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Comments 51601 to 51650:

51601. Brian B at 07:59 AM on 11 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Kevin C (#19 & 38) and Albatross (#49), I've looked at the Atlantic basin ACE data shown above myself. Kevin had given the trends from 1850, 1900, etc. and showed statistical significance. I accepted those numbers. I must now retract my acceptance. In fact, the ACE trend in the Atlantic is not significant at the 2-sigma level. My original statement was correct. Kevin's numbers are not wrong, but they give a false impression. Note that the effect of the AMO is obvious in the data. The 2011 is near the AMO peak but the 1850, 1900, and 1970 data points are all near the AMO minimum. The trend for those years is really just the AMO trend from min to max and not a long-term climate trend. This can be seen from the trend from 1970, which is 2.3 over 40 years. Spread over 160 years this AMO change would be 0.58 +- 0.20, consistent with the trend from 1850. The correct way to calculate the long-term trend is to do it from AMO peak to peak, roughly 1880 or 1890 to 2011. The trend from 1875 to 2011, for example, is 0.16 +- 0.12. And this result is not cherrypicked. There is no significant trend at the 2-sigma level for any starting year between 1865 and 1893, corresponding to the years of the AMO peak. No trend can be claimed over any interval if the trend from the late 1800s, when global temps were 0.9 C lower than today, is not significant. ***Let me state clearly the importance of this result. If there is no long-term trend in the Atlantic ACE and no trend for landfalling hurricanes, there is no basis at all for claiming an effect of AGW on hurricane losses, nor is there any observational basis for expecting an AGW signal in hurricane trends in the future.*** Just to dig down into the ACE data a bit more and to avoid charges of cherrypicking, I did a fit of the data to a cosine with a linearly growing baseline over the 1851 - 2011 interval. The AMO oscillation period shows up nicely at 58.7 +- 2.3 years. The residual linear trend is a mere 0.046 +- 0.002. This is statistically significant for the data as given, of course, but the trend is likely not real. First, note that it's far less than the previously calculated trends. Second, the trend corresponds to an increase in ACE of just 7 over the last 160 years (less than 10%). Given that the early ACE values are at best approximate, may be missing hurricanes, and are definitely more uncertain than 10%, this trend cannot be considered real. It is likely an artifact of the low variation seen in the 1850 - 1875 data. Finally, please note that if the 0.046 trend is real, it would take roughly 350 years to emerge from the ACE noise. There really is nothing to see here, so let's please give up any talk of AGW contributing to hurricane damages, either now or in the future. There's no observational basis for this claim.
51602. Lanfear at 07:07 AM on 11 November 2012
       Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
       sincam@60 and Tom Curtis@61 Sorry if I'm being thick here, but I thought the reason why (chemical space-)rockets are carrying oxygen with them is that they go to space, where notoriously there is no air/oxygen/anything (almost). Otherwise I think that comparing internal combustion engines to rockets is apples to oranges, since the rockets do not have to deal with the created heat in the same way. FWIW I think that even supercharged (or turbo) diesels do produce some soot, which would imply that not all the fuel is converted into CO2 and H2O. I am however skeptical whether this behaviour could be inproved by enriching the intake air. Oh, and I don't recommend mixing 100% O2 with anything carbon (including the lubricant of the piston) especially with alternating pressure. You will get an uncontrolled detonation. In fact there is a rule in the diver world where the first and second stage has to be 'oxygen clean' when using mixes stronger than EANx40.
51603. Bolandista at 05:27 AM on 11 November 2012
       Earth's five mass extinction events
       A New Understanding When I was 28, in 1971, I developed a theory on the evolution of animal life, nothing that would go against Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, but it could explain the environment in which evolutionary changes would take place. The theory is this - if the partial pressure (pp) of carbon dioxide is above a certain level, at least that partial pressure of the gas is found in animal tissue and that puts a limit on the metabolic rate possible. Any lowering of the CO2pp allows greater quantities of tissue-produced CO2 to be removed from the cell, hence an increase in pH of the cell environment. This change allows a slightly higher metabolic rate to be accommodated in the animal and within a short period of time genetic modification results in a different genotype to appear thanks to epigenetic changes. Epigenetic theory is the key to my theory that movements in the partial pressure of CO2 either reduction = greater metabolic possibilities, or increase = disaster for the phenotype, either directly or via the genotype, through inheritance. Any increase in the level of CO2 at the resting state results in a lower pH. If that happens then modification to tissue occurs through epigenetic changes, a fairly new understanding of sets of switches within a gene sequence that can be reversed to alter the expression of the gene from the expected to an undifferentiated cell, cancer being the most common result. The Development of Life on Our Planet The Lag Phase A cosmic event about 2.5 billion years ago deposited large quantities of genetic material onto our planet. The full expression of that genetic material took a very long time, starting with single photosynthesizing cells, through oxygen utilising single cells to multi-cell creatures which became visible in the geological record about half a billion years ago as undifferentiated calcium agglomerations. This was probably the first direct evidence of both animal life and a major reduction in CO2pp. These creatures had been using calcium as part of the mechanism for removing CO2 from their tissue. Calcium, as a cation, combines with CO2 and a bit of oxygen to form calcium carbonate, a solid particle the animal could manipulate to the margin of its tissue, where it fell away to form limestone or chalk. This simple mechanism helped photosynthesizing cells in reducing the CO2pp even further until the CO2 was low enough to permit the speeding up of the generation of CO2 within its tissue and thus calcium carbonate to such an extent that the mechanism for its removal was overwhelmed, the animal dying because it became choked by its own waste product. Many strange calcium carbonate remains are seen in the Cambrian strata. However, it was not long before the deposition of this material came under genetic control to provide either defence or attack structures on the animals, we also see their remains a very short time after in the same strata. The Log Phase This very important point in the geological record marks the end of one phase in the chemical reaction called Life on Earth and the beginning of another, the end of the lag phase, where chemical change is slow and the beginning of the log phase where chemical change is rapid. The geological record shows a rapid reduction in CO2 via the deposition of vast amounts of carbon over a very short period of (geological) time compared to its rate of deposit during the lag phase. Accompanying this deposition of carbon there is a consequential increase in the metabolic rate of life as expressed in life forms that become larger, more complex and faster in water, on land and also in the air. Not all animals took advantage of these new possibilities and as a result, they were taken advantage of by those that had. A quick look at the various life forms ranging from fish to birds mapped against the deposition of carbon confirms the linkage – removal of carbon, in the form of CO2, from the atmosphere – increase in metabolic rate – increase in utilization of that metabolic rate by important changes in animal form and capability. Sadly, not all the animals that lived on the crest of the development curve of metabolic rate are with us today. Remember the word, “epigenetic”, that word is the key to the development of this vast array of life forms. As the pH increased, more switches were moved and more adaptions made, some successful in the sense that they were able to survive and pass on their genes, others would fail to do so. Those that did survive went on to make the most of their metabolic rate, either in terms of size, speed