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Comments 55501 to 55550:

  1. Greenland ice sheet summer temperatures highest in 172 years
    Not that we need any more bad news, but N. Hemisphere snow extent for July 2012 was the lowest on record.
  2. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Uncle Pete, The nuclear argument has been beaten to death several times here at SkS. Please take it somewhere it is on topic and not here. Suffice it to say there are many renewable energy sources that compete with nuclear.
  3. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger@59 "Thanks, the fact that Field's testimony is at variance with the IPCC SREX is trivial to show -- for instance, over in the Linkedin Climate Policy Group, Mike MacCracken (former head of the USGCRP) accepted this as explained why it was justified." Well, maybe so ... but your interpretation of the English language being what it is, I thought I might send this out to Dr. MacCracken at Climate Central: Dr. MacCracken: Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr made the following comment on the Skeptical Science blog today: "[T]he fact that Field's testimony is at variance with the IPCC SREX is trivial to show -- for instance, over in the Linkedin Climate Policy Group, Mike MacCracken (former head of the USGCRP) accepted this as explained why it was justified. If folks here want to believe that Field accurately represented the IPCC SREX, that is fine -- people believe all sorts of crazy things. But it is not in my interest to debate a point so clearly obvious and (outside of SkS it seems) so readily accepted. I won't be discussing Field further." Since I am not currently a member of the Climate Policy Group (you have to be invited to join, it appears), I cannot verify his statement ... and given what to a layman seems a variance between Dr. Field's and Dr. Pielke's recent testimony before the Senate committee, I thought I would check, if you are able to make the time. Alternatively, you could just post a comment on SkS: http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=63&&n=1566 Thank you for your time. Given the number of times that you and Dr. Field have shared a podium, I thought you might be annoyed at having your name taken in vain. If in fact he has quoted you correctly, I am certain that the SkS community would be glad to hear your reasoning, given your immense prestige within the climate community. Best wishes, OldMole
  4. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    So, in a nutshell, nuclear power is the only answer.
  5. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    "it is very difficult to attribute individual weather events to global warming" *sigh* Big, big *sigh*, in fact. Trenberth has pointed out with great cogency why that phrase is wrong, and yet people who ought to know better keep repeating it in one form or another.
  6. Zeke Hausfather at 09:38 AM on 11 August 2012
    Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Be very careful when using GISTemp land products; they are not always what you expect them to be! (see this for more details: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/the-great-gistemp-mystery/) Gavin provided me the correct GISTemp values to use for the land record a few months back: http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/Tanom_land_monthly.txt You can also use NCDC's record for comparison, since its a simple 5x5 lat/lon gridding method with a land mask and 30-year common anomaly period: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
  7. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    From where I sit, last year's "dialogue" with Pielke Sr was a big waste of everyone's time and energy. I foresee the same outcome if we engage Pielke Jr in a comparable "dialogue" this year. Let's keep our focus on the stuff that matters most.
  8. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    I'm certainly not interested in a 'he said/she said' argument, which is precisely why your reporting of MacCracken's supposed comments about the content of the SREX are not relevant. We didn't go out and ask anybody else what the SREX says, we read and quoted directly from the SREX (and other relevant research). The fact is that Field's comments are consistent with the content of the SREX, and you misrepresented his comments in arguing to the contrary. If you would like to try and demonstrate otherwise, again you are very welcome to do so. But to this point we have provided concrete evidence that you misrepresented Field, and you have not provided any concrete evidence to the contrary.
