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Kevin8084 at 03:10 AM on 10 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Pretty good post in terms of debunking ALEC. Ali TT (#33) makes some very good points. I'd add that the analysis overlooks the fact that retail prices vary dramatically throughout the U.S. depending on the market structure -- about half the states operate in a deregulated wholesale power market where prices are set by the marginal unit(highest cost unit needed), the other half operates a "traditional" cost of service market where prices are set to pay for the entire built system. So Heartland's analysis is not valid, but the rebuttal could be stronger if it included this fact. Re CCS, in terms of meeting steep reduction targets, there is a lot of well regarded economic analysis which has looked at the least cost pathway to decarbonize the energy system. CCS nearly always shows up as a necessary component of this. In a system which uses a carbon price to provide the incentive, the cost of CCS has a large impact on what the market price of emissions would be. Expensive CCS, high carbon price. Cheaper CCS, lower carbon price. The reason for this is that the models, which include the cost impact of investment and operation of various technologies on the entire system, deploy some CCS before other techs (like electrification of vehicles for example). These models now show that CCS would also be installed on generating units that use natural gas. The reason the Southeast doesn't have renewable policies, beside the politics, is that their resources aren't that great and the cost issue is important to them. They don't have good wind and solar isn't fantastic -- too many cloudy/overcast days. Check out a solar insolation map for the U.S. Unlike Germany, with a very poor solar endowment, they care a lot about having low costs power. I rely on this site for good science. There is a wealth of peer-reviewed, high quality energy and economic analysis out there done in the context of a low-carbon mitigation strategy. Check out work by folks at MIT, RFF or even EPRI to start, which can lead you to other good research. Back of the envelop analysis as we have in this post is fine when pressed for time, but there is some well developed energy/economic research you can use as well. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:09 AM on 10 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Actually, Composer, they're more than that. Deniers are demonstrating time and again that they are completely devoid of morals and driven by fanatic ideology. Hacks (CRU). Leaks (IPCC). Impersonations (Monckton). Accusations. Threats. Lies. Personal attacks. Time and again, their actions reek of desperation, but demonstrate a completely amoral approach to the issues. You have to look at people who behave that way, and who demonstrate zero restraint, credibility or civility, and ask yourself, what exactly motivates such barbaric behavior? It's sure not a desire to arrive at the truth, because the only things missing from the denier's list of actions is actual, substantive, defensible research contributing to the understanding of the science. -
Composer99 at 01:09 AM on 10 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
It has become increasingly clear to me that pro/semi-pro climate denialists and their pseudoskeptic enablers among the general public have nothing left but grasping at straws and "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing." These leaks of IPCC draft documents are just more straw grasping. -
Lars Karlsson at 01:07 AM on 10 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Apologies for the (fruit-themed) namecalling. I suppose I should leave that to experts like Donna Laframboise (namecalling seems to be her only competence). -
Bob Lacatena at 00:29 AM on 10 January 2013Greenhouse effect has been falsified
high treason, A brief word of advice. "Thought experiments" such as yours often yield "obvious" and "logical" results. This comes in part because it is so easy and obvious, which in turn is because it is able to ignore a lot of inconvenient details, like actually doing the math, or establishing a source of energy. In your case, consider that while compression of a gas may heat that gas, after the compression stops, and the gas radiates its heat away, additional energy is required to maintain that temperature. The simple act of keeping the gas under pressure does not maintain the temperature. Ah ha, you say, but what about the sun? Yes, no matter how you define the system, the sun keeps the planet at an average radiating temperature consistent with the energy absorbed (255K). The problem then becomes, in your model, to determine where the temperature thresholds are, and how the planet radiates energy as a 255K body, while maintaining much higher temperatures at the surface of the earth. Unfortunately, when you actually do the math, you will find that your theory fails. The temperature at the surface would be nowhere near the actual temperatures that we see. Therefore, some other factor is at work. Gee, I wonder what that is? -
Bernard J. at 00:07 AM on 10 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
