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Composer99 at 14:55 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
One of the more common misrepresentations (doubtless the result of motivated reasoning in the majority of cases) that contrarians make use of is the assertion that mainstream climate science makes an effort to silence dissenting opinions (topically, we have Giaever complaining that dissenting opinions are not welcome). What is going on, so it seems to me at any rate, is that they are conflating the inevitable criticism of their opinions (which is entirely reasonable) with "silencing dissent". As far as I can see Giaever has fallen into this trap as well. -
Chris McGrath at 14:54 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Thanks for such an interesting de-construction Dana. I loved the cartoon too. -
Clyde at 14:44 PM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Thanks to all for a civil discussion on the subject. It's obvious we disagree on the subject. No hard feelings on my part, hope theres none on yours. Look forward to my next "adventurer" here. [-Snip-] Have a nice dayModerator Response:[DB] "Look forward to my next "adventurer" here."
When you do return, please better adhere to the comments policy when constructing your comments. Also, links to supportive sources should be made to the peer-reviewed papers published in respected journals, not to fake-skeptic websites.
Off-topic snipped.
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Clyde at 14:39 PM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
What some of you are saying - GW is happening therefore its the cause of extreme weather events happening now. No matter what happens, floods, drought, heatwave,freak snow storms etc etc it will be blamed on GW. We have always had extreme weather events. We will continue to have them. Again I'm not saying GW had no no part in the heatwaves. Both papers i linked to said mother nature was the main cause of the Russian heatwave. What we are (as far as i can tell) disagreeing on is how much was mother nature responsible for vs how much GW was. The American heatwave is yet to be determined. An examination of the 20th century climate of North America reveals that the decades of 1920s and 1930s, known as the Dust Bowl years, witnessed perhaps the most extreme climate over the Great American Plains and elsewhere. Did GW cause that too? Nobody has shown any proof that the Russian heatwave or the one America just had was caused by GW. They speculate & make assumptions that GW did. It will take year[s]? before any proof is provided that GW caused the American or Russian heatwave. IMO it would be nice if those reporting such things would wait on the evidence. ------------------------------------------- [-Snip-] Conclusion: “Earth’s Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or extreme warming. Claims and insinuations that recent temperatures and weather in the Continental US are caused or related to “Global Warming” are not supported by the observational data. --------------------------------------- That's why we don't rely on indvidual scientists or individual papers to draw conclusions about climate change. The only way to get an accurate picture is through the work of many scientists, peer reviewed and scrutinized over decades and tested against multiple lines of evidence. [-Snip-]Moderator Response: [DB] Link to fake-skeptic website snipped. Pedantry snipped. Bad html fixed. -
Tristan at 14:23 PM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
In my experience, a good fraction of the anti-renewable subsidies brigade are entirely unaware of all this. Use this page to make your libertarian friends aghast! -
TScanlon at 14:22 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Have to love the arrogance. He really does wear his ignorance on his sleeve and then start digging. Although, there are plenty of scientists guilty of this. We're just as vulnerable to hubris as the next person. -
dana1981 at 13:30 PM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
WeelsOC - yes, to this point we've always referred to carbon emissions as an economic externality, but as you note, that hasn't gained much traction amongst the self-proclaimed free marketers, perhaps because economics often isn't intuitive. These same folks tend to strongly oppose subsidies, so perhaps framing CO2 emissions in that light will result in a little more progress. -
WheelsOC at 12:22 PM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Basically these roundabout subsidies are externalities, the costs of something that aren't reflected in the price, a devious distortion of the market. I've been trying to put this in terms that contrarians, obstructionists, and denialists can understand recently by explaining why they are bad for any "free market" approach; they wreck the pricing power of the market with costs that aren't priced into the product. Consumers can't make informed decisions about where to value energy if the cost is hidden behind an attractive price. Despite this entirely market-based explanation, it's very difficult to nudge people into thinking of various carbon pricing schemes as restoring balance to the market by accounting for hidden costs instead of reacting as though it were a government-imposed artificial mark-up beyond the real costs. Almost invariably, they continue to assume the latter. You can be as plain-spoken as you want but the explanation just doesn't click. That's been my experience, at least. The issue of externalities, esp. regarding pollution and environmental degradation, is not something people with a shallow but enthusiastically committed view of "the power of the market" or "maximal individual freedom" are prepared to deal with. On some levels it's just not a common-sense, plainly visible danger. It's an insidiously slow and spread-out effect, but that doesn't change the fact that it infringes on the freedom of everybody regardless of whether they've consented to it. I think this is why the vocal "capital-L Libertarians" and others who see government intervention as an unnecessary evil choose to deny or marginalize the problem, it doesn't fit with their supposedly superior platform. The alternative is to admit that some form of government regulation is both necessary and good, which they are irrationally loathe to do. -
