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Esop at 05:28 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
A large portion of the "missing" heat is kicking around in the Arctic, as evidenced by the extremely rapid loss of Arctic sea ice volume. Conveniently for the deniers, large portions of the Arctic are still being ignored by the datasets. Over the past few years, we have seen cold Arctic air spill onto the continents where its effect on temperature is being measured. However, at the same time there is warm air going the opposite direction, to where its effect on the temperature is not being measured. The result is a cool bias in the global average temperature measurements. Most visible in the HadCRUT data. -
Paul D at 05:22 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I think many have responded to elsa. But an obvious point is that temperature is a measurement of energy, as has been pointed out, measuring it in one place may not account for all the energy, which is why cherry picking is so, so wrong. An example analogy. You have a machine that has to locations that produce heat (it may have a transformer in one location and a motor in another), if you only measure the temperature at the motor, then you will not account for the total heat losses of the machine which must include the transformer and other components. Elsa stated "If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at." But the point Mark has made is that the 'temperature' measurements must include as many places as is practical to assess where energy is going or leaving. -
Biophilia at 04:46 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
@elsa, How appalling that people still don't realize temperature is a measure of energy within a given system or defined space. "Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold." Also, if you're going to insult scientists, I wouldn't recommend accusing them of "judicious use of maths" Judicious: Having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense. -
chudiburg at 04:22 AM on 2 February 2012It's cooling
Climate Change Theory...There is an evident 1000 year cycle in glacial advance and retreat in the data from several locations around the world. This data also shows a net positive trend in glacial mass (two steps forward and one step back sort-of)over the last 8000 years or so. However, most of the 8000 years worth of slow glacial advance that has occurred has been erased in just a few decades. Something (aka anthropogenic CO2) is working against the natural forcing and winning. It appears that your 1000 year cycle has been supercharged. I would post charts and links, but I am not sure how to do this with my limited computer skills. -
MarkR at 04:13 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
#15 Hi elsa, there're plenty of reasons why I think that looking at all the available data, rather than a small portion, is a better way of telling whether global warming is going on or not. Global warming is caused by energy building up. Natural cycles constantly move heat between the elements (and can affect energy balance), but ultimately all parts of climate have to respond to the heating. By cherry picking dates and data you can make convincing-sounding (but wrong) arguments easily. The atmosphere has, for the past 15 years, had a warming trend below the average of IPCC models, but any claims that the trend is flat is mathematically not true for the most common meaning of 'trend'. Also, the Santer paper shows that statistically it's not outside expectations whilst the Foster paper shows that natural cycles have been acting to try and cool the atmosphere. But the trend is still positive - pretty much impossible to explain without a background warming. Is there an energy imbalance? Well, sea level rise + buoy data shows there is. Sea level rise comes from water expanding as it warms up and from adding water. Added water comes from melted ice, and the latent heat of ice is pretty hefty. Sea levels have risen 40 mm since the journalist tells people global warming 'stopped'. If that was from melting ice, then the heat required would be enough to warm the atmosphere by 1 C. If it came from thermal expansion, then we're talking over 10 C of atmosphere warming worth of energy. So the energy imbalance is clearly there, Earth's building up heat as the theory predicts. This is what think tanks and journalists have to try and hide, and that's why they only use 15 years of one type of observations. -
DSL at 04:10 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa, not again . . . please, please have some perspective. You are capable of thinking for yourself, right? You cherry-picked the "2008 is not higher than ten years earlier." Are you simply blind to the fact that 1998 was extraordinarily warm, even within the context of global warming? If 2008 was as warm as 1998, and no unusual conditions existed for 2008 as they did in 1998, wouldn't you agree that the trend for the decade was realistically positive (it's positive from 1998 to 2011 anyway, according to two and soon to be three temp records)? If three of the next five years are warmer than the extraordinary 1998, will you finally spit the cherry stem out of your mouth? -