I'm starting to think that these unauthorised releases might be the best thing for scuppering denialism. What better way to find any little niggle in the report than to have people who are desperate to sink it go through it with a fine-tooth comb. The very fact that all they can come up with (and this includes the Spencers and Lindzens as well as the Watts and the Moncktons) are a few minor insignificances is itself a resounding affirmation of the high quality of the consensus science's work. And if the denialists haven't been able to demonstrate anything serious by the time of formal publication, they are implicitly endorsing all of the science contained therein that they haven't challenged prior to release. Basically, the denialists are on notice. They now have the opportunity to do their worst - if they don't they're screwed, and if all they can come up with is smoke and mirrors, they're still screwed. We'd definitely know if they come up with something resembling a real counter to the consensus science, but so far there's only been that familiar sound... A far better strategy would be to release the best they have a week or so before the official release date, and attempt to hype their 'gotchyas' before the sensible world managed to respond. Now all they'll have is the unsatisfied feeling that they arrived to the party prematurely... -
John Brookes at 23:32 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
"Skeptics" generally say they expect cooling to start soon. So they should be more than happy to take evens for a bet about whether the current decade will be hotter than the previous one. But they aren't. So they don't really believe the warming will stop. They just pretend not to know what is causing it. -
CBDunkerson at 22:48 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Lars, that quotation is a great example of the complete break with reality at the heart of the climate denial movement. Ozone depletion - When scientists called for action on this it was the deniers who said that fixing the problem would require "forsaking industrialized society". The Montreal Protocol was fought tooth and nail because it would 'destroy the global economy' and 'have no impact'. The protocol passed... the ozone layer has begun recovering... the economic impact was so trivial as to be unnoticeable. Acid rain - Once again, it was the denial industry which insisted the problem didn't exist and could not be fixed without economic catastrophe. Once again the reality is that the 1989 revisions to the clean air act have resulted in a 65% reduction in acid rain and the economic impact nonexistent. Indeed, the extra costs to polluters to prevent both acid rain and ozone depletion is more than offset by the economic benefits of preventing that damage. The net economic impact of solving these problems has been positive. Ditto if we ever get around to putting the brakes on global warming. The claim that environmental problems can only be solved by giving up modern technology, individual freedom, et cetera is a lie that deniers have told themselves so often that they take it as inviolate truth even in the face of observed reality to the contrary. That Laframoise could even write that addressing ozone depletion and acid rain would require the end of industrialized society after solutions to both had been implemented without any such consequence shows just how deeply ingrained this delusion is. -
Dikran Marsupial at 22:35 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
@JasonB note that the SkS trend calculator properly accounts for the autocorrelation, so it is easier to find long periods with no statistically significant trend. For example, GISTEMP gives a statistically insignificant trend from 1996 to present using this method. The jump from "trend is not statistically significant" to the "trend is zero" is indeed invalid. If a trend is statistically significant, it just means that the observed trend would be highly unlikely IF the underlying trend was zero. So if it is insignificant, it just means that it would not be highly unlikely to observe the measured trend IF the underlying trend were actually zero. Note the conditionality, it only allows you to make statements about what you might or might not expect to see IF the underlying rate of warming was zero. Now you could make the subjective judgement (which is not compatible with the ususal frequentist hypothesis testing framework) that if the measured trend is not highly unlikely if the underlying trend were actually zero is equivalent to saying that the measured trend is evidence that it is possible that the underlying trend is actually zero. However, even then, the lack of a statistically significant trend only means that you can't rule out the possibility that the underlying trend is zero, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of the claim being made by the skeptics. -
Esop at 22:29 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
#21 (Dana): Yep, that is the one. Should add 2012 data. -
JasonB at 20:16 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
That's amazing Dikran, I hadn't noticed that you could get such a long stretch before, and it leads right up to the supposed "pause"! 1979 - 1998: 0.110 ± 0.113 °C/decade (2σ) 1979 - 2012: 0.158 ± 0.048 °C/decade (2σ) So in the 19 years prior to the point when global warming supposedly stopped, the trend was not statistically significant but had a most likely value of 0.110 °C/decade; after it supposedly stopped, the trend increased to 0.158 °C/decade and became very statistically significant. Hmm... Of course, the longer trend lies within the uncertainty interval of the shorter trend, so this isn't evidence that it's changed, merely a warning to those who would make the leap from "trend is not statistically significant" to "trend is 0", which is very different. -
Dikran Marsupial at 18:30 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Klapper O.K., try the trend in GISTEMP from 1979 to 1998, which the SkS trend calculator gives as 0.110 ±0.113 °C/decade (2σ), so there you have a period of about 19 years without a statistically significant warming trend. That shows that there is nothing that unusual about the current "hiatus". Now how about addressing the point of whether any of your analysis provides statistically significant evidence of the modelled trends being inconsistent with the observations, or whether there is statistically significant evidence of a change in the underlying rate of warming. -
