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Paul D at 04:42 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Is there a psychological reason why heat waves, drought etc attracts more interest when it comes to global warming than record rainfall and wind. What we see is a gradual increase in energy in the climate system, from green house gases. There is no reason why that energy should manifest itself differently. Think of a fridge, it gets cold because of an input of energy, whilst the surrounding air gets warmer. If we applied the same logic that many expect of climate change, then the fridge wouldn't get cold at all, but would get slightly warmer, as it takes energy from the electricity supply. Maybe I have created a new analogy here??! There are no rules saying that everything will get hotter, evenly. -
Karamanski at 04:34 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Will James Hansen soon release the final draft of "Public perceptions of climate change and the new climate dice", because I heard that the current version of the paper released in November 2011 is a rough draft? -
Esop at 03:45 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
# 19 (John): Thanks for the heads up on Corbyn. That guy has been dead wrong so many times now that I have lost count. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:33 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Further to Michael Sweet's remarks, the graphic here helps to illustrate the situation w/regard to the '50s and Hansen's base comparison figures. Regarding garethman's questions: Since 2007, a series of major reports has emphasised the fast growing risk of flooding to the UK as the climate warms. On Wednesday, the government's official advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, warned that number of homes at risk of flooding is set to quadruple in the next 20 years and that flood defence spending must increase. The government's own report on climate change risk in January said flooding was the UK's greatest climate threat, with annual damages set to rise to billions of pounds a year. More The trouble is, the UK government is heading in the wrong direction: Caroline Spelman's deep cuts to flood defences begin to look foolish
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John Russell at 03:19 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
@Gareth #1 Given that they're predicting that the jet stream over the UK will shortly move north after giving us such an extremely wet and miserable early summer, I'll be interested to see whether it coincides with an end to the US heatwaves. I tend to think of the jet stream like a rope with waves travelling along it, so that if one part rises another falls. That's not very scientific but there must be a logical connection between different parts of the jetstream. Oh, and I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know that in-denial weather forecaster, Piers Corbyn, is announcing in his usual alarmist style that the current weather is due to carry on -- thanks to the sun. Extraordinary. -
Chip Knappenberger at 03:16 AM on 18 July 2012Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
dana1981, I stopped by to point you to a recent Eos op-ed about making the data available that are used to construct the figures in AGU publications. The point being that others could more easily “use the results” of the published papers. This would alleviate the issue of which data others wanted to use (or graph) and thus largely eliminate your concerns about “deleting data” from graphics as they were originally published. But, along the way, I came upon this article. And I thought I should point out a correction. The Davis et al. (2003) is not referencing a paper published in Climate Research, but from Environmental Health Perspectives (as you should very well know since you provided a link to it in your article you linked to in this piece). Hopefully you can clarify this for your readers. Thanks, -ChipModerator Response:[DB] For those unacquainted with Eos, Eos is the AGU member newspaper. It is not a journal and does not publish original research results. FYI.
Fixed link.
