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Brian Purdue at 09:23 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Dana, a slam-dunk follow-up exposé of David Rose’s dismal attempt to cover his tracks. With voluminous amounts of scientific research and evidence on human’s causal link to global warming, it’s a great wonder that Judith Curry and her merry band of contrarian scientists have not been able to gasp that they are on the wrong side of the argument – but there you go. -
Philippe Chantreau at 09:21 AM on 23 October 2012Climate time lag
Sorry Falkenherz, I don't really believe you. You may not be Thingadonta, that would be good for you, because years ago he was explained by me what the diurnal temperature variation is about, and now he still shows his lack of understanding. Bob's request, however, is very relevant, I would more than welcome an explanation from on the diurnal temperature variation as it related to incoming solar energy. Hint: it's really not complicated at all. You displayed a dismissive attitude and rather strange interpretation of the existing science on the relationship between Milankovitch cycles and glacial cycles. That was based on minimal and superficial knowledge, despite my pointing you to the works of Berger and Loutre, which would themselves cite the works of many others. So far, I have no choice but to interpret that your "grasping" is somewhat selective and likely heading in a predetermined direction. -
Chris G at 08:01 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
I always thought it was somewhat ironic that there is overlap between the set of people who want to claim that the CRU data are not reliable because of 'climategate', and the set of people who rely exclusively on the HADCRU data sets to try to show that there has been no warming. -
Chris G at 07:46 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Re #6,#7 on the Daily Mail reputation: IDK, it may be that there are different camps within the company, or that the editors are indiscriminate. For instance, here is an article where a different writer got it mostly correct. Climate change 'will reduce bio-diversity because global warming is happening too fast for animals' That does not mean that Dana's assessment about the company not caring is wrong, but it does leave open the possibility that there is more going on there that may appear at first glance. Rose himself is a different story; willful ignorance, deliberate misrepresentation, in combination with wishful thinking seems to be his mode. What I found disheartening was that the highest N ranked comments were in the wishful thinking camp. -
Albatross at 07:00 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Nice post Dana. In my opinion, when errors are pointed out to someone (especially a scientist) and instead of acknowledging them and correcting them, they double down, then they are in the realm of actively misinforming people. Not to mention deluding themselves. It is amusing, the "skeptics" (and in that faux skeptic group I now include Judith Curry) can't seem to decide if they love or hate the 0-2000 m ocean heat content data. This issue once again highlights the internal inconsistencies and lack of coherence in the "arguments" put forward by "skeptics". -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:37 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Dana (@4)... Rose had to say 16 years because he did an article in January this year that said there's been no warming for 15 years. -
gws at 06:34 AM on 23 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #42
Funglestrumpet: May I suggest the German Oeko-Institut as reliable source. You'll get some well-researched and fact-based information there. Try this page, e.g., http://www.oeko.de/publications/dok/1193.php Contact them, they will answer and point you in the right directions, both re nuclear and renewables. -
dana1981 at 06:34 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Martin @5 - I think Curry focuses far too much on short-term variability and as a result loses sight of the forest for the trees. As for why she does that, answering that question would require me to try and ascertain her motivation, which would violate the SkS comment policy. Overall I agree with mike roddy that she's something of a mystery, and it's hard to figure out why she seems determined to miss the big picture. mike @6 - no, I haven't contacted the Mail. I rather doubt they would be at all interested in publishing this material. I get the impression they're not very interested in being perceived as a reputable newspaper - sort of the Fox News of British tabloids as I understand it. -
mike roddy at 06:08 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Dana, Nice job, as usual. Curry remains a mystery. Have you asked the Mail if they are willing to publish this rebuttal, even if it has to be a shorter version? -
Martin Lack at 06:02 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Excellent summary, Dana. Well done. Just one question: Mr Rose may well not understand what he is writing about but, is it really credible to suggest that Dr Curry does not understand everything you have explained here? If she does not understand it all then she should perhaps not be in her job. If she does understand it then she would appear to be disputing it because she does not want it to be true (a.k.a. "the motivated rejection of science"). I am very disappointed that the Met Office has declined to lodge a formal complaint about Rose (especially since he has the audacity to repeat his misinformation). I think it would be very unwise of anyone to think that these serial deniers can just be ignored. Given that our governments will only act if their electorates demand that they act, anything that perpetuates ignorance, uncertainty, doubt and/or conspiracy theory is very dangerous indeed. Therefore, all those that understand what is going on need to ensure that their political representatives demand that our governments do the right thing. -