  9. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger@59: With all dues respect, you *have* engaged in quite a lot of "silly debate" on your blog, viz. Field's testimony in front of Congress and what you *assert* he said, that you claim is in variance with what the SREX report contained. It seems inconsistent that you'd avoid responding to ~direct~ and substantiated excerpts from SREX that seem to be quite exactly what Dr. Fields stated in front of Congress, while turning an utter blind eye to Christy's assertions to the same body. Yet, when asked *directly* to speak about your (very) dogmatic assertions about how wrong Fields was, then simply will not engage in discussion about how John Christy's testimony to Congress was in wide variance to accepted and peer-reviewed articles, journals, and extant data, you simply say, in essence, "I'm not gonna play your game. Nyah nyah." That, sir, simply does not seem like being an 'honest broker,' a position you have staked a fair bit of your reputation at CU-Boulder on. Is it any wonder rational, well-informed, and deeply-commited-to-the-truth people here continue to ask you to defend those statements, and does it not appear to you to be fair by continuing to assert how Dr. Fields was so "wrong," yet not also, in the same agency of honest brokering, to show how Dr. Christy's testimony was *also* wrong?
  10. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    RPJ: "If folks here want to believe that Field accurately represented the IPCC SREX, that is fine -- people believe all sorts of crazy things. But it is not in my interest to debate a point so clearly obvious and (outside of SkS it seems) so readily accepted." In other words, "it's true because I say it's obvious". In your own blog comments, your claim is disputed, and you appear willing to (in a somewhat dodgy way) engage there to some degree. I fail to see this as a valid reason to continue dodging here. You want instead to focus on a different topic, being your published work. Your published work, however, is not the SREX (even if some of your work is cited there) and not Chris Field's representation of the SREX. Perhaps that is part of the problem, that you are only willing to consider parts and cited work of the SREX that most agree with you. I think this post gives evidence of that. To passing observers, I would think your comments here are indicative of someone stubbornly unable to admit he is wrong. Lastly, I don't understand the justification for your Twitter drive-by on this excellent site SkS. Dana's Twitter comment was after yours, and a look through the comments here indicates most folks are polite and eager to engage. The post does say you have engaged in "obfuscation" and "misrepresentation", but certainly at no other level than your accusations of Chris Field, and certainly much better supported in my view. If you are to level confident but shaky accusations at a scientist, one would expect you to have the strength to defend criticisms leveled against your arguments on the matter.
  11. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    RogerPielkeJr @59, let us then avoid the he said/she said debate. Will you at least admit for the record that on every occasion when you purport that Field misrepresented the SREX, you quote him saying something about natural hazards, you quote the SREX about losses due to natural disasters. Will you further admit that "natural hazards", "natural disasters" and "losses" are all distinct, though related concepts? I am not interested in the he said/she said. I am interested in the logic of your case, which SFAIK you have left implicit, never expounded and which to my mind is indefensible. If you have explicitly dealt with this question in discussion at your blog, by all means simply provide a link to the comment or comments in which you do.
  12. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    -58-dana1981 Thanks, but I will avoid entering a silly debate over "he said, he said" which is great blog fun of course, but not something I'm interested in at present. There is plenty enough material here and on my blog for readers to arrive at their own conclusions -- and I am happy for them to do so, regardless how they turn out. With that, it is just about a weekend here, and I am checking out. You now know the terms of my further engagement. Thanks again.
  13. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Dr. Pielke, rather than making hand-waiving generalizations based on the comments of one or two individuals, perhaps you would like to explain why you think the quotes we have taken directly out of the SREX in the post above, which certainly appear to confirm what Field has said, don't. Right now what we've got is Field saying 'x', quotes from the SREX saying 'x', and you saying "I know these people who say that SREX doesn't say 'x'". Sorry, but we've demonstrated that the SREX content is consistent with Field's comments, and you have not yet demonstrated otherwise. Saying "I know a guy who agrees with me" is not convincing, no matter who that guy is.
  14. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    -56-Rob Thanks, the fact that Field's testimony is at variance with the IPCC SREX is trivial to show -- for instance, over in the Linkedin Climate Policy Group, Mike MacCracken (former head of the USGCRP) accepted this as explained why it was justified. If folks here want to believe that Field accurately represented the IPCC SREX, that is fine -- people believe all sorts of crazy things. But it is not in my interest to debate a point so clearly obvious and (outside of SkS it seems) so readily accepted. I won't be discussing Field further. Now, if you'd like to discuss whether SREX was wrong in its conclusions or is now out of date due to post-SREX science (as MacCracken argues) that is something different. That will require actually examining research, some of which I have conducted and published. But I understand that that subject is out of bounds given the focus on this thread. I hope that makes sense ... Thanks!
