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Comments 50801 to 50850:

  1. There's no empirical evidence
    Aye, thanks Paul -- it's an obviously highly useful tool and easy enough that people who've never engaged the science can get a toehold for their motivation.
  2. There's no empirical evidence
    Good to hear! Thanks for the work in keeping your website going.
  3. There's no empirical evidence
    Folks, apologies for the WFT downtime - it was caused by an IP allocation cockup at my hosting provider, and as Doug guessed, I didn't notice for a day! Should be fixed now in DNS but it may take a while to propagate. Best wishes Paul
    Moderator Response: [DB] Thanks, Paul. If we can help in any way down the road, let us know.
  4. Sceptical Wombat at 21:48 PM on 13 December 2012
    This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    chriskoz @ 5 Monkton is an hereditary viscount and therefore perfectly entitled to call himself a lord. However hereditary lords are not automatically members of the House of Lords - they have elections and Monkton has never won a seat. Monkton likes to conflate the two issues - what a surprise - and wave his passport around to prove he is a viscount.
  5. Cornelius Breadbasket at 20:42 PM on 13 December 2012
    This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    mandas @1 - I don't think this article is intended to shame or convert Monckton himself, it is intended to arm those of us who are in discussion with people who believe him. I have already used this site twice in response to claims made by otherwise intelligent people quoting him in online forums. This article provides everything I needed to say in one well-written and accessible place.
  6. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Monckton has become an embarrassment to deniers by his embrace of right-wing wackiness like "birtherism". I am sure his espousal of causes like this is for financial reasons as he can command higher speaking fees. Like malamuddy did, one way to deal with Monckton is to point out the fantastical claims he has made over the years, like swearing out an affidavit claiming he has evidence concerning the birth certificate of the President of the United States. Indeed, the whole association of US climate denial with Creationism and birtherism is a gift that can keep on giving. It highlights the whole refusual to face evidence and facts that undermine a favoured ideology.
  7. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    mandas@1 We can ignore Monckton but the unfortunate fact is he seeks and get attention because of his outlandish behaviour, which suits his backers down to the ground. He is about to tour Australia and New Zealand again so it is most important that his fraudulent science is “again” exposed.
  8. There's no empirical evidence
    Many of us are wondering what's up w/Woodfortrees, Steve. It's much cited and well-liked by folks of all stripes. Hopefully the proprietor is having a nice vacation somewhere and simply hasn't noticed it's down. (OK, that's sounds pretty unlikely but I guess we may as well be optimistic.)
  9. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    curiousd @124, if you look at the following diagram, you will see that one NO2 absorption band at around 7.5 micrometers wavelength (1300 cm-1 wave number) is shared with one of the absorption bands for CH4. Removing CH4 from Archer's model greatly reduces the size of the absorption band at 1300 cm-1; but, presumably, the remainder is the absorption by NO2. I have checked and NO2 is accounted for in the model, but its concentration cannot be adjusted in Archer's version. Please note that the solar and OLR spectrums shown in the diagram above are for globally averaged values. The actual power received from the sun by a surface at right angles to the incident sunlight is about four times that shown; and the actual black body spectrum of the sun, prior to attenuation by distance is about 4 million times greater than that from OLR. Further, the OLR is for a very humid clear sky situation, and is not typical.
  10. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    malamuddy@3, Thanks for turning my attention to this "Democratic Labor Party" in Wagga. I didn't know about it either. With just one MP in Senate, they cannot make any difference to the political scene. After having invited this monkey clown calling himself a "lord" to perform another silly stunt (like those he performed in Doha and last year in Durban), their rating should drop even lower and we should see them losing the lonely seat soon.
  11. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    mandas @1 - Monckton is just the vehicle through which we debunk this pervasive 'no warming in 16 years' myth. He's just a tool (by which sense of the word, I'll let you decide).
  12. There's no empirical evidence
    My apologies for what is likely an off-topic comment, but I wasn't sure of a better place to put the question. Has the Woodfortrees website moved? Google claims it should be at woodfortrees.org, but there's nothing there but an apache tomcat setup page. I hope nothings happened to the site - it's very handy.
