alternative theory that’s on the table.

        Especially WRT paleo, where there’s no way to determine whether higher CO2 “caused” higher supposed average temps, was “caused” by them, or was associated in a more complex way. (And don’t forget the speculative nature of and questionable assumptions going into the proxies for those temps.)

        At best, what can be said about paleo is that it’s not really inconsistent with the CO2 control knob theory speculation, allowing latitude for other factors where it doesn’t really fit.

        And that’s pretty weak.

      • Jim D: A one-line model of 2 C per doubling explains the temperature rise of the last century and a half. If in 1950 at 310 ppm you used that model to predict what temperature we would be at by the time we reached 400 ppm, you would have made a correct 60-year forecast.

        It is always easier to predict the present from the past that it is to predict the future. If for some reason you had predicted in 1880 a 1C rise by 2010, you’d have come close.

        Did somebody make a 60 year forecast in 1990? Is it recorded? If they are close in 2050, they’ll deserve kudos, should they be still around. Their forecast from 2050 to 2110 might have some credibility.

        Is 2C per doubling, starting now, a reasonable forecast, do you think?

      • The first IPCC report was in 1990, and that also came up with a transient rate of 2 C per doubling, which is on track.

      • Jim D: Since 1950 we have added nearly 100 ppm of CO2 and the temperature has risen by nearly a degree.

        That followed my comment about GCMs, but I do not know that it was a response to my comment. No GCM predicted before hand the effect of an additional 100 ppm. “Accounting for” effects after they have been observed I call “model rescue”. Model testing requires predicting what is not known.

      • There were models, simpe by today’s standards, around 1980 (by Broecker and Hansen) that predicted the current warming, which was way outside the normal range up to that point. These models were predicting records, and those records are now happening. They were not safe-bet predictions by any stretch because in the 60’s and 70’s the warming was slow. They demonstrated an understanding of what was happening.

      • Jim D: There were models, simpe by today’s standards, around 1980 (by Broecker and Hansen) that predicted the current warming,

        Here is the list of Hansen’s publications. Which predicted the current warming around 1980?

        This one famously overpredicted, and was rescued (partially) by a subsequent reparameterization:Hansen et al. 1988
        Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, S. Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone, 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 9341-9364, doi:10.1029/JD093iD08p09341.

      • Hansen et al. 1988 also had a 4 C equilibrium sensitivity which is an outlier by most standards, and is recognized as such even by the authors. Hansen (1981) had a sensitivity of 2.8 C which is more in the pack.

      • for completeness, here are Broecker’s papers:http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/user/broecker

        Which is a ca 1980 forecast of subsequent temperature trends?

      • “Which predicted the current warming around 1980?”
        Here is a fig from Hansen et al 1981. I’ve superimposed GISS Land/Ocean, 12 mth moving average. Hansen was underpredicting then.

        http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/4/hansen_.png

        Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213, 957-966, doi:10.1126/science.213.4511.957.

      • Well, HADCRUT is what they used, not RSS. And HAD 3 stops in about 2014.

      • Oops, comment re HADCRUT misplaced from below.

      • ” Hansen was underpredicting then.”

        Wasn’t Hansen also overpredicting back then that “normal” was 15 C?

        https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-umyWR6VQwZs/VuMuC3Ap11I/AAAAAAAAOQ8/-azhvRGTi7oA1NReV66pIYYyxmSQGNJmgCCo/s733-Ic42/cmip5%2Band%2Bersstv4.png

        I could forget that there is a real temperature, anomalize everything and shift a bit to make it “over-predicting”, but when you have real temperature available you lose that freedom.

      • Nick Stokes: I’ve superimposed GISS Land/Ocean, 12 mth moving average.

        That is an interesting graph. Thank you.

        The superimposed temperature trend does not seem to me to agree closely with the temperature trends that you posted on the “preparing-a-new-talk” thread, April 2, 11:28 pm. What am I missing?