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pmiddents at 03:14 AM on 18 July 2012Extreme heat becoming more likely under climate change
Cliff Mass, University of Washington Meteorologist and Pacific Northwest weather blogger, disputes the Texas heatwave 20 times more likely estimate. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/07/texas-tall-tales-and-global-warming.html His blog entry has now been reposted at WUWT and is providing lots of fodder for the skeptic crowd. -
michael sweet at 03:11 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Eric, Please provide a reference for your wild claim that 1950-1980 was unusually cool. That time period was much hotter than 1900-1930 see this graph. You need to pick claims that are not easily shown to be false. The deniers now claim that warm periods in the past were cold. That means it will never be warm since 1,000,000,000 years ago it was warmer than it is today. -
Doug Bostrom at 02:34 AM on 18 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
I should add, a cease and desist letter is not litigation but it points in that direction as a possible consequence; not much point in communicating "please stop harassing my client or nothing bad will happen to you." -
cynicus at 01:44 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
@16 Eli, it's also less worse because the same paper shows that the distribution at the cold end hasn't changed as much as the warm end. So luckily there will still be some cold spells to be used as "look squirrel!". Many blogs, including yours, wouldn't be even half as much fun without. -
Doug Bostrom at 01:21 AM on 18 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Actually I understand titlib1's concerns. If an organization were to recklessly launch a litigation effort then large amounts of money could be expended pointlessly. That's not the case here, however; there's no sign of aggression on CSLDF's part. They've said they have no plans to launch any litigation. So why would CSLDF not rule out litigation on their own part? That's not hard to figure out. Cease and desist letters are one possibility, obviously. Leaving aside what exactly constitutes a death threat, if somebody sends to a scientist a letter connecting the scientist's family, uninvited visits to the scientist's home and some implication of violence then ensuing and makes the mistake of including identifying information in that communication, they should expect to hear from either the authorities or somebody representing that scientist and telling the offending party to stop. Other milder forms of harassment might also benefit from a cease and desist letter. It's not hard to imagine some other scenarios where a little bit of legal help beyond pure defense against litigation might be appreciated. There are other less drastic forms of proactive legal work short of cases making it to court. -
threadShredder at 01:04 AM on 18 July 2012Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
Would anyone know where to find a simple walkthrough/text book-like example illustrating the Hansen and Lebedeff technique for calculating their anomaly of averages? Would appreciate it very much. Thanks much for any help. -
Albatross at 00:38 AM on 18 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
This has become a very long thread, so I hope that the moderator's will permit me to repost two questions I asked earlier of people posting here to defend Mr. McIntyre and others like him who harass scientists. 1) Can they "…bring themselves to acknowledge that it is a travesty that a legal defence fund is required (out of necessity) to protect the rights, integrity and academic freedoms of certain climate scientists following repeated harassment, threats, bullying and intimidation from certain "skeptics" and certain individuals and groups who deny the theory of AGW." 2) "Do you support the scientists or those who bully, intimidate, threaten and harass them?" tlitb1 has very clearly demonstrated that he/she does not share our concerns and stated that his/her allegiance lies with the likes of Mr. McIntyre. So what about Carrick, Lucia, dubious and dougz? -
EliRabett at 00:20 AM on 18 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
It's worse than you say. The statistics from Hansen Sato and Ruedy 2011 show that the Gaussian is no longer Gaussian, but now has a significant tail at the high end -
chriskoz at 23:32 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
We are trying to model the warming world weather events by normal distribution mean shift. How about sigma itself? It does not necessarily stay the same. If the extra energy was distributed equally troughout the atmosphere and "weather bumps" modeled in the article as waves bumping the boat stayed the same in magnitude, then the shift alone represents the temperature change accurately. However that does not appear to be the case: more energy in the system means larger bumps, more H2O in the air means stronger rains and more capacity for cyclones; to me it means that sigma of any local climate is likely becoming wider. You can clearly see on Fig 4 (global summer anomally distributions) in Hansen 2011: the 2011 bell shapes are always "lower & fatter" thane those for 1951. I cannot find if Hansen quantifies the bell shape change anywhere. Anyone does? -
Esop at 22:13 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
A few years back, I often commented that US based disinformers were on good terms with the weather gods, as while extreme weather affected the rest of the globe, the weather in the US was usually on the cool side. No longer, though, it is amazing how extreme weather events have hammered the US over the past two years. This can not be a good time to be a professional disinformer in the US. Over here in Europe, and especially the northern parts, deniers are on a roll, though, due to a couple of cold winters and not so hot summers. -
