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Bob Lacatena at 23:06 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale, Climate Change, Tropospheric Ozone and Particulate Matter, and Health Impacts (Kristie L. Ebi1 and Glenn McGregor, 2008) Climate change and allergic disease (Katherine M. Shea, MD, MPHa, et al, 2008) Climate change, ambient ozone, and health in 50 US cities (Michelle L. Bell et al, 2007) A review of surface ozone background levels and trends (Roxanne Vingarzan, 2004) Is that enough (for now)? There are lots more. Lots. -
Byron Smith at 22:38 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
Thanks for the patience work it takes to unpick a GG like this. I started the task on a comment thread elsewhere and offer my comment there (lightly edited) as it contains a few extra pieces of information not covered above. ________________________ This quote [the one with which this post started and which was also quoted on the other thread] is a piece alarmist strawman scaremongering from a paid industry lobbyist with a long history of misinformation on behalf of the mining, logging and pharmaceutical industries. I don't have any particular desire to defend Al Gore, but even in the quote you've included there is an easily demonstrated falsehood. Gore has *not* called for cessation of all fossil fuel use by 2020. Nor has McKibben (who is mentioned immediately before this quote), so the 3.5 billion deaths claim (which itself is highly contestable) is a classic strawman. Gore's proposal was for the USA (not the world) to cease all fossil-fuelled electricity generation (not all fuel use) by 2020 - a very different and more modest goal. The immediately preceding paragraph has a quote attributed to a man who died in 2005 that is not found anywhere else on the web except in this interview and its mirrors. Perhaps he said it in private musings, but we only have Moore's word for it and apparently he has never mentioned this quote before this interview in any forum that has ended up on the web. [The above post doesn't mention the alleged quote from Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter, in which he said that Greenpeace would have to be based on ideology "because not everyone can be a PhD ecologist".] "Oil is responsible for 36% of global energy and is therefore the most important source of energy to support our civilization." Methinks he's forgetting one energy source slightly more critical to our, and all previous, civilisations. [i.e. the sun, especially as mediated by photosynthesis.] "as a scientist who is fully qualified to understand climate change" He's got a PhD in environmental law. "Yet they provide no opinion as to what did cause the warming between 1910-1940." He has clearly not read IPCC AR4 WG1 Ch9. https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html "the IPCC does not speak of "catastrophe"" Nope, just of >50% of all species committed to extinction, >20% suppression of crop yields, the end of Arctic sea ice, sea level rise sufficient to cause trillions in damages, millions of refugees, and so on. Oh, and this... https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html "The causes of climate change are first the sun, as it is responsible for the existence of climate." This is much like saying that the cause of most deaths during the Battle of Britain is the iron core of the earth, whose gravity sucked downed pilots to their demise. Almost trivially true, but basically irrelevant to any causal analysis with ethical significance. "global average temperature has now been flat for the past 15 years" The heat content of the earth continues to rise, with most of the energy continuing to go into the largest heat sink (the oceans) and a tiny percentage going into the atmosphere in non-linear ways. "I fear the irrational policies of extreme environmentalists far more that a warmer climate on this relatively cold planet (14.5 C global average temperature today compared with 25C during the Greenhouse Ages." Ah yes, those wonderful times when there were forests across Antarctica, crocodiles in the Arctic and almost no life in the tropics. I can't see any problem heading back there with a world of ten billion people with trillions and trillions of sunk costs in infrastructure built on the assumption of a 14.5ºC world... -
EliRabett at 22:18 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Try B. P. E. Clapeyron, “Mémoire sur la puissance motrice de la chaleur,” in Journal de l’École polytechnique, 14 (1834), 153–190. If you have an open container of VOCs they evaporate exponentially faster when it is warmer. The original reference Eli gave IS refereed BTW and has many citations about the role VOCs play in forming ozone near the surface. Enjoy your reading assignment. -
Alexandre at 21:52 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
I've met people who say the free-market economy can withstand anything: climate disasters, natural resource collapses, overpopulation, you name it - freedom, liberty and private property will take care of everything, even if we don't know how. The one thing the free-market economy cannot survive is low carbon - that's certain doom. Half of the people in a world would die within a year, as we now learn. -
Jonas at 20:29 PM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