KR at 12:16 PM on 11 July 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd - If it's on a publicly accessible website, use the image embedding HTML from the Comments Policy page. If it's something you've generated, put it up on Flickr, Imageshack, or a similar site, and link to that with the same HTML methods. Keep in mind that SkS prefers the 450 and under pixel wide method in: -a href="http://page_url"--img src="http://image_url" alt="" width="450" /--/a- with the "-" being replaced by greater than and less than symbols as appropriate. -
curiousd at 12:10 PM on 11 July 2012Newcomers, Start Here
Hi, I have a question that necessitates showing a scientific graph. Is there a way I can make such a graph visible to others? -
numerobis at 10:49 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Gas taxes don't seem to be negligible: US gas taxes alone are in the $100 billion order of magnitude. That said, the US also spends a huge amount on foreign policy (largely military) related to oil supplies, also probably not accounted for here. Then another source is infrastructure spending: building roads and sewers for people moving to new oil exploitations, who would otherwise have stayed at home. That gets very tricky to account for. -
calyptorhynchus at 09:59 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Historians of the future (if there are any) will be fascinated at how our society paid so dearly for its own demise. -
Riduna at 09:45 AM on 11 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Mike Pope, Australia -
skywatcher at 09:32 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Clyde #52:"The Hansen paper & NOAA say (taking your word on what Hansen's paper says) extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades. "
Clyde, you really need to actually read the paper (I don't think it's paywalled) before claiming to know what they say. Even read the SkS summary I pointed you towards - it has the key figures. Hansen et al show that increasing extremes are already happening. Not in the future, but now. In the real world, they've been increasing over the past few decades. I read somewhere that the blocking event that caused the most recent US heatwave wasn't the strongest such event on record (ie central pressure not so high etc). One wonders how high the temperatures could have got had the block been even stronger... -
John Hartz at 09:17 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Some facts for Clyde (and others) to ponder: Thanks in part to the historic heat wave that demolished thousands of high temperature records at the end of June, temperatures in the contiguous U.S. were the warmest on record over the past twelve months and for the year-to-date period of January - June, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Monday. June 2012 was the 14th warmest June on record, so was not as extreme overall as March 2012 (first warmest March on record), April (third warmest April), or May (second warmest May.) However, temperatures were warm enough in June to set a new U.S. record for hottest 12-month period for the third straight month, narrowly eclipsing the record set just the previous month. The past thirteen months have featured America's 2nd warmest summer (in 2011), 4th warmest winter, and warmest spring on record. Twenty-six states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional sixteen states were top-ten warm. Source: “U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record—again” , Dr Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, July 9, 2012 -
skywatcher at 09:11 AM on 11 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
Curiousd: I'd also maybe recommend Lowe and Walker's "Reconstructing Quaternary Environments", thought it's a little older now. It's an undergraduate textbook so may not go into the detail you'd like, but it has some basic material on oxygen isotopes, as applied to ice core and marine sediments (amongst a wealth of material about all manner of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and chronology). No more than a few pages, but may have pointers to more detailed material? -
Tom Curtis at 08:07 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
dana1981 @2 not to forget Australia, which is middle of the road:
The issue of fuel taxes is somewhat vexed because they only applies to a limited portion of CO2 emissions.
They do not apply to fuel used in stationary energy generation, for example. In Australia, it does not apply to fuel used on farms or in mines. Because of that you need to have a measure of the emissions of CO2 by combustion of fuel on roads as a portion of all CO2 emissions to determine the value of fuel taxes as a counter subsidy.
What is more, fuel taxes, or a portion of fuel taxes when the tax is very high, can be considered a "user pays" method of funding the road system.
Therefore, to the extent that revenue received is less than the cost of maintaining and upgrading the national highway network, the fuel tax is not a counter subsidy on Carbon. China's fuel tax, for example, is explicitly earmarked for this purpose.