ranyl at 21:44 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Excellent blog post, really easy to understand and a good analogy. In figure 5 the shift in mean is about one standard deviation of the variation. How much of a shift in the mean has occured in terms of SD? Very crudely I took the Mean and SD from the Hadley Cru anomally dataset from 1940-1990, and got a mean of 0.06C with an SD of 0.14C, I then took the series from 1980-2011, and got a mean 0.26C and a SD of 0.16C (reflecting the smaller times series), although very simplistic that suggests that the mean has shift ~1.5SD, (1.43ish), which mean in figure 5, the mean is now centred at 1.5SD from its orginal position, meaning a previous 3SD event is now well within 2SD, so much more common. But overland the temperature increase has been greater.. So maybe it is little wonder we are experiencing so many extreme events, Amazon drought, European heatwaves, American Heatwaves, Recording breaking rain events all over the world, heat wave the Arab states last year... With the peaking sunspots and incoming EL Nino further regional records should be toppled some. What does a 1.5SD shift mean in terms of the frequency of 1:500 year events considering that most infra-structure is only secure against a 1:300 year event? And of course this can only get worse as if the mean shifts another 0.7C (stopping all CO2 emissions now);that is a further 4-5SD of shift in the mean, and means that 1:1000 year events will be the norm. A further 1.3C to get 2C is now looking scarey! 350ppm anyone? -
Rob Painting at 21:43 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Eric, yes 1951-1980 is cool compared to today. It has warmed since then, which is kind of the point - a warming climate will lead to more record-breaking heat. And to extend the wave/boat/incoming tide analogy a little bit further - you are claiming that the rising tide has no effect upon the frequency of record-breaking height. Clearly this is absurd. Both the frequency and the maximum height of record-breaking will rise moving forward in time. Furthermore, looking at one individual record, and the immediate circumstances that led to it, does not change the odds of the rising tide creating records. These are two separate issues. -
Tom Curtis at 21:36 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
tlitb1 @167, you took the opportunity of an appreciative but uncritical audience to slagg off a climate scientist when he was not present to defend himself. That makes it quite clear, in my mind, that your side is not that of the climate scientists or climate science. Rather, you have sided with those like McIntyre who make the CSLDF necessary. -
CBDunkerson at 21:31 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
"Sadly the temperatures are in the archaic Fahrenheit scale..." Hey now, no 'scalism'. The Fahrenheit scale is a mere 18 years (out of 288) older than Celsius. :] -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:26 PM on 17 July 2012New research special - methane papers 2010-2011
pauls The US is only a small part of the world, so it isn't necessarily surprising that there would be a global trend, without there being a conspicuous trend in the US, especially if the US has been making an effort to curb methane emissions. Further down the document it mentions natural methane emissions of 208 Tg, which if I have worked it out correctly is equivalent to 3,900 Tg CO2 equivalent, which is much larger than the US manmade component. -
pauls at 21:07 PM on 17 July 2012New research special - methane papers 2010-2011
EPA have a table showing figures for US methane emissions sources at various intervals between 1990 and 2009. From these data I can't see any clear trend. -
Eric (skeptic) at 20:53 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Rob, I agree that frequency of extreme or record breaking heat waves will increase over time. But figure 4 above is notional and Hansen's figure 4 compares an abnormally cool period (1951-1980) to more recent warm periods, so I don't think either figure is conclusive. Your explanation in this post essentially ignores the role of the natural factors that start and end continental heat waves. For a specific example, at some point this summer the upper ridge over the Great Plains will break down. That breakdown will be a result of natural causes, namely teleconnections from Pacific ocean pattern changes. That breakdown will not be delayed because of AGW. However until that happens the heat wave and drought will continue to be enhanced or amplified by AGW. -
Rob Painting at 20:42 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Eric - you don't appear to have understood this blog post. Both the intensity & frequency of heatwaves and record-breaking heat will increase in time. The steadily rising mean temperature (i.e a warming climate) dictates this - see figure 4 above & figure 4 in the Hansen paper. The frequency has increased. Whether further heatwaves are likely this summer is anyone's guess. Certainly the conditions (extreme drought in the US) still exist for further episodes to develop, but that's outside the scope of this post. -
Kevin C at 20:42 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Well, I'm grateful to the skeptic effort for one thing. McIntyre may have not have downloaded the CRU data, but I did. My own reimplementation of the CRUTEM3 algorithm gets the same result as Steve Mosher, that CRUTEM3 very slightly underestimates recent warming (although the effect is small compared to the coverage bias). If I had time, I'd look into it, along with half a dozen other small effects (e.g why is BEST so much cooler in 2002? What causes the disagreement in records from ~1900-1935's?). But the question still stands - why do the people who call for the data to be released generally not do anything with it when it is? (I think it is because they are not interested in the science.) -
tlitb1 at 20:13 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
@Tom Curtis at 19:05 PM on 17 July, 2012 Tom Curtis can I talk to you? What do you mean by "well resourced organization"? Also can I ask you about this statement?It is doubtful, however, that that concern would be due to an unwanted use of money he donated, because I doubt very much he would be donating any in any event.