I once had to debunk a similar thing: that time it was microwave radiation. As in the calculation above, the estimation (in favor of the hypothesis by overestimating sender density and strength and handy strength and usage) showed a difference of several orders of magnitude compared to the energy needed to heat the globe as is observed. -- Some arguments can easily be checked ad hoc for validity, but the more advanced biasing, tweaking, cherry picking, falsifying, etc. of science is not so easy to get for me - despite my regular reading on climate here and elsewhere - and I am very thankful to all people here contributing to this fact oriented work. I personally am not a (semi-)professional on the subject, so I only con contribute a little money to the web site each year: one of the best investments I can make in a livable future, I think. -
chriskoz at 19:56 PM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Looking of nuke test influence over the climate is a joke, however a related topic: the natural radioactive decay in Earth's mantle is not. This wikipedia article provides the real, somewhat signifficant number of 0.1W/m2 as the geo-radiative heat escaping to space currently. It used to be twice higher 2Ga. So, some (within just one order of magnitude-10) portion of this heat, diminishing as the Earth ages, can be attriubuted for recent cooling from hothouse of ancient history. I cannot find any more info about that in climate studies that I've looked at, which IMO cannot be ignored, because 0.1W/m2 should be taken into account if taking about total radiative balance. Or, maybe less geo-heat in recent times can mean that simply plate techtonics are not as fast as they used to be with no change to radiative balance, hopefully some geologist would explain it to me? Thanks. -
John Mason at 17:16 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
#5 - indeed, a very Moncktonian approach. It takes a certain and not particularly common skill-set to bluster in this way. When people like this demand that one debates them live, read, "I challenge you to sit next to me in public whilst I gush for however long I can get away with it for. You can't catch me". Written ones are much more fun, though, as they're easy to demolish even if it's a bit time-consuming. -
Dale at 17:12 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
(-Snip-) EliRabett: Thanks for the info. Can you please describe the role of temperature (heat not light obviously) in the formation/destruction of tropospheric ozone? Sphaerica: Please point me to an actual peer-reviewed paper which supports the premise that GW increases tropospheric ozone formation.Moderator Response: [DB] Moderation complaints snipped. -
chriskoz at 16:25 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
David Lewis@4, our quote: the incoherent rambling of Moore, proves the point of the article that Moore is a classical Gish-Galloper. However, it does not say anything bad about his intelligence. I'd guess rather opposite: good rhetoric and public speaking skills mean Moore be possibly as skilled as lord Monckton. I haven't seen Moore in action but I see his tactics are very similar to Monckton's. -
David Lewis at 15:17 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
He doesn't know anything about climate change. [-snip-] Eg: When he appeared alongside Fred Singer, Patrick Michaels, Lindzen, Tim Ball, etc., in the movie The Great Global Warming Swindle, Moore explained to the world why climate change became a major issue: "The shift to climate being a major focal point came about for two very distinct reasons. The first reason was because by the mid-'80s the majority of people now agreed with all the reasonable things we in the environmental movement were saying they should do. Now, when a majority of people agree with you, it's pretty hard to remain confrontational with them. And so the only way to remain anti-establishment was to adopt ever more extreme positions. When I left Greenpeace, it was in the midst of them adopting a campaign to ban chlorine worldwide. Like I said, 'You guys, this is one of the elements in the periodic table, you know. I mean, I'm not sure that's within our jurisdiction to be banning a whole element. The other reason that environmental extremism emerged was because Communism fell, the wall came down, and a lot of peaceniks and communists moved into the environmental movement, bringing their neo-Marxism with them, and learned to use green language in a very clever way to cloak agendas that actually have more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than anything with ecology or science"Moderator Response: [RH] Tone it down a bit please. -
macoles at 15:10 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
I had a different interpretation of Moore's statement [2] "The cause of the onset of Ice-Ages, one of which we are presently experiencing, is a puzzle we don't fully understand." I see it as a self-conflicting double whammy: A) that we don't fully understand the onsets of Ice-Ages. B) that we are currently experiencing such an onset into the next Ice-Age. How can he assure us that we are at such an onset while also insisting we don't fully understand them? -
John Mason at 15:01 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
David, thanks for the RS link, within which I found this little gem: "Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of causation between the human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years, long before the human-induced increase in CO2 was evident." He's 'buried' the Little Ice-Age! -