In a similar vane, given the high death an injury rate from road transport, fuel taxes could be in part considered a user pays funding of health care for injuries received from road accidents in nations with social health systems (Europe, Australia, Canada).
Arguably, however, all or most of these costs would exist with a fully electric transport system, in which case the revenue for these services would need to be raised in some other way. On that basis it could still be argued the full fuel tax revenue should be counted as a counter subsidy. Which approach is correct is a matter of convention. It is important to keep these conventions consistent, but it cannot be categorically asserted that one is right and the other wrong.
In any event, the information needed to calculate the level of the "counter subsidy" is not readily available AFAIK. Therefore it would be difficult, and beyond SkS's resources to included them as a counter subsidy. For that reason Dana noted that the definition of a "subsidy" is vague, and that "these are rough estimate". I am glad that you raised the issue so that a more explicit discussion could be made as a caveat on the post.
Having said that, this issue does not detract from the primary point of the post, ie, that the largest "subsidy" on fossil fuels is the hidden subsidy of uncompensated negative externalities.
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dana1981 at 06:27 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Thanks BillV. See the Cost Comparison section here for some discussion of adjusted energy costs. -
Composer99 at 06:17 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Clyde: You appear to be ignoring shifting baselines in your objections to other posters' comments. Variable natural phenomena (such as blocking events) as well as variable temperature oscillations are occuring simultaneously with a rising temperature trend. But the rising trend is still there and still counts for something. In addition you appear have misunderstood Hansen's paper. It quite clearly shows that increased extreme heat events are happening now. Several maps in the paper, for example, quantify global June-July-August temperature anomalies (expressed as temperature anomalies and as standard deviation anomalies) for the last few years (I believe the latest year is 2011) relative to a 1951-1980 baseline. In fact, I do not see any essential conflict between your links & Hansen's paper. Global warming doesn't cause heat waves to magically happen on their own. The other proximal causes are still required. The Schneidereit et al paper from Monthly Weather Review links the Moscow heatwave to a blocking high event. Fair enough. One wonders, though, just what the heatwave would have been like in 1951 or 1980 given the information provided by Hansen. The NOAA press release notes "Knowledge of prior regional climate trends and current levels of greenhouse gas concentrations would not have helped us anticipate the 2010 summer heat wave in Russia". Again, this is entirely reasonable. Even knowing the powerful relationship between chronic cigarette smoking and various illnesses (lung cancer, emphysema, &c.) at the population level, we cannot anticipate which individual smokers will be so affected and which will not. But that does not invalidate the relationship. Taking your claim that the recent heatwave in the eastern US is not "as bad as the one's in 1930 & 1950" at face value, one wonders just what the heatwave would have been like in the absence of a long-term temperature trend since then. -
scaddenp at 06:16 AM on 11 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
Curiousd - the primary differentiation of the oxygen isotopes is due to preferential evaporation of O16 from sea surface, followed by preferential condensation of O18. Plants/animals can only use the atoms in their immediate neighbourhood, so they reflect the seawater. A good starting resource would be here. Useful papers linked as well as the Bradley textbook. -
BillV at 06:12 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Great post. I like to see these unaccounted externalities put into numbers. Would love to see a post comparing these adjusted fossil fuel costs vs. forms of renewable energy to understand the true economics of energy generation. -
Rob Painting at 06:04 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Clyde - please explain how the papers you cited earlier disentangle the effects of global warming from natural variability. You see I've read the NOAA paper in detail and it does no such thing. Global warming has been affecting weather patterns in some way for well over a century - the Dole paper compares weather patterns in a narrow region in 2010 influenced by global warming with weather patterns from an earlier periods also influenced by global warming. Hardly the basis for distinguishing natural variability from global warming. Insofar as singular events vs. increased record-breaking warm extremes - this concept is explained in the SkS links provided to you earlier - global warming increases the probability of record-breaking warm extremes. Note the analogy I provided in the basic version of the blog post on the 2010 freak Russian heatwave. If the average temperature increases, as in a warming climate, then it is only logical that the chaotic weather fluctuations will lead to increased record-breaking warm extremes. Accordingly, you are unlikely to find climate scientists attributing singular heatwave events to global warming, but likewise they should not attempt to attribute them to natural variability - there is always an element of both involved. Rather, what can be said is that global warming dramatically raises the odds of heatwaves & record-breaking heat. The analysis by NASA scientists Hansen, Sato & Ruedy shows that this is now a historical fact. -