  13. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    I meant to say, if you set the methane to zero in the David Archer program the little peak still shows up. Anyone know what this is?
  14. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    What is the tiny peak at about 1300 wave numbers in fig. 3? Although it is in the vicinity of methane, if you set the methane to zero in the David Archer program. Also in Fig. 1 above that peak shows up with no atmosphere. ?????
  15. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    As it turns out Monkton has been booked for a gig in Wagga Wagga (Australia), sponsored by the Democratic Labor Party, a right wing political outfit that most people thought was defunct. A lecturer at our local university wrote a letter to the Wagga Advertiser pointing out that this was a rather silly thing to do. Monkton of Brenchly replied with a typically arrogant tirade, beginning "A Mr White wrote ..." Below is a letter I have written in response, which may or may not get published. It has no literary merit but, perhaps, suggests a way in which we should deal with this person. A Mr Monkton has recently written to your paper (11 December) in response to a letter about Global Warming from Dr Graeme White. We are indeed fortunate to have the benefit of Mr Monkton’s opinions. As he so ably demonstrated in his letter he has such great expertise in this area that he was able, without the need for evidence, to simply dismiss Dr White’s arguments. In fact we have it on Mr Monkton’s own say so that his expertise in this area ranks with that of Albert Einstein because both of them have written a paper that was not peer reviewed. But not just expertise in science. He has such a deep knowledge of economics that he can wave away the opinions of the great majority of economists who support carbon pricing, such an all-encompassing understanding of logic that he can spell Aristotle and such mastery of mathematics that no other mathematician can understand his calculations. Could this possibly be the same Monckton who has variously said that he is a member of the House of Lords, that he is the proud owner of a self awarded Nobel Peace Prize, the discoverer of a single cure for AIDS, colds and influenza and the man who has been able to prove mathematically that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fake. No wonder he has added Dr White to the long list of people who deserve to be sued for ever questioning his obvious truthiness. We in Wagga are truly blessed that the DLP has been able to attract such an intellectual giant, such a great polymath, such a paragon of the British aristocracy to our humble town.
  16. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Christopher Monckton impersonated a delegate from Myanmar
    If only he would accurately impersonate and act like someone who has a clue. I bet WUWT have applauded his latest bit of deceit, but I don't plan to visit there to find out. Are the faithful still waiting for Monckton's Miracle Cure for AIDS, MS and (no doubt) the common cold to materialise?
  17. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    I know Monckton is one of the darlings of the denialist community, but I would like to suggest that we stop focussing on him and stop writing long posts debunking his nonsense. Every day that passes shows just how delusional he is, and it may be time to treat him just like a troll. Take away his oxygen by ignoring him.
  18. Participate in Citizen Science with the new SkS BOINC team
    Hmmmm ... climateprediction.net seems to be off the air at present. Perhaps it is being overloaded by prospective SkS team members? "8-)
  19. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    climate scientists tend to be too conservative
    That seems to be borne out by the seemingly increasing frequency with which I have been seeing the possibility of 4 - 6 degrees C warming being raised recently. 2 degrees sounds positively balmy by comparison, in spite of the dramatic changes we are seeing to places like the Arctic after less than 1 degree of warming. We have known for a while that actual emissions have been exceeding the levels predicted to push us past 2 degrees, but caution has dictated that we avoid issuing such 'alarming' projections. Me? I'm alarmed!
  20. Participate in Citizen Science with the new SkS BOINC team
    :-) I've been running this on various CPUs since it was only SETI. I'm on the team of a company that no longer exists; so, I'll probably start giving credit to the SKS team. ClimatePrediction is active on my work machine, but BOINC is saying the project is not currently available when I try a new account on my personal machine. I wonder if the SKS fans have overloaded the CP site. World Community Grid also has some interesting sub-projects, including one on materials research for some form of alternate energy (solar?).
