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owl905 at 13:37 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
@DougH 25 - works on my machine. Try this: Nature Editorial If it doesn't work, try another machine. :) -
scaddenp at 13:34 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
"because the whole climate science appears to be at a similar stage where e.g. chemistry was with alchemy. " Since that statement is complete nonsense, perhaps you could tell us why you believe it so we might be of some help? Type "Vahrenholt" into the search box to find out what the science says. Hint, if it isnt published in peer-reviewed science journals, then dont waste you time. Ditto for "both camps fight it out". Nothing of the sort, apply some skepticism. You quote the TAR (why not AR4 by way), in support of the statement "scientists admit they dont know whats going on". Bewildering. Can you point me to what statement make you think that? Better still, in your search for what is the truth, how about you point to some published science that you think make a strong case for the idea that conventional climate science is wrong (as opposed to disinformation from various sources). -
West129 at 13:21 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
I cannot make sense of the climate change discussion whatsoever. Who is right and who is wrong? Neither side has coherent and verifiable answers because the whole climate science appears to be at a similar stage where e.g. chemistry was with alchemy. Climate research has a long way to go before it even should be considered in formulating public policies or be used for fear mongering. Most likely the truth might fall somewhere in between both camps: One, that claims man is the culprit by burning carbon and carbon compounds the other camp who claims it's just mother nature's nature. What causes me to remain optimistic is the fact that the scientists actually admit that they first, don't know what's going on with the climate and second, they can't predict the future: IPCC-III-2001: 14.2.2.2 (Page 774), http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/tar-14.pdf: “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” The other interesting read I just completed, “Die kalte Sonne” (“The Cold Sun” by Fritz Vahrenholt, Sebastian Luening, Verlag Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg, Germany), seems to confirm that the science is very much in flux, consensus has not been reached in the scientific community and that reality will most likely require backing off from the infantile notion that anthropogenic CO2 is the one omnipotent driver of the climate. It is refreshing to read that both camps are willing to fight it out (Thesis vs Antithesis) on the scientific as well as on the political stage (see https://climateis.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/climate-confusion-carbon-cops-sustainability-summit-march-17-20121.pdf as an example).Response:[dana1981] Please see Fritz Vahrenholt - Duped on Climate Change and the rebuttals to the myth 'There is no consensus'
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CO2 limits will harm the economy
Eric (skeptic) - "...the sequestration will get cheaper with nano-tech and other technology cross fertilized from commercial uses..." You will still have the energy requirement to bind carbon again, reversing at least in part (depending on the final chemical makeup of the binding) the exothermic reaction of burning the fossil fuel in the first place. That's going to require at least as much energy as releasing it in the first place obtained - again. And where will you get that energy? I don't consider nanotech (having argued these issues with Eric Drexler at one point) a panacea, nor any other technical development. Such developments are just not predictable (otherwise I would have a flying car right now, next to my jet-pack), and every advance comes with tradeoffs of some sort. Personal opinion - we should do what we can with current approaches (renewables, minimum carbon energy sources, conservation), tax carbon usage to include external costs with the monies going towards both those externals (health care, pollution mitigation) and increasing less expensive supplies (renewables again). If future technical advances are helpful, by all means, we should use them. But we cannot depend on inventing ourselves out of the hole... -
Steve L at 12:38 PM on 19 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Shoot, I sometimes think that I'm starting to get the hang of this atmospheric science stuff (quite a feat for not having a single text book or course on the subject matter), but then I read a blog post like this and find out I'm still a couple of centuries behind. Thanks, I guess. -
Eric (skeptic) at 12:31 PM on 19 March 2012CO2 limits will harm the economy