David Lewis at 14:54 PM on 24 August 2012Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change
There's no sense trying to minimize his early role at Greenpeace. George Monbiot in the article you link to identifies Moore as one of the founders of Greenpeace. He was said by Greenpeace itself to be one of its founders for many years, until he became an apostate. See: archived Greenpeace webpage Moore's been at this a long time. He isn't "back". He never goes away. Eg: When the U.K. Royal Society publicly excoriated ExxonMobil's U.K subsidiary Esso because they had broken the promise they made to the Royal Society that they would stop funding climate science denial, Patrick Moore charged to the rescue by writing a letter in support of ExxonMobil. Moore challenged the scientific qualifications of the representative of the Royal Society he was writing to and told them they did not understand what science was. [-snip-]Moderator Response: [RH] Snipped inflammatory. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:23 PM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
"Chemtrails," not contrails! How can we enact a conspiracy if we can't keep our terms straight? No "Agenda 21 Decoder Ring" for you guys, sorry. -
Bob Lacatena at 14:04 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Thanks, Eli! I've always said, it's good to have a spare chemist lying around, just in case you need one. And if you can find one that refers to himself in the third person, that's all the better! As an aside, here's more commentary (second hand, in the form of an article) from the UK Royal Society and a Guardian article from 2004. Both explicitly reference increased ozone levels and health impacts in this decade, versus previous periods. Impacts of climate change? You decide. -
scaddenp at 13:46 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Gee EliRabett, there nothing like someone who knows what they are talking about to ruin a good argument. Thank you for that valuable insight. -
bill4344 at 13:14 PM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
I was going to suggest that we shouldn't haarp on about this... ;-) -
DSL at 12:54 PM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
When flying in comment streams, don't poke the HAARPies! -
EliRabett at 12:49 PM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
The CA Air Resource Board has a very good review of tropospheric ozone chemistry see Chapters 3 and 4 from which most of this argument is taken. WRT this thread there are a few important points to be made. First, while storm driven intrusions of stratospheric ozone can push ozone down into the troposphere, the penetration decreases as the distance from the tropopause increases. There are effects high up in the mountains but the amount that gets down to the ground is miniscule, esp wrt ozone in urban areas during the summer. For the purposes of this thread that is a red herring, a tasty one perhaps, but not more. Second, the discussion has not touched on the role of volatile organic compounds of both natural and man made origin, which are both key, but also complex. The effect on ozone depends on the ration of [VOC]/[NO2]. Starting with NO2 photolysis between 420 and 310 nm NO2 + hν --> NO + O (1) The oxygen atoms react with oxygen molecules O + O2 + M --> O3 + M (2) and NO is converted back to NO2 by O3 + NO --> NO2 + O2 (3) Following the air pollution board, in an unperturbed atmosphere the NO2 concentration will reach a steady state and from reaction 1 and 3 [O3]= k1/k3 [NO2]/[NO] (4) k1, the photolysis rate (which is higher in the summer), is much slower than k3 and normally there is more NO emitted than NO2, so under normal conditions not much ozone will be found Enter VOCs, which can convert NO to NO2 via RO2 + NO --> NO2 + RO (5) (R stands for any organic molecule) altering the balance in Eq 4 and more. The source of the RO2 are the VOCs. From both human and biological sources, this is strongly temperature dependent. Vapor from all sources (solvents/trees) is strongly coupled to temperature. For example consider Atlanta and the Appalachians. Atlanta has a world class tropospheric ozone problem because of the nearby Appalachians, which are primarily a pine forest. There is no major ozone problem in the Appalachians because there are no major sources of NO. In Atlanta traffic and industry produce a lot of NO, which interacts with the VOCs from industry and the Appalachians. -
Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 12:29 PM on 24 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
@Steve L #13 At the risk of taking this too far off topic, I recently read that someone nominated Steve McIntyre for a science award. The particular award is for a young scientist who stands up for good science despite harassment. (Katharine Hayhoe would be a good candidate IMO.) McIntyre's nomination is a good example of extreme delusion/confirmation bias. (McIntyre is quite old, definitely not a scientist and partakes in and encourages harassment of scientists eg through frivolous FOI campaigns.) -
