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Comments 69251 to 69300:

69251. Paul D at 02:41 AM on 1 December 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       In the UK the vast majority of people don't need the types of vehicles they use and could easily make do with smaller vehicles. People make up excuses for buying a vehicle with large carrying capacity, stating things like: 'it would be really useful for carrying a lawnmower to the repair company, or for picking up some timber from the DIY store'. Yet they often only ever do this once or twice a year or even never! So the reality is they could have got the store to deliver for a fraction of the cost of the the fuel and materials needed to build and use the bigger vehicle. Yeah a few people 'need' them, but most vehicles are driven with just the driver at the wheel 90% of the time. Plus of course cars need a lot of parking space at various places to cope with the probability of someone needing a parking space.
69252. CBDunkerson at 02:40 AM on 1 December 2011
       IEA CO2 Emissions Update 2010 - Bad News
       dakiller6, the SRES tables you link to show gigatons of carbon ("GtC")... figure 1 above shows gigatons of carbon dioxide. Basically, one set of figures is counting only the mass of the carbon atoms while the other is including the two oxygen atoms as well.
69253. Dave123 at 02:30 AM on 1 December 2011
       Peter Hadfield addresses the recent email release
       Oh...well done! Simply wizard!
69254. pbjamm at 02:22 AM on 1 December 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       WRT living closer to work, this is not always a reasonable solution. In my case I live relatively close to my primary employer and plan to move farther away as the neighborhood is not good. My 2nd job (which I work remotely 90% of the time) is in an even *worse* area. Moving to a nicer area and commuting might be the wrong environmental choice but the right one for my family.
69255. pbjamm at 02:12 AM on 1 December 2011
       It's the sun
       You are still posting so you are not banned (see post 911). If you want to discuss the science here then discuss the science. State your case and provide your evidence. Provide links to more details if it is too much for a single post. This is not rocket surgery, it is basic conversational skills. "Buy my book to learn the Truth" is not at all the same thing.
69256. dakiller6 at 01:50 AM on 1 December 2011
       IEA CO2 Emissions Update 2010 - Bad News
       Hello, I just registered to ask a question on this article. I am a Ph.D student on atmospheric science but my main area of research is cloud physics ('aerosol indirect effect' which is covered in IPCC WG1 report) and I am not familiar with CO2 emission (instead of concentration) statistics or anything treated in WG3 report. I found this article very interesting (and alerting!) and want to introduce this article at a forum whose main attendances are non-scientists, which is part of volunteering work for environmental movement here in Korea. My question is, why are the numbers for SRES scenarios in the Figure 1 (which is around 20~30 Gton/yr) different from the numbers of Fossil Fuel CO2 provided at the SRES website (http://sres.ciesin.org/htmls/data_list.html), which is lower than 10Gton/yr? There must be some sort of notion difference between them. If it's too much work for you to explain, a nice reference will do. Thank you.
69257. Lou Grinzo at 01:21 AM on 1 December 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       I would add that an area for big potential savings in energy consumption and CO2 emissions is not just what or how much you drive a personal vehicle, but how you drive it. Unnecessarily hard acceleration kills your vehicle's efficiency. One study from a dept. of the US gov't (EPA, I think) found that avoiding hard acceleration would save the average American driver (who drives like a movie stunt man on a bad acid trip) about 30%(!) in fuel consumption. Add in other obvious savings like not carrying a lot of dead weight in the vehicle, keeping tires properly inflated, not speeding, etc., and the average driver can easily see real world improvements about equal to swapping their car out for a hybrid version of the same model. I drive a Scion xA and routinely get 40 mpg, which is above the EPA rating for that model (when it was still in production). We certainly need to change the nouns and verbs in our lives (what we buy and what we do with it), but we also need to change the adjective and adverbs (how we do things).
       Response:

       [DB] I have found that I improved my gas mileage by 6 mpg by reducing my average speed from 5 mph above the speed limit (yes, I was one of the masses who routinely flouted the speed limits) to 1 mph under the speed limit.  Much better mileage and no chance of speeding tickets.  And lower blood pressure.