Phila at 04:09 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam S. It will be very hard to convince a mostly scientifically-challenged public, who have become accustomed to an energy rich lifestyle, to give it up. Attempt to take it away and they will rebel (politically). The key phrase here, of course, is "scientifically challenged." That's exactly why the denial industry works so hard to keep them misinformed. Thanks for conceding this point, if only by accident. It's a common right-wing meme that people don't care about the environment and are unwilling to make personal sacrifices for its sake. But that claim isn't really supported by history, which is why a major climate disinformation campaign is necessary. It's also a common right-wing meme that all mitigation efforts involve loss and lack; they're careful to ignore or sneer at gains in efficiency, the advent of interesting new technology and the personal satisfactions of making a difference, for the precise reason that they know these things appeal strongly to people pretty much across the board. You often see the same argument in regard to the Third World, where populations are supposedly clamoring for the exact model of development favored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In the real world, opinion is not quite so monolithic, to say the least. Also, I spend enough time on right-wing sites to know that a lot of people are doing their best to get off the grid, purge unnecessary technology, grow their own food and so forth. They're not doing this for the sake of the environment, granted, but it still gives the lie to the denialist meme that people won't voluntarily give up a convenient, "energy-rich" lifestyle that they feel is unsustainable, dangerous or spiritually empty. In short, the smug vision of American consumers as invincibly self-centered, careless and reactionary is an important one for "skeptics" like yourself to promote precisely to the extent that its a grossly misleading oversimplification. as the Yale study concluded, the more educated one is, the more skeptical he/she is of CAGW. The people who are most educated on climate are climatologists, who overwhelmingly accept AGW. I assume you're referring to The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change. If so, that paper is a lot more nuanced than you seem to realize. You might try reading it sometime. The paper attributes the very slightly higher degree of skepticism among the educated to "the reliable capacity of individuals to conform their personal beliefs to those that predominate within their respective cultural groups," and points out that "cultural worldview variables predict...risk perceptions independently of science literacy and numeracy." Significantly, it adds, "This conflict between individual and collective rationality is not inevitable. It occurs only because of contingent, mutable, and fortunately rare conditions that make one set of beliefs about risk congenial to one cultural group and an opposing set congenial to another." In short, the study doesn't really say what you claim and its authors directly contradict the conclusions you've drawn. Meanwhile, here are some conclusions from another Yale study: "In a national survey completed in November 2011, we found that a large majority of Americans (66%) support signing an international treaty requiring the US to cut emissions 90% by 2050. Breaking the result down by political party (among registered voters), we found that large majorities of Democrats (81%) and Independents support such a treaty (61%), while almost half of Republicans support such a treaty (49%)." -
Michael.M at 03:52 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
As the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency IEA, Faith Birol, has put it, some time ago: "We have to leave oil before it leaves us." This is the opion of an agency that directly advises the members of the OECD. So this opinion should not be easily dismissed by the polluters. -
Tom Curtis at 03:33 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
J. Bob @36, I'm sure what you meant to say is without good energy storage like batteries, hydro-power, hot rock thermal storage, liquid salt thermal storage etc., and without extended long range electricity transmission, and without smart grids all the solar and wind won't provide power in the period of the night when electricity companies already offer discount rates because they are currently over generating for that period because conventional power stations are not responsive to demand. You may be right. That might mean in a renewable energy based grid, power companies may offer discounts to use power during day light hours rather than offering discounts to use electricity after dark as they currently do. How could we possibly cope. Heating our water during the day instead of at night? It's the end of civilization as we know it! /sarc -
JohnMashey at 03:27 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Scott Armstrong: Heartland ICCC-1, Manhattan Declaration 2008, ICCC-2, NIPCC, ICCC-4. Science advisory board for ICSC... -
Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa - The issue highlighted in this post is the tendency for 'skeptic' commentators to focus on short term temperature. Which, in the noisy climate, has little statistical significance over short stretches - it's hidden in the weather, the short term variance, much as the difference between winter and summer is much higher than the clearly identified climate changes. The various ice measures, ocean heat content (which, not incidentally, is a temperature measure), sea level rise (thermal expansion and added water from ice melt), and most importantly of all checks on air temperature trends over statistically significant intervals: these all show something important. And that is the climate is warming. Add to that the understanding developed over the last 100-150 years in spectroscopy, known emissions of various greenhouse gases, and recent declines in solar and volcanic forcing - and the conclusion is we're doing it. --- That's what folks focusing on short term (10 year) temperature variations are trying to ignore, or, perhaps, to distract people from recognizing. -
dana1981 at 03:20 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Eli @39 - indeed interesting that several of these 'signatories' would 'sign' a letter which did not even get their professional/academic affiliations correct. It certainly suggests they didn't read it very carefully, at least. -