or internal heat generation or in some cases in combinations of two or three of these effects. Life at the leading edge of the development curve was always in the best position to exploit all other life forms. However, such life was also the most exposed, especially for those which had taken on all three of the effects of increased metabolic rate, size, speed and internal heat generation, should the partial pressure of CO2 go into reverse by increasing to a level greater than when their metabolic rate had come into being. The lowering of the pH following such an event would cause epigenetic switches to throw and loss of differentiation would follow. It matters not what the cause of the increase in CO2 turns out to have been, as long as the boost was great enough to take its pp back to a level that was present before the level of the metabolic rate with which the animal was born. In such a circumstance Life’s development curve stopped and effectively dipped to a lower level. Life effectively went into reverse with the highest metabolic rates no longer supported. In terms of geological time, such events take up very little space on the horizontal scale, even if the effect of the reversal is massive in terms of the number of species wiped out. Therefore, such reversals would look like minor ripples on the curve. The development of animal life would soon get back on track when the boost of CO2 had been absorbed by plant life. Animal life produced even more forms to take advantage of the possibilities offered by reductions in CO2pp. This cycle of increase in metabolic rate and a subsequent reversal happened many times in the geological record but thanks to plant life being there to remove more and more CO2, Life continued to follow the log phase of the development curve. Until the advent of Man. This animal first removes vast swathes of CO2 sinks, trees and other green foliage. Then having found industrial uses for fire digs up coal, the main fuel for his endeavours, then extracts oil and gas to make his endeavours run smother and better. He is responsible for putting more CO2 into the atmosphere in the last couple of thousand years than anything else – this, along with the diminishing ability of plant life to restore the CO2pp to what is safe for its own existence is bringing the planet to a disaster. There are many epigenetic switches being thrown that resulting in more and more genetic disorders happening to all animal life – remember those animals at the leading edge of the log phase of the development curve of Life on Earth, well they are once again being hit by the increase in CO2pp. In our species, we see rapid increases, year by year, of the numbers of cancer cases, why? Because their scientific advisors tell our politicians that global warming, just global warming is the biggest problem we face from increasing CO2 in our atmosphere –WRONG! You know the biggest problem faced by the planet is the extinction of multiple layers of life thanks to increased CO2pp. There is no doubt about it, the development curve of Life on this Planet is about to plateau and possibly move to a termination trajectory. Is it already too late? Possibly, even probably, because it will take too long to achieve what really needs to be achieved – reducing CO2pp to pre-industrialisation levels once again. Bolandista
51604. Albatross at 04:43 AM on 11 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       An appropriate quote by Dr. Jeff Masters from January 2012: "So, looking at disasters losses to make an argument that climate change is affecting our weather is difficult, due to the rarity of extreme events, and the changes in wealth and population that also affect disaster losses. We are better off looking at how the atmosphere, oceans, and glaciers are changing to find evidence of climate change--and there is plenty of evidence there." Not surprising then that Pielke Junior continues to use this obviously flawed and imperfect method to draw (overstated) conclusions that can then be used to muddy the waters and feed fodder to the fake skeptics and those who deny the theory of AGW.
51605. John Hartz at 01:32 AM on 11 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       @Physicsgirl #57: You would do well to cast a wider net. “The most obvious aspect of climate change to Hurricane Sandy is not necessarily that storms ave gotten bigger or more intense,” said Sallenger, the Geological Survey scientist. “It’s that the seas are definitely rising – we can see it and measure it.” Source: North Carolina's coast is 'hot spot' for rising sea levels by Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer, Nov 4, 2012
51606. chriskoz at 22:27 PM on 10 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       idunno@56, I think your "investors" are just market components that care not about why AGW nor about the ethics of AGW. By definition, those "investors" are not interested in environmental sciences, therefore not interested in SkS. They are interested in possible parametric changes on the market that would shift the money flows, but those changes are coming from policymakers and advisers (such as Pielke Jr). Therefore talking about or addressing investors is like poking the symptoms. They are just symptoms of AGW problem (e.g. if they're overinvesting in coal mining), and they will never drive/influence the climate policies. They will always adapt to the policies devised by climate experts and policymakers.
51607. physicsgirl at 18:29 PM on 10 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Regarding the question "Did global warming intensify Hurricane Sandy and its impacts?" Please refer to the latest study by two of the world's leading hurricane experts, Kerry Emanuel and Chris Landsea: Tropical cyclones and climate change Thomas R. Knutson, John L. McBride, Johnny Chan, Kerry Emanuel, Greg Holland, Chris Landsea, Isaac Held, James P. Kossin, A. K. Srivastava & Masato Sugi; Nature Geoscience 3, 157 – 163 (2010) Published online: 21 February 2010 | doi:10.1038/ngeo779 Abstract Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Another quote from the study: Moreover, despite some suggestive observational studies, we cannot at this time conclusively identify anthropogenic signals in past tropical cyclone data. It seems to me the answer to question, based upon the above study, is: "we do not know at this time"
51608. dana1981 at 17:23 PM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       DSL @304 - yes, the lower sensitivity models don't simulate subtropical humidity well, so they merit less confidence.
51609. DSL at 13:32 PM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       I'll stand corrected, but in my book anything that narrows the range of "likely" is constraining. Would it be fair to say that we have less confidence in the lower sensitivity models now?
51610. Tom Curtis at 11:36 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
       sincam @60, the most efficient combustion occurs when there is two oxygen atoms for every one carbon atom, and an additional oxygen atom for every two hydrogen atoms in the fuel. At that ratio, complete oxidization (combustion) of the carbon and hydrogen can be achieved resulting in the maximum energy release. Including more oxygen beyond that point does not result in the release of more energy for a given amount of fuel. It merely makes combustion easier resulting in more potential combustion prior to the fuel entering the combustion chamber. For normal power requirements, the air contains more than sufficient oxygen to provide a lean mixture (ie, one with excess oxygen) and hence no advantage is obtained by introducing more oxygen. The introduction of more oxygen, even pure oxygen is advantageous where you simultaneously introduce more fuel and produce more energy per second as a result. Note, however, that you produce more energy per second. Not more energy. You obtain exactly the same amount of energy per kilogram of fuel used as though you had not introduced oxygen. So, there is an advantage in using pure oxygen for rocket engines, where raw power is desirable. For normal transport uses, however, current fuel usage and power output is more than adequate so introducing oxygen provides no advantage.
51611. sincam at 10:31 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
       Lets see, you demonstrated that at some unknown partial pressure (% O2 enrichment), the trial you were involved in with a conventional engine, did not offer any advantages. No supprise. Check the fuel and, guess what, is used in rocket engines. They work pretty well.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Examining the Space Shuttle engines:

       solid propellant fuel - atomized aluminum (16 percent) oxidizers - ammonium perchlorate (70 percent) catalyst - iron oxide powder (0.2 percent) binder - polybutadiene acrylic acid acrylonite (12 percent) curing agent - epoxy resin (2 percent)

       And the liquid-fueled engines of the Orbiter:

       The engines burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which are stored in the external fuel tank (ET), at a ratio of 6:1. Source

       Guess what? Unless you have something substantive to say on that topic (read: actual published references from a reputable source that contextually support your position), it is no longer a welcome part of this discussion. No surprise.

51612. dana1981 at 07:50 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       KR @302 - yes, to be precise Fasullo and Trenberth are looking at relative humidity changes in the subtropics, which are related to subtropical cloud formation. Anyway, more details in the post next week.
51613. KR at 07:17 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       dana1981 - Actually, it's that those models with low sensitivity don't simulate humidity changes very well, not clouds. They note that clouds are a more difficult phenomena to observe, too. Fasullo and Trenberth 2012 (described here) appears to be much in the same vein as Spencer and Braswell 2011, where they examined how climate models matched observations, although S&B 2011 was clearly refuted due to poor technique and the exclusion of models they themselves tested which refuted their conclusions.
51614. Chris G at 07:08 AM on 10 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Thanks Dana; I can reproduce the same PMOD curve using an 11-year running mean over at WoodForTrees, but I do think the rightmost downtrend is slightly over-emphasized because there are less than 3 complete cycles and the last ebb was deeper and longer than the others. Present minus 11 years does not bring you back to the same place in the cycle; it brings you to a peak, and we are a long way from a peak now.
51615. dana1981 at 06:35 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       I'll have a post on that paper next week, DSL. I wouldn't say they've constrained climate sensitivity - more accurately they showed that models with climate sensitivity below 3°C don't simulate cloud changes very well, so climate sensitivity is likely on the high end.
51616. chriskoz at 06:33 AM on 10 November 2012
       Book review: Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia
       John@8 More important quote from this article is:

       Hurricane Sandy stayed well off the North Carolilna coast but still overwashed N.C. 12, which runs through the Outer Banks, in three places. Winter storms could turn those sites into new inlets, said Stan Riggs of East Carolina University.