      • Jim D: Hansen (1981) had a sensitivity of 2.8 C which is more in the pack.

        That provides me with another opportunity to ask one of my favorite questions: If the Earth surface global mean temperature increases 2.8C, what is the change in the rate of flux of energy from the surface to the atmosphere and beyond, all mechanisms taken into account? My estimate is ca 30 W/m^2, but I think a good estimate would have great value.

      • The increased flux would be matched by increased rainfall in the same proportion. You are saying effectively 30% more rainfall, and no one has projected that much. For 2.8 C warming, Clausius-Clapeyron gives you 20% more water vapor, so there could be 20% more rainfall, just from simple proportionality ideas.

      • Jim D: For 2.8 C warming, Clausius-Clapeyron gives you 20% more water vapor, so there could be 20% more rainfall, just from simple proportionality ideas.

        Did you not notice that you did not answer my question?

        As to “simple proportionality”, you already know that radiant energy increases proportionally to the fourth power of temperature; why state a principle that you already know is wrong?.

      • I wasn’t talking about radiant energy and nor were you (?). Also I have no idea where your 30 W/m2 comes from, so I can’t comment on it. Projections don’t substantially change the surface energy budget because the net effect is about 4 W/m2 which is much smaller than any term in it. The terms would change by this order if anything.

      • Matthew Marler,
        “What am I missing?”
        One is HADCRUT, the other GISS. Otherwise, they are just direct plots of 12-month smoothed monthly data. I did make a slight error in aligning the x axes in the GISS plot; an improvement is here. And of course the scalings of the underlying graphs differ.

      • MM,
        “One is HADCRUT, the other GISS.”
        Apologies, I was thinking of the other graph here. What is wrong there is that some of the data has slid off the end (it’s an interactive scheme where the user chooses). It doesn’t go to present. I’ll update the graph there.

      • Jim D: I wasn’t talking about radiant energy and nor were you (?). Also I have no idea where your 30 W/m2 comes from, so I can’t comment on it.

        The energy flux from the surface to the atmosphere and beyond has at least 3 components: radiation, evapotranspiration, advection/convection. My question is: How much does the total flux change if the surface increases 2.8C?

        My guess is based on a calculation that I posted here based on a 0.5C change, and based on a 1C change (references were provided in the post, and include the Trenberth et al flow diagram.) I would be amazed if my calculation proved in the next 5 years to be accurate. Whatever the answer is I am sure does not violate known physics, but what is the answer?

      • David Springer

        Jim D

        True or false please. This is a test.

        1) Scientists believe about 0.5W/m2 more energy is entering at the top of the atmosphere than is escaping from it.
        [ ] true
        [ ] false

        2) If 0.5W/m2 more energy were entering the global ocean than leaving it that’s enough to raise the temperature of the entire volume of the global ocean no more than 0.2C in one hundred years.
        [ ] true
        [ ] false

        Thanks in advance for your voluntary participation in this exam.

    • “So there is on the order of a 6-7 order of magnitude intractable computation problem. Hence such vital processes must be parameterized, with the parameterization tuned to hindcast decently.”

      If the computing power were available. Do you think it would be possible to increase the resolution by 6-7 orders and thereby avoid parameterization.

      • SoF, interesting hypothetical question. I tend to think not. Works for regional weather going out a few days only because regional initial conditions are known. Doesn’t for longer weather forecasts (e.g. 10 day) because of mathematical chaos. Meterologist Ed Lorentz discovery of it was by doing a simple three variable Navier Stokes convective cell simulation.
        Now global initial conditions are NOT known even at present resolution, so there is a lot of interpolation and infilling. And GCM’s run out a century, not 10 days. Whether the boundary conditions argument about ‘so what’ (initial conditions are unimportant to an ensemble) applies at such fine resolution I will have to research. There is a lot more that can go off, as a solution condition is that if resolution is roughly doubled, time steps are roughly halved. That is called the Courant-Frierichs-Lewy (CFL) condition for convergence. Seven orders of magnitude more time steps is a lot.