Daniel Bailey at 03:12 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
The 2nd generation eyecrometer, Eyecrometer Mk 2.0TM is somewhat superior in that the operator uses both eyes instead of just one... -
Composer99 at 03:04 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa: Your comment is abject nonsense and is a textbook case of denialism: instead of referring to basic physics and the scientific literature you are trying to dispute the reality of human-induced rapid global overheating by reference solely to a few graphs on a website. The eyecrometer (kudos to whomever at this site coined this term) is a very poor scientific instrument, and I heartily recommend you avoid relying on it to perform statistical or empirical analysis. -
CBDunkerson at 03:01 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa wrote: "ice cover (all needless to say in the northern hemisphere)" Actually, the pie chart is global... the Arctic and Greenland ice graphs are indeed 'limited' to those portions of the Arctic and Greenland in the northern hemisphere. Maybe we should add in the Antarctica ice mass chart to show it is declining too? also: "sea level (which presumably you think is moved by temperature alone)" Are they making more water out of thin air in 'elsa reality'? Damn! Why do I always get stuck with the boring worlds with silly things like the 'law of conservation of matter'? :[ also: "something that you call 'heat content'" Yes, what an absolutely impenetrable term. Well, clearly this 'heat' stuff has nothing to do with temperature. >plonk< -
actually thoughtful at 02:59 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
I have no problem with the overall direction of this post - (ie peak oil) - but I think it is premature to call it at 2005. Although supply was inelastic in 2005, we have had 7 years to expand capacity, even while demand has shuffled along sideways. So I suspect human ingenuity will create an "overclocking" type blip, where we pull out more oil for a very short time (less than a decade from the next time the global economy is firing on all cylinders). In a way, we should thank the Bush-era policy makers for this 5-10 year time period when we are not experiencing the economic disruption of peak oil. I very much would prefer that the human ingenuity I spoke of where unleashed on the problem of renewable energy (ie a carbon tax). PS - Tom Curtis - your post #28 could be the core of a fascinating main article. -
J. Bob at 02:51 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
If one reads the ref., it seems with fracking, there will be considerable time left from the following site: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/fracking-boom-could-finally-cap-myth-of-peak-oil-peter-orszag.html Like it or not, without good energy storage like batteries, all the solar & wind is worth squat, in the middle of a still, -20 deg. night. -
Jim Eager at 02:49 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Re Daneel Olivaw @4: "Why is not valid to say that "global warming has stopped" based on 15 years of data but it's ok to conclude that "oil production has stopped" with just 5 years?" Every physical system time series has it's own period required to separate any underlying trend from the "noise" of natural variability, and that period is determined from the data set itself. See Robert Grumbine's explanation of determining the period for the climate system here: http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html Petroleum reserves and production are a completely different system from climate, and are not entirely a physical system as consumption is based on human behavior rather than physics, so therefore it is entirely reasonable to expect a completely different time period. That said, I don't know if 5 years is the correct period or not. Perhaps someone else can address that question. -
CBDunkerson at 02:40 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
"political think tank" It has reached the point that 'think tank' is usually little more than a euphemism for 'propaganda unit'. Most of them conduct little or no actual research and instead are just 'cardboard cut outs' to help hide who is paying to deceive people. -
elsa at 02:40 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I find it rather difficult to see why you think your own approach is in any way superior to the cherrypicking that you highlight. If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at. The graphs that you point to your opponents as having ignored relate to the extent of ice cover (all needless to say in the northern hemisphere) sea level (which presumably you think is moved by temperature alone) and something that you call "heat content". How appalling of your opponents to have ignored these and used the only graph that you show in that section which actually relates to the subject under discussion, temperature. You put a red line through the bit of this graph that has not been used by your opponenents, although when I try to look through the crossing out it seems that for much of that period there is no great evidence of warming. You then go on to show us a graph which includes satellite readings. Any normal human being would be hard pressed to see an increasing temperature in this, but helpfully you have inserted a trend line to ensure that the reader, who might otherwise be forgiven for wondering if there is any evidence of warming in it at all, is given the impression by your judicious use of maths that there is some warming going on. Yet we can see that in 2008 the temperature was no higher than it had been 10 years earlier. Even if your trend line is in any way representative it would appera that such warming as is taking place is about 0.1 degrees every 15 years or perhaps .7 degrees in 100 years, (-snip-).Response:[DB] Ideology snipped.