shoyemore at 05:47 AM on 23 October 2012New research from last week 42/2012
The paper Deducing Multi-decadal Anthropogenic Global Warming Trends Using Multiple Regression Analysis - Zhou & Tung (2012) has got itself featured on WUWT as "cutting the warming rate in half". Probaly a deliberate distortion of what it actually says. Perhaps SkS could take a look at it. It is pay-walled and I can't find a pre-print. -
gws at 05:26 AM on 23 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #42
funglestrumpet you and other blog commenters here (just two weeks ago) and elsewhere seem to trump that paper alot these days. A casual look into Leo Smith and his comments , quote "We have definite proof (France) that nuclear power works At a sane cost. We have definite proof (Germany) that massive investment in renewable energy does nothing to reduce carbon burn, and simply triples electricity prices instead." ... rule him out as a serious (unbiased) source IMHO. -
jimb at 05:18 AM on 23 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #6
Bert @ 3- you will notice that the second comment on that site restates the 'Antarctic is balancing the Arctic' meme, quoting an Australian source. -
dana1981 at 04:18 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
DMCarey @3 - the 16 simply came from Rose's article headline. January 1997 to August 2012 would at least be approaching 16 years, but Rose cherrypicked August 1997 as his starting point, which makes it 15 years. I'm not sure why he didn't just say 15, unless he simply got the arithmetic wrong. Or maybe it was to make it sound bigger than his previous 'no statistically significant warming in 15 years' claim. Who knows. There's so much wrong with his articles that it's hard to keep track of it all. This post got rather long and I still didn't cover all the errors in his second article. -
DMCarey at 04:07 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
The amount of attention Rose's first article has kicked up in the deniosphere has been particularly frustrating. I imagine this second article will do little but add fuel to the fire, error-ridden as it was. The full explination of all the ways in which the first article was incorrect, especially the energy imbalance the influences of el nino, la nina and aerosols, seem to be above the heads of a fair few that I have gotten into debates with over the course of the last week. It appears as is very clear depictions of the ocean heat storage and how blatantly cherry-picked the August 1997 date is (I made use of best-fit lines from August 1996, 97, and 98 showing the discrepency of 97) are the most effective methods of showing that the article is error prone, and work to more complicated explinations from there. Also, thanks for pointing out the 15 (not 16) part. I'm still trying to figure out where the 16 figure came from, and I'm just accrediting it to terrible math at this point -
Bob Loblaw at 03:57 AM on 23 October 2012Climate time lag
OK, Falkenherz. You say you're not thingadonta, so in the post at WUWT that Sphaerica linked to, thingadonta says" "Daytime temperatures peak hours after noon, seasonal temperatures peak weeks after the solstice, it is a simple idea to translate this to longer term solar forcing, too simple for many alarmists to even comprehend." From your understanding of what has been discussed here, would you care to explain why thingadonta is is just plain wrong? Or would you agree with his statement? -
dana1981 at 02:53 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
Thanks vrooomie. It's worth noting that Watts immediately and uncritically reposted both error-riddled Rose/Curry articles. -
vrooomie at 02:37 AM on 23 October 2012Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
well done, dana! Now let's see how long it takes Wattsy and his minions to completely screw this all up....a very valuable reference guide to yet another denialoshpere tour de farce. -
Falkenherz at 01:07 AM on 23 October 2012Climate time lag
(-snip-). (-snip-). Really, you could have left with gws#382 as a nice wrap up, but you had to have to launch some unfounded allegations towards me as some last words. That really does annoy me now and I ask you - with all due respect - to be a bit more careful before accusing people without reason.Moderator Response: [DB] Please, can we all focus on the topic of this thread? Thank you. Off-topic snipped. -
Falkenherz at 00:49 AM on 23 October 2012Climate time lag
Philippe, thanks for the compliments, and I am still here, hopping though articles which come most close to my questions and trying to grasp things. I try to inicate where I leave off and move on to; maybe that was not clear enough. I left to discuss the article of Shapiro e.a., got another referral and moved to "how sensitive is our climate", and from there, by another referral, went to Shakun e.a.. There I tried to comment, but somehow my comments do not arrive there. BTW, Sphaerica, you must confuse me. I did not write as thingadota, I fact I believe I disagreed with him on the implications of the PETM somewhere on this website. But as you can see from your link to WUWT, I was right that some sceptics like to use the arguments I was inquiring about here. -