      • Fuller answer. Could you avoid so much parameterization? Yes. Does it help improve GCM’s? Probably not, for reasons given.

      • David Springer

        Loehle and Scafetta 2011 use only four parameterizations to get the best Tavg fit to observations since 1850 that I’ve ever seen.

        The anthropogenic parameter is a +0.66C per century linear trend that began in 1940.

        https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/loehlescafettawuwtfigures01_page_2.jpg

      • It will be exciting to see the predictive capabilities of their model. In just a little handful of decades, their model will be corroborated by experience – or not. That is – if their model prediction can be deducted from what they have published.

      • “In just a little handful of decades, their model will be corroborated by experience – or not.”
        It’s not looking good. Here after five years, I’ve superimposed HADCRUT 4 to date, in red. It doesn’t perfectly match the HAD 3 they used, but the latest trend is striking.

        http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/4/loehle.png

      • David Springer

        Cherry picking. Shame on you, Nick.

        Overlay RSS lower troposphere with 12 month smoothing and see what it looks like.

      • David Springer

        How’s this, Nick. I see you HadCRU4 overlay on Loehle and Scafetta 2011 and raise you HadCRU3 overlay on Loehle and Scafetta.

        Looks like their prediction is in fine shape to me 5 years later.

        http://snag.gy/v9GUY.jpg

      • David Springer

        Obviously Loehle and Scafetta used HadCRU3 given the almost perfect fit of my overlay. L&S 2011 probably used an 20 month filter where I chose a 24 given my peak-to-peak is a skosh smaller than theirs.

        Amazing how the picture changes when comparing apples to apples, huh Nick?

      • Well, Hadcrut 3 finished nearly two years ago; you’ve only got three years beyond 2011. Pretty incomplete apples.

      • There’s a reason it was called HadCrappy3. Crummy temperature series and the people who love them.

      • David Springer

        Not beaten badly enough yet, Nick? Let’s see what we can do about that.

        First of all, HadCRUT3 is still being updated. Second of all HadCRUT4 is notorious in that it was adjusted to erase the pause shown by every other global land & ocean dataset. Third, the original paper used at least a 12 month mean and little Nicky didn’t use any mean filter because that would exclude the spike he wanted to show at the very end of the record.

        You cheated Nick. You cherry picked a single temperature record and then failed to make it comparable to the paper by using a similar mean time.

        Here is HadCRU 3 & 4 overlayed showing how the latter was pencil whipped to erase the pesky pause.

        http://snag.gy/1l0cT.jpg

      • thx, i can use this also

      • David Springer

        Correction. HadCRUT3 ceased being updated in 2015. However as can be seen above the spike in the last few months of HadCRUT4 fails to appear when a 24 month mean is applied as it was in L&S 2011.

      • David Springer

        As long as we’re looking at HadCRUT4 pencil whipping here’s another manufactured change to sex up the warmist claims. Note how neither HadCRUT3 nor RSS time series support the claim that any record warm years have happened in the 21st century while HadCRUT4 makes it possible to claim there were four record breaking years.

        Keep in mind, folks, the actual temperatures on the ground didn’t change just the adjustments (pencil whipping) applied to them for what appears to be purely propagandist purposes.

        http://snag.gy/fwNtX.jpg

      • David Springer

        The public is being hoodwinked by a small cabal of climate scientists.

        At least some of the public. I’m certainly not falling for it and haven’t since the first day I started to critically examine the claims 16 years ago.

      • Springer: “First of all, HadCRUT3 is still being updated.”

        WRONG.

        Springer: “Its was updated until 2015”

        WRONG

        Hadcrut3 ends in 2014 around march or April

        https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/crutem3/

        Look one of the crowning achievements of climate skepticism was undermining Hadcrut3.

        And bozo springer who gets his data from woodfortrees still wants to use a dataset that is defunct.