  15. ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
    Came across a paper, Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models If Dai is right, we can expect more of the same. While not a perfect fit, there is a similarity between recent events and the Figure 2. The red zones cover a disconcerting amount of prime agriculture. Vroomie, cheers neighbor, Go 'Hawks! :-P
  16. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger... I fail to see why you would be unwilling to discuss the specific topic here relative to SkS's reporting of your comments on Field. This article by Dana and Albatross is not regarding your work, it is regarding your misrepresentation of Field's comments. It's a matter very much worth discussing and I would urge you to discuss it here where there is a much larger audience. As I noted to you previously SkS is not like other blogs where anything goes. This is a tightly moderated site where commenting is expected to be polite and to the topic at hand. The moderators take every effort to apply this equally to all parties.
  17. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger, I thought you work was in being an "honest broker." The veracity of accusations you lob at other people in public should fall under that heading, yes? It seems to me that the people here ARE trying to discuss your work here.
  18. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    -53-dana1981 Thanks ... you are absolutely correct, I do not wish to debate the topic of this thread, having done so at my blog (where your readers are invited to participate should they wish). However, given the multiple requests here and from you via Twitter to engage, I am responding by expressing my willingness to participate. My terms of engagement are simply that you begin with a focus on my work, to which I offered pointers. If these terms are unacceptable to SkS, I fully understand -- it is your blog to run as you see fit and as a blogger I certainly respect that. Just as I have no obligation to engage here, you have no obligation to focus on my work. However, in the future, if you change your mind, please send me a tweet or an email and I'll gladly rejoin the conversation. All best ... Roger
  19. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Hello again Dr. Pielke and welcome back. This comment is on behalf of the SkS team. It was with much dissapointment that we heard of your Tweet concerning your "visit" here. We would like to take this opportunity to once again set the record straight concerning the facts. This all started when you publicly attacked Dr. Field and made false allegations regarding his testimony to US Congress, which we debunked in the above post. Your first comment in this thread directing us toward your other writings was off-topic. Nevertheless, readers and moderators welcomed you here and very politely requested that you respect the blog rules and stay on topic. Unfortunately, you seem unwilling to speak to the evidence we have presented refuting your claims against Dr. Field, or trying to defend the unjustified claims you made against him. Instead you have continued to misdirect and obfuscate, and worse yet publicly make unsubstantiated and baseless attacks on SkS on Twitter. The main post cites numerous peer-reviewed papers concerning weather extremes, so there is no need to open a new thread to discuss the science. You are still very welcome to participate in this discussion if you can stay on topic and speak to the science when defending your allegations against Dr. Field and your opinions on links between climate change and extreme weather. In the future we may discuss your other climate-related writings, but they are off-topic here.
  20. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Gustafsson at #23. JasonB and vrooomie encapsulate well in their comments some of the serious problems with sequestration of even non-reduced carbon. Harking back to Tom Murphy's analogy, it's akin to having to extract the dissolved toothpaste from your sewer, and patching up a split tube rifled from the garbage dumpster behind the local supermarket, before you can put the toothpaste back. There's a serious numbers problem involved: specifically, the numbers don't and won't add up. I spoke with a renowned planktonologist about the feasibility of iron fertilisation following the small kerfuffle that accompanied the publication of the Smetacek et al paper last month, and he said the same thing in the context of that route to fixing carbon. A lot of 'solutions' are not feasible solutions when it comes down to it. Certainly, they deserve to be investigated - that's how we determine their feasibility in the first place - but for many it doesn't take much to figure out that they're not actually solutions after all. It's no different to the situation where it didn't take too much work to figure out that homeopathy was indistiguishable from placebo, even though many folk still think otherwise... and I'll go out on a limb and say that one might as fruitfully develop a homeopathic remedy for the problem of excess carbon, as sequester it rapidly using any of the currently understood anthropogenically-energised mechanisms.