I am not clear if the "he" in that sentence above refers to me. Do you mean me? If so, for the puposes of saving time, I would answer I would donate to such an organisation if its remit could be strictly and cleanly shown to be purely for defending financially vulnerable people against organisations or persons intent on silencing them. I would do this because it would help illustrate my desire to be seen to be deflating the elements of partisanship in climate debates - an adopted posture if you will. E.g. I supported (only morally I'm afraid) Simon Singh in his case against the homeopathists. I am at the stage of hypothetical in that path I admit, and my questions here should illustrate my purpose without too much extra interpretation I think. To be clear though I will say I do sense if someone like me were to donate then my requirements could be seen as limiting or egregious if I was to complain about mission creep into tactical litigation, or spending too much time and money worrying about FOI defences which are the reponsibility of the public bodies not individuals (in the UK at least). BTW. As for your opinion about my "loyalties" just for the record - so silence isn't considered consent - I'm just going to state I don't submit to agree to anything you may mean by that. But I am not interested in further debating what you may mean by that. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:13 PM on 17 July 2012Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
Byron, statistical hypothesis testing is a rather subtle issue, watching a trend to see where a trend goes from insignificant to significant violates the underlying statistical assumptions of the test (e.g. that the period in question is a random sample from some population of samples), and is essentially the same error being committed by the skeptic when they wait for a long period that isn't statistically significant to make a fuss about. One of the problems with statistical hypothesis tests is that if you wait long enough the trend will always be statistically significant, even though the magnitude of the trend is meaninglessly small. As the forcings are changing, we know a-priori that the real trend is not exactly zero. Statistical hypothesis testing is a useful sanity check to prevent you from getting over-excited about your hypothesis, very little more. -
maximo at 20:05 PM on 17 July 2012It's the sun
It's interesting to note that the thermosphere where the greenhouse gases are located subsequently cooled a short time thereafter. Those gases seem to be good at doing their job of reradiating most of that energy back into space. The storm lasted approximately 72 hours and you are right the other instruments do not measure CME'sModerator Response: [DB] The thermosphere is not the primary location of most of the greenhouse gases. The tropopause is considered the location of the optical depth emission layer. -
Eric (skeptic) at 19:37 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
cynicus, I think fig 5 supports the fact that extreme heat waves have increased in frequency, but that could simply be a result of major heat waves turned extreme. However I have to read up on how that chart was generated. newcrusader, those forecasts are almost a month old. They should update a lot cooler in some areas such as east. -
newcrusader at 19:24 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Actually the long term outlook for The US Including AK is for the warmth to continue throughout the rest of the summer in the eastern two thirds of the country. This will last well into Autumn. See http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/90day/ -
cynicus at 19:21 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
@5 Eric, "It's hard to tell if AGW will increase the frequency but it will increase the intensity." Please look at figure 5, it could not be more clear: It is very easy to tell that globally the frequency of extreme heat events has increased. Halfway the last century you had about a 0.13% chance for an extreme heatwave (+3-sigma) in any given location, now this has become a 10% chance. -
Tom Curtis at 19:05 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
If it matters to anyone, tlitb1 has made a clear declaration where his partisan loyalties lie. Given that, the possibility that a well resourced organization might allow climate scientists to obtain redress against those who slander them may well be genuine. It is doubtful, however, that that concern would be due to an unwanted use of money he donated, because I doubt very much he would be donating any in any event. -
gws at 19:00 PM on 17 July 2012New research special - methane papers 2010-2011