      • David Springer

        The point still stands, Mosher. HadCRUT4 was obviously pencil whipped to show greater 21st century warming. The contrast and claims enabled for “hottest years ever” subsequent to 1998 are glaring. Notwithstanding that you’d never let a fact interfere with your conclusions of course.

        Stoke’s failure to apply smoothing used in L&S 2011 still stands as well.

        Cherry picking all the way down. And if there aren’t any real cherries then they’re invented by changing how temperature datasets are generated from the original data. It’s a scam and it’s busted.

      • David Springer

        Nick Stokes | April 3, 2016 at 6:56 am |

        “Well, Hadcrut 3 finished nearly two years ago; you’ve only got three years beyond 2011. Pretty incomplete apples.”

        Three out of five is still 60% complete. A solid majority of years complete.

        Arithmetic doesn’t appear to be your strong suit, Nick. What is?

      • David Springer

        Steven Mosher | April 3, 2016 at 11:31 am |

        Hadcrut3 ends in 2014 around march or April

        https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/crutem3/

        —————————————————–

        Mosher you dipsh*t, the first paragraph of the link you provided says it ended in May not “around march or April” [sic]

        CRUTEM3 and HadCRUT3 were continued with monthly updates until May 2014, when updates ceased.

      • David Springer

        The latest El Nino hasn’t yet shown up in 13-month smoothed satellite data.

        http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2016_v6.png

        Start praying that it doesn’t drop like a stone and average out to nothing, boys.

        In the meantime Texas is very grateful for the rain brought by the little boy. Only a vanishingly tiny fraction of the state is in even the lowest level of drought conditions. Hallelujah.

        http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

      • David Springer

        The latest El Nino hasn’t yet shown up in 13-month smoothed satellite data.

        http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2016_v6.png

        Note that it took 18 years (since 1998) for a greater monthly temperature peak to appear. And only beat the 1998 record by 0.10C. That’s barely 0.05C of warming in nearly two decades. The pause is alive and well.

        Write that down.

      • David Springer

        The latest El Nino hasn’t yet shown up in 13-month smoothed satellite data.

        http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2016_v6.png

        Note that it took 18 years (since 1998) for a greater monthly temperature peak to appear. And only beat the 1998 record by 0.10C. That’s barely 0.05C of warming in nearly two decades per decade. The pause is alive and well.

        Write that down.

      • “Third, the original paper used at least a 12 month mean and little Nicky didn’t use any mean filter”
        No, I used a twelve month running mean filter. The effect of filtering have a strong effect on the variation, and you can see that mine has comparable variation to Loehle’s.

      • David Springer

        Mine’s almost an exact fit with a 24 month filter. But if you did that it would chop off the dramatic spike at the end of the series. I understand.

      • “The point still stands, Mosher. HadCRUT4 was obviously pencil whipped to show greater 21st century warming. The contrast and claims enabled for “hottest years ever” subsequent to 1998 are glaring. Notwithstanding that you’d never let a fact interfere with your conclusions of course.”

        No, it was changed in the following ways.

        1. Hadcrut3 adjustments were eliminated
        2. MORE stations were added

        That said hadcrut4 is still too cool !!

        As for Scaffetta. It’s not a model. And its aphysical.

      • “The latest El Nino hasn’t yet shown up in 13-month smoothed satellite data.”

        1. Ya satellite data sucks
        2. your filter sucks.

      • DS,
        “Mine’s almost an exact fit with a 24 month filter. But if you did that it would chop off the dramatic spike at the end of the series. “
        In fact, L&S just plotted annual averages joined by straight lines. No further smoothing. My 12-month MA coincides exactly every mid-year. The third-last point on my plot is the 2015 average, just as it would appear on an annual plot. The last two month points show effect from Jan and Feb 2016. But that is real data. It happened.

      • David Springer

        Mosher, while you are indisputably the resident expert on suck I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on this point.

        Satellite temperature data is the only thing going that even approaches global coverage.