curiousd at 05:56 AM on 11 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
On a different topic, can someone recommend the best place to really learn about the magic Oxygen 18 proxy? It is probably in a text book and if so I would gladly buy the text book no matter the cost. I do dig two things: 1. Since Oxygen 18 is heavier than Oxygen 16, the Oxygen 18 will tend to precipitate out faster from arctic air that blows toward warmer climes. Right?? 2. One can think of the oxygen 18 as a mass on a spring within ice, and since the mass of the 18 exceeds that of the 16, the classical omega = sqrt k/m is less for 18, which means the zero point energy, as you cool down so that the equipartition theorem no longer works, will be smaller so that 18 will evaporate somewhat less readily. But if important, this effect might depend on the ice temperature,right? But given my broad brush stroke understanding, this topic looks really complex. Why does O 18 work for plants/animals growing underneath the ocean, for instance? Book or URL, anyone recommend, to learn more?? -
curiousd at 05:40 AM on 11 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
Since the latest Hanson and Sato (the one this forum received as a pre print) does an experimental fit to past ice age data and gets a tremendous agreement between past temperatures and predictions based on best fit to short term climate sewnsitivity fitting only two parameters (CO2/methane), and short term includes clouds, why does this result not lay all the cloud uncertainty to rest right there? H@S get 3.0 plus or minus 0.5 degrees for CO2 short term sensitivity which is close to the most common value for the simulations. To me, that latest H@S fit is kind of a game changer. It is as good as one gets for fitting an unknown structure to extended x-ray absorption edge fine structure (EXAFS), by fitting, say, a deBye Waller term and one bond length. The garden variety physicist would believe this latest H@S more than any simulation. -
Clyde at 04:41 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
skywatcher 44 What is causing that increase? As of today the peer reviewed papers say it's mother nature. I got hammered on another subject here for not providing peer reviewed papers to back up my point. You & others are not using peer reviewed papers to make your case. You are speculating & making assumptions. The Hansen paper & NOAA say (taking your word on what Hansen's paper says) extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades. Neither paper is 10 years old, so their not saying the recent heatwave in America or the 2010 Russian heatwave were caused by GW. Are you still confident that Texas and Russian heatwaves have nothing to do with climate change? I never said nothing. See reply to skywatcher. For the media & weather folks on TV to say the recent heatwave (which wasn't as bad as the one's in 1930 & 1950) in America was caused by GW is misleading the public. -
Clyde at 04:37 AM on 11 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Rob Painting 40 Clyde - it is doubtful science is sufficiently advanced to attribute specific heat events solely to natural variability. I never said soley. I said not much & very little. I was disputing that GW is the main cause. I'm guessing if you think science isn't sufficiently advanced to attribute specific heat events to natural variability, its also not advanced enough to say GW is the sole cause? You simply need to read, absorb and understand the links that were provided to you earlier. I could say the same for you as to the links i provided. You admit the science of attributing specific events to global warming/natural variability is in its infancy. Then say it's well-founded that one can say GW is expected to cause such extreme events. Can't have it both ways. -
dana1981 at 04:06 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Interesting point, OPatrick. I don't think fuel taxes are accounted for in those numbers. They also don't tend to be very large though, outside of a few places like Europe. -
OPatrick at 03:15 AM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Should we not also include fuel taxes in the calculations, a sort of anti-subsidy? Or is that already accounted for in the values in figure 1? -
dana1981 at 01:44 AM on 11 July 2012Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
Jomamax @ 14 you are incorrect on many points in your comment. For starters, carbon cap and trade systems and taxes have been implemented without the skyrocketing costs. For example, see Europe, British Columbia, and RGGI. Note that the latter two are in North America. Additionally, solar is already economical. I've got a leased solar system on my roof right now that's not costing me any more than standard electricity rates. Solar PV prices are dropping rapidly, and wind is already cheap. And I'm well aware of the "skeptic" climate arguments, thanks. -
Composer99 at 22:54 PM on 10 July 2012Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
jomamax: I'm sure you can provide some specifics, such as: (a) citations from economic and political science literature backing up your claims regarding the alleged 'devastating effects' of reducing fossil fuel emissions. Ideally on a thread where it is more on topic. (b) citations from the scientific literature backing up your so-called skepticism on the science. Again, preferably on topical threads. Contrarians and pseudoskeptics alike continually make sweeping, grandiose claims in a vein similar to yours and then continually neglect backing them up with substantial evidence. One wonders why this is.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Please can we all try to keep the discussion as civil as possible. Jomamax has now been tasked to provide support for the assertions he has made (on appropriate threads), lets see what he/she provides, and discuss the science behind it. -