DMCarey at 00:45 AM on 23 October 2012The Climate Show #29
@4 Doug, If Google and Facebook are any indication, I think investmnet from internet companies in renewable energy projects will become increasingly common. This is both a self-sustaining and wise investment opportunity. You're right in that servers are huge users of energy, and to insure the continued existence of a profitable enterprise in a world an increasingly expensive fossil-fuel generated electricity, the idea of the internet beign powered by renewable energies, even in the case of "by the internet for the internet", seems enormously attractive. A few examples of commitments can be seen here, here and here -
michael sweet at 00:34 AM on 23 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #42
Funglestrumpet, At this site we like to use peer reviewed references. Your paper is only the personal opinion of a relatively poorly qualified person. Why doen't he have a PhD? Why doesn't he submit his paper for peer review. I went to refer to his sources and noticed there wern't any! There are ample threads on this site, try the renewable baseload for starters. Deniers of AGW also deny that renewables are usable. Peer reviewed papers document the possibilities. Search Scientific American solar and wind power for starters. I noticed your cite also likes nuclear in spite of the demonstrated safety issues. -
John Brookes at 22:30 PM on 22 October 2012Salby's ratio
Thanks Tom Curtis. I was being a bit tongue in cheek. I hold no illusions about Salby being particularly interested in doing things right. -
John Russell at 21:34 PM on 22 October 2012The Future We All Want
Doug @#9 I agree: but not just to the roof. I created ducts with access points all round our house when I converted it. Also, do make them bigger than you imagine is necessary. The main spine I created was 450x300mm and I ended up completely filling it with all the services, including solar thermal and heat-recovery ventilation. What people always forget is the insulation which, done properly, takes up much more room than you'd expect. I'd say I open it up at least once a year to add a new cable or change something. -
funglestrumpet at 20:10 PM on 22 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #42
This being the day of the week that general comments are accepted, I would like to draw readers’ attention to a paper written by Leo Smith who has an Masters in electrical sciences from Cambridge University (U.K.). It can be found at: http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf In summary, this paper argues that so-called renewables are by no means the panacea they are claimed to be regarding combating climate change and can, counter intuitively, in some instances lead to an increase in fossil fuel consumption. In short they are at worst a waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere and at best of minimal benefit. I have discussed energy issues with him elsewhere and find him to be very knowledgeable on the subject, though I am a mechanical engineer, not an electrical one and therein lies the rub. I am in need of a website that discusses remedies to climate change in depth so that I can judge such issues better. (I should point out that Smith is not convinced on the issue of climate change, but I consider that the professionalism that he has displayed elsewhere would preclude that influencing his scientific analysis, but it does amplify my need for other opinions.) To that end I believe that this site could sensibly give more prominence to specifically discussing ind depth methods of combating climate change. I cannot be the only one seeking guidance on the matter. It is very easy to take the view that ‘free’ energy has to be a good thing. But, on reading Smith’s paper it is possible to see how that is not necessarily the case. By all means we must carry on with examining the science behind the cause(s) of climate change, but surely the response of WUWT to the recent Arctic ice minimum shows that we are at a stage where those that still don’t believe in climate change are not going to change their mind anytime soon. Waiting for them to do so is a luxury that we just cannot afford. Their refusal to move on is no reason to hinder this site’s progress. For my part, I resent the despoiling of beautiful countryside with massive wind turbines, but tolerate them because I can see where climate change is taking us as a species. If, as Smith argues, they are of very little benefit to the fight against climate change, then I will feel that I have been badly misled and very angry about it. At present, I just don’t know for certain what the reality is. Smith’s paper is at least plausible and if it proves to be is essentially correct, then this side of the climate change issue has the responsibility to publicise it and even more importantly a need to be seen to do so. The ramifications will be bad enough if we do, but nothing like as bad as will be the case if we are seen as having blindly supported current renewables policy without having examined it in the depth that we usually do on scientific issues. There are now a considerable number of wind turbines installed around the world. What a tragedy it will be if all they do is stand as a monument to political folly in fighting climate change. What will be the chances of being believed in future whenever we call for action on climate change? “What about wind turbines!” will all too often be the response. The good news is that if we stop now, then in fact the current fleet can possibly be seen as beneficial to a small extent. Again, if Smith is correct, we need a new policy on carbon reduction. The only route that I can see is to go nuclear, preferably with a Manhattan style project on LFTR technology. If the Greens object, then let them offer an alternative. I just hope that Smith is wrong, but I will need proof. Or alternatively that some practical method of storing energy can be provided. Smith discusses it in depth and is not very hopeful.Moderator Response: The appropriate Skeptical Science post is Renewables can’t provide baseload power. Everyone please respond there. -