69258. adelady at 01:18 AM on 1 December 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       skept.fr "That is particularly true for a fast transition – people and society are not so flexible." I'm not so sure about that. afaik, most people really don't care how their power is generated unless they have a job in a mine or a generation facility. For transmission infrastructure, some engineers might be stick-in-the-muds who'd like to keep doing what they've always done, but there are many who'd really like to see more efficient and effective distribution systems. Users rarely care about the details as long as the power stays on. As for industry. Just pick the low-hanging fruit to start with. If they can save money on airconditioning and lighting - esp for administration facilities which they see as a cost burden on their productive processes anyway - they'll get a taste for it. And then look for ways to do things better with their core operations. For transport. People who already use public transport will welcome any improvements in services. People whose access to such services is poor at the moment will adopt useful services if they are provided. The only issue is how quickly they'll do so. It's just a question of design and how much governments or other agencies are willing to spend at start up before the frequency and quality of the service gets a good enough reputation for more and more people to use it.
69259. Tom Curtis at 00:58 AM on 1 December 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       perseus @41, yes pursuing a low or zero emissions economy with continued population and economic growth is a gamble. That is the invidious position we have been placed in by the slow response to global warming. But ending economic growth as a deliberate policy, or population growth in the short term are not political possibilities, and shackling the response to global warming to those policies just makes any effective response to global warming less likely. Further, there is no instance in history (that I know of) in which either declining population or declining economies have not caused wide spread suffering. Further, rapid technological change with static economies will cause wide spread suffering as already discussed. So your proposal is also a gamble, and IMO a far greater gamble than the alternative.
69260. Tom Curtis at 00:50 AM on 1 December 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       skept.fr @53, no! What I suggest is that one of the model warming ratios, the land proxy temperatures, the sea proxy temperatures, or both, are in error because of the discrepancy between the Warming ratio found by Schmittner et al, and that from models in Sutton et al. I further suggest based on the additional evidence of warming seas north of Iceland according to Schmittner et al's reconstructions that an underestimate of sea surface temperatures is at least one component of the puzzle, so that once the issue is cleared by further studies a higher estimate of climate sensitivity is likely to be one of the results. Further, regarding models, the UVic model is described as follows:

       "A globally-averaged lapse rate is used to reduce the model’s apparent sea level temperature in calculating the following: the outgoing longwave radiation; the surface air temperature (SAT) dependent planetary co-albedo through the calculation of the areal fraction of terrestrial snow/ice; the saturation specific humidity to determine the amount of precipitation; whether the precipitation will fall as rain or snow"

       and:

       "The other major simplification to the atmosphere is the parametrization of atmospheric heat and moisture transport by diffusion, although moisture advection by the winds is also included as an option (Section 4)."

       Ray Pierrehumbert comments on this at Real Climate:

       "What is more severe, in my view, is that the energy balance model cannot represent the geographic distribution of lapse rate, relative humidity or clouds. In the interview over on Planet 3, Nathan Urban clearly doesn't understand the full limitations of the model even though he is one of the authors of the paper. It's more than just failing to represent the albedo effects of clouds -- the model doesn't represent the geographical variation of cloud infrared effects either, or the way these change with climate. Given that clouds are known to be the primary source of uncertainty in climate sensitivity, how much confidence can you place in a study based on a model that doesn't even attempt to simulate clouds?"