       That means the typical every-season weather is already affecting NC coast. A strong proof undermining those moronic legislators in NC looking for nothing but greed & money.
51617. DSL at 06:01 AM on 10 November 2012
       Climate sensitivity is low
       I'm sure Ari will be loading this one into the next weekly installment, but Trenberth and Fasullo have apparently constrained sensitivity even further -- or at least made a major advancement.
51618. BillEverett at 05:54 AM on 10 November 2012
       The Big Picture (2010 version)
       Tom Dayton: Thanks. Hare & Meinshausen 2006 use the equivalent radiative forcing and "conventional IPCC uncertainty range for climate sensitivity" in their projected scenarios. I am interested in learning about work on the equilibrium between atmospheric carbon dioxide and the planet temperature and on estimating the approach-to-equilibrium curve. I adopted the formula T=0.098c-27.1 from Byalko 2012, cited at Can We Predict the Global Future? Part 2.
51619. Doug Bostrom at 02:07 AM on 10 November 2012
       The Big Picture (2010 version)
       Also see Chap. 9 section 3 of the third iteration of the world's largest literature review on climate science, AKA IPCC AR3: Projections of Climate Change Getting on 12 years old but many of the fundamentals there have not changed.
51620. John Hartz at 01:48 AM on 10 November 2012
       Book review: Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia
       More sobering facts about sea level rise to ponder… “Sea level along 600 miles of the Atlantic coast from Cape Hatteras to north of Boston has risen three to four times faster since 1990 than it has globally, says a U.S. Geological Survey study published in June. That alone is enough to add 8 to 11 inches to the global average this century.” “Sea level on the Atlantic coast has risen since the late 19th century at the fastest pace in 2,000 years, the University of Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Horton, Yale scientist Andrew Kemp and colleagues showed. East Carolina University geologist Stanley Riggs’ team found a similar trend in northeastern North Carolina.” Source: North Carolina's coast is 'hot spot' for rising sea levels by Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer, Nov 4, 2012
51621. Tom Dayton at 00:00 AM on 10 November 2012
       The Big Picture (2010 version)
       Bill, for curves showing what would happen in different scenarios of emission reduction, see the RealClimate post Climate Change Commitment II.
51622. BillEverett at 20:26 PM on 9 November 2012
       The Big Picture (2010 version)
       There are a couple points in the section "The Warming will Continue" that I would consider. "...if we continue to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, the planet will continue to warm." Yes, but if we totally stopped emitting any greenhouse gases today, the plant would continue to warm. When there is an imbalance between the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the planet temperature, the temperature will change until equilibrium is reached. If we emitted no more greenhouse gases, then the atmospheric concentrations might decrease, which would result in the final equilibrium temperature being lower. On the other hand, if the rising temperature resulted in massive releases of methane from the permafrost and from the ocean bottom, then the greenhouse gases might increase. I am not aware of much work on the carbon dioxide-temperature equilbrium curve. The first-order approximation that I use is T=0.098c-27.1, where T is the equilibrium temperature in degrees Celsius and c is the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in ppm. This gives 0.34 degrees C for 280 ppm CO2 and 11.12 degrees for 390 ppm CO2. This means a 10.78 degree C increase over the preindustrial equilibrium. A relevant question is how long to reach equilibrium? I am using an estimate of about 700 years, which leads to rate of increase of a bit more than a degree per century if we assume a linear approach (very crude assumption). "The precise sensitivity of the climate to increasing CO2 is still fairly uncertain: 2–4.5°C is a fairly wide range of likely values. However, even if we're lucky and the climate sensitivity is just 2°C for doubled atmospheric CO2, if we continue on our current emissions path, we will commit ourselves to that amount of warming (2°C above pre-industrial levels) within the next 75 years." The equibrium approximation gives a temperature of 27.78 degrees Celsius for 560 ppm CO2, an increase of 27.44 degrees. I am not sure what the approach-to-equilibrium curve should look like. Naively, I would expect an initially slow response because it would be necessary to "overcome" some hysteresis in the planetary system. Then the rate of increase should become proportional to the difference between the equilibrium and the current temperatures. In other words, I would expect a slow increase gradually passing into a rapid increase that ultimately slows down to an asymptotic approach to equilibrium. I really have no idea just where 75 years from now would fall on such a curve covering about 700 years. Do you (or anyone) know of more detailed work on the equilibrium between atmospheric carbon dioxide and the planet temperature and on estimating the approach-to-equilibrium curve?