There are two recent papers by a Turkish group on (increasing) energy sector emissions: Methane emission by sectors: A comprehensive review of emission sources and mitigation methods Sources and mitigation of methane emissions by sectors: A critical review An then there is the Colorado front range study in JGR: Petron et al. Hydrocarbon emissions characterization in the Colorado Front Range: A pilot study -
Eric (skeptic) at 18:57 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
"hasn't even reached the halfway point." Not only are we past summer's half way point, but the budding El Nino will move the jet streams back to the south, provide some rain and some intermittent cooling to parts of the US. This result will show that the attribution is split between natural factors (La Nina) and the added warmth and evaporative drying from AGW. It's hard to tell if AGW will increase the frequency but it will increase the intensity.Moderator Response: (Rob P) Text in post amended - simply the result of the delay between writing and subsequent publication. -
cynicus at 18:49 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Oh... I clearly looked over the bit where Hansen 2011 was discussed. Need more coffee. Please ignore/delete my previous comment. -
Eric (skeptic) at 18:48 PM on 17 July 2012Welcome to the Rest of Our Lives
Thanks much Andy S. I asked my Spanish speaking friend about the term after the event and I might have mispronounced or he misinterpreted. -
Tom Curtis at 18:35 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
tlitb1 @164, I think you are reading too much into that. Climate scientists are sometimes called as expert witnesses, and when they do so, they may require advise or representation to ensure they do not compromise their own interests or rights in their role as witnesses. It also seems clear that the CSLDF will support climate scientists seeking independent standing in cases that vitally affect them, but in which they are not respondents, as in this case. I see nothing to suggest the SCLDF fund will support climate scientists bringing civil suites. Indeed, Michael Mann is currently bringing a suite for defamation, and the SCLDF does not appear to be supporting him in that endeavour. -
cynicus at 18:28 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
An interesting paper on extreme heat is from James Hansen and colleagues who took a different approach. In this paper all temperatures are looked at, not just extremes, and compared them to the reference climatology period. This provides a mountain of data instead of only the rare extremes which allows the use of more traditional statistical methods to analyze the data. This paper finds that typically the area of the earth which is extreme warm went from nearly 0% in the reference period (1951-1980) to about 10% during the last decade which is very unlikely when the last decade hadn't warmed significantly compared to the reference period. While it is very difficult to attribute (a portion of) an individual extreme warm event to AGW, it is very clear that the odds of such events has increased greatly. -
tlitb1 at 18:10 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Thanks you for the reply to my comment at 18:11 PM on 16 July, 2012, and forgive my dyslexic mangling of the CSLDF acronym throughout my last post! If I could ask a further couple of questions or ask for thoughts? In your reply you say:“CSLDF does not have any plans for proactive litigation but does not rule it out if the benefits of so doing appear to be worthwhile.“
Now for me it seems the goal of a fund offering to defend financially vulnerable people is always a worthy idea and I can’t see anyone arguing against it, but it becomes harder to support if the purpose later changes or morphs into something else. In this case possibly tactical litigation. For instance I read in your link to the upcoming CSLDF presentation at the AGU.Climate scientists are playing an increasing role in litigation as expert witnesses in cases related to governmental response to climate change as well as being embroiled in litigation surrounding their own research.
My emphasis above. This is the *first* thing mentioned as a putative goal here and clearly indicates plans for involvement in proactive litigating. Is this part of the goal of CSLDF? If it is the case that proactive litigation for climate scientist was a goal why not state this more upfront or instead create a specific organisation for this purpose along the lines of PEER who currently seem to fulfil the role of proactive litigators for public employees in climate debates?Moderator Response: If it is the case that proactive litigation for climate scientist was a goal...