  21. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Hello everyone, As tempting as it is to respond to Dr. Pielke's posts (or lack thereof) could I request that readers avoid "piling on" until SkS posts a formal reply. Thank you. Of course, feel free to discuss the main post and the science in the mean time.
  22. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Bernard J @20: Case in point: I worked at Biosphere II during the summer of 1997, as a NASA-funded intern, and student at (then) Columbia University's "Earth Field systems" classes; as such, I got to see the entire 'underpinnings,' literally and figuratively, of the area, plus insight to the first "Biospherians" woes w.r.t. dealing with excessive CO2 build-up. To battle that, they had installed a rather large CO2 sequestration system in the basement (the "technosphere") which required the biospherians to manually mix bubbled air through a large tank of (IIRC) sodium hydroxide, by using for all the world what looked like electric outboard motors. Needless to say, it didn't work well, and we're talking a miniscule "atmopshere" of ~6 million cubic liters. On planet Earth? I agree: so far, I've not seen a single CO2 sequestration proposal that comes anything ~near~ acceptable in terms of EROI.
  23. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger Pielke Jr @50, given your obviously flawed analysis of Field's testimony, as dissected above, I cannot think of a single reason to suspect that reading any of your work would reward the effort. One page of slip shod reasoning, obfustication and unwarranted slanders is more than enough, thank you. Who would subject themselves to a whole book of the same - particularly as they must enrich you for the privilege of their disappointment.
  24. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    John Brookes @48, contrary to your claim, Tamino did not find that Hansen was wrong in his analysis. Rather, he found the analysis did not support one claim made by Hansen, ie, that regional climate variability increased. Note that Tamino shows that that conclusion is not supported - he does not show that it is not true. More importantly, the rest of Hansen's analysis is correct, and shows an order of magnitude increase in frequency of what where 3 sigma events just over 30 years ago. That is a very disturbing result, and is completely supported by the data provided by Hansen.
  25. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Hi All, Dana shared this "invitation" to me via Twitter: "@RogerPielkeJr Easy to run away after you've been proven wrong and then hurl insults from your dark corner, isn't it? Like father like son." Since there seems to be some demand here for my participation, I'd like to oblige. When SkS opens up a thread on my research, please let me know and I'll be happy to join the discussion. Most broadly, you could focus on The Climate Fix, but there are plenty of specific papers to focus on. I'm not interested in the "he, said, he said" drama or (-snip-), sorry. So just let me know when SkS is ready for such a discussion, and if not, no problem. Thanks!
    Moderator Response: [DB] Reference to snipped comment snipped.
  26. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    John - we have a few posts coming up on the new Hansen paper, one of which will be an analysis of variability over the Northern Hemisphere summer months as indicated by Hansen (2012).
  27. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Hmm. Links didn't work. Hansen et al: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120105_PerceptionsAndDice.pdf Tamino: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/increased-variability/
  28. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Hansen et al have a paper which includes a discussion on increased temperature variability. Tamino has looked at it, and decided that the paper was wrong in its analysis showing increased temperature variability. On the surface this might seem inconsistent with actual increased weather related disasters. But I don't really think so. We built our cities for particular conditions, and if the local climate changes, we'd expect more costly disasters.
  29. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Pielke Jnr obviously expects readers of his tweet to not actually fact-check what he was writing about. Clearly he felt the SkS-imposed rules of sticking to the facts too onerous a burden for him.
  30. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    While I certainly sympathize, I must point out that we all, as human beings, must remain true to that inner nature we are born & raised with. Thus, those who participate in SkS have remained true to our natures, as evidenced by our measured & thoughtful responses to RPJr. The tweet likewise speaks self-evidently, without any further inferences needed.