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muoncounter at 02:35 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
There are some other forecasts of a low cycle 25 reviewed here. From this article's summary of Penn and Livingston 2010, there's a basis for this in the decline of sunspot magnetic field strength: ... since about 2000, the average field strength has declined from 2,500 or 3,000 gauss to about 2,000 gauss now. They expected Cycle 24's spots to appear with rejuvenated field strength, but they didn't. The average magnetic field in the centers of sunspots has continued a more or less unbroken decline, as shown here.
Forty five years of satellite measurements of solar mag field flux shows this decline over a longer period. (See Its the sun).
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DSL at 01:02 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Owl@5: I thought I knew what "eminent" meant. If that's what it actually means, I've been dissing good people for years. ("eminence front" more likely) -
citizenschallenge at 00:42 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Regarding Nordhaus Please note this from the conclusion of his recent New York Book Review: “Energy: Friend or Enemy?” by William D. Nordhaus, October 27, 2011 In his summation the professor writes: ~ ~ ~ "The conclusion is that oil policy should focus on world production and consumption and not on the portion we import, and should focus as well on the externalities from our consumption in the form of pollution and global warming. This means primarily that oil consumption should face its full social cost. The major external cost that remains to be addressed is climate change. Until countries put an appropriate price on carbon emissions for oil and other fossil fuels, energy policy will be incoherent, and energy and environmental policies will be working at cross-purposes. The National Research Council estimates cited above used a damage cost of $30 per ton of CO2 emissions. This is somewhat higher than estimates from my own work but is a reasonable target for a US carbon price over the next decade or so. If phased in gradually through a cap-and-trade or carbon tax, such a price would help promote both fiscal and environmental goals." ~ ~ ~ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/27/energy-friend-or-enemy/?pagination=false =============== Chris Mooney has also weighted in: http://www.desmogblog.com/which-climate-skeptics-drop-lysenko-bomb-no-i-m-not-kidding ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cheers, Peter M. http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2012/01/wsj-claims-theres-no-need-to-panic.html#more -
EliRabett at 00:27 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Interestingly the WSJ letter had a number of other bad affiliations besides McGrath, which, in the course of events is not terribly important but implies that the letter was perhaps not seen by all the signatories and it would be interesting to know if it came out of some PR shop or Murdoch international -
Tom Curtis at 00:27 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Tealy @32, you can reduce iron with charcoal. Indeed, that is the first way it was done. As the carbon in the trees used to produce the charcoal comes from the atmosphere, the process is carbon neutral. You can also directly reduce iron using hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide can, again, be produced from charcoal. No useful purpose would be served by a steel tax. A carbon tax would cover all the costs of carbon production both in processing iron, and in the production of energy needed. Ergo if your purpose is to reduce GHG emissions, the steel tax adds nothing to the carbon tax, and merely distorts the market. -
Bernard J. at 00:20 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
In addition to folke_kelm's reference to Bartlett (a favourite seeming-curmudgeon of mine), it's also worth pointing folk to Joseph Tainter's written work and presentations on societal collapse. As an ecologist I have been preoccupied for years by carrying capacities and system asymptotes. Tainter's explanations of societal collapse are very good, although I think that he could possibly and usefully emphasise the laws of thermodynamics a little more, and perhaps stick his neck out more about steady-state systems, especially separated from hangings-over of the old (failed) economic paradigm. If there is any deficiency in his analyses it would be in referencing complex, dynamic equilibrium states in ecological and thermodynamic contexts: by doing so, using a compare-and-contrast with various civilisatons' economic models, he could very effectively demonstrate what will and what will not work over the long-term in human societies. As to achieving a maximum atmospheric CO2 (equivalent or otherwise) concentration of 450 ppm, I have for several years now been convinced that 2017 is a pie-in-the-sky landmark. Barring extreme intervention on the scale of global warfare or ('flu?) pandemic (neither unlikely, by the way), I'd say the cut-off date for Peak-Opportunity-for-keeping-mean-global-temperature-to-less-than-2C-abov-the-pre-Industrial-Revolution-value occurred at around the same time as Peak Oil... 2005. -
lord_sidcup at 00:19 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
You missed the really fun bit of Rose's article (credit to Carbon Brief). Rose says:According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the 'Dalton minimum' of 1790 to 1830.