  21. Participate in Citizen Science with the new SkS BOINC team
    A few additional climate science related citizen science efforts of note that involve more interaction and less CPU effort / grunt time, but are equally valuable ... www.cyclonecenter.org - reclassifying the global tropical storm records from the whole satellite era. www.oldweather.org - digitizing old marine logbook data to improve our knowledge of historical marine surface climate changes. www.data-rescue-at-home.org - digitizing old land and upper air data records. Pre-1950 there is as much in-situ data in hard copy or image only format as there is digitized. These 'unknown knowns' could literally transform our ability to characterize long-term changes in climate. The good news is that anyone can help us to reduce the fog of uncertainty in historical climate records. Your analysis and clicks in any of the above can really help us to improve our collective knowledge of historical climate changes.
  22. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    After doing so, I find that Brian's argument is one of the more cogent I've seen from a Heartland shill. And the more passionate elements of the assertion (about 99% of the comment) are, coming from an expert like Brian, quite the compliment. Everyone, a big shout out toward the apparatchik hives of greater DC! Alas, I suspect this will be deleted, since it is in response to a deleted comment. However, perhaps this request will be left: Brian, can you explain why you once felt it necessary to claim that "I'm a thorough carbon dioxide climate change denialist and I wouldn't believe in carbon dioxide induced climate change at gunpoint - because it is physically impossible." Now that's a good, skeptical, open mind at work.
  23. Participate in Citizen Science with the new SkS BOINC team
    All my spare CPU cycles are on Climate Prediction for the 350 team. Started years ago with SETI.
  24. Latest summary confirms death of Chacaltaya glacier, and acceleration of global glacier shrinkage in the 2000s
    Kiwiiano asks about reduced snowfall. The critical factor in the demise of Chac' was cloud cover reduction since about 1980. No cloud means no snow replacement during the short snow season but crucially it means no shade from the intense tropical sunlight which, at that altitude drives very rapid sublimation of ice to water vapour. Sunlight warming peripheral rocks of the glacier would also have caused more melting than in earlier times. There isn't a weather station in the Chac' valley but near-by monitoring stations showed only margin warming and certainly not enough to melt ice significantly. One has to be careful to read widely and take into account all the variables and even then it is hard to draw solid conclusions. Sorry I've lost the link to this information now but it was from Bolivia,-The Monday Morning Newsletter or something like that and mostly written in Spanish.
  25. Newest Yale Forum Video: A ‘Play-by-Play’ on Sandy with Kerry Emanuel
    Tom Curtis@13 In baseball terms you just smacked a hard line drive that fracture the center-fielder's hand and bounced into the stands for a ground rule double; this, happening with two outs in the ninth, destroyed climateadj's no hitter. All that effort he put into his web site and you just shot him down in under a 1000 words. What is it they say about lies, damn lies, and inaccurate statistical interpretation with bias limits and false equivalency?
  26. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    DSL@43 You can read the snipped text since it has only been commented out in the HTML. View the page-source. Sorry, can not contribute anything else of use to this thread.
  27. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    Eidolon, I'm not going to touch the population and immigration comments. However, for your heat argument, go here, read the main article, and then post any related questions or comments in that stream. Someone will respond. The combined comments stream is watched quite closely.
  28. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    Last night, I used the stove to make dinner. I then had a hot shower and, as it was cold last night, I put on the electric blanket. In other words, I was producing heat. If 7 billion other people are also producing heat on a regular basis then maybe global warming has little to do with CO2 output and more to do with billions of people simply producing heat and releasing it into the atmosphere.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] No. You are off-topic on this thread. If you wish to continue this line of thought, please first read the post and all of the comments on this thread before commenting further. If so, please do so there, not here.

    Thank you DSL, for your sage advice and guidance to Eidolon.

  29. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    Dang - I missed Brian's argument. I'm guessing it was Heartland par for the course: blah blah hoax blah blah liberal commie blah blah.
  30. Brian G Valentine at 07:47 AM on 12 December 2012
    The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    [Unproductive insult snipped]
    Moderator Response: [d_b] Please contribute comments at Skeptical Science to the extent you're able to further the conversation in a productive manner. If you're not able to be a useful part of the conversation, this is not a good place to spend your time writing comments.