Lars Karlsson at 17:27 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Laframoise -[snip]-. From her silly little book, chapter 24: ”No matter what they said the problem of the moment was – over-population, ozone depletion, acid rain, global warming – environmentalists have long advocated the same basket of solutions. These solutions amount to humanity forsaking industrialized society and a good measure of individual freedom. Apparently the answer is a return to Eden – to a slower, greener, more, ‘natural’ pace of life that embraces traditional values rather than mindless consumerism.”Moderator Response: mod - no name calling please -
Rob Honeycutt at 14:50 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Terranova... Well, it would even be nice if those who divulged the AR5 information would confess that it was unethical behavior! -
dana1981 at 14:34 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
I don't want to get into a comparison of unethical behaviors. The point is that these leaks are in violation of a confidentiality agreement in a transparently desperate effort to generate controversy where none exists. If contrarians are so eager to see the draft IPCC reports they should just sign up to be reviewers. -
Terranova at 14:25 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Dana, In your opinion is this more, or less, or not even comparable to Gleick's confessed unethical behavior? FWIW, I agree that if there is a confidentially agreement, it should be adhered to. -
DSL at 14:05 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Noting all the while that statistical insignificance isn't equal to general insignificance. After all, a trend of .083C per decade is still 20x the rate of Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum warming. -
DSL at 14:01 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Why 15 years, KLapper? You should have picked between 6 and 12 years. Those linears are all negative. Of course if you add but two years, you get almost double the 15-year linear. And why not use GISTemp, which covers the poles? I wonder what it all means. -
Bob Loblaw at 13:49 PM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
dana, lrg: Aren't you engaging in a straw[berrywo]man argument? (as long as the comments policy doesn't prevent bad puns...) -
Bob Loblaw at 13:45 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Klapper @ 27. Two questions: 1) How many of those 15-year regressions were statistically significant? 2) when you tested for statistical significance, did you do it for both an expected value of zero, and an expected value of the long-term warming trend? -
mikeh1 at 12:47 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Krapper @ 25 If you are going to make claims, please provide some supporting links. The Met Office forecast is for a record in 2013.2013 is expected to be between 0.43 °C and 0.71 °C warmer than the long-term (1961-1990) global average of 14.0 °C, with a best estimate of around 0.57 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast.
See Hot Topic NZ for more details. -
dana1981 at 12:37 PM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Klapper, I'm not really sure what your point is. Yes, we're in the midst of a period when virtually every natural surface temperature influence is acting in the cooling direction, and that is temporarily offsetting a lot of human-caused warming. And? -
YubeDude at 12:36 PM on 9 January 2013Dark matter for Greenland melting
Pete @ 9 "I'm sure we agree that roads, fields and whole towns, as well as active fire fighters, limit the spread of fire." It is true that the fire break aspect of development can and often does impact the general spread of a fire but that same development also houses and provides access for the number one contemporaneous cause of wild-fries and fires in general, humans. Cast off cigarettes, smoldering camp-fires, pyromania, heavy machinery, fireworks, land clearing with slash and burn, children playing with matches, transmission line arc, field burning to prepare for the next planting and other human endeavors play a significant role in the story of fire; a role that has no parallel component in the Eemain. Not offering support for your original assertion that claimed "...there would also have been an increase in wildfire..." leads me to infer that you are attempting to attribute a degree of natural variability but one that has no empirical evidence; begging the question, why, and to what end? "...the number of fire-prone days per year increases..." with warmer temps as you stated but without the spark it is just another warm day. The wildfires of NSW and Victoria over the last decade, what natural condition would have created these conflagrations in the Eemain and what evidence do you have in support? -
Klapper at 11:56 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
#22 Bert I've done a rolling 15 year linear regression on the HadCRUT4 dataset. The trend ending in 2012 is the slowest warming since the trend ending in 1980. The most recent 15 years is also slower warming than all trends calculated between about 1915 and 1950. -
Klapper at 11:29 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
#10 Philippe Do you have a typo in your post? 1982 to 2002 is nowhere close to being an escalator "step" (showing no warming). -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:29 AM on 9 January 2013Dark matter for Greenland melting