lennartvdl at 22:28 PM on 10 July 2012Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
On p.14 HS12 says: "[T]he mean sensitivity over the entire range from the Holocene to a climate just warm enough to lose the Antarctic ice sheet is almost 6°C for doubled CO2, but most of the surface albedo feedback in that range is caused by loss of the Antarctic ice sheet [...] [T]he sensitivity is smaller as climate warms from the Holocene toward a Pliocene-like climate. Thus the estimate of Lunt et al. (2010), that slow feedbacks (reduced ice and increased vegetation cover) increase the sensitivity by a factor of 1.3-1.5 is not inconsistent with the Hansen et al. (2008) estimated sensitivity." On p.15 they say: "If non-CO2 trace gases are counted as a fast feedback, the fast-feedback sensitivity becomes 4°C for doubled CO2, and the Earth system sensitivity becomes 8°C for doubled CO2 with the surface albedo feedback included [...] These sensitivities apply for today's initial climate state and negative climate forcings; they are reduced for positive forcings [...] The ultimate Earth system sensitivity includes all fast and slow feedbacks, i.e., surface feedbacks and all GHG feedbacks including CO2. Apparently Sff+sf is remarkably large in the Pleistocene for a negative forcing. No doubt that accounts for the substantial cooling of Earth in the past few million years in response to only small changes of CO2., as well as the increasingly violent glacial-to-interglacial oscillations of the late Pleistocene (Fig. 4). The Earth system sensitivity relevant to humanity now is the sensitivity of the present climate state to a positive (warming) forcing. That sensitivity is not as great as for a negative forcing, but it is much larger than the 3°C fast-feedback climate sensitivity." So do I understand correctly (from these quotes and their figure 7) that H&S think ESS for doubled CO2 over the past million years was more than 8 deg C and more than 6 deg for the current climate until all the ice has melted, after which it is reduced to somewhere between 4.5 and around 5 deg and rising again for even warmer climates? It seems I'm confusing sensitivities with and without CO2- and non-CO2 GHG-feedbacks. And H&S don't seem to give an estimate of the magnitude of the possible CO2-feedback. Does anyone have a clearer picture on this? How much more warming can we expect in the longer term when the CO2-feedback starts working? And how long would that term be: centuries or more like millennia? -
jomamax at 22:10 PM on 10 July 2012Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
It's not a good idea to compare 'acid rain' to CO2. Combating acid rain and smog meant higher emissions standards for cars, and adding some pollutant sequestering to factories etc. expensive - but doable - with roughly predictable outcomes. There is no such thing as CO2 sequestration that works within economic thresholds. CO2 sequestration uses enormous amounts of energy. Otherwise, capping CO2 would radically increase the price of energy, making it's way into everything you consume. The changes would be drastic and overwhelming - in Europe, where energy prices are high for a variety of reasons - transportation is a problem. Fortunately, they live close to one another, and they can travel by train, or small car. Trains in America would be uneconomical. We live in suburbs, extraburbs, not city centers. We have more extreme weather (in Germany, few people have air-conditioning, though that might be possible in Cali, certainly not in the east). Cap and Trade in any significant fashion would utterly devastate the Economies in North America and many other places. Finally, two things: - First, If you really want to help, instead of [inflamatory snipped] - perhaps you could be working on actual methods for alleviating the problem. As it stands solar, wind and other renewables - do not work in an economical fashion. (I have a friend who works at GE financing the projects) - they don't add up - and never will. After 40 years of R&D and investment, solar is still a mess. If it were economical, Wallmart would be happy to sell panels and they would be on every roof in America. Nuclear Energy could otherwise be relatively clean and safe, if we could determine a means to operate these engines in an alternative matter, our CO2 woes would evaporate. - Second - I must say I appreciate this site very much, however it has done little to debunk my mild skepticism of climate change. In fact - it has only added to my skepticism. In the comment sections of each of the supposed debunking points you'll find some intelligent rebuttal to each of the points. I'm not a climatologist, therefore I can't integrate any new arguments, but I have a strong grasp of logic and I can assure you there is as much bias on this site as any other. There's some classical rhetorical problems on this site, arguments chasing their tails. The 'CO2 trails Temperature' over the 400K period explanations are particularly entertaining in that, however plausible the theory, it is woefully incomplete, and does not match the current rhetoric of climate change within the last 40 years. As an intellectual exercise, I would urge the author to take the position of the devil's advocate, and spend a few weeks debunking climate change as passionately as he is promoting the concept - because your eyes will open to the rather large gaping 'blind spots' in so many of the arguments.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Inflamatory snipped. Note it is somewhat ironic that you talk of rhetorical problems and then describe explanations as "entertaining" (which comes accross as a rhetorical dismissal of those arguments, without a solid counter-argument). There are many websites where rhetorical argument is allowed, this isn't one of them. Please stick to the science, and please read the comments policy. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:05 PM on 10 July 2012It's not us