The Met Office press release actually says:The most likely scenario is that we'll see an overall reduction of the Sun's activity compared to the 20th Century, such that solar outputs drop to the values of the Dalton Minimum (around 1820). The probability of activity dropping as low as the Maunder Minimum - or indeed returning to the high activity of the 20th Century - is about 8%. The findings rely on the assumption that the Sun's past behaviour is a reasonable guide for future solar activity changes.
Do you see? If there is an 8% chance of a new Maunder Minimum, there must be a 92% chance of a new Dalton Minimum. Prof Lockwood actually puts the chance of minimum similar to the Dalton Minimum at 50%. -
Tealy at 23:41 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Dudes thermal coal is used in power stations and metallurgical coal is used to make steel. Completely different mines. To stop using coal we need to stop making steel. We need to only use recycled steel. The government needs to invest in steel recycling. Cars use lots of steel but most have too much plastic shit that stops efficient recycling. The most recyleable car is still the trusty Jeep Wrangler with stuff all plastic shit. Put the baby on LPG and you have greenest cradle to grave wheels around. A carbon tax will not be enough we need a steel tax as well. Don't know why the government doesn't get it. -
dorlomin at 23:16 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
@PaulD. They have now ceased trading. However they were still being quoted on the 13th of January this year http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086258/UK-weather-Britain-awakes-scenes-frost-freezing-fog.html?ito=feeds-newsxml -
Alexandre at 23:05 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I noticed the last 6 months show a distinct cooling trend on Fig 3 - 0.3ºC in the period!! I predict a full strength Ice Age by 2020. You will not see this in a peer-reviewed journal, which proves their bias. -
Paul D at 22:41 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I just tried accessing positive weather solutions web site (via a Google search) dorlomin and it says 'server not found'. -
dorlomin at 22:34 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
As the Daily Mail was named in the article it is worth pointing out there is serious doubt that many of the weather forcasters the Mail uses for its stories exist. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jan/26/weather-forecasters-daily-mail?INTCMP=SRCH -
CBDunkerson at 21:26 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Doc Snow, yes there is definitely a degree of geographical constraint with coal. For example, Hawaii does not have any significant fossil fuel deposits and thus must import their fuel over the ocean. That is cost prohibitive for both coal and natural gas (and too small a market to build a pipeline that far), so they have historically gotten almost all of their electricity from oil. Thankfully they have recently noticed that they have some of the best solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable (e.g. OTEC) resources in the world and are now working towards 100% renewable electrical generation. Yes, US coal production is now in decline, but China is just starting to ramp up. Indeed, Chinese coal is probably the single largest source of potential CO2 emissions for the next 50 years. -
Paul D at 21:11 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I like the graphs Mark. A visualisation of cherry picking. Maybe we should do such compilations more often, it probably gets that message over better than trying to write loads of texts to say the same thing. Can we create a cherry picking series to put in the library? -
Tom Curtis at 18:51 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
owl905 @5, I'm sure Judith Curry found the prediction "difficult to understand". Why she would admit to that level of incompetence is beyond me ... -
folke_kelm at 18:44 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
IN my opinion this is a very important post. We often forget the problems of depleting energy resources (ok, only "cheap energy resources)while discussing climate change. Obviously the solution for both problems is exactly the same, moving society away from fossil fuels to renewable. We may be able to use this argument in discussions with "sceptics". Unfortunately the mechanisms of denial are exactly the same in both topics.To show, how serious the problem with depletiong oil really is you should have a look at this site: http://www.theoildrum.com/ It is really worth reading. One figure shows much about the problem. If you are not familiar with ROI, it means Return On Investment. For one barrel oil we invest, we got 100 barrel out in 1930. Today we have passed 20 barrels, moving fast to a ROI of 10 barrels. This is a decline of 80 to 90%! It does not matter how high oil price will climb, if you get out only one barrel oil per used this is utterly meaningless. to give you a picture look at this graph: http://www.theoildrum.com/files/HallandDay.png from this post on the Oildrum: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8625 It really is a scary picture that comes up, but again, the solution is exactly the same for climate as for energy. Only a little bit off topic, i recommend you all to have a look at a very exciting lecture about exponential functions by Albert Bartlett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SP6A1FD147A45EF50D -