  31. funglestrumpet at 21:00 PM on 10 August 2012
    Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    All who replied to my post @ 33 (-Snip-). What is surely far more likely for one of the so-called 1% to cotton on to the fact that climate change stands a very good chance of ruining their wealth, especially if some of the more dire predictions come to pass and we have a societal breakdown as a possibility. That this could have been averted had we acted sooner is obvious and therefore those responsible in any way for hindering that action are liable to at least a civil case being brought against them. Obfuscation of the science has surely played a major part in persuading many politicians from taking the necessary action to avert it and who can blame them? While this site’s goal is to educate I don’t see much evidence that this is being effective in changing political opinion or that of the public generally. Professor Christy is not the only scientist to repeatedly promulgate long de-bunked myths and while the public can see scientific disagreement, they are entitled to sit on the fence, alongside the politicians. Sadly, all I see is climate change continuing to make its inexorable progress to more and more unbearable conditions and the scientific community on this site and on other similar sites eventually saying: “Told you so!” If such a Pyrrhic victory would provide satisfaction, carry on, because that is where the planet is currently headed. If Professor Pielke’s behaviour in response to this article does not give you pause then I seriously suggest that you drop the science for a while and get out more. He gave us all the finger and didn’t care a hoot what we felt about it. Effectively saying sks is not of any real importance. I have been following climate change since the 1980s and as the years go by have become more alarmed by the lack of political action to combat it and what that means for my family. Yet even I, when I look at Professors Pielke and Cristy’s credentials, am forced to ponder why such eminent scientists should be so much at odds with the views of the scientists on this site. Perhaps it is the result of obfuscation. If so, then simply saying “We are here to teach” will only lead to the above Pyrrhic victory.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Off-topic and inflammatory snipped.
  32. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    First, i think the article could benefit from having it's context more clearly described. The context seems to be (from comments above) that coal companies are portraying CCS as the only solution needed and that is what the article is "debunking". This article was actually the first time it was put forward to me as such. From my personal experience talking to people working with CCS this has never really been the goal. CCS is rather seen as a step in the right direction. The tone of the article together with the picture and without that context (it is only mentioned very briefly) makes the article feel like it is ridiculing all uses of CCS. Bernard J @ 20 I agree with you that storing carbon in a solid form after burning it would probably give very litle energy (if any) for any other process. I however do not agree with you that effective sequestering of carbon implies a solid phase. Note, I am not talking about a permanent solution but one for the next hundred years or so. sauerj @ 17 yes CCS will definitely reduce the "efficiency" of coal power (or increase costs if you wish), but the possible rate of change of our system using CCS is also very high compared to alternative technology. Widespread CCS (i assume by regulation) would drive up marginal prices, making renewable alternatives more competitive and increasing rates of investment without making the companies previous investments into coal completely without value. If we didn't have coal plants CCS wouldn't make much sense, but we do and that forces us to take that into account.
  33. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    I saw a keynote address by Mark Zoback recently, and his assessment of the feasibility of large-scale CCS was sobering, to put it mildly. The scale of injection that would be required to offset the use of fossil fuels is simply mind-boggling and my impression is that he thinks it's completely impractical for it to make a meaningful contribution. On top of that you have the very real problem that there simply aren't that many "good" places available to inject it, and even when you do have a "good" one, the extremely large changes in pressure you get when you first deplete an oil or gas reservoir and then again when you inject CO2 back in trigger seismicity; if a large reservoir's containment was compromised by ongoing fracturing -- which he seemed to think was only a matter of time -- then what? Not only have you wasted all the energy spent putting the carbon in there in the first place, you now have to deal with the consequences of it coming back out again all at once. My take from the post-talk discussion I had was that the experts in the field -- which is who these guys were -- saw CCS as a very high-risk solution to the problem.
  34. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    @4 Ooops. Make that Week 22= start of June (red triangle). Week 26= start of July (pink outline square).
  35. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    Regarding snow cover anomalies, a subject that gets less headline attention than sea ice anomalies. I will be bolder than Neven and assert that the anomalise for May and for June (graphed in the post) will get more negative. But the anomaly for July will not. This is because the melt has been getting earlier each year and can only continue to do that, reducing May & June snow cover. But by July, the only significant NH 'snow' cover left is now Greenland. See Rutgers map for early July here A graph using Rutger weekly data here (usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment') shows the beginning of July (week 30) 'minning' out with the beginning of June (week 26) starting it's decline to the same place.