jomamax The mass balance argument is correct regardless of how large natural emissions are. It is easy to show why this is true using the savings analogy. Say I share a savings jar with my wife (who represent the natural environment), that is guarded by loyal ninja to make sure only she and I can make deposits and withdrawals. If I put in $16 a month and notice that our savings rise by only $8 a month, then I know that my wife is spending $8 more a month than she is saving. This is true whether she saves $1 a month and spends $9, or if she saves $10 a month and spends $18, or if she saves $100 a month and spends $108, ..., or if she save $1,000,000,000 and spends $1,000,000,008. As it happens, we do know that natural emissions are much larger than anthropogenic emissions. We know this because the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 4-5 years, which means there must be a very large exchange flux that swaps about 20% of atmospheric CO2 each year with CO2 from the oceans and terrestrial biota. However this exhange is just that, a straight swap of CO2 between reservoirs, and has no effect whatsoever on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. As Murray Salby says, it is only the difference between total emissions and total uptake that matters, and the mass balance equation shows that even if natural emissions are much bigger than anthropogenic emissions, natural uptake is bigger still. This means the natural environment is actively opposing the rise. If you think Julian is right and the absolute magnitude of natural emissions matters (rather than the difference between natural emissions and natural uptake), then it should be possible for you or Julian to come up with a counter example, in the form of values for natural emissions, natural uptake, anthropogenic emissions and the annual rise in CO2, where the natural environment is a net carbon source and the observed rise is less than anthropogenic emissions, and doesn't violate conservation of mass. You will find that you can't. Note I challenged Julian to do so, and he ducked the challenge, and did not reply to my post pointing out that he had ducked the challenge. -
Dikran Marsupial at 19:49 PM on 10 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
@MMM I can see what you are getting at, but the problem is that the analogy is not appropriate because CO2 is not a condensing gas, so there is no limit to the concentration of CO2 that the atmosphere can support (it isn't the temperature of the pool that matters, but the temperature of the air above it). The mass balance argument does not apply to water vapour because there is a limiting factor to the size of the atmospheric reservoir, which is independent of emissions, and much of the atmosphere is pretty near that limit most of the time. It is true that the fluxes between the oceans and atmosphere depend on temperature, so all things being equal, one would expect atmospheric CO2 to rise in a warming world. However, the thing the skeptics normally ignore is that CO2 solubility increases with increasing difference in the partial pressures of CO2 between atmosphere and surface waters. In the real world, all things are not equal, our emissions have caused a difference in partial pressures, which is increasing the oceanic uptake, which more than compensates for the temperature driven change in fluxes. Essentally the mass balance argument establishes that the rise is anthropogenic, but physics is needed to explain why it isn't a temperature driven natural phenomenon. -
Mighty Drunken at 18:53 PM on 10 July 2012Remote Siberian Lake Holds Clues to Arctic--and Antarctic--Climate Change
The sentence from the article is ambiguous. "Cores from Lake E go far back in time, almost 30 times farther than Greenland ice cores covering the past 110,000 years." It seems to suggest to me that the Lake E cores go back 110,000 years but I guess what it is actually trying to say is that Greenland ice cores go back 110,000 years and therefore Lake E cores go back up to 3 million years. -
Ari Jokimäki at 15:45 PM on 10 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
Thanks for the comments. Note that I only included links to abstracts of these papers. Some of them might have full texts available online, so it might be good idea to do Internet search on the papers you find interesting. #3 jmorpuss: Above list of papers is from 2010 and 2011 only, so I have made no effort to include earlier papers here (as a sidenote, above list also represents only a small fraction of cloud related papers published in 2010-2011). Some of the earlier papers can be found from some cloud related paperlists in my blog: Papers on global cloud cover trends Papers on cloud feedback observations Papers on the non-significant role of cosmic rays in climate -
scaddenp at 15:02 PM on 10 July 2012Climate's changed before
Also, look at Fig 3 here. Temperature compared to forcing from albedo and GHG alone. Also, look up PETM. The cause of the CO2 spike is debated but the effect on climate is remarkable. -
jmorpuss at 14:53 PM on 10 July 2012New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
I thought this would fit into cosmic ray section It's a paper accepted back in 2000 http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Tin_rev.pdf -
Bernard J. at 14:33 PM on 10 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
KR.We seem to be avoiding the r/K choice 'r' style reproduction crash.