John Hartz at 11:06 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale @49: You reference the article, Ozone Layer Depletion - The Importance Of Stratospheric Ozone posted on the Science Encyclopedia by JRank. The operative paragraph from this article is: “In addition, some stratospheric ozone makes its way to the lower atmosphere, where it contributes to ozone pollution. Ozone is an important pollutant in the lower troposphere where it damages agricultural and wild plants, weakens synthetic materials, and causes discomfort to humans. During events of great turbulence in the upper atmosphere, such as thunderstorms, stratospheric ozone may enter the troposphere. Usually this only affects the upper troposphere, although observations have been made of stratospheric ozone reaching ground level for short intervals of time. On average, stratospheric incursions account for about 18% of the ozone in the troposphere, while photochemical reactions within the lower atmosphere itself account for the remaining 82% of tropospheric ozone.” Unfortunately, none of the statements made in the above paragraph are documented by source. I have absolutely no idea who wrote this article and whether or not the statements made in it are actually derived from legitimate scientific resources. -
Alexandre at 10:07 AM on 24 August 2012It's satellite microwave transmissions
This is my pet 'skeptic' argument. I resent the fact that it's so widely ignored. How come WUWT never bandied this out? Not that they would know it was rubbish... -
Daniel Bailey at 10:02 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
I'm dubbing it HAARP's Law (the equivalent of Godwin's Law):1. As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving HAARP and/or jet contrails/chemtrails/new world order (nwo) approaches 1. 2. In other words, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to HAARP and/or jet contrails/chemtrails/nwo. 3. Once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the HAARP and/or jet contrails/chemtrails/nwo has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.
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vrooomie at 09:58 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Sph, methinks the phrase 'not a True Scotsman' applies...;( Also, by this time in the dialogue, I believe the correct terminology is "will not grasp the concept." I've seen 'spoon-fed' and 'denial' on here before but....at least *I* have learned a great deal about GLO that I didn't know before! If you wanna *trust* all them scientists, that is. {:-) -
vrooomie at 09:50 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Tom@9: HAARP. Oh, and the evil gummint contrails... -
Bob Lacatena at 09:47 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale, Let's see... you, through your talented use of Wikipedia could be correct, and NASA, the EPA, and a host of government and non-government organizations and the scientists in their employ could all be wrong, or... ... chemistry and science could be just a little more complex than your (overly-simplistic, Google-based) view allows. There may be other reactants and reactions (see previous comments about pollutants), and maybe the whole thing is just a little more complicated than your five line Wikipedia entry might lead you to believe. In which case, once again, we get back to the fact that, as the entire world except for climate ostrich Dale seems to understand, temperature affects ground-level ozone production and global warming will therefore increase the frequency of hazardous ozone days in some regions. BTW, the Nobel price to which you refer covers the ozone layer and stratospheric ozone formation, which is very, very different from ground-level ozone. You have made that mistake repeatedly here, and cannot seem to grasp the concept. -
Dale at 09:07 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
John @47 Some info: http://science.jrank.org/pages/4974/Ozone-Layer-Depletion-importance-stratospheric-ozone.html Incursions account for 18% of tropospheric ozone according to them. Sphaerica: Interestingly, chemists have had a formula for calculating ozone formation for years. Look up Leighton's Relationship. Formation is reliant on UV-light, thus solar intensity and solar zenith, not temperature. Heat can impact the generation of pre-cursors, but not the formation or destruction of ozone itself. BTW, a Nobel Prize for Chemistry was given in 1995 to three scientists who worked on ozone formation. These folks all say it's UV-light, not heat that determines ozone formation. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/press.html Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to take the word of chemists this time. -
Tom Curtis at 08:59 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
vroomie @4, thanks, and fixed. Byron Smith @1, this is certainly not the loopiest idea I have ever seen from AGW "skeptics". The most bizarre is the idea that it is radar that is causing global warming. The next most bizarre is that not only is geothermal energy causing global warming, but the relatively temperate climate at the Earth's surface is entirely caused by geothermal energy. The theory that nuclear weapons is the cause involves primarily a simple failure to grasp the scale of the energies involved. Consequently it will have an intuitive appeal to the scientifically uninformed; but fortunately only to a very few on the sidelines. -
Peter Hogarth at 07:49 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Fujii link now fixed, apologies. I see Watts criticised it last year, so maybe there's merit to it. -