      • David Springer

        @Stokes

        Yet the fact still remains that the 24-month running mean in the plot I used is a nearly perfect reproduction of what L&S 2011 used. Weird.

  20. “Potential stabilizing points in Earth’s climate”

    Headline that won’t be written ( or prompt research ): “If we do not act to curb CO2 emissions, earth’s climate may soon reach a boring and beneficial stabilizing point.”

  21. “Taxing food that is responsible for high greenhouse-gas emissions when it is produced and transported could benefit the health of both people and the planet. An obvious place to start is red meat, including beef and lamb.”

    Just when we arrived at the fact that a diet including meat is healthiest.

    No word on taxing publications like nature which use the internet?

    • TE, the old ruminants fart methane thingy. My goodness, warmunists are into recycling abject nonsense. Who knew that Greenies were Vegans…Oh, wait, now I get it. Veggies are mostly green.

    • This sort of shallow activism – whereby a facile tug on the tax lever will produce all kinds of desired effects – is not just being published in shallow activist leaflets.

      The climate mullahs now have a paid voice in all places, high and low. Their pitch is: Why sabotage or ban when you can make it look like some “market” is operating with its invisible hand to bring about the New Class dream (which is, of course, just the Old Left’s nightmare cunningly repackaged)?

      Green Blob, after learning to say “market forces” and going mainstream, is now saturating what used to be considered serious and high end journals. Nature is its serious-face rag.

    • I would rather tax inductivism. Governmental stupidity is already taxed.

    • Government and taxes. It’s surprising taxes are such a cure-all.

    • Methane was supposed to be one of the easy fast mitigations. How would you do that if not by taxing inefficient practices? Fining?

      • Let’s see…

        You could keep the animals indoors, and filter their air through filters infused with methane-collecting life forms. Or catalytic converters that burn them to CO2.

        Then you could tax free-range operations.

        Oh wait!…

      • So all the talk about fast mitigation was just talk, I see.

      • I wouldn’t do anything before someone proves exactly how much warming methane will cause. Then I would ask myself how much that warming would cost? Or is it a benefit? Methane is not a toxic gas, so having a few ppm extra won’t hurt anyone outright.

        So, see, you have to first prove it’s a problem and you haven’t.

      • CO2 is a worse problem, because it stays in the atmosphere much longer, so that would be priority one.

      • It’s not as though anybody’s saying it’ll stick around very long. 5-10 years max, IIRC.

      • Yes, it is just a way from distracting from CO2.

      • First, you have to show how much the ACO2 will contribute to warming. Once we figure that out, we need to determine if the extra warming will be harmful or helpful. Only then can we put together an intelligent policy, if it is determined something needs to be done. You have a lot of work to do, JimD. BTW, do you get paid per post, per word, what?

      • Just because you personally haven’t figured out the effect of the CO2 concentration doesn’t mean the scientists haven’t. Bear that distinction in mind.

      • Scientists aren’t in agreement about any of it: how much warming is due to ACO2? Is it harmful or helpful? Have you been paying any attention to this? Or are you too busy writing to read?

      • You are the one stuck in these backwaters. The world has moved on, like it or not. Emissions are flattening, and there is a reason.

      • JimD. “Click your heels together three times and say ‘There’s no place like home’ and you’ll be there.”

      • AK, better, instead of catalytic conversion, have it filter through soil and bio convert with nitrogen fixing bac.

      • David Springer

        Jim D | April 3, 2016 at 12:35 pm |

        “You are the one stuck in these backwaters. The world has moved on, like it or not. Emissions are flattening, and there is a reason.”

        Emissions aren’t flattening on the world we call “earth”. Did you have some other planet in mind?

        https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/TrendsGlobalEmissions.png

      • DS, there was some news about the 2015 emissions lately, but maybe you missed it.