scaddenp, I have not thought about how to mitigate ocean acidification, but other people have. The problem with applying a technological fix there is that the ocean are vast and neutralizing processes are bulk (e.g. liming, iron seeding, etc). Despite that problem there will be ways to apply technology to apply some sort of micro scale processing. I essentially agree with sphaerica that paying for ways to avoid turning solid or liquid carbon into gaseous carbon (e.g. alt energy) is much cheaper than processes to turn the gaseous carbon back into solid or liquid or otherwise sequester it. I don't think that is static though, the sequestration will get cheaper with nano-tech and other technology cross fertilized from commercial uses. I think geoengineering will come down in price as well, but not as much as sequestration (e.g artificial photosynthesis). I am only favoring a 1/4 to 1/3 cap and trade solution because paying for other infrastructure (e.g. dams in poor countries) has other benefits along with ameliorating the droughts and floods. It seems a lot simpler to pay for those with some sort of general fund than to try to estimate the costs of droughts and floods and apply that to the external costs of creating CO2. -
Eric (skeptic) at 12:09 PM on 19 March 2012Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
scaddenp, you mean if dust cooling was overestimated then the sensitivity to CO2 was underestimated? IOW if increases in dust cool more in LGM then there is less need for cooling from lowering CO2 to arrive at LGM temperatures and if dust cools less then lowering CO2 must cool more. The paper says that the cooling from dust was offset by warmer clouds due to smaller ice crystals. If that is true, it means dust is not a major factor in cooling and CO2 sensitivity is higher. The authors have some uncertainty in their cloud nucleus analysis (could range from negative to positive cooling). Also I'm not sure if they consider all the weather impacts. It is possible that more dust means less cooling from weather due to less concentrated convection (that seems to apply to the present climate). Alternatively more nucleae could mean more precipitation and more cooling. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:39 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Old Mole, the Nature link is going to a status page at present. Either they are having network issues, or your link is incomplete (although I would have expected a 'page not found' error, if that was the case). -
ShadedX at 11:36 AM on 19 March 2012Climate's changed before
I read this somewhere in one of those textbooks on prehistoric life, but in the ages in and before the dinosaurs, there where no ice caps. And what about the switching of poles? -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:32 AM on 19 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
The links to the week's posts are malformed. The url contains strings like http://www.skepticalscience.com/\"http:/www.skepticalscience.com/Past-Estimates-of-Sea-Level-Rise_NSF.html\"Moderator Response: [JH] Links fixed. -
ShadedX at 11:31 AM on 19 March 2012It's the sun
Thanks skywatcher. Though seriouly, I don't believe that the sun effects the climate that much. I just wanted to see what you all had to contradict it. Just wondering: Is it me or are some of the "Response" comments bias? -
Old Mole at 11:21 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
muon @11 "Here is the so-called 'article in Nature' that Inhofe touts. It is in reality a column by David Adams in Nature News." There is also an editorial (no byline) in Nature, which can be found at the link below. Whoever did write it will be collecting brickbats for the foreseeable future. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7343/full/472260a.html Thanks for the other links. Mole -
JMurphy at 10:56 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Sceptical Wombat, to be even fairer, his exact words were : "I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost. When I started questioning the science..." Therefore, he thought it was true, didn't like the cost so, only then did he start to question the science. How can that be taken out of context when he makes it so clear himself ? -
ahaynes at 10:19 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
What I wish Maddow would do is "teach a man to fish," to find disinformation rebuttals. She could replay one of Inhofe's climate statements, then say to her audience "All right, how can we check this out?" and then, on air, go to Skeptical Science (or check her iPhone) and find and show the rebuttal. My impression is that even the science-aligned public does not yet know about Skeptical Science; when I surveyed a group recently and asked where you can go to check on a doubter talking point, nobody mentioned the site. Word needs to get out. -
yocta at 10:07 AM on 19 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
The links above aren't working I think there is some extra stuff in the "href" tag :)Moderator Response: [JH] Links fixed. -
Sceptical Wombat at 08:59 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
MonkeyOrchid @12 To be fair Inhofe did not say that he changed his mind about global warming because fixing it would cost too much. He did say that when he found out how much it would cost he decided to dig deeper and based on that digging concluded that it was not happening. From this one can conclude that, like many others, he did some very selective digging. I don't think that it is a good idea to imitate the fake skeptics' technique of out of context quotations. -