JasonB at 19:39 PM on 22 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Doug H, Articles like this will certainly help the political climate. I think the costs of improving carbon efficiency by quite a reasonable amount will prove to be far lower than the alarmists (who normally prefer to be known as "skeptics" and who call us "alarmists") fear. Some time down the track, once all the low-hanging fruit have been picked, things might get more difficult to reduce carbon further, but if it's a choice between making no effort now in the hope that technological breakthroughs will save the day in the future and making decent efforts now in the hope that technological breakthroughs will bridge the gap in the future then the latter seems a more sensible option. It's easy to get depressed when you immerse yourself in the "debate" in the blogosphere, but I think it's important to realise that in the broader population (which is orders of magnitude larger than the "skeptics") there simply isn't the same level of denial. I'm constantly surprised at the wide range of ordinary people I meet -- especially older people -- who not only accept that global warming is real but actively talk about it and how things have changed just during their lifetime. The "skeptics" may have undue influence in the political arena right now but their influence is far less in the general population, and in the long run that's what counts. -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:03 PM on 22 October 2012The Climate Show #29
JasonB, thanks for the reply. I must admit to not being as upbeat as you about the likelihood of a well-mixed energy supply grid, incorporating substantial renewables, being built in the current global political climate. I agree that the internet is a useful time and money saver, enabling such trivia as the conversation we are having here. I wonder, however, where national and international energy priorities will be when the rising cost of fossil fuels really bites AND the effects of AGW are starting bite. I'm expecting international tensions to escalate as a result of both of those pressures, possibly causing a review of the benefits of the internet and certainly causing inflationary pressure on the computers and network components my own little node requires. I am going to try to shape my demand to work in with what I can supply with PV and wind, although I expect to stay connected to the grid for the foreseeable future. -
Doug Bostrom at 15:01 PM on 22 October 2012New research from last week 42/2012
Time for another thank you for the classic of the week. Perspective from the "long now" is a great thing. -
JasonB at 14:11 PM on 22 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Doug H, I think Internet-based technology will only become more attractive and more widely used as energy becomes more expensive, because it remains much cheaper than the alternatives. I, personally, have avoided tens of thousands of kg of CO2 emissions over the past few years due to instances where I've been able to use Skype and Webex for teleconferencing rather than flying. I still do a lot of flying, but the trend is one-way, especially as high-speed Internet becomes more widespread. Telecommunication and computing are very energy efficient compared to the alternatives and continue to become more so. A single server farm might use a lot of power in total, but it's also doing a lot of work and doing that work more and more efficiently. Regarding geothermal electricity: it is attractive in certain locations, like parts of New Zealand, the US, etc., but unfortunately in most areas is too diffuse to be economically feasible. Regarding "base-load power": I wish people would stop using that term as a synonym for "power that is reliably available on-demand". The former is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the latter. It's an implementation detail that arises from a desire to achieve the latter with a mix of technologies of different properties as cheaply as possible. Some technologies have a low marginal operating cost but a high capital investment cost. Coal and nuclear fit into this category. It is most cost-effective to run those at close to maximum capacity as much as possible. Quite often, those same technologies also find it difficult to quickly change output, so there are technical reasons as well as economic reasons for trying to do this. Conversely, some technologies have high ramp rates (i.e. can change output quickly), low capital costs, but high running costs. Gas turbines are in this category. Why would we use them if they're expensive to run? Because demand fluctuates wildly and we need to meet the gap between the near-constant output of the other generating technologies and the fluctuating demand from the consumers. If you have a technology that you want to run at close to 100% capacity 24/7, but demand fluctuates by a factor in excess of 2:1, then you can't use that technology to satisfy 100% of peak demand because it won't be running at close to 100% capacity during periods of low demand. OTOH, if