But that's not correct. As CSLDF replied to me and I relayed in my earlier response, proactive litigation is not a goal of CSLDF. I can only repeat what CSLDF replied to me: They are not contemplating launching any litigation themselves but do not rule it out.
Embroiled in litigation describes Mann's situation, which is not a case of his seeking out trouble.
Serving as an expert witness in a trial is not litigation. Scientists are frequently asked to serve as expert witnesses in trials, after all, for legal disputes the specifics of which they may know nothing. -- Doug Bostrom -
garethman at 17:46 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
ps That should read " just as disastrous for UK agriculture and wildlife as warming " -
garethman at 17:45 PM on 17 July 2012An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
Are the sub average temps, poor summers and horrendous summer rainfall over the last few years also a taste of things to come in the UK ? It’s important to note that climate change does not always mean a warming climate for everyone. A cooling and wetter climate is just as disastrous for UK agriculture and wildlife warming as well as driving the population to distraction with month after month of continuous summer rain. -
Tom Curtis at 16:47 PM on 17 July 2012It's the sun
maximo @988, you are claiming that satellite sampling of solar radiation is insufficient to constrain TSI. Your evidence is the power of some solar storms which are not sampled by the instruments used to sample solar irradiance. However, even as corrected, one of those storms an hour every hour over the year would only increase solar irradiance by 0.005 W/m^2, well less than the error margin of the 240 W/m^2 we receive from the Sun. During the course of the storm, the power recieved amounted to less than, 0.000002 W/m^2 or less than one ten millionth of a percent of the 240 W/m^2 irradiance from the Sun. What is more, according to the video on which you rely, 95% of that energy was immediately reradiated to space from the thermosphere, with only 5% entering the lower atmosphere and hence effecting the Eearth's energy balance. I have to thank you for this. I did not previously know the relative power received by the Earth from solar storms. Now I do, and it is inconsequential relative to any other source of energy contributing to warming the Earth's surface. As it turns out, it is less than any other source I had previously considered, and on a par with the 0.000003 W/m^2 the Earth receives from the Cosmic Background Radiation. -
Peter Lang at 16:40 PM on 17 July 2012Nordhaus Sets the Record Straight - Climate Mitigation Saves Money
In the lead article for this blog thread, the author, Dana1981, states that “skeptics” “misrepresented Nordhaus's research”. I cannot speak for others but I don’t believe I have misrepresented his research. However, I do not accept some of the conclusions he draws. On the other hand, Dana1981’s article appears to have misrepresented Nordhaus’s work. Dana’s article does not mention the assumptions which underpin Nordhaus’s research. The assumptions are academic but they are totally impracticable to achieve in the real world. Here are some of the assumptions (in my words): • Negligible leakage (of emissions between countries) • All emission sources are included (all countries and all emissions in each country) • Negligible compliance cost • Negligible fraud • An optimal carbon price • The whole world implements the optimal carbon price in unison • The whole world acts in unison to increase the optimal carbon price periodically • The whole world continues to maintain the carbon price at the optimal level for all of this century (and thereafter). If these assumptions are not met, the net benefits estimated by Nordhaus cannot be achieved. As Nordhaus says, p198 :Moreover, the results here incorporate an estimate of the importance of participation for economic efficiency. Complete participation is important because the cost function for abatement appears to be highly convex. We preliminarily estimate that a participation rate of 50 percent instead of 100 percent will impose a cost penalty on abatement of 250 percent.