scaddenp at 07:53 AM on 19 March 2012Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
"In the LGM, the direct radiative forcing of soil dust aerosols is close to zero at the tropopause and −0.4Wm−2 at the surface." Source: Takemura et al 2008 Surely if aerosol forcing was underestimated at LGM, that would result in sensitivity being underestimated as well? -
Bob Lacatena at 07:40 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
I wish when they did these things that they put together a "war room" of google-wizards. Basically, the instant Inhofe (or whomever) says anything, have a dozen bright interns whizzing away on their keyboards, digging up the facts, getting screen caps, and passing them on to someone with a mike to the bud in her ear, telling her what they found and how to counter the flat out lies. It would be great if off the cuff Rachel could have come up with something better than "did, not! did, too!" For instance, that the Financial Times quote was only from an online blog post by someone who doesn't even work at FT anymore. -
owl905 at 07:07 AM on 19 March 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
Sure ... except now during a long inter-glacial, the sea-shore is 70 feet above sea-level while an isostatic rebound theory suggests it should be closer to sea level. It should be 70' above plus the additional sea-level lowering when its end of the teeter-totter is looking at mile-high ice-sheets. They're addition of an additional 20-43' during an Ice Age doesn't address the current location. If they're suggesting the Hoxnian stretch of 50k years had the Bahamas slooowwwly sink to the sea, it should mesh with evidence from at least Nassau all the way to Turks&Caicos. For now, I'll stick with a local vertical push from below. But it's an interesting hypothesis ... better than "The Flood". -
r.pauli at 06:35 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Rachel was far too polite. Inhofe knew she could be a pushover showcase for his book. It would have been more responsible of her to not give him a soapbox or be better informed. She was media-bullied by him. Is anybody contacting the show with offers to explain this better? Every show should have a climate expert contact So far the best media presentation comes out of Australia 3 years ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBzR0-j0O0o -
mohyla103 at 06:29 AM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
JMurphy I got a hold of a copy of the Singh, Jain and Kumar paper. As expected, there is no mention whatsoever of glacial melt separate from snow melt. In this study, they were calculated together and, in fact, not even directly measured. FYI the study was completed with data collected over 10 years, so the figures presented are averages. Nowhere in the paper does it give a "maximum percentage possible" that you had asked about, so for Barnett's figures to be referring to that isn't possible. Here's one relevant section, from page 52, showing that the author of this paper did not distinguish between glacial melt and snow melt in this study: "Snow and glacier contribution to the 10 years' volume of flow in the Chenab River at Akhnoor has been estimated using the following water balance approach: Snow + glacier runoff volume = Observed flow volume - (rainfall volume - evapotranspiration)" Barnett was definitely correct to cite this paper in saying that glaciers provide a key source of water in the summer, of course. Page 51: "In the post-monsoon season, flow is believed to be from the glaciers and occasional rainfall events in the basin. In general, glacier contribution starts in June/July and continues until September/October." But that's all it says. There are no percentages given here for glacial melt. There is a table on page 51 showing the "Average quarterly distribution of annual flows" where we learn that the water flowing in the July-Sept period represents 51.1% of the annual flow. However, this is once again not referring to glacial melt alone, as flow in the July-Sept period comes from rain, glaciers and snow. Singh et al. confirm this in the discussion below the table where they say "[t]he higher contribution to the annual flow from the pre-monsoon season (April-June) and the monsoon season (July-September) is due to the combination of rain, and snow and glacier-melt runoff." One more relevant bit, from the Conclusion section on page 56: "2. It was found that snow and glacier-melt runoff contribute significantly to the total runoff of the Chenab River at Akhnoor. Based on 10 years of data analysis, the average snow and glacier-melt contribution to the annual flow of Chenab at Akhnoor was found to be 49.10 percent. The remainder is contributed by rainfall." In conclusion, Barnett was wrong to cite this paper as evidence that glaciers contribute 50-60% of the flow in this river, either for the summer or a yearly average. It is actually glacier and snow melt together (and technically it's not 50 it's 49). The peer-review process missed this error. Please acknowledge this, as I am no longer arguing based on incomplete information. Considering the same kind of wording and figures appear in the abstracts of the other 2 papers cited by Barnett for this claim, I strongly suspect he and the reviewers committed the same error there. To Barnett's credit, the summary at the beginning of the article actually does mention snowpack and glaciers, not just glaciers alone. -