you have a technology that can easily be ramped to satisfy peak demand, but is expensive to run, then you don't want to use that technology to satisfy the 40-50% or so of peak demand that you can reasonably assume will be there 24/7, either. So the solution is to use the former technology for that "base" load, and the latter technology for load following or (if it's really expensive) peak power generation. It's a consequence of the nature of the technologies available, not a desirable attribute in and of itself. It's better to re-evaluate the nature of each technology and think about the optimal way to combine them than to try to shoe-horn each technology into an existing category. As an example, the NREL report I linked to recently noted that at penetration rates of up to 6%, solar PV is actually beneficial because it allows less usage of peaking power generators -- it actually makes electricity cheaper because the power generation that is displaced is precisely that technology that is most expensive to operate. Unfortunately, at higher rates, it’s generating so much power at peak times that it actually causes a problem for California's existing power infrastructure because their current baseload generators have difficulty scaling back output, and scaling them back to their minimum output, then adding in wind plus solar PV, actually results in generation greater than the load. However, replacing traditional plants with solar thermal plants with heat storage actually increases the penetration ability of PV because one of the key characteristics of the solar thermal plants is that they have higher ramp rates and lower minimum outputs than traditional large thermal plants. The solar thermal plants therefore increase grid flexibility and its ability to accommodate wind and PV, to the extent that a total solar contribution in excess of 50% (PV + CSP) becomes viable. So solar thermal plants share some of the characteristics of the technologies traditionally used for baseload power generation (namely high capital costs and low running costs) but are also very flexible output-wise (like hydro). Like hydro, they also have fixed storage capacities, so they aren't a perfect drop-in replacement for coal or nuclear. Achieving the goal of economic yet reliable power delivery with large amounts of renewables in the mix hasn't been solved yet, but I'm confident it will be. No one technology will be 100% of the solution but that's not a surprise because no one technology makes sense as 100% of the solution right now, either. And part of the solution could well be demand management -- after all, the recent Productivity Commission draft report found that "capacity that caters for less than 40 hours a year of electricity consumption (or under one per cent of time) accounts for around 25 per cent of retail electricity bills". I think it's also worth noting that those peak hours (in Australia) occur on the hottest days, when solar power is most effective; therefore not only can solar avoid peaking power generation, it can also reduce infrastructure costs because the need to transport that peak power from generators to consumers is reduced. -
Bert from Eltham at 13:53 PM on 22 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #6
This is a succint overview of what is happening in the Antarctic. When deniers claim that the Antarctic is 'balancing' the Arctic. They should consider this. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/the-effect-of-climate-change-in-antarctica/4316238 Sorry if is too long. Bert -
renewable guy at 12:17 PM on 22 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Managin our energy will happen as society creeps forward on climate change. The xprize competition showed that personal transportation could be improved dramitically. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/x-prize_winner_100-mpg_car_tha.html Instead of gas, this can be converted to electric. As these cars become millions now the utility has a base of electric storage. This is the where we can put people back to work for the next 50 years. -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:05 AM on 22 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Dana, Glenn, thanks for your positive replies. In my 'average Joe' opinion, the chances of renewable base-load power taking over any time soon are very slim. The technologies may already exist, but authority to invest lies in the hands of Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Coal. When I see Shell or BP making serious attempts to bring renewable base-load electricity to the consumer, I may change my opinion. The genius of the internet is that it knows no borders, with sites and consumers in every corner of the globe. Will that continue, under a tightened energy regime? Will server farms continue to hum unabated, all over the world, when electricity becomes a luxury commodity? Will the infrastructure continue to be maintained, let alone improved, when petrol (gasoline) and diesel are rationed, limiting the deployment of linesmen and their trucks? I will be getting my electricity from photo-voltaics and a small wind turbine well before then, so my home network will still function, but will the rest of the internet continue to provide reliable service? For that matter, will I be able to afford new equipment as my existing components reach their 'use by' date? All the items in my home network rely upon plastic components: will plastics still be affordable, when fossil oil reserves become depleted? Of course, this is a 'glass half empty' view. Perhaps some unheralded solution to our energy needs will be invented tomorrow, by some bright spark with a physics degree and a soldering iron. I am waiting with bated breath. One source of power that has interest to me, is geothermal. New Zealand uses geothermal energy to generate electricity, but their source of heat is relatively close to the surface. I have read of a technique which involves drilling down to where the rocks are hot, then pumping water down the hole and using the heat to create steam to spin a turbine. If this proves viable, it could work almost anywhere, couldn't it? Why couldn't this generate electricity 24/7/365? I am planning for the worst, while hoping for the best. -