  31. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Jim Baird - While a heat pipe avoids nutrient exchange, it's still a heat transfer in order to extract energy: cooling surface waters (increasing radiative imbalance) and warming deep waters (speeding deep ocean energy accumulation). As to the diurnal cycle, heat loss and gain are dependent on the gradient - more energy will be absorbed by a cooler ocean surface during the day, less emitted at night, and again an amplification of the radiative imbalance. OTEC may not be able to provide the warming mitigation you claim. This is, however, completely off topic for historic sea level rises. I would suggest a thread actually on geoengineering, such as this one.
  32. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    Ok, found the link on those colorful small banners... http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate_science_history.php
  33. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    SLATE has this nice little "very telling" graph on GW studies LINK Could someone here please point me to the SkS animation (with the bubbles) which does the same? Thanks.
    Moderator Response: [RH] Hot linked URL that was breaking page formatting.
  34. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    Thanks for the links to videos from the meeting. I haven't had a chance to watch Pierrehumbert's yet, but I hear it's excellent.
  35. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Doug it isn't likely we would ever be able to draw down the total 3C excess seen in the Atlantic this summer. Some of this heat will continue to radiate towards the poles and into space. OTEC would however convert a small portion of this heat to mechanical energy and would dump 20 times as much as we generate to the depths where it would be diluted in an environment where the coefficient of expansion is about half that of the surface. To the extent you draw down the surface heat you would diminish the strength of storms like Sandy that move heat into space and towards the poles, where it is melting the icecaps and the methane trapping permafrost. The TWHs not converted to mechanical energy are conserved but in a colder environment where they would do less damage in terms of sea level rise. KR, I advise using a heat pipe rather than a massive cold water pipe which moves cold water to the surface. Hurricanes use phase changes to move heat rapidly as does a heat pipe. The difference being the hurricane has the stratosphere as the heat sink as opposed to the abyss. As to radiative forcing the sea surface is subject to a diurnal heat cycle. It warms by day and cools by night. OTEC operates around the clock and removes heat from the surface by night as well as by day. Each morning therefore, IMHO, the surface would begin to warm from a lower base that without OTEC and since the same volume of water is being warmed by the same heat source, it seems to me, the diurnal high temperature should be less as well? Chriskoz, IMHO using a heat pipe rather than cold water pipe overcomes many of the environmental problems associated with OTEC and reduces the cost as well because for a 100MW plant you need a 1 meter diameter pipe rather than one of 14.5 meters. I have a patent pending for a system that uses a counter-current heat flow and metering system for the capture and governing of the return of the latent heat of condensation back to the surface both to limit the impact on the Thermohaline as well as maximize the amount of energy the ocean can generate. My thinking is in the long run it is best to convert as much ocean heat to work as possible, which requires the capture and return of the latent heat, but during hurricane seasons it is best to move as much surface heat to the depths as possible. OTEC can not be implemented on the scale I would like to see overnight. In the course of building it out we would have plenty of time to learn of the ramifications before doing any significant damage. I believe though it has potential for geo-engineering because it the process we would be producing all the carbon free energy we need. The input of those on this sight far more technically skilled than myself is appreciated.
  36. New research from last week 49/2012
    Thanks Ari!
  37. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    KR@18, OTEC would not necessarily worsen GW. You considered just the TOA energy imbalance. Let's consider carbon cycle feedbacks. Perhaps speeding the deep ocean circulation would increase the rate of CO2 intake, even speedup silicate rock weathering by 2 orders of magnitude to 100y timescale:) But I'm skeptical about OTEC feasibility. We know so little about the effects of such invasion into the ocean circulation, that we must learn alot before attempting such geo-engineering.