owl905 at 06:28 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
It's all in how you position the discussion. Score another card-trick victory for the pro-pollutionists. Comparing traceable lobby efforts from the smokers to environmental groups efforts is where numbers score a triumph over common sense (neither the first nor the last). The smokers spent $294mil (traceable) to fight a pollution cleanup of their own creation. It's like BP decding to spend all the money claiming Macondo was a natural variation in the Gulf bedrock - and they're not going to clean it up. This is isn't about comparison - it's 'what the smell is the Energy Industry doing spending all that money defending their pollution?' ... We're just lucky they're not in charge of the garbage collection. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:26 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
I agree with Pieter. I get the sense that Rachel and her amazing team are not as up on the climate change issue as maybe they could be. That leaves Inhofe an open window to gish gallop his way through the interview. It was interesting, too, that Inhofe mentioned Michael Moore in a discussion on his book on global warming. I think he may have meant Michael Mann being that Moore does nothing regarding the AGW issue. I could be wrong but it sure seemed odd. The other thought I had was, I would guess that Inhofe did not write his book but instead used a ghost writer, since he didn't seem to know what Maddow was talking about with the reference to her in his book. Instead of addressing it Rachel let Inhofe change the subject. -
scaddenp at 06:26 AM on 19 March 2012CO2 limits will harm the economy
Some points. Firstly, expect fuel price to go up anyway. Look at IEA reports on effects of delayed investment in MENA. Combatting climate change is really about coal. Does your cap-trade money also pay for infrastructure improvements to ameliorate climate change effects in countries that have negligible contribution to global warming? And what is your geoengineering solution to ocean acidification? I would be rather surprized if the cost of effective geoengineering was cheaper than moving to non-carbon generation. -
funglestrumpet at 06:20 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
monkeyorchild @ 12 Of course the laws of physics bend and change according to America's financial situation! Money seems to be the only thing that nation worships. I imagine they even believe that you have to pay an entrance fee to get into heaven. Honestly, what self-respecting god would miss such an obvious business opportunity? Not one that blesses America, for sure. I imagine the likes of Inhofe and the Tea Party believe that they will be able to solve climate change, in the unlikely event it proves necessary, by slipping the big fella a few dollars to prove Lindzen's numbers for climate sensitivity to be correct. Let's face it, it is going to take something like an act of god to do that. But of course, they are going to have to get to heaven first. Unfortunately for them, If their behaviour has the results it is on course to, it will be "Tea break over you miserable wretches, get back to stoking those fires!" If you believe in all that sort of thing, of course. -
Pieter B at 06:04 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
I felt that Rachel, whom I adore, lost control of the interview early on. Inhofe was doing a Gish gallop, which is impossible to deal with unless you insist that your opponent name names (not just "a scientist with the IPCC wrote") and cite sources completely. Inhofe made a big deal about media reports on climate science, but as we well know, the media do a piss-poor job of reporting on science issues and often have to issue corrections of early reports. Yes, there was a flurry of reports in the 1970s that there was an impending Ice Age,but in actuality the majority of climate scientists at the time were concerned about the emerging warming trend. She also let a couple of references to the Oregon petition slip by unchallenged. I don't think a fence-sitter would be swayed to our side by this confrontation. -
mohyla103 at 05:47 AM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Bernard J.: "Glaciers do not impound water, they hold it as frozen mass." Did you mean that glaciers can be actual dams that hold liquid water back behind them, or that glaciers act like a dam in that they hold precipitation (snow, not rain) at a higher altitude? If it is the latter, then I misunderstood the phrase "natural dam" in your original statement. I thought you were referring to something like this, where a glacier acts as a true dam, actually impounding water, and actually bursting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_lake_outburst_flood -
Alexandre at 05:43 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Life is a gift from God. It's up to Him to grant it or take it away. My point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of human beings who think serial killers can change what He is doing with life is outrageous. Now more seriously: Kathy Hayhoe put it very beautifully when she pointed out that instead of using faith and values to inform our poitics, we're using politics to inform our faith. Sad. -