Harald... Problem there is, language just doesn't work in such logical terms. Language has a life of it's own that you just can't control. The term "crowdfunding," regardless of its accuracy, has entered the lexicon and, at this point, there's not much chance in changing it. In fact, if you want to establish a new way of doing business, probably the best thing you can do is create a new word for what you do and see if you can get it to stick. It doesn't matter how perfectly accurate the word is, it just needs to be sticky. Crowdfunding is a very sticky word. -
Klapper at 11:27 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
#4 JasonB Regarding your ENSO effect graph, If you believe that 2013 will be ENSO neutral (the black points), the projection would be an anomaly record in the GISS dataset right? Of course there is a lot of variability but that would be the expection I think. We will know soon enough. On that topic The lastest Met Office long range forecast predicts 2013 will likely not be a record, maybe an anomaly of .35 against the 1971 to 2000 baseline (according to their published graph). If true this forecast will make the last step in the escalator even longer. -
dana1981 at 11:22 AM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
LRG @1 - permission granted! -
Philippe Chantreau at 10:20 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
I don't Terranova. The difference is this: the weather events in India, China and Nort Korea are unusual, reaching or slightly breaking records established a number of years ago. What Australia is currently experiencing is beyond unusual; it's the bloody mother of all heatwaves, something of a magnitude that has never been recorded before. Just as I dislike to comment on sea ice before the September minimum, I won't elanorate beyond what's already obvious at this point. Let the Australian summer play itself out and then we'll tally heat and fire numbers. -
littlerobbergirl at 09:59 AM on 9 January 2013A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents
Are we allowed to blow a big fat raspberry at madame laframboise? -
Jonas at 08:16 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Concerning variability: interesting graph of temperature and nino/nina + volcanoes: Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3
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Pete Dunkelberg at 07:46 AM on 9 January 2013Dark matter for Greenland melting
Yubedude @ 5, Fires tend to start in seasons that are not winter, and both start and spread more readily in warmer conditions. In a warming period (coming into an interglacial period for instance the Eemian) the number of fire-prone days per year increases in many regions. I'm sure we agree that roads, fields and whole towns, as well as active fire fighters, limit the spread of fire. On the other hand, if it gets much warmer fire becomes nearly unstoppable. Another local resident said that “the trees just exploded” as he tried to help fire crews in the township of Murdunna, which was mostly destroyed by the blaze. -
scaddenp at 06:19 AM on 9 January 2013Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Or, consider the effects of the same concentration of HCN in the atmosphere. -
Bert from Eltham at 05:59 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
If the denial movement takes the last sixteen years of surface temperature data as proof of no measurable warming. Then they would have to admit this hypothesis was wrong four times in the forty years prior. Currently their delusion has just gone on for a bit longer this time. “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” ― Albert Einstein -
dana1981 at 05:11 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Esop @17 - you mean like this? -
kampmannpeine at 05:02 AM on 9 January 2013Dark matter for Greenland melting
this is SCARRY! -
william5331 at 04:55 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Even with the great reduction in Arctic ice at it's minimum on Sept15, the Arctic is still mostly covered by ice for most of the year with the twin effects of reflecting solar radiation back into space and melting ice "keeping the cocktail cool". I wonder what the escalator will look like when the Arctic Ocean is ice free in, say, the beginning of July and the Arctic ocean can really start to accumulate some heat. Great that we have the escalator graph as a base line to compare with what is coming. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:37 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Esop... I think the difference this time around will be that, people are now seeing more evidence this is happening, particularly in terms of extreme heat events. If (when) those heat events get worse, then a very large portion of the world's population is going to understand this is real and extremely serious. -
Esop at 04:32 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
In reference to Singer in the second video above: what happened to his so called "unstoppable global warming every 1500 years". Will the deniers ever make up their minds? Two years ago they claimed that we would cool drastically in the coming years due to the weak sun cycle, but now, they tell us that the heat is due to the strong solar activity. Why do they get away with this flip-flopping? If this got pointed out to the average Joe, the denialist community would suffer a serious blow, but it does not happen, so they keep on flip-flopping. Maybe CNN will, as they (at least Amanpour)have repeatedly pointed out/corrected visiting (real) scientist that the "other side" are deniers, not skeptics, as the often too polite scientist tend to call them. Hopefully more of the press will follow that exemple. Looks like it is happening, and the deniers don't like it one bit, thus their increasing desperation. They got spoiled when they used to have near total control of the press from late 2009 to early 2012. -