51623. Trent1492 at 18:31 PM on 9 November 2012
       Book review: Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia
       Does anyone knew when or if this book going to be available in E-book form for the Barnes and Noble Tablet?
51624. idunno at 10:57 AM on 9 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Hi Dana, I think that the last sentence of this piece is flawed, in a way that begs an important question. You refer to "climate experts and policy makers". That's not who reads the WSJ. The WSJ is read by investors. The WSJ is also paywalled, as is the FT. So they are ONLY read by investors, in their own little internet ghetto. During the Storm though, the WSJ dropped the paywall, and I went to check their coverage of this year's Arctic Sea ice Cryogeddon. This was, in my opinion, insufficient to serve as a guide to investors in the energy sector. I could only find one piece, and this was apparently about Arctic foxes. Over on forbes magazine, which is not paywalled, which is also read by investors, we have James Taylor, of Heartland. At the end of the comments section on his reaction to Sandy... http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/10/31/leave-it-to-the-global-warming-alarmists-to-make-fake-lemonade-out-of-hurricane-sandy/ ... a commenter suggests that he is now guilty of "journalistic malfeasance". I don't think that it is within any of our best interests to get involved in that discussion, but I presume that editors at WSJ may be aware that this discussion is going on here; and that the rules governing the accuracy of financial journalism are more particular than those governing opinion pieces, or the environmental pages. I have written quite a lot here about the absence of just one word - "investors" - from your otherwise admirable critique. If this is OT, or OTT, please feel free to delete it. But I feel that while "climate experts and policy makers" are being well served by SkS, a third group - "investors" - are possibly being neglected. And this is perhaps unfortunate. As we are told, the market will decide, and the market is always right. Unless, of course, the market has been relentlessly fed with inaccurate, partial information by an extremely well-financed PR campaign. In that case, the market temporarily develops a huge bubble, and then there is a correction. Then the market is right again, obviously, because the market is always right, apart from when it isn't. Or summat like that.
51625. Doug Bostrom at 10:17 AM on 9 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Beyond Tom's point, reading other literature on this topic (including that employing the "normalization" speculative interpretation with attendant conjectures in place of data concerning what might have happened if chunks of chronology and happenstance had not been laid out in their actual order) shows it's at least arguable there's presently a ratio between loss attributable to entirely natural causes and loss involving a change of climate. If not so long ago that ratio couldn't be found, then it seems reasonable to think there's a rate of change involved. In any case it seems as though we have instrumentation sufficient to obviate the need for proxy measurements so riddled with pitfalls. I can see the fascination of a challenge, but if I were undertaking some construction and had a choice between a blueprint in one piece as opposed to a jigsaw puzzle with permanently missing pieces I'd choose the intact print.
51626. Tom Curtis at 07:18 AM on 9 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       KR @52, I agree that the weather related catastrophes as normalized relative to geophysical catastrophes show that climate change has probably caused part of that increase. Never-the-less, Munich re is quite clear that in their opinion the major contributor to the increase has been increased population and wealth. In a study of impacts of US hurricanes, Schmidt, Kemfert and Hoppe (2008) assign responsibility for the increased losses on a ratio of 2.9 to one in favour of socio-economic factors (see quote below). If that is typical of other sorts of disasters (and in may well not be), then about 75% of the 2.5 fold increase in weather related damages is due to socioeconomic factors, and only 25% due to climate change. It should be noticed that, as normalized against geophysical catastrophes, meteorological catastrophes (including hurricanes)have increased by 100%. If the ratio found by Schmidt et al is maintained across all meteorological events, the contribution of global warming to that increase is just 63%. That is, normalization against geophysical events has reduced the impact of socioeconomic factors, but not eliminated them.