owl905 at 18:41 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
From the article:- "Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand." That's actually twice as funny as it should be. -
Tom Curtis at 18:41 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
As an addendum to 28, exhausting Oil only will only increase CO2 concentrations by 180 ppmv, for a temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees C from current levels. Gas reserves will scarcely increase that at all. The real kicker is in the coal reserves, which is the logic behind James Hansen's proposed policy that no new coal fired power stations (or mines) be developed from now on, with all current stations being retired when they come to the end of their natural life. Such a policy might keep us below the 2 degree C guard rail with no further action, but is IMO not achievable politically. -
Tom Curtis at 18:34 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
KBow @27, that is a slightly complicated question. First you need to distinguish between reserves which have been fully mapped by geological surveys, and which are commercially recoverable at current price levels and technologies, and reserves which are believed to exist based on geological reasoning, but which have not been fully mapped, or which may not be fully recoverable. Based on which type of estimate you use, and whose estimate (there is some difference in estimates), reasonable projections of fossil fuel use in the coming centuries will lift CO2 levels to somewhere between 980 and 4600 ppmv. The later figure requires exhausting reasonable expectations of coal reserves, and is not possible within a single century (and may take as much as four centuries). In the short term (for a century or so), that increase in CO2 levels will result in an increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature by 5 to 11 degrees C. After a century or so, CO2 levels will decline to about 25% of their peak and then take tens of thousands of years to return to natural levels. That decline will reduce temperatures to between 2 and 6 degrees C above current levels. As 2 degrees C is the limit above which AGW starts going from harmful but manageable to very dangerous, anything like the full exhaustion of gas and oil reserves and 10% of coal reserves (the assumption in calculating the figure) represents a very significant risk for the future. These calculations assume no significant increase of natural GHG emissions as a result of higher temperature, which given developments in Siberia is not a safe assumption. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:17 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
The GWPF was started by yet another lord (little 'l' deliberate) of the UK peerage, IIRC. What are the upper crust smoking over there? Are they like the Republicans, where you have to be rabidly anti-science in order to attain membership? It is sad that the Fourth Estate has come down to occupying a factless, information-free zone which acts merely as an echo chamber for the Jovian pronouncements of the Masters of the Universe. Thank the Lord (big 'L' deliberate) for SkS and their ilk. -
KBow at 18:07 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Would it be feasible to project the potential amount of co2 we could produce from the remaining reserves? Also, with a time frame that sufficient levels, for civilian, use may be available. -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:56 PM on 1 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Tom Dayton @ 35 Wonders will never cease! Fancy that: they publish the rebuttal letter, but not the original submission signed by over 200 scientists. Thanks for the link. Tom Curtis @ 38 Thank you for a much better - polite - response than the one I was thinking of. -
bill4344 at 17:44 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Any of us who spend any time doing battle online with the various Muppets of Misinformation will recognise Figures 1 and 2, both of which are constantly referenced. But surely to be properly understood - via the Monckton Method, don'tcha know - Figure 3 should be rotated clockwise about 8°? Thanks for the laugh! It helps; sometimes I have to pinch myself and remember 'yes, they really are putting up that risible argument, and, yes, their powerful friends really will ensure it gets all the attention it doesn't deserve'... -