JMurphy at 05:36 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Very true, Phil, and that is laughable enough : but hearing Inhofe using it as a supposed quote from a "liberal" newspaper (rather than the reality of it being a quote from a columnist-in-denial, in a right-wing paper), is the reality-creating icing on the cake of delusion. fpjohn, I didn't know for sure what its general position was and have discovered that they do have a reasonable Climate Change section, but further investigation requires registration, albeit for free. The section you mention, though, doesn't appear to have been updated this year - unless I was looking at something else. Generally, though, most people would agree that they were pro-business and, therefore, the sort of paper that someone like Inhofe would generally approve of...if only he knew what he was talking about. -
Martin at 05:33 AM on 19 March 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
So the East Arctic ice sheet won't melt away in my lifetime. Phew! I'm feeling much better now.Moderator Response: [JH] That would be the "East Antarctic" ice sheet. -
monkeyorchid at 05:27 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
"I was on your side until I found out how much it would cost" ... a perfect example of deliberately blurring the lines between science and politics. Inhofe appears to believe that the laws of physics will bend and change according to America's financial situation... -
Doc Snow at 05:13 AM on 19 March 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
So there's another shoe to drop, when the 'rethinking' has been done? I'm a bit surprised that glacial rebound wasn't more thoroughly factored in in the first place. It's not all that obscure an effect!--or so I'd have thought.Moderator Response: [JH]Science is a continuous process of discovery and learning. -
muoncounter at 03:30 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Here is the so-called 'article in Nature' that Inhofe touts. It is in reality a column by David Adams in Nature News. This column cites a report by Dr. Michael Nisbet, as evidence for the apparent 'closing of the funding gap' between industry-funded denial lobbies and environmental groups. Nisbet responds to Infhofe here. Nisbet makes it clear that Inhofe's presumptions about more spending by environmental groups towards climate change action are unfounded. He describes Inhofe as an ideologue: What explains the stark differences between the objective reality of climate change and the partisan divide in Americans’ perceptions? In part, trusted sources have framed the nature and implications of climate change for Republicans and Democrats in very different ways. ... In speeches, press releases, and on his Senate Web log, Inhofe casts doubt on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other major scientific organizations, selectively citing scientific-sounding evidence. To amplify his message, Inhofe takes advantage of the fragmented news media, with appearances at television outlets, such as Fox News, on political talk radio, and Web traffic driven to his blog from the Drudge Report. Nisbet's report is sobering, as it documents the continuing failure of climate science communicators at winning the battle for hearts and minds (at least in the US). How surprising is that, as US climate action is apparently held hostage by readers of Drudge? -
Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
Thanks, Glenn! It feels good to get it verified that my understanding of heat capacity, heat of vaporization and very large numbers is about correct. Hopefully I will be able to do the translation soon! BTW, the period of the winter with ice cover on my local lake here in the south-eastern Norway has decreased from about 158 to 148 days during the last 26 years according to the linear trend calculated in Excel. I’m not enough of a statistician to tell if that is statistically significant or not, but the climate has definitely changed here in Norway, too. -
fpjohn at 01:18 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
jmurphy@7 The FT is less a denialist than "hopefully" skeptical paper in regards to Global Warming. Effects of Climate Change and costs of action remain uncertain for them. Search "Climate Insight" on their site. yours Frank -
Phil at 00:24 AM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
JMurphy @7. What you didn't note about this article that Inhofe quotes, is the fact that it was written on 28th Nov 2009, i.e. just a few days after the CRU emails were "released", before the context of the emails was understood and long before the independent investigations that Rachel Maddow refers to were carried out. -