  36. Sceptical Wombat at 17:44 PM on 10 August 2012
    Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    First let me say I think the chances of getting an economically viable scalable CCS system are very small. However if one is developed it will certainly not be as a result of producing artificial coal. The most likely way of making it work would be storage in saline aquifers. This is dismissed out of hand in the post on the grounds that it would require monitoring. The post then moves straight on to arguing that artificial coal is not going to work. To me this looks like switch and bait. Further while the second law would certainly preclude producing a product as reactive as coal, I don't see a theoretical reason why it is not possible to incorporate it into a non reactive solid and still have some energy left over. And before you write me off as a false skeptic I suggest you try googling my pseudonym. I think a very good argument can be made for believing that CCS is unlikely to work. I doubt that it is possible to prove that it cannot be made to work.
  37. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    There's been a bit of focus on the Second Law, but in the context of effective sequestering of carbon (which implies a solid phase as char or similar), it's the First Law that has rather a lot to say. As Alex C notes, no-one's saying that sequestration is thermodynamically impossible. It is, but when all costs are tallied it is apparent that sequestration comes at great expense - and the sort of budgeting that one might expect of a Ponsi scheme. Perhaps something to keep in mind is that the energy-availability/ease-of-execution relationship is not fractal: at small scales execution of sequestration is almost trivially attainable, but of course to no appreciable effect. At large scales the relationship heads more toward Escher territory, to the point where at the scale required to reverse global atmospheric carbon increase, the task requires a lot of energy other than that sourced from the combustion of carbon. To attempt it with only fossil carbon as an energy source would be in practice little different to expectation of perpetual energy, as the residual energy available for non-sequestration use would be abjectly insufficient to fuel humanity's current appetite.
  38. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    The drought is not Climate Change. The heat wave is not Climate Change. The flooding is not Climate Change. The derecho was not Climate Change. The tornado outbreaks were not Climate Change. Snowmageddon was not Climate Change. Irene was not Climate Change. The drought and the heat wave and the floods and the derecho and the tornado outbreaks and the snowstorms and the hurricanes? All within a YEAR? THAT'S Climate Change.
  39. New research from last week 31/2012
    Good catch, thank you. I fixed it. There was some malfunction in the HTML editor relating to characters < and > which removed all the text between those characters.
  40. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Perhaps to clarify my last comment, the post did not invoke the second law to dismiss CCS but instead to dismiss the notion that you can simply put carbon that you emit into the atmosphere back into the ground in as stable and reduced a form as it was when you took it out, since that process would require more energy than we get out of coal burning in the first place. I suppose it is, in a way, an application of the second law (and I more or less retract my statement in the previous comment). But it's correctly applied, as opposed to the ridiculous arguments pseudo-skeptics make regarding the greenhouse effect.
  41. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    @Skeptical Wombat #16: Neither the second law nor perpetual motion WRT the second law was invoked. The statement was meant as an analogy for the proposed chemical emit-sequester system, that's why the article said "chemical equivalent" and not "is perpetual motion." The thermodynamic points also still stand and have not yet been addressed by you or any of the other detractors to this article: if you want carbon that is stored in as reduced a state as it was when you oxidized it you will have to expend net energy.
  42. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    I'm very disappointed by this tweet. Readers can see for themselves the awful, venomous vitriol that Poor Dr Pieke Jr was subjected to in his one hour and 47 minutes between his first (#7) and last (#13) post on this thread. Clearly it is a dreadful example of a way to hold a debate:
    #7 Moderator Response: [RH] Thanks for coming by, Roger. We would also hope that you take a moment to read through our comments policy. We try to keep a tight ship here with regards to commenting. Staying close to the topic of the article is very important. We've very glad you stopped in, and you should be getting responses very soon. Thx!
    #9 [vrooomie] Roger, allow me to welcome you here [...] I will look forward to your participation in what I feel is one of the most rational, reality-based climate change blogs today, regarding this complex subject.