  22. So, you think the wars are bad here on CE. Check this out. From the article:

    CitizensForTrump.com and the Trump Hotel Collection site reportedly went offline Friday, seeming to confirm threats made by the hacktivist collective Anonymous. But TechInsider is reporting that “The ‘total war’ that Anonymous declared earlier this month against Donald Trump has devolved into a war among hackers fighting within the group and pro-Trump supporters who are trolling them within their chat rooms.”

    https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/04/02/1729251/anonymouss-war-on-trump-described-as-successful-and-disastrous

  23. Seas have already risen by more than 20 cm since 1880, affecting coastal environments around the world. Since 1993, sea level has been rising faster still (see chapter 3 here), at about 3 mm per year (30 cm per century).

    If the rate rises gradually to 8 mm per year by 2100, the rise over the 21st century could be 55 cm.

    • MM: Good spot, solid conjectural calculation debunking the new paper, but not the whole story.
      I was going to comment on this from that link, but thought the larger debunking of the new Penn State SLR paper upthread was more important. The CSIRO SLR acceleration claim in the Conversation link you refer to is very misleading, comparing apples to oranges.
      From 1880, reasonably geostationary global tide gauges show SLR of about 2.0-2.1mm/yr. (There are perhaps about 80 with long records.) THEY STILL DO TODAY. 1993 ‘acceleration’ breakpoint in the link is the giveaway, since that is the year SLR also started being measured by Satellite altimetry. That method shows about ~2.8-3mm/yr. A little more before 2006 (~3.2), a little less after (~2.4). Excluding GIA. Nobody knows why the apparent sat SLR change ~2006. Essay PseudoPrecision deconstructs a couple of hilarious attempts to explain the apparent recent slowdown. Neither method shows any acceleration as posited by CAGW and asserted by CSIRO.
      The difference in apparent SLR rate between sat and geostationary tide gauges has many possible explanations. The spec sat accuracy is less than the precision (waves, humidity), and there is instrument drift to 1mm/yr (Jason 2 design spec). The satellites are measuring the entire ocean ‘surface’, not the shore line relevant for SLR concerns.
      Whatever the reasons for the difference between the different methods, it was intellectually dishonest of CSIRO to claim acceleration by switching from one method to the other, when neither method taken by itself shows what they claim.
      Climate science fruit salad… again.

      • Rud, maybe you know this. How do the measure changes in the shape of the ocean basins? I don’t believe the sat is that advanced :) Is it basically just a guess?

      • Jim2, happen to be at main computer at present, so easy but longish answer. Sats measure what they ‘see’, the wavy ocean surface ‘average height’ relative to their orbit given its decay. Done by retardation timing of radar signals. Now imagine how difficult that actually is. Sats have no ‘knowledge’ of GIA.
        Change in the shape (technically, just the volume) of ocean basins is a computer modeled additional global isostatic adjustment (GIA). Is something between 0.3 and 0.4mm/year of +SLR depending on whose model when. Is just a guess, IMO. The Antarctic modeled GIA used up to 2013 turned out to be observationally wrong (using differential GPS set up along the shoreline) by almost a factor of five, which is how the GRACE Antarctic ice mass loss estimates went from big loss to zero loss just by recalculating using the observational GIA estimate. And then the separate Antarctic ICESat estimate (Zwally, IIRC 2015) came in at ~zero also. Climate Audit had an interesting post on this some months ago. Sort of another upside-down Tiljander.

        GIA is really only needed for the closure problem: trying to reconcile observed SLR not equaling sum of estimates of delta ice sheet loss and thermosteric rise from “warmer” oceans. (I think the groundwater addition thing is a rounding error weak argument.) The former is suspect for reasons like GRACE misestimation owing to faulty GIA models, the latter because ARGO only samples the upper half of the oceans, and that sampling is still very sparse. IMO, the whole closure thing is an exercise in futility. Essay PseudoPrecision was titled that for that reason.

        Reasonably geostationary tide gauges say SLR ~2-2.1mm/yr, no acceleration in the last century. Good enough for me personally as just a hard-nosed business guy who cares a lot about climate and energy realism.