michael sweet at 00:05 AM on 19 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Glenn and Owl: In the most recent still warming thread the ocean heat content graph does not even show heat below 2000 meters. You are arguing that the heat that penetrates below where that article measures will not resurface for centuries. What about the 90% of the heat that does not go into the abyss? The dissolved CO2 that goes into the abyss will also take a long time to come to the surface, but this reference says old CO2 is already causing problems with commercial fishing in the North Pacific. The problem there is caused by CO2 that dissolved about 40 years ago. You said it would be centuries before that CO2 (along with the associated heat) returned to the surface. It is clear that some areas will take less time and others will take longer. Your argument that we do not need to worry until equilibrium is reached is incorrect. Since the great majority of the heat goes into the upper layers of the ocean, arguing that we don't need to worry since the abyss will not reach equilibrium for centuries completely misses the point. Most of the heat returns in much less time. -
Doc Snow at 23:15 PM on 18 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Thanks, Doug. The plan is to continue to do just that. There may be pieces similar to this one, focussed on one researcher, and possibly also some pieces that are more synoptic (in the non-meteorological sense of the word!) in nature. -
Sapient Fridge at 22:13 PM on 18 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Dave123, that reminds me of this quote: "For a creationist to believe in evolution, no evidence is good enough. For a creationist to believe in a god, no evidence is good enough." I suspect something similar applies to AGW "skeptics" -
JMurphy at 22:04 PM on 18 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
I posted a similar comment on the Spencer Thread but, again, you can see what sort of rubbish Inhofe believes in when you look into the 'sources' he brings out at the beginning of the interview - the "liberal" British Telegraph (actually columnist-in-denial Christopher Booker in the famously right-wing Telegraph); the Financial Times (actually ex-blogger Clive Crook in the pro-business Financial Times); and the UN and IPCC, or some blustering, incomprehensible combination of the two, somehow (actually Hal Lewis's resignation letter from the APS, and Dr Philip Lloyd, MD of Industrial and Petrochemical Consultants company). As for the Newsweek 'condemnation' and the study (the link here is a response to Inhofe's assertions) in the "liberal" Nature : Inhofe is seeing exactly what he wants to see, rather than what is actually there in real life. What a surprise... -
Dave123 at 21:08 PM on 18 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
@5 Which just goes to show the kind of rigged game it is: A denier gets anything right (reads watch for time of day) and that proves everything they say is right A "warmista" gets anything wrong, and everything on the warmist side is wrong. Climate doesn't care -
Delmar at 20:58 PM on 18 March 2012Renewables can't provide baseload power
I read Archer and Jacobson and their argument has a critical flaw. A&J stated that coal fired power had an availability of 87.5% and compared this with the availability that a wind power network of 19 interconnected sites spread across midwest USA can achieve. The comparison benchmark for availability for wind to achieve in the report became 87.5%. The critical flaw in the argument is that 87.5% is the availability of a single coal fired generator, it is not the availability of a coal fired power network!! So they are comparing a wind network with a single coal fired generator. How something like that passed peer review is astounding. If you still have any doubt that 87.5% availabilty is incorrect, well this would mean householders supplied by coal power would have blackouts for 1095 hours per year (12.5% x 365.25 days x 24 hours) Those households who have coal fired power would typically have blackouts less than 8 hrs per year, thats 99.9% availabilty, because the coal fired units are also interconnected and they have excess generators running at any time to pick up the load if one generator trips. If you refer to the A&J chart of "Generation duration curves for arrays", for 99.9% availability and 19 sites this means the available power per generator is about 30 kW, it does not give the about 250kW that 87.5% would imply. A significant difference!! -
Glenn Tamblyn at 19:09 PM on 18 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
HGK @45 Your calcs look about right. If lake Mjøsa is about 56 cubic kilometres - 56,000,000,000 cubic metres, then that is about 10 times Sydney Harbour at 562,000,000 cubic metres. So roughly 10 times the volume. So a boiling time of 5-6 days is about right. -
Tristan at 19:05 PM on 18 March 2012It's too hard
I think if the feedbacks played nice we'd more or less get away with this slowly coalescing slipshod approach to tackling climate change that we've seen over the past 25 yrs. If going to +2-2.5 triggers a substantial methane release or the collapse of the amazon basin we may find ourselves up fifth street without a camel. -