    #11 [DB] On[e] helpful (hopefully) interjection: Skeptical Science is comprised of quite literally thousands of blog posts covering all facets of climate science, from the denial to debunking to exposition on the science to solutions. [...]
    #12 [Dana] Skeptical Science welcomes any input you have into that conversation, as long as such input stays on topic (and, as with all commenters, within the constraints of the Comments Policy). Note to other commenters - let's please try not to overwhelm Pielke Jr. with too many comments, which became a problem for Pielke Sr. when he commented on SkS. [...]
    I wonder which of these dreadful posts Roger Pielke Jr was objecting to? The gentle requestes to remain on topic? Was it the fact he was being welcomed? Or the fact that he was going to be accorded especially friendly treatment, not accorded to his father? His departure in #13 was even apparently civil!! Would the real Roger Pielke Jr please stand up - the one that appeared open to discuss at least some issues in his two communications on this thread, or the one who is willing to be rude and fabricate divisive nonsense in a tweet?
  43. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    Haven't you been to Arctic Sea Ice blog, From Peru? Neven is the future. Let me try that again . . . Don't you know that the accelerated sea ice loss has caused a shift in the space-time continuum (new acrocliche: SSTC) centered around the Beaufort Gyre? Neven's post must have traveled through the rift.
  44. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Par for the course, really. I would have been more surprised if he hadn't used "the climate debate" somewhere in the tweet. I was hoping for a little more engagement, ala RPS.
  45. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    Posted on 11 August 2012 by Neven Huh? Today is August 9!
    Moderator Response: [DB] Oops. Fixed.
  46. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Roger Pielke Jnr tweeted: "I visited the SkepticalScience website today, not impressed - like a caricature of the worst aspects of the climate debate." Now, to my mind the worst aspect of the "climate debate" is the death threats and abusive emails being directed at working climate scientists. After that would have to come the endless, baseless accusations of fraud, often with conspiracy theory attached that come from denier ranks. Then we have the countless times various deniers have doctored graphs, made up their data or repeatedly asserted easily checkable untruths as fact. I see nothing above that even remotely resembles these features of the climate debate, whether caricatured or not. Pielke's tweet, in other words, is at best a vacuous insult designed to cover his disinclination to defend what are, after all, his indefensible comments regarding Fielding. Still, the tweet is not all loss. While adding nothing to the debate, it certainly serves admirably to reveal Pielke's character.
  47. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    GAC12 The 60-day drop in CT area is still above 6 million km2 -- the 20th time this has occurred during this most amazing melt season. CT area is currently 424km2 below the 1979-2011 linear trend for this date. The DMI animation shows all that Beaufort warmth getting spread out by the storm.
  48. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Concentrating flue gas CO2 thru membrane technology, purifying the CO2 for pipeline transport and pressurizing the CO2 to supercritical pressures for long-term underground storage (the most viable form of CCS technology) consumes 10 – 40% of the energy released from combustion of the fossil fuel (per source). Though this is not a perpetual machine, it certainly pushes the cost of coal or gas generated power up to or above current renewable cost levels (especially if this range is nearer the 40% mark which, as a combustion engineer, I believe to be more likely the case). It would seem to be ludicrous to divert investments away from renewable solutions in order to build 67% more fossil fuel power plants to make-up for the ~40% loss in output power due to CCS. But installing CCS technology on the EXISTING power plants deemed acceptable for “bridging the gap” is something I, personally, would have trouble finding fault in, all with the understood goal of not letting up on pushing toward ZERO GHG emissions.
  49. Sceptical Wombat at 10:35 AM on 10 August 2012
    Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    I agree with Mike @5. There is nothing in principle about CCS that defies the second law of thermodynamics or implies the invention of perpetual motion. There is enough nonsense spouted about the second law by fake sceptics without SkS adding to it. I am extremely doubtful that CCS can be done economically, given that burning coal produces between two and three tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of coal burnt and the cost of transportation and pressurisation. However neither my doubts nor this article prove that it is impossible. Overall I think that this post detracts from the normal high standard of this site.
  50. It's the sun
    How does the atmosphere generate electricity ?

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