The fly in the ointment is the human propensity to switch from K to r (and vice versa) when life history determinants change. I was 'raised' in my undergraduate work on MacArthur and Wilson's paradigm, and whilst it's instructive as far as it goes, my PhD and subsequent work underscored for me the importance of overall life history. I sincerely hope that your impression is correct though, and that the underlying factors remain firmly in place. If not, the toe-curling fact is that human numbers will still eventually drop, but with the causative agent being mortality changes rather than fertility limitations. Under such a scenario we're also likely to swing back further into 'r' territory, which will make the resultant decline even more of a tragedy. Again, the fiasco a few weeks ago in Rio, and the essential failure of Copenhagen, do not bode well for our abilities in anything resembling appropriate global management of the farm. One important litmus test for indicating eleventh-hour consciousness-shifting will be whether Australia manages to keep its price on carbon beyond the life of the current government. If not, anything that humans do achieve afterward will be little more than the closing of the barn door... -
Bob Loblaw at 14:27 PM on 10 July 2012It's not us
This debate is also going on in the Murray Salby thread. jomamax: you have several "ifs" that are "aren'ts". 1) "black-box may be inserting/removing 1000's every month - you don't know.". Yes, we do know, with a fair degree of accuracy (but not perfectly). The known fluxes in the carbon cycle don't have error bars that large. 2) "If the plus/minus CO2 contributions via sinks/sources from 'non man made sources' (I'n not going to use the proper scientific term since I'm not sure of it's meaning) is rather large, and it varies quite a lot over time". It is large, but it's not varying that much over time - at least, not in amounts that we don't know about (point 1). CO2 was fairly steady (with a seasonal cycle) for a long time before people started burning fossil fuels, and we know a lot about the cycles. 3) "If those net contributions can be definitely characterized as stable and small,". They don't need to be small, and they don't need to be stable for us to have reasonable estimates of them. You'd need to have large, variable errors in the measurements of those fluxes, and that's not the case (point 1). 4) "I'm guessing however, that we don't really understand the size and magnitude of these other heat-sinks". You'd be guessing wrong. (I presume you meant CO2 sinks.) In addition, you have to remember that in the bank balance scenario, you are also using marked bills. Unless the other sources/sinks are marking the bills exactly the same way, the source is obvious. CO2 from fossil fuels is depleted in C14, and has a C12/C13 mix that does not match other sources of CO2 that are depleted in C14. -
skywatcher at 14:26 PM on 10 July 2012Climate's changed before
#312: henanlkf, you'll find a lot of great information and good examples of CO2's role in palaeoclimate (geological, Quaternary and more recent) in a presentation given by the great Richard Alley at AGU in 2009: "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon dioxide in Earth's climate history" He's a really engaging speaker too, so this is well worth your time to watch and listen! -
Bob Loblaw at 14:08 PM on 10 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Hmmm. Looks like Sphaerica and I are pooling responses... (pun intended). -
Bob Loblaw at 14:06 PM on 10 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Another pool analogy. I was going to post this in response to marco, but it may also address MMM's points. Suppose you have a large swimming pool. It has a pump/filter system that sucks 100 gallons per minute out of the pool, runs it through a filter, and dumps it back in the pool. It has run for months, and the level of the pool is essentially unchanged. There might have been a bit of evaporative loss, but let's ignore that for now. You then get a garden hose and start adding water to the pool (from the city water supply) at 1 gallon per minute. You say to yourself "it's only a fraction of the amount the filter system is cycling". You walk away, and come back two days later to find that the pool has overflowed. Do you think it is a serious argument that the garden hose can't possibly affect the level of the pool, because it is so much smaller a flow that the filter system? If so, what caused the pool to overflow? That's the argument put forth by the "skeptic" side, when they say the fossil fuel input is insignificant compared to the natural fluxes. -
Bob Lacatena at 14:04 PM on 10 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