JasonB at 04:31 AM on 9 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
BillWalker: France has had to shut down nuclear power plants due to overheating water as well, and a coal power plant in Queensland had to be taken offline a few years ago because the water level in its lake dropped too low. In each case the shutdown occurred when the power was needed the most. The "reliability" argument, especially in a warming world, is not as strong as its made out to be. Note that it's possible to use air cooling for many types of thermal power plants, including solar thermal, at the cost of some efficiency, but with a large reduction in water use. This would be an attractive trade-off for desert-located solar thermal plants. -
Esop at 04:20 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Suggestion for another escalator: sea level rise. Remember all the noise in the anti-science community last year, when sea level dropped somewhat from 2010 due to all that water being dumped on land (due to the La Nina). -
Terranova at 04:00 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Phillipe, don't forget about the deadly cold snaps in India, China, and North Korea. -
Esop at 03:58 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
#11 (Rob): One could hope so, but remember that they did the same thing during the 2008 La Nina. Then we had 2010, but as long as the science side doesn't make a point of pointing it out, the anti-science side gets away with it time and time again. BTW, UAH lower troposphere temps is in record territory and way above 2010, (of course Spencer had to write a v5.5 to lower the warming) so a good chance of 2013 seeing a new record, but I would not be surprised if we saw a triple dip La Nina. -
vrooomie at 03:52 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
A friend of mine, a biologist who lives near Perth, reported that one of the weather stations he has used in the past, about 4 hours east of him, reported 52C yesterday. Oi! This is why I *never* complain about a rare 39C day in Colorado, never mind it's a dry heat...;) -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:42 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
And I thought the Texas summers of 10 years ago were bad... -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:40 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
Meanwhile for you guys living down under in the great brown land of Oz, things are heating up and going up in flames. The French newspaper "Le Monde" has an article in the online edition reporting that the BoM had to add a new color to their temp maps because of the abundance of forecast temps above 50 deg Celsius. They mentioned a forecast 54 deg Celsius temp in the center of the country. http://bigbrowser.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/01/08/hors-limite-il-fait-si-chaud-en-australie-que-la-meteo-a-ajoute-une-nouvelle-couleur-a-ses-cartes/ Can you let us know if that materializes John? Not cooling too fast down there it seems... -
Son of Krypton at 03:30 AM on 9 January 2013Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
@10 John Russell I've only been at the process of combating climate misinformation for a few years now (to which this site has proven indispensable), so other will certainly have seen the transformation you mentioned more than I, but in this time I have noticed the outright denial that warming is occurring start to drop and their arguments have changed. I remember when several deniers in the Canadian blog/news/literature circles I follow were aboard the "greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" train. It seems positions such as that have been (more the time being) all but given up for the arguments of low sensitivity or it's not anthropogenic. Slowly but surely, progress is being made. @Bert, I remember going through a similar exercise about 6 years back. Fantastic analogy, I wouldn't have thought to compare the two -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:23 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
In a way, the fact that the deniers seem to be putting all their eggs in the "16 years of no warming" basket could be a really good thing. We know, without any doubt, that surface temps are going to jump at some point to keep pace with the long term trend. Basic physics dictates it. It's just a matter of when the jump occurs. When that happens, it's game over for denial. -
BillWalker at 03:15 AM on 9 January 2013Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive
Re sailrick @53 and others, a further problem with nuclear that hasn't been mentioned is the decreasing availability of cooling water. Several nuclear reactors in the US had to be shut down at times this past summer because their cooling water supplies became too warm. Some rivers are also running too low. That's a problem that's only going to get worse as the climate warms. And of course, this problem also affects other thermal technologies. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:10 AM on 9 January 2013Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator
In addition to what's been pointed, Klapper might be a little lazy. One can easily find longer periods of no warming or even slight cooling by carefully picking the end points. For instance, 1982-2002 shows no warming (I may be wrong by a smidge in the years, as this is pure eyeballing). It is hardly believable that some go for that tired nonsensical meme. Fake skepticism working its hardest...
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