In other words, if only 50% of emissions are captured in the carbon pricing scheme, the cost penalty for the participants would be 250%. The 50% participation could be achieved by, for example, 100% of countries participating in the scheme but only 50% of the emissions in total from within the countries are caught, or 50% of countries participate and 100% of the emissions within those countries are caught in the scheme (i.e. taxed or traded). Given the above, we can see that the assumptions are theoretical and impracticable in the real world. To recognize this point, try to envisage how we could capture 100% of emissions from 100% of emitters in Australia (every cow, sheep, goat) in the CO2 pricing scheme, let alone expecting the same to be done across the whole world; e.g. China, India, Eretria, Ethiopia, Mogadishu and Somalia. Therefore, we should be asking: what will be the cost of complying with the requirements when they are fully implemented to the standard that will eventually be required? By my estimates, the Australian carbon tax and ETS will cost $10 for every $1 of projected savings. But the savings will not be achieved, because they depend on all the assumptions being achieved, and clearly they will not be. Furthermore, the costs can be expected to be much higher than is being admitted so far. -
maximo at 16:28 PM on 17 July 2012It's the sun
A simple equation would be 8,244,910 million New York residents x 1000 days = 8 billion persons power usage. Although not everyone on the globe has electricity or uses electrical heating. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:52 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
vroomie: If ya need help with that clapped-out Jaguar XJ, cawl me. Er, I'm sorry, that was a silly narrative artifice. I'm a red block Volvo guy myself; why didn't I pick a P1800? Tip w/paleo-Jag: find everything marked "Lucas" and replace it. You'll have no more troubles. :-) -
scaddenp at 14:50 PM on 17 July 2012It's the sun
Okay. Big difference. That means one of those storms every hour, on the hour would add 0.0005 W/m^2 to the 240W/m^2 of incoming solar radiation. I think that is considerably less than the error in the observing system. -
Bernard J. at 14:23 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Eli astutely observes:Popper has done a lot of damage, or more precisely Popper as interpreted by your average junior high school teacher and the squads of Galileo's roaming the INTERNET.
I've been engaging in exactly this discussion with a Galileo over at Judith Curry's. I note that in Skeptical Science's 'Most Used Climate Myths' there is a post (#66) rebutting the claim that AGW has been falsified, but there appears to be nothing adressing the converse claim that AGW isn't science because "it can't be falsified". Perhaps it is time that this particular canard was dismantled by SkS for the nonsense that it is. -
Bernard J. at 14:06 PM on 17 July 2012Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
I don't know the answers and I am looking for some educated guesses.
Seek, and ye shall find. -
vrooomie at 14:05 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
doug_bostrom@99: if ya need help with that clapped-out Jaguar XJ, cawl me. I recently finished my E-type and need direction....;) -
Bob Loblaw at 14:00 PM on 17 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB @102:@97 Bob. I don't know where you are but with a population of 35 million it isn't Oz. Australia is a Democracy and we have a Parliament that sets the rules. After the next election, how about we change the rules so that anybody who won't go the "Archive your data" road gets no further funding? Since Parliament represents ALL of the people, that saves trying to divide the work into tiny packets.
I, too, live in a parliamentary democracy, but not Oz. Yes, our parliament sets the rules. And yes, archiving data is a standard procedure - legislation sets down what types of records must be kept, for how long, etc. And I have worked on programs that actively submitted data to international, publicly-available archives. ...but the laws also set down rules on who has the authority to enter into agreements to share data. It is rarely the scientist - (s)he can propose, but people further up the food chain make the decisions. And parliament has also set the rules on how others can obtain information (e.g. FOI). As for current decisions: the duly-elected parliament has decided to cut funding in many science areas, including getting rid of staff that know what much of the data means and what to do with it. Programs are being shut down, and the staff that ran them are being dispersed to the winds. I still get requests for assistance regarding publicly-available data, but it is no longer my job to work with that data, and it's nobody else's job, either. This is what the attacks on science are accomplishing. If the individuals that are suing climate scientists, or attempting to prosecute them, or are inundating them with FOI requests spent their efforts lobbying politicians to improve resources for these time-consuming archiving processes, then I'd accept their motives a little easier. Until then, it just looks like a witch hunt and intimidation. For an illuminating view of what politicians often really do, take John Mashey's advice in #154, and get a copy of "The Republican War on Science" and read up on the Data Quality Act. If you really want good science, then stop the politicians from destroying it.
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