MMM, I don't think the analogy works, though, because water vapor is so sensitive to temperature, and will easily condense into the oceans as the temperature drops. CO2 is far more "long lived." Yes, for any individual molecule, it will drop out, but another will take its place. There are only three real places for CO2 to go in the short term, the air, the ocean, and biomatter. Biomatter can only grow so much, and is limited by other factors. The oceans can absorb a lot (and that's a huge problem, too), but not all of it. A better analogy would be two pools, one representing the atmosphere, the other the ocean, and a lot of people lounging around the pool, periodically scooping water out of each in tall glasses to drink it. Then some moron drives up with a huge tanker truck full of water, dumps it all at once and drowns everyone. Now there's an analogy for you. -
KR at 13:54 PM on 10 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
Bernard J. - It is my guess that education and birth control are making their inroads. That is strongly dependent on any number of factors, not the least of which are stability of civil society and the permeation/influence of various cultures by first world TV shows (which show the possibilities of education). However, I have some small hope that the 60 year trend in TFR and the 45 year trend in net reproduction rate (peaked at 1.869 in 1965-1970, now at 1.082) are sustainable directions. It will not be sufficient on it's own to avoid a huge AGW impact, but it's at least one positive note. We seem to be avoiding the r/K choice 'r' style reproduction crash. -
Chris McGrath at 13:41 PM on 10 July 2012Remote Siberian Lake Holds Clues to Arctic--and Antarctic--Climate Change
What an amazing paper! The data in figure 3 going back 2.8 million years is mind blowing. By the way, the citation for it is: Melles M, et al (2012) "2.8 Million Years of Arctic Climate Change from Lake El’gygytgyn, NE Russia" Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1222135 The abstract is available at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/06/20/science.1222135.abstract?sid=040f10e5-d150-415f-b2de-e92d5db0a635 (subscription required for full article) -
KR at 13:40 PM on 10 July 2012It's not us
jomamax - I would have to forcefully disagree. If we know: * We are contributing X to the bank balance * We know the total balance to be increasing at X/2 Then: * Other contributions and deductions from that balance are such that other contributions are X/2 less than deductions; that the other influences on the balance are a net sink. It doesn't matter how much those other contributions/deductions vary in toto - the difference between them is established to be negative X/2 by observing our contributions and the total balance. By knowing how much CO2 we put out and how much the atmospheric levels increase - we know two of the four values, and hence we really do know the difference between the other two. Stable, varying, whatever; it just doesn't matter. We know what the difference is between the natural sinks and sources, and it adds up to about half of our emissions - nature is a net sink. There's just no other way possible to work the math, barring Little Green Men (LGM's) adding or subtracting carbon from the biosphere. And if you make that kind of causal assertion, well, I'm going to feel completely justified at laughing... -
Bernard J. at 13:09 PM on 10 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
On thinking about it, I realise that my post about the energy policies of the Australian political parties might stray too close to (and overstep) the boundaries of Skeptical Science's own policies. If so, I'm happy for it (and this post) to be removed. -
Bernard J. at 13:02 PM on 10 July 2012Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
KRMuch of that prediction is based on changes in the total fertility rate (TFR) (number of children born per woman over their lifespan, as a statistical average) which is dropping in much of the world. Currently it's at roughly 2.52 globallyo, dropping through 2.36 in the next 5-10 years, down from just under 5 in the 50's.
Indeed, and the TFRs are one of the parameters that I frequently wonder about. They are (inversely) correlated with education and with energy use, and given the very high probability of the supply of both latter parameters being compromised in the future, it begs the question about whether TFRs will rebound as a consequence. It will be a complicated dance with the degree to which we are able to introduce renewable energy, both in response to climate change and to peaking fossil fuels. Of course, superimposed will be inevitable future shocks to societies, and what the net effects of such shocks are on subsequent population trajectories. -
Tom Curtis at 12:42 PM on 10 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
david.apell @325, ask and you shall receive.
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