       So, this is not just another example of GCM's disagreeing about climate parameters. This is a case the model not allowing the relevant variables that determine the warming ratio to be set by physics within the model. That is a fair enough choice given budget constraints, but it does have consequences. Further, with regard to the use of other models, James Annan writes:

       "Jules has also been looking at some of these data recently, particularly in comparison to the PMIP2 experiments - that is, simulations of the last glacial maximum by several state of the art climate models, most of which also mostly contributed to the CMIP3/IPCC AR4 database of modern/future projections. One telling point is that several of the PMIP2 models actually appear to fit the data better than Schmittner's best model, even though these were not specifically tuned to fit the data. Moreoever, these models are all clearly colder, in terms of global mean temperature anomaly, than the -3C value obtained in this latest paper. We haven't done a thorough analysis of this yet but I think it is safe to say that there is a significant bias in the Schmittner fit and that the LGM was really more than 3 degrees colder than the present. The implication of this for climate sensitivity is not immediate (since there are also well-known forcing biases in the PMIP2 simulations), but this line of argument also seems to suggest that it may be reasonable to nudge the Schmittner et al values up a bit."

       So initial indications are that use of an ensemble of AOGCMs would have resulted in a higher climate sensitivity than found in the paper. So, I think in this case we can consider AOGCMs, and certainly and ensemble of AOGCM's to be more realistic in this case (because UVic ignores physics for relevant processes) and that it does make a difference, and is likely to have biased Schmittner et al's results low. Again, this is not a flaw in Schmittner et al's study, but a constraint on it. I'm sure they would have preferred to use an ensemble of AOGCM's if somebody had ponied up the cash. Nor is it a conclusive argument that they are wrong. But it is certainly grounds for caution with regards to their result, and suggests that when all the smoke clears, they will be low estimate of the LGM climate sensitivity.
69261. Tom Curtis at 00:16 AM on 1 December 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       skept.fr @52, they allow change in albedo due to changes in ice sheet as a forcing in the model. Because the change is ice sheet is treated as a forcing, it is not treated as a feedback. Hence there are no (or at least no large) slow feedbacks in their model, from which it follows that they estimate fast-feedback climate sensitivity.
69262. skept.fr at 00:12 AM on 1 December 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       Most importantly, I think the central point is not how well UVic model deals with evaporation, lapse rate, etc. – it is very unlikely in my mind that a particular model can be considered as more or less realist in its simulation, see here for example (figure 8.14) the still important divergences among IPCC AOGCM for WV, lapse rate, cloud, etc. The land/ocean warming ratio is a starting point from the reconstructed temperature (new proxy data set), not an utlimate result from the model runs. The model just try to reproduced the temperature and it seems to me that you reason as if the inverse was true. If the new proxy reconstruction is correct, then the land-ocean ratio will have to be reproduced by any model, no matter its complexity (RCM, EMIC, AOGCM, etc.). What you suggest in fact is that the proxy results are probably false, because most models produce a land/ocean warming ratio incompatible with the new proxy-based temperature.
69263. skept.fr at 23:58 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       #51 Tom : "In contrast Schmittner et al discuss fast-feedback climate sensitivity" This point is not clear for me. Their analysis deal with "annual mean surface temperature (sea surface temperature over oceans and near surface air temperature over land) change between the LGM and modern" (legend, figure 1). So in my mind, that is a 10 or 12 ka change between two equilibrium states, including what you call "slow feed-back".
69264. perseus at 23:56 PM on 30 November 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       If these models conclude that we can preserve economic growth while substituting fossil to non-fossil energy sources in the next 40 years, I think we must conservatively give credence to these models for their realism (that is, we should prove there are wrong if we disagree with their conclusions). I thought Jacksons calculations would have laid this possibility to rest. Let me repeat it again: In his book ‘Prosperity Without Growth’ Jackson calculates how much we would need to reduce the product of energy intensity and carbon intensity (in units of CO2e/economic output) to meet a CO2e of 450 ppm by 2050 without adjusting GDP or population growth rates. In the absence of such controls, we would need to reduce this factor by 10 times faster than the present rate, that is a 21 fold improvement by that date relative to the present to meet this target! Some other scenarios regarding population or GDP growth would require a virtual complete de-carbonisation of our entire energy system. Nothing other than a revolution in energy generation could meet 450ppm whilst retaining economic growth. That is the gamble people are taking who reject this. Is this too different to the mentality of those who reject climate change altogether? Are they not all either Deniers or gamblers?