      • ristvan: I was going to comment on this from that link, but thought the larger debunking of the new Penn State SLR paper upthread was more important. The CSIRO SLR acceleration claim in the Conversation link you refer to is very misleading, comparing apples to oranges.

        How does anybody come out of these reports with warnings of a 1m -2m global sea level rise?

  24. UAH Global Temperature
    After joining peaks (warmer months) and troughs (cooler months) and adding 3rd order polynomial trend lines, it appears that slowdown in cooler months is more prominent.
    http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/UAHt.gif
    The trend lines suggest that continuation of the pause, or even fall in global temperature are more likely than an imminent rise. I doubt Dr. Spencer would make much out of it.

  25. Stabilizing points – I like it but graph grammar might take me a while.

    • Minor correction. SunEdison is an installer, not manufacturer. And Abengoa, largest concentrated solar manufacturer/installer, is already in bankruptcy.

    • From the article:

      SunEdison, Inc., a renewable energy development company, develops, finances, installs, owns, and operates renewable power plants to residential, commercial, government, and utility customers. It operates through Renewable Energy Development, TerraForm Power, and TerraForm Global segments. The Renewable Energy Development segment provides renewable energy services that integrate the design, installation, financing, monitoring, operations, and maintenance portions of the renewable energy industry segment. It also owns and operates renewable energy power plants; manufactures polysilicon and silicon wafers; and subcontracts the assembly of solar modules to support downstream solar business, as well as for sale to external customers as market conditions dictate.

      http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SUNE+Profile

  26. Hey,

    Taxing food! What a great idea. After all it is a well known fact that vegans are smarter and more responsible than the rest of us. Lets have them determine how we all should rat.

    • That was supposed to be eat. But if they get their way, rats might be all the meat us plebes might ever taste.

      Filet mignon for the technotypes still. Can’t go to Rio, Cancun or Paris and not enjoy a 5 star meal.

  27. stevefitzpatrick

    Church and Clark take a thousand words to finally say something: Hansen is nuts about 5 meter increases by 2050. They could have saved a lot of time by sticking to one sentence.

  28. Here is my post describing the relationship between the lunar tidal cycles and the Earth’s LOD.

    http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/there-is-natural-Gleissberg-like-cycle.html

    In this post, I am claiming that there is natural 88.5 year Gleissberg-like cycles in the lunar tidal stresses placed upon the Earth as the Moon crosses the Earth’s equatorial plane every 13.66 days.

    I will eventually show that there is also a natural 208 year de Vries-like cycle, and a 2300 Hallstatt-like cycle as well.

    In other words, the Lunar tidal stresses placed upon the Earth through abrupt changes in the Earth’s LOD (every 13.66 days) show cycles that match the long term variations in the strength of the
    Sun’s magnetic field.

  29. Here is another thing the Moon might do:
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160401075118.htm

    The Moon may play a major role in maintaining Earth’s magnetic field
    Date: April 1, 2016

    [I hope the date is not pertinent].

  30. From the article:

    The hidden wealth of some of the world’s most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of millions of documents that show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.

    The Guardian, working with global partners, will set out details from the first tranche of what are being called “the Panama Papers”. Journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5m files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm.

    http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-papers-how-the-worlds-rich-and-famous-hide-their-money-offshore

  31. “Mosher you dipsh*t, the first paragraph of the link you provided says it ended in May not “around march or April” [sic]”

    haha.. I got you read it.

    Goal accomplished.

    • David Springer

      My goal was to show that no one here can produce a model which outperforms Loehle & Scafetta at reproducing global Tavg since 1850.

      Goal accomplished.

      Thanks for playing of course.

      Next!

  32. Moderate to strong El Nino events are triggered by long-term (i.e. inter-annual) variability in the lunar tides. Specifically, the timing of these events is directly related to 31/62 year Perigee/Syzygy lunar tidal cycle.