  38. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    And Real Climate has 5 videos from the AGU meeting Some AGU highlights 5 videos from AGU meeting im SF http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/12/some-agu-highlights/
  39. AGU 2012 - Solving the Climate Problem
    Some of the video'd talks are on youtube. Here are two I think you did not mention. A summary of the current science by Sir Bob Watson: Sir Bob Watson at AGU 2012 And what seeemed to be a high point for a lot of people - Ray Pierrehumbert on Succesful Predictions (and some unsuccessful ones) in Climate Science. Prof Ray Pierrehumbert at AGU 2012
  40. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Jim Baird - I'm a bit puzzled, here; how would bringing cold deep water up to the surface (to provide the temperature gradient needed for power generation) help with global warming? That would essentially bury warm water, reduce surface temperature and infrared radiation to space with surfaced cold water, and overall increase the radiative imbalance and the accumulation of energy in the climate. It would in fact increase the warming of the deep ocean while simultaneously increasing the rate of energy accumulation in the oceans as a whole. In other words, I suspect OTEC would (to a small amount - current energy use is 1% of the greenhouse imbalance) worsen global warming.
  41. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Not to be a jerk but how does the energy moved around by OTEC get transferred into space, Jim? I see your point and fully agree about mobilization on a large scale but it seems as though the Manhattan Project of OTEC would end up simply changing the respective profiles of the bulges in surface and ocean temperature we're creating. All the TWH are conserved, on Earth after all.
  42. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    Further to this, I noted ray pierrehumbert commenting on this issue at Realclimate (and attacking GWP as hopelessly broken). He points to this for analysis of coal versus of shale gas.
  43. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    That is interesting to know Tom. Not done in any mine I have had connection with, and I'd say impossible for any opencast coal mine.
  44. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Doug, Paul Curto, former Chief Technologist with NASA, recently pointed out, OTEC's impact on reducing the surface water temperature over time would be on the order of one degree F per decade at a power level of 2.5 terawatts. Sea surface temperatures running at over 3C above normal along the Atlantic coast from Florida to Canada where the driver for hurricane Sandy. Global warming is estimated to have contributed about 20 percent of this heat which would not have been available had we been producing 2.5 terrawatts of OTEC power the past 10 years. Kevin Trenberth points out, "With every degree C, the water holding of the atmosphere goes up 7%, and the moisture provides fuel for tropical storms. Five terawatts of OTEC power each decade would negate this increase. Five terawatts requires a lot of infrastructure but then so did the Manhattan Project and war efforts in general. I prefer to think that we should be on a war footing where global warming is concerned and so did over 70 percent of other Canadians in a poll a while back.
  45. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    scaddenp @11, some coal mine methane is extracted and used to generate power, or indeed, simply flared. While still lost to the atmosphere, it is as CO2 rather than CH4, and hence has a lower greenhouse impact.
  46. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    Son of Krypton @10 The current emissions of subcap methane are small when compared to some other human and natural sources, perhaps contributing less than 1% of total emissions today. Where the subcap methane releases may become significant is in the transient phase of permafrost deterioration, as pent-up methane is released when the permafrost sealing layer thaws and becomes perforated. I'll speculate on this in part four.
  47. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Pete@1: That was indeed an interesting read. Thanks for posting it!
  48. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    Not fun trying to measure CH4 emissions from coal mining either but its pretty easy to conclude that you have 100% loss of coal bed methane to atmosphere during the mining and processing. Before screaming too loudly about fracking I would like to some decent comparison of CO2e per GWh for coal versus shale gas.
  49. Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 2: Quantifying fossil methane seepage in Alaska and the Arctic
    "Walter Anthony and her colleagues estimate that subcap seeps (seeps of fossil, thermogenic methane through discontinuous permafrost) may be currently emitting as much as 2 Tg of methane per year. This compares to an estimated seepage of 3-4 Tg per year for the rest of the world from surface seeps (excepting mud volcanoes)." Well, that certainly is disconcerting. Given that this rather enormous amount doesn't even take into account biological permafrost methane, one would think that it might just justify the IPCC including the permafrost carbon feedback in the AR5. Absolutely stunned me to learn that it was being left out
  50. Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise
    Jim, you'll want to compare the current volume of water being moved via routine overturning circulation w/the possibilities of OTEC. Down the road I suppose it's conceivable that overturning might become so sluggish as to need help but as it stands now the volume in play is quite astounding, about 575,000km3/year or ~1km3/minute for the Atlantic. Not sure if the Pacific is larger or smaller but let's assume bringing the Pacific into play doubles that number. A lot of infrastructure would be necessary to obtain a useful boost on those numbers.

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