scaddenp at 07:23 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
John, since by definition there is no convection operating above the tropopause, I would say the "incursions" by diffusion would be too small to be measurable. Furthermore, it is only persistent in cold, dry condition. Within the lower troposphere, its half-life is a matter of days. -
Peter Hogarth at 07:11 AM on 24 August 2012Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
Hi Neven, looks like arctic roos is showing record minimum ice area already, with a couple of melt weeks still to go. -
ranyl at 07:07 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Like the sheep. The world sheep population has fallen by 1% since 1992. http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/AD452E/ad452e2y.htm#TopOfPage They'll be paying farmers to breed pale coloured animals next. Wouldn't want to be black sheep. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 06:56 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Byron et al. "I thought I was familiar with pretty much all the myriad loopy dissenting arguments. This one took me by surprise." I'll bet you don't know this one either. -
Peter Hogarth at 06:48 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
On a more serious note, have a look at the discussion in Fujii 2011, on stagnation of Global Warming in mid 20th Century. Interesting read, and more of a case for cooling due to atmospheric nuclear explosions than warmingModerator Response: [DB] Fixed link. -
Andy Skuce at 06:35 AM on 24 August 2012Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
The "crust" is actually the lithosphere, which is not that weak or that thin (100-200km) and the stuff underlying it is not exactly fluid either, being many orders of magnitude more viscous than pitch. Perhaps a better analogy for isostasy would be a water bed filled with peanut butter, overlain by a two-inch thick rubber sheet. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 06:34 AM on 24 August 2012Teaching Climate Change in Schools
Michael Sweet @ 8: "I address AGW by assigning a several reports where the students look up their own data and write reports on sea ice or global temperature." Yes! Do it that way. What is your physics teacher's argument? Is he a "2nd law of thermo forbids downwelling radiation" type? Why on earth is it hard to address the "grant money" argument? That's about the trashyist argument there is, and an opportunity to explain what science and scientists are all about. Grants have been well addressed at RC sometime ago. Obvious factors start with: 1. The first criterion for getting a grant is that the proposed research will advance scientific knowledge. You don't get or need a grant to say what everyone else is saying, nor do you need to do all the work of research. 2. You don't get the money anyway. The money goes to the institution. First they take their "overhead" off the top. Then they disburse the remainder in bits as graduate student or postdoc stipends, or to suppliers for equipment, etc. When you get a grant, what you, the researcher, get is an obligation to do a lot of work. Why would you do that? see below. 3. If it is money you are after, and you are enough of a scientist to do original research in earth science, you can make much more money working for industry. which brings us to what scientists and science are all about: *** Finding things out is what it's all about *** That's the first realization your students need to start understanding scientific methods. Then you get into How to find things out. But you won't get far without a drive to find things out. Michael, learn to take that trash "grant money" argument as an opportunity. ... then finally point out that it is not a scientific argument - is it an implicit admission of not having one? If not, back to your Assign a report method. ======= Steve @ 12: "When we first take physics, we start with Newton. (Don't we?...." Well there's http://www.physics2000.com/. ======= @ 16 "If children *see* a container of C02 getting warmer than one of air, Linda's first co2 experiment ...." search on Linda's first CO2 experiment. As for wanting teachers to cover all those other things you mention, by and large they are struggling to cover what they have to (their state standards) while following the text and preparing the students for standardized tests - three sometimes contradictory aims. -
vrooomie at 05:48 AM on 24 August 2012Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
One of the continuing issues that drives me *nutsoid* is the dereliction of duty the MSM has exhibited, regarding effective and truthful reporting of this topic. Media Ignore Record Ice Melt -
vrooomie at 05:22 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Tom Curtis, in your third 'graph, under the "Annual Yields" graph, you've mispelled 'from' to 'form.' I understand though, having rented flingers, too..;) Thanks for this article, and to Doug: I'm waiting for bated breath to hear what next the denialisti come up with, for the global warmings, as their cherished 'causes' fall like dominos. Excessive planting of sunflowers, causing too much reflection of yellow light up to the troposphere? Where I live--surrounded by ~25K acres of corn, alfalfa, and *sunflowers*, and in the county in which I live (where I'm one of two, *maybe* ten Progressives--it would be an easy sell. You heard it here, first...;( -