owenamoe at 09:40 AM on 22 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Plotting decadal averages for GISS-LOTI, starting with the most recent decade and moving backwards, yields the following graph (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/gisslotiseptember2012.jpg/ ). In the decadal plot, it is difficult to see any evidence of global warming slowing. -
dana1981 at 09:30 AM on 22 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rose and Curry haven't said much new, they've mostly doubled-down on their previous misunderstandings and misinformation. I have however drafted up another blog post debunking their latest effort. Look for it sometime this week. -
caerbannog at 05:53 AM on 22 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #6
(This was also posted in a realclimate.org discussion thread) Just wanted to put this up: Global-average temperature animation. It’s an animated GIF file that shows global-average temperature results computed from randomly chosen rural stations, starting with one station and then incrementing one station at a time up to 40 stations. Just click on the link and watch the animation in your browser. In the upper plot, raw data results are shown in red, homogenized data results in green, and the official NASA/GISS “meteorological stations” results (for reference purposes) in dark blue. The lower plot shows how many of the selected stations reported data for any given year (one month is counted as 1/12 year). The #selected stations is shown in the upper-right corner of that plot (goes from 1 to 40). Stations were pre-screened only for adequate data record length (i.e. stations with data going back to 1885 or earlier or with data from 2010 or later) to ensure decent global coverage from 1885 to the present. I chose stations at random from a global map display like this. I captured the graphical output frame by frame and generated the animated GIF file with a simple bash/imagemagick script. It’s a nice visual demonstration of the robustness of the temperature record — note how quickly the homogenized *and* raw data warming-trends converge to the official NASA/GISS warming-trend. And skeptics, before you ask — this was the result of my first attempt to do this. I didn’t “cherry pick” the best of a bunch of trials. Just did it once and uploaded the file. Anyway, I thought that this animation might be a useful little tool to help combat Wattsian misinformation about the global temperature record. -
Michael.M at 03:25 AM on 22 October 2012Salby's ratio
I just want to remind you of the new World climate Widget: http://herdsoft.com/climate/widget/ that gives scalable graphics with CO2-Concentration, Temperature and Solar activity. -
Lionel A at 03:07 AM on 22 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
idunno I have just discovered that gem, live link: The really inconvenient truths about global warming. Last week we explosively revealed a 16-year 'pause' in rising temperatures - triggering a bitter debate. You decide what the real facts are... Don't look there for any facts as Rose has probably misquoted again. Why would the Mail use an ITN Production of a NASA originated video of warming since 1884 when one could just look directly at the NASA version? Oh I did compare them, and just like Pat Michaels recent effort the ITN-Mail have erased the Arctic and the Antarctic too. See the NASA version here NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record. Does Rose and the Mail think that 2012 will show a cooling? Another point of deception is that the name of the originator of that cartoon graphic, which Rose describes as a graph, in the first such article 'Ben Weller' has vanished in this new reproduction although they have made it look as if they have reproduced from original. -
Bob Loblaw at 02:52 AM on 22 October 2012What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
william: Would it be possible for you to expand on just what you mean by "extra melt" (e.g., extra compared to what?), and on what train of thought/logic/analysis/evidence leads you to say that it is "pretty certain"? -
ajki at 01:35 AM on 22 October 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #6
Regarding "World's biggest geoengineering experiment 'violates' UN rules" in The Guardian: Possibly another interesting, more scientific point of view on "Iron Fertilisation": Current study in the scientific journal Nature: researchers publish results of an iron fertilisation experiment, Alfred Wegener Institute, Press Release, July 18, 2012 [Keywords: EIFEX, LOHAFEX] -
idunno at 23:17 PM on 21 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