Roger D at 18:45 PM on 18 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Ms Maddow did well with respect to challenging most of Inhofe's "mythy" statements. And overall, she is also very good about not losing her cool with those who make up fake "facts". The only let down for me is that it turned out Maddow mistakenly called Inhofe to task for a reference he made about her in his book The Greatest Hoax: in short, Maddow told Inhofe that she never mentioned Inhofe's impending protest trip to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference in a Dec 2009 episode of her show, as he contends in his book. While watching the interview I thought wow, Inhofe really feels like he has to make things up in order to make it look like "the liberal climate change alarmists" in the media are aligned agaist him. But it turned out she had in fact discussed Copenhagen in the episode in questioin(simply gave the facts and maybe poked a little good nature fun). However, climate change deniers, if any watch the Rachel Maddow show, would see the interview as a he said/ she said affair regarding the climate change discussion and would believe Infhofe probably made sense with respect to that topic: And when they find out Maddow got a non-science related point wrong they'd interpret her mistake as confirmation Inhofe was correct about his contentions regarding the science. Otherwise, I agree with the other commenter's above. -
Fran Barlow2 at 18:32 PM on 18 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Rachel Maddow has long been my favourite on-air journalist. She's possessed of a sharp mind and the willingness to use it in her job without worrying who objects. -
owl905 at 18:07 PM on 18 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
@Michale Sweet 51 It' not peer-reviewed, just: "While variations close to the ocean surface may induce relatively short-term climate changes, long-term changes in the deep ocean may not be detected for many generations." http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-earth-system/climate-variability/ "Neither is this heat going to come back out from the deep ocean any time soon (the notion that this heat is the warming that is ‘in the pipeline’ is erroneous)." Gavin Schmidt, Real Climate: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/ SKS: "Heat buried in the deep ocean remains there for hundreds to thousands of years. It is not involved in the heat exchange occurring in shallower layers." http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Poised-To-Come-Back-And-Haunt-Us-.html hth. -
Doug Bostrom at 18:03 PM on 18 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Lovely article. I particularly enjoy having people and things put into historical context; the recent London sewerage piece and this article are prime stuff. Thanks! -
mohyla103 at 17:10 PM on 18 March 2012It's not bad
Yes, that's exactly the sentence I'm referring to. The wording here is tricky, so this is probably where the misunderstanding comes from. I find it strange that he mentioned summer months, then specifically referred to "summer flow" with the Ganges, but not with other major rivers. So I interpret this sentence like this: "a key source of water for the region in the summer months" Glacier meltwater provides water in the summer for the Ganges and other major rivers. The sources all confirm this as well. "as much as 70% of the summer flow in the Ganges" This one's straightforward. The abstracts of Barnett's sources don't mention this but I presume this figure is in the full text and I'm not arguing anything here. "and 50-60% of the flow in other major rivers" What flow is he talking about? I interpret this as a yearly average, not summer specifically, especially since the sources all mention a yearly average figure around 50-60% right in their abstracts. Notice Barnett did not say "summer flow" like he did with the Ganges. Obviously, glaciers do provide water "in the summer months", so Barnett is not wrong to word the first part of his sentence this way, but I don't think you can assume this 50-60% figure actually refers to summer flow. I'm working on getting access to the full text of the Singh, Jain, Kumar paper and I'll let you know what it says in there as soon as I find out. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 15:58 PM on 18 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
michael sweet @51. I can't give you a citation but I can give you some basic numbers. To heat 1 kilogram of water by 1 Deg C takes a bit over 4 times as much heat as heating a kilogram of air by 1 Deg C. The total mass of the ocean is about 280 times the mass of the atmosphere. So roughly speaking the oceans need 1100-1200 times as much heat to warm by 1 Deg C compared to the Atmosphere. And currently the oceans are absorbing around 30 times as much heat as the atmosphere. So, on the back of a convenient envelope, that is 37-40 years for the oceans to warm as much as the atmosphere does in 1 year. So a significant time but not Eric's 1000's of years either. Since ocean overturning time is of the order 800-1000 years, heat can flow into the ocean faster than it can reach the depths. So we are likely to see an initial thermal equilibrium based on only part of the ocean in decades then a slower long term equilibrium that could take centuries. Hence the dividing of Climate Sensitivity (CS) into Transient CS, on the scale of a few years, Short Term CS on scales of multiple decades and Long Term CS on scales of centuries.
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