Pete Dunkelberg at 05:22 AM on 24 August 2012New research from last week 33/2012
With polar ice volume decreasing faster than models predict, we had better note the "at least" aspect of the predicted sea level rise. Semi-empirical projections may also not take account of losing our coal-induced aerosol cover, hopefully well before 2100. As for after 2100, what was sea level the last time CO2 went above 400 and stayed there for a good while? Above 450? -
Composer99 at 05:18 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
I certainly can't recall seeing anyone make this claim before online. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 05:16 AM on 24 August 2012Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
The forgotten analogy for a thin crust over a fluid interior: waterbeds ;) -
Doug Bostrom at 04:31 AM on 24 August 2012Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
Tamino usefully digs in to this issue with a new post: Risk. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:23 AM on 24 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Steve from VA:Climate scientists are part of pop culture as well. Not everyone can be a real climate scientist which is why individuals like Pielke and Monckton gain credibility ... I've long thought that Monckton's special influence in the U.S. and Australia hinges in part on atavistic cultural impulses to do with his peerage, plus of course his toff accent and appealingly florid writing. Just because you're no longer a colony doesn't mean you instantly abandon the instinct to knuckle your forehead. Does it help to know that Chris Monckton is a lord only because his grandpa was a politician shunted out of government over disagreements with Anthony Eden and given a consolation prize of peerage, that the current Lord Monckton wasn't even born a peer? Probably not; Brits don't care that Lady Gaga is the child of a NYC city couple of humble origins, but Lady Gaga gets the power of "Lady" in front of any name. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:08 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
Byron: I thought I was familiar with pretty much all the myriad loopy dissenting arguments. Me too. There are a lot of problems with this idea beyond the basic erg deficit. I don't think nuclear weapons release a new form of energy that is unusually subject to gravitational attraction, weapons testing largely ended a long time ago, yet the energy released in those tests is supposed to be lingering? How? Is a bizarre argument like this a sign of hope or cause for depression? Desperate hail Mary or indicator of a receptive audience whose thinking skills have collapsed and dribbled away like ice cream on a a hot summer day? -
Byron Smith at 03:22 AM on 24 August 2012How much has nuclear testing contributed to global warming?
I thought I was familiar with pretty much all the myriad loopy dissenting arguments. This one took me by surprise. There are some very important historical links between nuclear weapons and climate science, since the rapid improvement in atmospheric monitoring and modelling that occurred after WWII was very significantly driven by the desire to learn more about the likely fallout distribution of nuclear explosions. I read a fascinating article drawing many of these links, though can't find it right now. -
John Hartz at 03:10 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
In his comment #36, Dale asserts: "As stratospheric ozone recovers (due to Montreal) we should expect to see increased stratospheric ozone incursions into the troposphere." Is there any scientific evidence supporting this assertion? -
Bob Lacatena at 02:26 AM on 24 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
steve from virginia, I disagree. I think the solution is that world leaders -- indeed leaders at all levels -- need to be above falling for denial shenanigans, and to actually lead. If the world leaders (including USA Republican presidential candidates, for example) were united and serious about things -- recognizing their need to be mature and intelligent in everything, especially an issue with such gravity as this one -- you wouldn't have nearly so many people watching the Marx brothers versus the Keystone Kops and getting confused. We don't need scientists pretending to be salesmen or conmen, we need leaderspretending to beacting like leaders. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:50 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
From the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, concerning ozone levels in ice core proxies:The short atmospheric lifetime of ozone (hours-days) together with the spatial variability of its sources precludes a globally or vertically homogeneous distribution, so that a fractional unit such as parts per billion would not apply over a range of altitudes or geographical locations. Therefore a different unit is used to integrate the varying concentrations of ozone in the vertical dimension over a unit area, and the results can then be averaged globally. This unit is called a Dobson Unit (D.U.), after G. M. B. Dobson, one of the first investigators of atmospheric ozone. A Dobson unit is the amount of ozone in a column which, unmixed with the rest of the atmosphere, would be 10 micrometers thick at standard temperature and pressure.