69265. skept.fr at 23:42 PM on 30 November 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       For orders of magnitude, fossil fuels produce approx 425 EJ or 13,5 TW each year. Solar radiation on land surface at the exclusion of polar, subpolar and difficult access regions produces a suitable flux of 15 PW, nearly a thousand times fossil consumption. For wind energy, the theoretical estimate of accessible flux is approx. 70-80 TW, five times the fossil flux. Waves kinetic total energy is 60 TW, but for coastal exploitation the value is rather 3 TW, a fourth of fossil flux. Tidal total energy amounts to 3 TW, but just 60 GW on coasts. Geothermal flux is estimated at 42 TW, but mainly on ocean floor so the current potential on land surface would be 100-600 GW. Terrestrial photosynthesis proceeds at a rate of 60 TW, from which approx 3 TW are currently exploited. So the conclusion is clear : the total amount of renewable energy flow that humanity could exploit is far over the fossil fuel, with direct solar energy as the most important source. Without even mentioning nuclear fission or fusion. But as we are speaking of economic growth (and climate mitigation), I think the relevant question is not the total and theoretical energy flow for a long term transition (numbers above), rather the realist exploitation of this flow on short term (decadal rather than centennal scale). We should recognise that either on energy density (amount of energy per unit of volume) or on power density (rate of flow of energy per unit of surface of land area), most renewable sources are for the moment less efficient that fossil or nuclear. And that’s also true for energy conversion from total incoming flux to final service, particularly for solar processes (the main source from total energy flux on Earth). As 80% of our energy come from fossil sources, the other problem is the weight of installed infrastructures in transportation, industry, building, etc. as they represent capital assets and human skills (ultimately, jobs). These points are much more uneasy to estimate and that’s why we must rely on energy-economy models. That is particularly true for a fast transition – people and society are not so flexible. If these models conclude that we can preserve economic growth while substituting fossil to non-fossil energy sources in the next 40 years, I think we must conservatively give credence to these models for their realism (that is, we should prove there are wrong if we disagree with their conclusions). But for sure, from all that I’ve read, a strong effort toward the use of clear and similar indicators among energy-economy models is needed (as this have been done in IPCC WG1 climate models). For the moment, each model ‘tinkers’ its own energy mix and cost estimations, but in the public debate, we need much more clarity about what we can and cannot choose, and at which cost. Ultimately, economic growth and climate change are particular points of a larger democratic debate. I remember here the Mike Hulme’s interesting essay, Why we disagree about climate change. We, citizens, have different and sometimes discordant attitudes toward nature, technology, risk, well-being, etc. These attitudes ultimately depends on our psychological traits, ideological convictions or ethical beliefs. What we can do here is to precise the basic facts, then to clarify our interpretations and to test their coherence, but I would say there is no reason (and probably no hope) to reach an ultimate consensus. That is particularly true for our most subjective judgments on capitalist or market-based societies. As a regular reader of 'degrowth' (negative growth) advocates, like for example Serge Latouche or Philippe Ariès for French authors, I observe that the frontier between growth as physically impossible trend and growth as ethically undesirable attitude is not very clear. As Tom put it in a previous message, a substantive judgement on growth is welcome as a starting point.
69266. Tom Curtis at 23:36 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       skept.fr @50, Royer et al, 2007 has shown that climate sensitivity between 1.6 and 5.5 degrees C has been a feature of the Earth's climate for the last 540 million years. More recently, Park and Royer, 2011 refines that result. As they state in their abstract:

       "As a result, our experiment maintains an agreement with ΔT2x estimates based on numerical climate models and late Cenozoic paleoclimate. For a climate sensitivity ΔT2x that is uniform throughout the Phanerozoic, the most probable value is 3° to 4 °C. GEOCARBSULF fits the proxy-CO2 data equally well, and with far more parameter choices, if ΔT2x is amplified by at least a factor of two during the glacial intervals of the Paleozoic (260-340 Ma) and Cenozoic (0-40 Ma), relative to non-glacial intervals of Earth history. For glacial amplification of two, the empirical PDFs for glacial climate sensitivity predict ΔT2x(g)>2.0 °C with ∼99 percent probability, ΔT2x(g)>3.4 °C with ∼95 percent probability, and ΔT2x(g)>4.4 °C with ∼90 percent probability. The most probable values are ΔT2x(g) = 6° to 8 °C. This result supports the notion that the response of Earth's present-day surface temperature will be amplified by the millennial and longer-term waxing and waning of ice sheets."

       Note that they are discussing the slow-feedback climate sensitivity, ie, the climate sensitivity with the Earth is allowed to adjust by changes of vegetation, and the melting of ice sheets etc. In contrast Schmittner et al discuss fast-feedback climate sensitivity. For comparison, Hansen has recently found a fast-feedback climate sensitivity of 2.8 degrees C per doubling, and a slow feedback climate sensitivity of 6 degrees C per doubling of CO2. Applying the same ratio to Schmittner et al' fast-feedback climate sensitivity from their best fitting model (2.4 degrees C per doubling of CO2) would yield a slow-feedback climate sensitivity of 5.14 degrees C per doubling. Most of the response of the slow-feedback climate sensitivity is due to melting ice sheets, so that in non-glacial worlds the slow and fast feedback sensitivities approximately equal each other (best estimate 3 to 4 degrees C ). Applying Hansen's ratio to the glacial slow-feedback sensitivity suggests a glacial fast-feedback as derived from Park and Royer in the range of 2.8 to 3.7 degrees C. That is a little rough, of course, but suggests that slow-feedback climate sensitivities are approximately constant across a wide range of geographical configurations and temperature ranges. To that it should be added that in discussing Schmittner et al, Real Climate report that Hargreaves and Annan find model simulations of the LGM show short-feedback climate sensitivity that is 80-90% of that found for a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial conditions across a range of models. So, some difference, but small. More importantly, and as discussed in my post @48, because the equilibrium warming ratio is a consequence of evaporation, either directly, or due to increased humidity and hence reduced lapse rates, in a cooler world (and hence a world with less evaporation) we would expect the warming ratio to be smaller. Indeed, there is some evidence of this in Sutton et al, 2007 which show the warming ration declining to 1 near the poles in models, and (less clearly) in observations. Hence, while I do think there will be some change in the Warming ratio in the LGM, it will be in a direction that makes my point (1) above more significant, and my point (2) above less significant.
69267. Marcus at 22:55 PM on 30 November 2011
       Peter Hadfield addresses the recent email release
       Yes, I love how he once again highlights how so-called "skeptics" will swallow every piece of nonsense they read on the internet *without* bothering to double-check the validity of the claims-the exact *opposite* of a genuine skeptic.
69268. skept.fr at 21:14 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       #48 Tom : on Real Climate, I read : The first thing that must be recognized regarding all studies of this type is that it is unclear to what extent behavior in the LGM is a reliable guide to how much it will warm when CO2 is increased from its pre-industrial value. The LGM was a very different world than the present, involving considerable expansions of sea ice, massive Northern Hemisphere land ice sheets, geographically inhomogeneous dust radiative forcing, and a different ocean circulation. The relative contributions of the various feedbacks that make up climate sensitivity need not be the same going back to the LGM as in a world warming relative to the pre-industrial climate. Sutton et al 2007 examined what the IPCC AR4 models give for land/ocean equilibrium change from our current temperate climate, not from glacial initial conditions. So I think their land/ocean ratio must not necessarily be used as a robust benchmark for LGM/Holocene transition. In other word, it is suggested (in the RC quote) that climate sensitivity for a doubling C02 (as well as local/global signatures of this doubling) should not be seen as a constant for the different climates of our planet over time.
69269. Felipe at 19:43 PM on 30 November 2011
       We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
       Stefaan, I understand your point but as I understand it, the argument regarding the LIA is more like "there is a normal temperature given the environment - there was an exceptionnal reason to change it - the reason is gone - therefore it goes back to the normal temperature". which doesn't seems so wrong in theory. Still I am no scientist. Nevertheless you don't always need to be one to take good decisions. I know that a man can die if he stays in a confined environnement with a car's engine on. It sufficient for me to believe that it's not a good idea to have millions of cars on earth without evidence of the absence of effect.
69270. Paul D at 19:22 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       There are more significant changes that can be made culturally and in legislation. 1. Build infrastructure that puts businesses closer to homes. Build communities where it is natural to walk and cycle etc. and the car is not seen as being essential. 2. Legislate for all new homes to be built to use the minimum amount of energy. This would depend on the location globally, but passive home design is a proven idea that works.
69271. Paul D at 19:07 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       uuurgh don't like vinyl windows. There is a Scandanavian company that makes soft wood/aluminium combo triple glazed windows which would be my preference. Not that it would make any difference in the UK, where many old houses are abused with fitted plastic windows and other plastic building materials.
69272. critical_billl at 19:00 PM on 30 November 2011
       Antarctica is gaining ice
       Is there a possibility that the earth's axis has moved marginally i.e the North Pole is now slighty closer to the sun thus warmer there but colder in the south creating more ice in the Antartic. Wouldn't this also explain the changes in the magnetic fields that some scientists have apparenty noticed? i do believe that the recent earthquakes in Japan were strong enough to move the axis of the Earth albeit a small amount.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] If you think about this you'll be able to answer your own question.  Any astronomer in the world can tell you that there's no evidence whatsoever for it.  GPS systems would be way off.  The tides would be different.  Satellites that measure earth changes to sub-millimeter accuracy would also provide evidence against it.  There is simply no physical evidence to cause such a shift that would not also be felt the world over.