       "Given an inflation-adjusted increase in capital stock of 438% in the region investigated, and loss elasticity of 0.44 in response to a 1% change in capital stock, it can be inferred that the loss increase due to the rise in capital stock since 1950 was approx. 190%. Although storm intensity increased by only 23.1%, loss elasticity in response to a 1% change in intensity is as much as 2.8. It can therefore be concluded that the increase in losses due to greater annual storm intensity was 65%. That is to say, the change in socio-economic conditions has a lower specific impact on the losses than the change in storm intensity. However, the loss trend is dominated by socio-economic conditions insofar as they changed much more than (climate-change induced) storm intensity during the investigation period. "

51627. BWTrainer at 07:13 AM on 9 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       @ Brian There are plenty of people far more capable than I am of debating the science with you, but I would like to address one point of yours: "The fact that he makes fairly mild assertions (not the more dramatic and unsupportable ones) makes it even harder to explain the fierceness of the criticism leveled at him." Easy. Everything Pielke Jr. says and writes is an effort to undermine taking action to combat climate change. It's especially frustrating because, unlike the common Internet trolls, Pielke is very intelligent, which means it's highly probable he recognizes that he is contradicting the majority of scientists. His constant obfuscation is totally unnecessary and unproductive. Pielke Jr. is the worst kind of denier because what he says sounds believable, which means countless time is lost refuting him when we should have already moved on to figuring out what to do about the problem. The science tells us that we can expect drought to increase both in area covered and severity, sea levels to rise and at an accelerated rate, increasing floods, hotter temperatures that threaten lives, possibly stronger hurricanes, damaged ecosystems that we depend on, and possibly an increase in insect borne diseases, among other negative consequences. So why harp on about something so incredibly narrow and short sighted as whether or not normalized losses in America due to hurricanes have increased as of 2012? Especially given the lag in the response time to burning fossil fuels, which means we wouldn't necessarily have expected to see huge changes yet. Ask the people of New York and New Jersey (not to mention the Carribean islands) if they think we should mitigate and adapt now or wait 100 years until we have a clearer signal...
51628. Son of Krypton at 04:48 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Singer: "Even if any of these were true, they don't reveal the cause and certainly cannot furnish temperature data like thermometers." Laced with his usual humour, I think Bill Maher managed to address this one pretty well a few weeks back: "...because heat melting ice is 'just a theory'"
51629. M Tucker at 03:34 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Singer is nothing more than a political creature, a conservative political creature, and his affiliations expose his bias. His rant, or Gish Gallop, is intended to give ammunition and support to the average conservative voter and elected officials who wish to oppose any legislative action at local, state, or national levels to address climate change. The level of denial with other officials I have heard recently on the media range from “humans are not responsible for the warming” to “it will not be as bad as the alarmists are predicting.” This gives a wide range of rhetorical options to the conservative man(or woman)-in-the-street to argue against a carbon tax or carbon cap legislation or expensive adaption or mitigation efforts. So they can say with confident impunity we don’t need government interference in the fossil fuel business, we don’t need expensive new seawalls or storm surge barriers, we don’t need to redesign and reengineer the subway, we don’t need to elevate streets and homes, we don’t need to relocate electrical junction boxes and circuit breakers. Some conservatives are showing signs of intelligent thought but the majority are with Singer: doubling down on stupidity.
51630. dana1981 at 03:18 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Whoops, Figure 8 says it's got an 11-year running average.
51631. dana1981 at 03:18 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Chris G @3 - the PMOD data are of TSI, but Figure 8 appears to be smoothed to remove the 11-year cycle, perhaps with a 5-year running average (it's a John Cook creation so I'm not certain). I've fixed the link to go to the PMOD page.
51632. Chris G at 03:10 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       I'm a little puzzled about figure 8; is that solar activity by sunspots, or TSI in terms of energy output? I believe there is pretty good correlation between the two, but the leftmost part, from 1979 on, of the solar line does not have the same pattern I remember seeing before, which looked much like a sine wave with a slightly down trend. So, I wanted to see the source, but the PMOD link is broken. Otherwise, a nice encapsulation of the problems with Singer's argument, including his argument from authority in which he exposes his authority as being biased. He was summed up as something like a 'professional contrarian' on the show. That struck me as the best way to characterize him. I can't read his mind, but he certainly seems attracted to whatever position goes against the mainstream.
51633. vrooomie at 02:41 AM on 9 November 2012
       Hurricane Sandy and the Climate Connection
       "So there is a (not significant) trend in US hurricane landfalls. And it's negative. Should we thank global warming for that?" Well, a few more years' worth of data should go a long way towards answering that: if indeed, AGW results in a lower rate of landfalls for Atlantic storms, good. However, I can hear it now, from the denialistas: "AGW causes LESS hurricane destruction! Alarmists never predicted that, did they?" Ah, sir...... }:-P
51634. Doug Bostrom at 02:26 AM on 9 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       quokka I really wish we could move on from this type of discussion. Seconded. Shall we starve because we don't wish to break eggs while making breakfast? Perfection can always be employed as the enemy of the good enough. The same vapid arguments about peripheral, transient fabrication emissions are employed against every technology threatening fossil fuel combustion. I'm sure we can do better than the defenders of neolithic habituation during our discussions of how we're going to claw our way out of this mess.
51635. KR at 01:29 AM on 9 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Tom Curtis - I agree entirely about exposure changes due to development and technology improvements affecting observed catastrophes, events thresholded by some minimum damage. That's why I pointed out Tamino's normalization to geophysical events. That normalization should at the very least minimize or remove the influences of population changes, areal development, and building codes. It will not remove the influence of better warning systems, but quite frankly weather predictions have improved faster than geophysical predictions, and therefore those normalized climate catastrophe trends are likely underestimates. Even normalized loss costs (if those can be accurate) have thresholds. For example, failure of a sea wall or a landslide is a threshold event, a divider between quite minor effects and major/expensive effects. Raw event counts would be the best measure, if you can account for changes in observations (storms not observed, for example). But (IMO) normalizing climate to geophysical events is a very useful method for trend identification - correcting for both exposure and resiliency, unaffected by repair costs. Whereas economic loss measures lead directly to conflated issues in cost estimation, inflation, exposure, resiliency, building codes, etc., and (again, IMO) are therefore both less accurate and prone to (mis)interpretations and confirmation bias effects such as Pielkes.
51636. gws at 01:02 AM on 9 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       Thanks for the links. I do not want to have the discussion either. Where I disagree with you is the statement "Nobody claims nuclear is zero emissions ...". I venture to say that this is but one example to the contrary from the industry. Not lying, just misleading ... The highlighting of that meme rather than the actual issues of large-scale switching to nuclear (@27) is what bugs me. To have a few points here about that may help onlookers to make up their mind about what efforts they might want to support to decarbonize energy production. Germans decided that renewables are the way to go, the Brits may decide to include a major nuclear component, and the US may decide ... oops
       Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed link.
51637. AndersMi at 00:51 AM on 9 November 2012
       Hurricane Sandy and the Climate Connection
       @dhogaza, skywatcher If I understand what you're saying, you claim that the trend can be strong, but yet not statistically so relevant to be taken for sure. However, a stronger trend should also be easier to detect from a noisy background, so the fact that any detected trend doesn't even show a statistical significance suggests per se that the trend must be small, not large. Indeed, here's what Tomas Knutson from NOAA says (http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes ): "We find that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms [storms that weren't detected by ships], there is a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. But statistical tests reveal that this trend is so small, relative to the variability in the series, that it is not significantly distinguishable from zero (Figure 3)." So Knutson seems to confirm what I was saying. He goes on writing: "In addition, a new study by Landsea et al. (2010) notes that the rising trend in Atlantic tropical storm counts is almost entirely due to increases in short-duration (<2 day) storms alone. Such short-lived storms were particularly likely to have been overlooked in the earlier parts of the record, as they would have had less opportunity for chance encounters with ship traffic. In short, the historical tropical storm count record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming induced long-term increase." But specifically for the Atlantic and the US? "If we instead consider Atlantic basin hurricanes, rather than all Atlantic tropical storms, the result is similar: the reported numbers of hurricanes were sufficiently high during the 1860s-1880s that again there is no significant positive trend in numbers beginning from that era (Figure 4, black curve, from CCSP 3.3 (2008) ). This is without any adjustment for "missing hurricanes". The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s (Figure 4, blue curve). Hurricane landfalling frequency is much less common than basin-wide occurrence, meaning that the U.S. landfalling hurricane record, while more reliable than the basin-wide record, suffers from degraded signal-to-noise characteristics for assessing trends." So there is a (not significant) trend in US hurricane landfalls. And it's negative. Should we thank global warming for that?
51638. Don9000 at 00:51 AM on 9 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       Well done, dana. Singer strikes me as a man very much in his intellectual "anecdotage" as Ambrose Bierce liked to say about old U.S. Civil War veterans. Bierce said this in the late 19th century because the veterans loved to retell old stories of the "late lukewarmness" (Bierce's phrase)between the states that had grown variously distorted through repeated self-serving retellings and embellishments.
51639. Kevin C at 23:03 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Tom, Jake: Good research! One interesting thing to come out of this thread is the value of a critical voice, since the analysis in the comments has gone significantly further than the original article. That's why peer review (both pre- and post-publication) is so important in science.
51640. quokka at 20:55 PM on 8 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       @gws nuclear is not a zero CO2 emissions technology as the industry wants you to believe. Why do these discussions always have to degenerate into refutations of claims such as this? It gets nobody anywhere. It is a straw man. Nobody claims nuclear is zero emissions, nobody claims any renewables are zero emissions. While any technology is built and operated in high carbon economies there must be full life cycle emissions. The best statement from the nuclear industry is the meta study done by the World Nuclear Association on full life cycle emissions Comparison of Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Various Electricity Generation Sources The numbers are quite similar to those in APCC AR4: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/figure-4-19.html I really wish we could move on from this type of discussion.
51641. gws at 19:36 PM on 8 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       Thank you Pete, I share your sentiment. I see from the responses to my last post that at least some of my points were understood. At little background: I grew up in Germany, and like Jonas, lived through the Chernobyl accident, which was somewhat of a formative event back then in Germany. Many turned skeptical (hint to Speedy: your derogative "anti-nukes" and other name calling does not help) about nuclear energy, so did I. In the 90s I learned about Global Warming, which I began to consider the larger issue early on. I had no preconceived notion about emissions numbers back then, but as an aspiring scientist I learned about the Oekoinstitut and appreciated its work in providing neutral scientific assessments in many areas where industry numbers went previously unchallenged, for instance regarding safety in nuclear facilities (Oekoinstitut studies in this field are nowadays regarded as a benchmark in German political discussions). When the nuclear industry began to promote its technology as "zero emission" (I think around 2000 in Germany; they do so to this day), I knew this was wrong as I had seen the Oekoinstitut report on this years before. The fact that nuclear is widely believed to be "zero CO2 emissions" is thanks to an effective industry PR campaign, not the science behind the numbers. They ignore the live cycle and they ignore that nuclear almost exclusively generates electricity (for the very few exceptions see above). Of course the numbers will change a bit when altering some input assumptions, but that does not change the simple fact that nuclear is not a zero CO2 emissions technology as the industry wants you to believe. The reactions above to the calculations done by the Oekoinstitute I think actually illustrate nicely a pschycological effect new information that does not fit into our preconceived notions has: We attack it, we do not want to accept it, it does not fit. If it does not go away, we throw all sorts of arguments at it (e.g. see Gish Gallop @46), some useful, most not. Or we ignore the evidence. It may become so bad that we go in denial, completely shutting out the evidence hurled at us. SkS has a post on that. I used to be "anti-nuke", but I have since realized that nuclear energy could make a small contribution to GHG reduction. Small, because the realities I listed above prevent current technology from a possibly larger role (bty, this is also what the Oekoinstitut says). Decarbonization is likely to be much faster if renewables are given priority, and Germany is on a track demonstrating that. Am I certain about that? Come on, only folks like speedy are "absolutely certain" about the future.
51642. quokka at 19:26 PM on 8 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       @DB, Mangano & Sherman have been repeatedly debunked. For example in this very telling piece: A curious case of cherry-picking data for the greater good. Quite similar in style to Tamino's debunking of some of the denialist nonsense including stuff that has got past peer review. I'm sure you approve of Tamino's work? It's very far from clear that there is a "real" as in statistically significant increase in mortality. If the data analysis was robust (which it is not), there is still a multitude of bridges to be crossed before any connection to the Fukushima accident could be established. Not the least being biological plausibility. Where is the evidence that people just drop dead from very low radiation dose? The WHO estimates that average dose to residents of Japan in prefectures other than Fukushima and adjoining to be in the range 0.1-1mSv (5-50% of annual natural dose in Japan) and for adjoining countries and the rest of the world to be < 0.01mSv ie < 0.5% of annual natural dose. Perhaps equivalent to one day's natural dose or less. These are almost trivially small and if there is any evidence of instant mortality from them, I'm sure many people would like to hear about - not the least being radiologists. So, not only is there no established "correlation", there is an enormous wall to climb to establish "causation". I am disappointed that this paper has been raised here.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] The only points worthy of discussion about the Mangano & Sherman paper are:

       1. Does the paper add to the understanding of the science in that area?

       2. What does the peer-review have to say about the paper?

       Your linked blog post at least attempts to deal statistically with Mangano & Sherman. It is a pity that the actual analysis is brief and lost among the spin and rhetoric. Which makes your blog post different from other blog contributions to the literature: Tamino has published rebuttals into the literature (Foster and Rahmstorf 2011, Foster et al 2008), as has Skeptical Science (Nuccitelli et al 2012). Even the estimable Anthony Watts has made a credible contribution to the published literature (Fall et al 2011). Others, such as Climate Audit (still no published replication of the hockey stick in the several years since they began their audit, a task in which others completed in as little as 2 days [Muir Russell Report]), have fallen short of any substantive contribution.

       Since you obviously wish to make positive contributions to the literature, I'm sure that you and your linked blog post will be submitting a robust writeup to serve as a proper rebuttal of Mangano & Sherman. If you need suggestions for papers to publish in, just ask and someone will oblige you. Until then, let us discontinue what amounts to an off-topic soliloquy from the OP of this thread.

51643. Albatross at 17:15 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Tom @47, That is an interesting thought. I wonder if information supporting your idea could be gleaned from census data?
51644. Albatross at 16:28 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Brian@48, People, especially scientists, tend to be bemused when someone makes a myriad of unsupported claims and assertions, regardless of how detailed they might be. You could have saved people here and yourself a lot of trouble had you cared to make the effort to support your claims using vetted and reliable sources-- sorry, but claiming that "formatting" is not your forte is not an excuse, cut and paste links if need be. So feel free to be "bemused", but I'm afraid you really only have yourself to blame. Brian, please don't quote mine my text, I did not say "cease to make....". What I said was: "In closing, could I request that if you insist on continuing to post here and defend Pielke Junior that you cease to make…. " That is not quite the same as how you presented it. As for the ACE index, my apologies, I missed where you acknowledged that Kevin C (not KR as I said above). Good that we agree that the ACE has been on the the increase, as has the PDI incidentally. You say @34 that, "Let's be clear: all the statements we see in the blogosphere and from politicians and other commentators attempt to attribute current losses to AGW. There is no scientific basis for such claims and this is Pielke's point. " That is exactly the topic of Dana's post. I am not personally aware of people attributing the total cost of Sandy's destruction to AGW. Some have (very likely) incorrectly stated that AGW "caused' Sandy, but asking that misguided question misses the important key issues. Oddly, Pielke cannot bring himself to agree with Dana (and by extension SkS) on this key issue, choosing instead to hurl personal insults from afar. Dana and others have made a very detailed and sound argument against the tactics and games being played by Pielke. So your quote above misses the point of Dana's post.
51645. Brian B at 15:37 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Albatross (#41), I appreciate the time and effort you've taken to engage my comments. I do intend to respond when I have more time. I must confess to being a bit bemused, however, over your comments such as "Well, a few people here have already pointed out errors in your posts without you acknowledging or correcting them." and "cease to make unsupported claims and instead show respect for people reading this thread" Please note that I am one person against a large number of responders, so I can't respond to everyone in the same depth that you have responded to me. Please also note that I have responded to and acknowledged multiple posts above, at all times showing respect. My responses have been detailed and substantive, especially in addressing the attached links. It's true that I haven't added links or too many quotes, but that's only because formatting is not my forte. Other than the issue of whether the ACE graph shows a trend (which response I immediately acknowledged and accepted), there haven't been too many "errors" pointed out. Mostly, posters have accepted much of what I said and then engaged in additional dialogue. You, on the other hand, appear to be more combative and perhaps that's coloring your impression of what's been said above. Regarding your many points and quotes, I do intend to respond in some detail, but I must confess to seeing very little that conflicts with anything I've said. That you think it does suggests, perhaps, that I haven't made myself sufficiently clear.
51646. Uncle Pete at 15:27 PM on 8 November 2012
       The View from Germany: Tackling the real questions
       Thanks everyone for the contribution to this interesting post. My final comment is that we are all aware of the critical importance of reducing GHG emissions. It is in my view not a matter of either /or , but more of an all of the above. Whichever technology is suitable, should be deployed. And yes , for me ,I would gladly live under the cooling towers of a nuclear plant, having grown up within 2 kilometres of a sooth belching nitrogen fixing plant , fed by low quality coal.Not something I remember fondly !
51647. Composer99 at 15:26 PM on 8 November 2012
       Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
       If memory serves, in the PBS Frontline program, Singer was identified as a retired atmospheric physicist. So, by rights he should know better.
51648. Bernard J. at 14:35 PM on 8 November 2012
       Book review: Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia
       

       I am wondering if insurance companies will be leading the charge now. They may well refuse to insure parts of the east coast of the US, meaning property owners won't be able to rebuild, and their land will become worthless overnight. Then you can imagine people demanding insurance from the government, and threatening legal action if none is forthcoming, but I suspect they would lose that battle.

       I know several NSW local government staff are wondering about their councils' legal liabilities for future flooding damage from sea level-related events now that the conservative NSW government has ditched the 2009 Labor policy that had previously required councils to consider IPCC projections of sea level rise. Their concern seems to be that without this instrument with which to justify prevention of ill-advised development, they will bear the cost of damage when people who chose to construct or to buy badly-sited buildings suffer the inevitable damage and can't get their insurance companies to pay up. Or who couldn't get insurance in the first place. I'm not au fait with local council by-law practice but I'm wondering if it's possible, when there are no state legislations to protect them, for councils to make through by-law an explicit part of the permission-to-develop the condition that developers and buyers of flood-risk properties carry themselves all responsibility for future damage resulting from sea level rise. And that such responsibility is transferred with explicit and informed notification to future owners of these properties. By its very nature poperty threatened by sea level rise is usually owned and/or developed by people with considerably more wealth than most, but who are also not averse (and in fact are predisposed) to holding others responsible for the cost of damage to their properties - properties that were acquired by ignoring the best advice of scientific experts. Pre-empting this welfare-for-the-privileged by holding them a priori responsible for their own decisions is surely the most logical and the most fair way out of this mess.
51649. Tom Curtis at 14:01 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       dana, not quite what I was saying. I think that in addition to improvements in technology, there is a further factor from increased intensity of dwelling that needs to be corrected for. A population of 500 people dispersed among 120 houses will be more vulnerable to hurricanes than the same population population in a single high rise block of units. That is because the high rise unit will have much greater structural strength than the individual houses of necessity simply to remain upright. That structural strength then provides substantial protection from storm damage. There would be additional compounding effects. In a city center with many high rises, the increased number of high rises would reduce wind speeds, and reduce the amount of air born debris both because they would lack roofs that could be blown of and because there would be fewer trees that could blow down. So, a 2012 high rise would be safer than a 1926 high rise; just as a 2012 house would be safer than a 1926 house through an improvement in technology. But additionally, a shift in population from living in houses to living in high rises would provide further protection. This is particularly important because the improvement in technology would have an approximately equal effect in all areas, whether rural or urban. But the additional protection from switching from primary residence in houses (or small flats) to primary residence in high rises will be focused in exactly those areas with the highest population rise over the twentieth century introducing a massive and systematic bias into Pielke's normalization.
51650. dana1981 at 13:20 PM on 8 November 2012
       WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
       Tom @41 - I think we're saying the same thing in different ways. My point was that Pielke's method of adjusting for population and value growth is fine, but it's also insufficient, because of the failure to account for technological improvements. I think that's basically the same point you're making as well. Very informative comments by the way, thanks.

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