He's off again... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220722/Global-warming-The-Mail-Sunday-answers-world-warming-not.html This time, it's not "Embarrassingly stupid tabloid hack detects no warming for 16 years", it's up to the readers of the Mail to make up their own minds. To aid them to do this, Rose then tells them what to think. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 20:52 PM on 21 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Doug H Does energy efficiency, renewables, etc mean the death of things like this. I think not. In an energy constrained world doing good things that use less energy will start to take precedence over doing good things that take more energy. I could jump in my car and travel 100kms down the road to visit a friend. Or I could visit with them on-line for a fraction of the cost. In an efficiency constrained world,the Internet will be one of the great survivors -
Steve Case at 11:13 AM on 21 October 2012Update from Easton Glacier: Climate Crocks on Ice
That's right DSL I've brought it up before, (-snip-).Moderator Response: [DB] Yes, you did indeed pursue this line, here. Thus, if you wish to continue pursuing it, do it there, not here, where it is off-topic. Sloganeering snipped. -
Alexandre at 10:28 AM on 21 October 2012Climate sensitivity is low
Guys, can someone tell me if the Knutti & Hegerl graph is free to be reproduced in Wikipedia? Is it already in the Commons? The Nature Geoscience page says "all rights reserved"... -
william5331 at 10:15 AM on 21 October 2012What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
It seems pretty certain that the extra melt this year was indeed due to the huricane that at 964mb is on the border between a class 2 and a class three. With counter clockwise currents pushed by the counter clockwise winds and flung outwards (to the right) by Coriolis, you would expect such a storm to cause upwelling in the eye of the storm bringing up the warmer Atlantic water that lies under the fresher cooler Arctic water. This all misses the point. Storms are powered by open water and by the steepness of the pressure gradient from surrounding areas to the site of the storm. We can expect more of these storms in the coming summer. Just imagine what will happen when there is no longer ice protecting Greenland from the summer hurricane and the storm sidles up to the northern shore of Greenland. Heat powered up into the atmosphere and katabatic winds down the slopes of Greenland. This year's melt will pale into insignificance. -
Tom Curtis at 09:45 AM on 21 October 2012Salby's ratio
Chris G @6, spelling error now corrected. Thankyou. John Brooks @10, I did not attempted to communicate with Salby prior to publication. I take the view that if he would not respond to Dikran Marsupials substantial criticisms of an issue on which he is attempting (supposedly) to publish, he would not respond. At first I though I really should attempt to communicate with him to ensure I was not simply mistaking an obscure form of the argument that "we haven't warmed for 15 years, ergo CO2 does not cause warming" for the even worse argument described above. Then, however, I noticed that he said,"The long term evolution of global temperature parallels that of CO2 during the 1980s. It behaves less so during the 1990s, even accounting for the erruption of Pinatubo in 1992. But after the El Nino of 1997, CO2 continued to increase. Global temperature did not."
In fact, while the the 1980s overlap the CO2 record in his graph, they had a temperature trend in the UAH TLT record of 0 degrees C per decade (1980-1989, annual values). As such the 1980s performed worse in tracking CO2 increases than did the 2000s (0.06 C/decade, 2000-2009) or the 1990s (0.26 C/decade, 1990-1999). Indeed, Pinatubo makes the 1990s trend stronger, not worse. It does, however, make the positional mismatch between his temperature and CO2 curves greater. Therefore Salby is without question talking about relative locations of the curve, a function of his rescaling; not about the actual temperature trends. This is so straightforward that, IMO, no clarification was needed. Out of interest, and if anyone thinks it makes a difference, the trend from 1997 to 2011 is 0.1 C per decade, while that from 1998 to 2011 is 0.06 C per decade. So, even with Salby's carefully cherry picked interval, the claim that temperature change "parallels" CO2 increase in the 1980's, but that there is no match after the 1997 El Nino (or even that there was no temperature increase after the 1997 El Nino)pure bunkum with whose only supporting evidence is Salby's manipulation of the scales. Of course, there are straightforward explanations as to why the temperature increases fluctuates over the sort term. -
Philippe Chantreau at 06:39 AM on 21 October 2012Climate time lag
Another sock puppet, another fake skeptic. I thought that Falkenherz' style was somewhat familiar. And these clowns wonder why they run into less than polite attitudes. I bet he didn't get any grief from Watts for posting under an anonymous handle... -
Bob Loblaw at 06:32 AM on 21 October 2012What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
Let's look a little closer at what might be required, if we want to figure out just how much of the season's drop in ice extent can be attributed to the storm. The trivial approach is to just say that the downward spike around day 220 in my comment #21 wouldn't be there if it weren't for the storm. As that graph is now on the previous page of comments, here it is again for ease of use:
From that visual, it does seem that quite a bit of ice extent was lost during the storm, thus it seems easy to think that if the storm didn't happen, the drop in ice extent would be that much less. But that ignores all the linkages between what was happening to ice and atmospheric dynamics before the storm, and what happened afterwards. The graph is also showing a five-day running average.