Tom Curtis at 17:38 PM on 1 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam S posted a comment which has since been deleted, so far as I can tell, not because of any particular word in it, but because it consisted of nothing beyond a political slogan to the effect that the entire debate was about whether AGW would be catastrophic or not. That is a false and obnoxious little meme on two grounds. First, contrary to Adam S's suggestion, there are many so-called skeptics who deny that there has been any warming since the 1940's. Even more deny that there has been any Anthropogenic contribution to the warming that has been experienced since then. These two groups are the "more reasonable" so-called skeptics dirty little secret. Although their existence is often denied, it cannot have escaped the attention of anybody discussing global warming on the internet that they exist. Despite that, there existence is denied when it is desirable to seem reasonable, and encouraged when the spreading of confusion can be maximized. So Adam S's slogan is false in denying the existence of this group, and obnoxious because that denial frees him from the obligation of all reasonable people to defend good science with respect to them. Not for Adam S any need to defend science against absurd attacks the second law of thermodynamics, or the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, or even the incontrovertible fact that humans have increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2. In those arguments he can remain safely above the fray, confident in the knowledge that those arguments will help his political cause. Second, and again contrary to Adam's slogan, there is not a dichotomy of possible effects of AGW, but a gradient. Many defenders of effective action against AGW do not accept CAGW, but DAGW, but a merely dangerous AGW is not reason to do nothing. Some defenders of action against AGW do not even accept DAGW, but only BAUAGWWTSMAGW. But accepting that Business As Usual Anthropogenic Global Warming will be Worse Than Mitigated Anthropogenic Global Warming does not give you reason to do nothing about AGW. Indeed, even the catastrophists among AGW acceptors mostly do not accept CAGW, but SROCAGW, but again, a Significant Risk Of Catastrophe is not reason to do nothing to avert that risk. As it stands, the science very solidly supports the idea that AGW will be dangerous, with a significant risk of catastrophe. But the science is not certain. It can reasonably be argued that catastrophe is inevitable if we continue at BAU; and equally it can be argued that AGW will be very bad, and well worth mitigating, but will not be dangerous globally (if still dangerous for some unfortunate people). Richard Alley takes that position. What is not reasonable is the position that we will experience HHAGW! Adam's belief in Ho Hum AGW does not come from following the evidence (unless of course he inhabits a different universe, with different evidence to that available to me). Therefore he promotes the false dichotomy. By insisting all his opponents occupy the most extreme opinion of CAGW, he attempts to render his position more reasonable. Rightly the moderators will have nothing to do with slogans like that on SkS, where even comments are expected to be evidence based. Adam may object to my characterizing as intentional certain strategies implicit in his slogan. Well, granted, he may be a babe in the AGW debate woods, so that he does not know what is implied by his sloganeering. After all, everybody makes mistakes. But honest men man up after the mistake, admit it and correct it. We will see how honest Adam intends to be by his admittance that his framing of the debate was a false dichotomy, and by his arguing against that false dichotomy against his fellow "skeptics" in future. But if he won't man up, then he is guilty as charged. -
Bern at 17:23 PM on 1 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Doc Snow: sadly, coal production doesn't appear to have peaked here in Australia yet. There are serious efforts afoot to open up an entire new coal basin here in Queensland, with proposals for mines extracting a total of some 40-50 million tons per year or more (does anyone have those numbers handy?). :-( -
Tom Curtis at 17:00 PM on 1 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
I notice that The Australian, never slow to distort climate science, has now printed the letter in its opinion pages. IMO The Australian has devolved under the leadership of Chris Mitchell from the premier newspaper in Australia to little more than a regurgitater and source of propaganda. -
Tom Dayton at 16:12 PM on 1 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Amazingly, the WSJ has published a rebuttal from real scientists! -
Fran Barlow2 at 15:49 PM on 1 February 2012Public talk: Global Warming - The Full Picture
When the
No, it doesn't. The permits are auctioned under the cap. There is revenue in that.tax{fixed price phase} stops, the revenue to pay compensation stops. -
Alex C at 15:48 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
You forgot to scribble out the trend line in the satellite data graphic. Whadya trying to pull? -
calyptorhynchus at 15:40 PM on 1 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Yep the Australian denialist commentators have been reproducing this Daily Mail story too.
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