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steve from virginia at 01:46 AM on 24 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Denial is part of pop culture, part of mainstream industry marketing. The denial approach works because modern culture's inherent false-ness: everything we engage with is fashion, that being trendiness, desire (the latter a business good), frivolousness/triviality and contrariness-for-its-own-sake. Modern, post-WWII culture is 'girlish' and erratic, vamping and gay (homosexual); pornographic, inconsequential and theatrical. Business isn't presumed to behave this way (where is that bottom line, again?) but business is a component of culture -- not the other way around. Business conforms to roles culture sets out for it. One role for business is the gay outlaw: business as misunderstood/evil and all-consuming: businessmen are therefore evil and cannibalizing, they have no choice. Saintly businessmen cannot compete because culture has created a business environment that gives evil businessmen various social and economic advantages over the rest. Climate scientists are part of pop culture as well. Not everyone can be a real climate scientist which is why individuals like Pielke and Monckton gain credibility that eludes actual scientists: they self-create the terms of their own 'success', they are democrats who open up the science process: they 'speak truths to power', they are 'scientists for everyman'. The process of democratization is what matters, not content: in America (and its copycats) every mediocrity can become a great artist (Warhol) a great musician (Snoop Dog), a great writer (EL James) simply by 'flaunting convention' (mom and dad), branding themselves in the process. There is nothing more: anyone can be an 'instant rebel without a cause' in the (fake) tradition of (fake) James Dean. Why not fake scientists? What's so special about scientists? The fake scientists are chosen because of how they look, dress and speak, where they are from and whom they know rather than any quality of thought or research, 'qualifications' or relationship to 'facts'. Real scientists are boiler tenders who are required to mind to the machines and keep them from blowing up. Because of how pop culture inverts priorities, the fake scientists are real: the real versions lack the social status to get anyone to pay attention to them. Scientists are constrained to the boiler-tenders' role: to invent technology. When scientists speak out, they cease being tenders and technologists, they cease being scientists -- as determined by role -- at the same time. The social role of 'scientists' is determined the fakes then filled by them. Scientists chasing deniers in newspapers is like Marx brothers being chased by Keystone Kops. Uh ... you guys are the 'Kops'. "Ha ha! Very funny. Look at those dumb scientists!" Because the dead-end kids can always outmaneuver the 'kops' in self-created (theatrical) contexts the kids are made out to be smarter in their own (self-created) way than the smarty-pants scientists. The only possible hope to blow this business up is to draft some photogenic, charismatic 'real' fake scientist like Captain Kangaroo or Rod Serling. Put this individual on TV as frequently as possible telling folks as graphically as possible how their grandchildren are going to die because of global heating -- use that term 'global heating'. It's scary, it frightens people. Nothing else will do. Science has to compete with non-science on its own (false) ground and not shilly-shally around. Part of pop-culture is apocalypse: best to start making use of it! Nobody takes anything seriously in America unless there are bodies in the streets. By then it is too late ... Plan B is for the scientists to start preparing for that day: coming up with lists of things to be jettisoned so that some humans might survive the next 500 years. Start with getting rid of the cars, all of them. Step two is getting rid of industrial agriculture. Any possible response to climate change that does not include getting rid of all the cars as the first step has not one shred of credibility. Otherwise, overpopulation -- of cars and humans -- will take care of itself. A question: how many climate scientists have cars, vacation 'homes', flat screens? (sigh ..) Primer on culture/climate here: -
vrooomie at 01:33 AM on 24 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Wow, Sph..it's only been about a ~hundred~ years since I thought of *that* song...might have to give it go! Gosh only knows we need a song to lighten the spirit!
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