Let's look at just the 2012 ice extent data for the period around the storm, without any smoothing:
Now we can see some of the increased variation from day-to-day. We can also see the storm - August 5 is day 218, and there are three days (218-220) of much greater loss of ice extent than is seen elsewhere in the graph. Again, the trivial answer would be to say that without the storm, those three days would have seen substantially less ice loss than actually happened - an eyeball estimate might be 80,000 sq.km per day, for a total of 240,000 sq. km.
I say "trivial", because that analysis ignores several factors. First, the storm that hit on August 5 as the result of the weather patterns that preceeded it. If we magically change the physics so that the August 5 storm doesn't happen, then we need to magically change the physics of the period leading up to it. If we look at the prior week of ice extent loss, we then need to ask "what would have been different then?". A key feature of the preceeding week was relatively small losses on days 212-214. Perhaps the weather during that period was unfavorable to ice loss, and when the storm hit a few days later the rapid loss was simply a "catch-up"? If we draw a straight line from day 211 to day 215, it looks like days 212-214 were running about 170,000 sq. km "short".
Same thing if you look at the week after the storm: there are several days that appear to have less ice loss than "normal". Is this because the storm caused a decrease in ice extent that was just ice that would have been lost a few days later anyway if the storm didn't happen? And because it was lost during the storm, it just wasn't available a few days later, so we see the lower loss rate? Just eyeballing the trends, I can see the potential for an extra 170,000 sq.km of ice loss over the period 221-227, if the highest points (least ice extent loss) were moved down to the 100,000 sq.km/day rates that occur at the bottom of the range.
In either of these hypothetical scenarios, it is possible that the storm (in combination with the weather patterns that preceeded it or followed it) just affected the timing of the ice loss, and not the overall total. These "what if?" scenarios suggest that there is possibly just as much ice extent that was not lost during the week before or after the storm as there was lost during the storm - ice that would affect the seasonal minimum.
To examine only the few days of the storm and hypothetically remove the storm, while ignoring the possible alternate realities for the time before or after the storm is to succumb to confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.
...and I haven't even considered the fact that ice extent isn't necessarily a good indicator of ice melt (as has been pointed out in other comments), nor have I considered the fact that the estimates of ice extent have error bars on them, so day-to-day variations may be partly noise rather than signal. All this complicates the analysis, and means that a lot more would need to be examined in order to come up with a meaningful estimate of how the storm affected the seasonal minimum in ice extent.
To try to assess the effects of the storm by just looking at the spike in extent loss is a fool's errand, as I said earlier. Drawing such conclusions from a single graph and source of data is just handwaving.
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DSL at 04:38 AM on 21 October 2012Update from Easton Glacier: Climate Crocks on Ice
Steve, I think you've brought this up before. The problem is not with available moisture. The problem is that life in these areas of the world have developed around glacial water supplies. Glaciers provide a more consistent water supply throughout the growing season than does rain/snow only. In order to mimic the role of glaciers, more dams will be necessary -- more infrastructure, more money, more ecological questions, more local politics. And there are critical rivers in the world where dams would seriously restrict movement of materials (thus forcing the construction of more elaborate and costly infrastructure). -
Steve Case at 03:57 AM on 21 October 2012Update from Easton Glacier: Climate Crocks on Ice
"These glaciers make up a large part of the water supply for major cities and agriculture in many parts of the world. Without them, a lot of Great Plains agriculture would be impossible. A lot of western cities would be impossible as well. Not to mention a lot of the south Asian population would be put under severe distress. We're talking about potential upheavals of millions of people having no water to drink and less food to eat. Yes, it is a serious problem." Just because a glacier recedes does not mean that the rain and snow stops falling. Indeed, in a warmer world, the IPCC tells us that there will more evaporation, more water vapor and more precipitation. The rivers in those watersheds that currently have glaciers will still flow even if the glaciers disappear. -
dana1981 at 03:33 AM on 21 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Electricity doesn't have to come from high carbon sources, Doug.
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