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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. -
Doug Bostrom at 02:44 AM on 21 October 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Test. Edit test.Moderator Response: Test. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:13 AM on 21 October 2012Climate time lag
Sorry, Falkenherz, I lost track of you. Everyone did answer your question, repeatedly, and you ignored the answers and just kept grasping at straws, hence my attitude. You can't be bothered to understand the science, but then are annoyed that people can't explain it to you on a kindergarten level. Yet you were clearly never interested in getting answers, but simply pretending to care so you could argue a case that you believe in (even though you claim not to). Today you are posting about this thread on WUWT as "thingadonta" and exposing your true nature there. -
michael sweet at 21:14 PM on 20 October 2012Models are unreliable
dvaytw, Can you ask your friend if he can cite a single instance of a model that uses a 1979-1982 base? I have never heard of such a baseline. Usually climate models use a thirty year base. Hansen uses 1950-1979 and others use more recent data. A few special data sets use a 20 year base because the baseline is changing so fast, due to AGW, that 30 years is not representative of the true baseline. It is difficult to counter an argument that is completely non factual. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:47 PM on 20 October 2012Salby's ratio
FWIW I emailed a copy of my blog post to Prof Salby before it was posted for his comment, but received no reply. -
mikeh1 at 19:42 PM on 20 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
FYI The links to the graphics in The Guardian version of the article are broken. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:20 PM on 20 October 2012The Climate Show #29
Global collaboration to produce a show that would have been impossible just a few years ago, without Skype and broadband internet. A Kiwi in England talking to a Pom in Kiwiland just shows how small our modern globe has become, powered by high carbon electricity. When oil becomes expensive due to scarcity and the shortage cripples heavy transport, coal mining and gas extraction will become uneconomic and this wonderful technology we all enjoy will come to a shuddering halt. Very sad. -
Rob Painting at 17:49 PM on 20 October 2012Salby's ratio
John Brookes- so far Professor Salby has failed to respond to emails. -
chuck101 at 17:33 PM on 20 October 2012What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
Dale @43 'NASA estimated from satellite pictures the extent of storm damage to be around 500,000 km^2.' Sorry Dale, reference for this assertion please. It doesn't pass the smell test. I can't believe that NASA would have given such a cut and dried figure for what essentially would be a very fuzzy estimate. It is standard operating procedure for 'fake skeptics' to throw numbers out there with no attribution and hope no-one notices. If you want to join the ranks of the real skeptics, you are going to have to back up everything you say. -
Lanfear at 17:17 PM on 20 October 2012Salby's ratio
Daneel@5 You are completely wrong! This shows that CO2 follows temperature, so CO2 does not drive the warming.Or maybe not:
The same data, only the relative position is changed. There are so many, simple, ways to trick the human mind that one sometimes wonders the competence of the 'designer'.
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bill4344 at 13:52 PM on 20 October 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Potholer does another excellent take-down. -
John Brookes at 13:24 PM on 20 October 2012Salby's ratio
Have you told Salby? I'm sure he'll be extremely grateful, and will quickly publish a correction/retraction. He must be very embarrassed at having made such an odd error. -
dvaytw at 05:12 AM on 20 October 2012The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
I've spoken on this topic and done a lot of writing and debating on it. I think two thinks should be added: (6) Resorts to "magic bullet" arguments, erroneously believing an entire scientific theory can be unwoven with a single piece of evidence. (7) Resorts to a "I'm not saying X; I'm just a guy with some questions" position... (see Joe Rogan vs. Phil Plait) but does not actively seek answers for these questions or supply an alternate hypothesis which explains as much of the evidence as the existing theory does. -
dvaytw at 05:06 AM on 20 October 2012Models are unreliable
I'm sorry if someone has already brought this up, but I don't want to read the entire comments section. An AGW denier friend of mine has brought up this question: "Why oh why do so many models use 1979-1982 as a base?" I dismissed his question for the anomaly-hunting it is, but I am curious if, assuming his observation is correct, anyone here happens to know the answer. -
Daniel Bailey at 04:47 AM on 20 October 2012Models are unreliable
dvaytw, other than Christy I have not heard of anyone using that for a baseline referent, let alone any climate models. Climate model referents are typically based on 30-year periods or more. Suggestion: Have your friend cite a source for that claim. Because it reeks like bunkum. -
vrooomie at 04:25 AM on 20 October 2012The Future We All Want
Fabiano@8, one of the best, and now out of production was the Copper Cricket. . It's long been on my loooong list of "round tuits," to build one. Naturally, they are widely avaialble in China, and one sees them all over rooftops there. -
vrooomie at 03:49 AM on 20 October 2012What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
"That's denial, plain and simple, and it angers me." Sphaerica, I am *sooooo* there with ya! As I gather and store more and more data about the true severity of the pickle humanity has made for itself, and encounter more and more deniers (and I *will not* stop using hat term, when apropos) I too, get red-faced. However...after having acknowledged my human side and even having assuaged my baser instincts on some other blogs, in the end, we, the scientists who have the responsibility to present our data, interpretation, and findings in such a way as to "win over" the true skeptics to the side of "follow the data," must not cave to that anger, or at least attempt not to. To that end, what Kevin C said was really, really good: "Now an aside about skepticism. I've been thinking about whether real skeptic and fake skeptic arguments can be distinguished on the basis of form alone - whether fake skepticism has a fingerprint which can be detected without investigating the content of the argument. -Fake skeptics will start from a piece of evidence which supports their position, and avoid encountering additional evidence in case it is inconvenient to their position. -Real skeptics will be looking for additional evidence to test their views against. With that in mind, we can see that there are some 'real skeptic' responses in this thread.... On that basis, can I suggest that this presents a constructive way to continue the discussion. We could take Dale's question at face value and look for good approaches to address it." In my view, and knowing Dale's "other work on other blogs, I am fairly convinced that he's a fake skeptic, but slowly and surely has shown some signs of at least ~attempting~ to move over into real skepticism. He pushes and pushes--and yes, quite often, ties himself into rhetorical knots despite mounds and mounds of evidence against his incorrect rhetoric--against the data; IMHO, that *strenghtens* not only "our" data and findings, but it also teaches us humility and patience, neither of which I possess in great enough measure. My JPL/NASA buddy wrote me this bit of verbiage, which I find particualry engaging, viz, humanity's blindness to the issue, and our lack of response and why, in response to his reading of this article. "It's not so much that I believe that the needle is finely balanced. Rather it's sort of a broad crest. Yet, momentum is a viable analogy in this case. First: there is nobody taking their foot off the gas, much less applying the brakes. Second: at the decision level there is nobody (at the top corporate or government levels) even considering such a thing as it would give up short-term competitive position (which is what both types of leaders are evaluated on). So from this perspective it kinda doesn't matter. There's no braking going on. Momentum alone will probably carry us over the crest. Our foot is still pressing the pedal and so we are flying past rather than coasting." It's the fact of that racing past a point of literal no-return, and the level of obfuscation we see here from the Dales and the WTFUWT'ers, that certainly does make me angry, too. In the end, we (scientists) who work endlessly to try to get this message across, though human and who occasionally tend towards anger, must keep trying to engage the few Dales who seem to want to at least try to 'get it.' Inch by inch, row by row...;) -
Fabiano at 03:18 AM on 20 October 2012The Future We All Want
Hi ljonestz! Thank you very much for your kind comment! Cheers, Fabiano.
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