    I do not have all the answers as to how this actually happens but the best answer that I can come up with is that slow forcings applied to the Earth by the lunar tides influences the formation and subsequent propagation of Madden-Julian Oscillations (MJO) along the Equatorial Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans.

    A MJO consists of a large-scale coupling between the atmospheric circulation and atmospheric deep convection. When a MJO is at its strongest, between the western Indian and western Pacific Oceans, it exhibits characteristics that approximate those of a hybrid-cross between a convectively-coupled Kelvin wave and an Equatorial Rossby wave. When a MJO moves from the western Indian Ocean into the western Pacific Ocean, it generally accelerates, becomes less strongly coupled to convection, and transitions into a convectively de-coupled (i.e. dry) Kelvin wave.

    Periodically (i.e. roughly once every 4.5 years), the precise alignments of the lunar tidal forcings produce the right conditions that result an upsurge in the number and magnitude of what I call Pacific Penetrating MJO. These are MJO events that travel from the Eastern equatorial Indian Ocean, along the Equator, all the way into the Western Pacific Ocean, where they initiate Westerly Wind Bursts (WWB’s).

    The spawning of these WWB’s takes place as the MJO event is transitioning from a hybrid-cross between, a convectively-coupled Kelvin wave and an Equatorial Rossby wave, and a convectively de-coupled (i.e. dry) Kelvin wave. The spawning of the WWB’s occurs in the Western Equatorial Pacific Ocean, somewhere between 60O E and 150O W longitude. The actual process involves the formation of a typhoon/cyclone pair straddling the equator which produces an intense WWB between the two intense low pressure cells.

    The onset of El Nino event are marked by the weakening of the easterly trade winds associated with the Walker circulation. The actual drop off in easterly trade wind strength is always preceded by a marked increase in WWB’s in the western equatorial Pacific Ocean. The WWB’s help initiate an El Nino event by creating downwelling Kelvin waves in the western Pacific that propagate towards the eastern Pacific, where they produce intense localized warming, as well as by generating easterly moving equatorial surface currents which transport warm water from the warm pool region into the central Pacific.

    The net result of the Moon’s involvement in the initiation of El Nino events means that:

    El Niño events in New Moon epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Solstices.

    El Niño events in the Full Moon epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Equinoxes.

    For a full description of the meaning of Full and New Moon Epochs please read:

    http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/evidence-that-strong-el-nino-events-are_13.html

  33. David L. Hagen

    Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare

    . . .listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
    “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,”
    said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

    So what is the goal of environmental policy?

    “We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

    Citing: U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare 2/10/2015

    At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

    “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.

  34. Danny Thomas

    Been otherwise occupied so have not checked to see if this has made the rounds, but found it to be interesting and disconcerting at the same time: http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-climate-irin-04042016-story.html

    “She also pointed to a mining firm investing in Mali that built a hospital as part of its adaptation efforts. Yes, improving healthcare is a form of adaptation, but she acknowledged a sense of queasiness over that particular deal – with its hint of contract sweetening.

    “But we can’t turn our back on investments. We just need to demand more from” the corporates, she insisted.

    Warner agreed, saying the magnitude of investment and the scale-up required to respond to climate change means there is a “significant role for the public and private sector – we just need to get the mix right”.”

  35. From the article:

    A new study has found that an average of $2.5 trillion of global financial assets could be “at risk” from the effects of climate change.
    The paper – from researchers at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Vivid Economics – looked at the financial impact of the planet’s mean surface temperature increasing by 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

    Its authors also found that because of the “uncertainties” inherent in estimating “climate Value at Risk”, there was a one percent chance that warming of 2.5°C could put 16.9 percent of global assets – $24 trillion – at risk.

    “Our results may surprise investors, but they will not surprise many economists working on climate change because economic models have over the past few years been generating increasingly pessimistic estimates of the impacts of global warming on future economic growth,” Simon Dietz, the paper’s lead author, said in a news release.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/05/global-warming-risks-trillions-study.html