       The crustal displacement/polar wander fancies of Hapgood are just that: flights of imagination.

69273. Doug Hutcheson at 18:59 PM on 30 November 2011
       Peter Hadfield addresses the recent email release
       Oh, how I wish I could get my local State MP to watch this video. She is a perfectly nice person who is, for some reason, a rabid denier - not a sceptic, sadly, or I would send her the link in hope that she would watch it. A great video and I thank you for putting it up here. I, too, have not read the original emails, so it is nice to now have some context.
69274. Don Gaddes at 18:58 PM on 30 November 2011
       It's the sun
       If you would like to contact John Cook, he can provide you with my complete 'proof',otherwise it is available from dongaddes93@gmail.com (-snip-)
       Response:

       [DB] Moderation complaints snipped.

69275. Sudden_Disillusion at 18:29 PM on 30 November 2011
       The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
       Great work! Keep it up. This site has become my no.1 reference for trouncing "skeptics". Klimafakten.de will help even more as my target audience speaks German mostly. cheers
69276. garythompson at 17:57 PM on 30 November 2011
       GHG emission mitigation solutions - a challenge for the Right?
       [ snip ] And why was my original comments not included here? It was evident that it was here for a while as comment #149 quoted some of my original comments. I'm not sure where to post this current comment since, at first, you told me to go here and now I'm told to go elsewhere. snip this commment where you must but tell me where to post this and I will.
       Moderator Response: On your original comment I responded that it was off topic, and I left it up for a while so you could see that response. Relevant threads are pointed out by KR and a moderator in #149 and #150, and Philippe in #152.
69277. dana1981 at 16:09 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       Dr. Schmittner:

       "Your model is very simple dT=a*dF,but it still is a model. One that, in fact, assumes climate is in equilibrium all the time. Remember a is the "equilibrium climate sensitivity". So you model overestimates the transient temperature changes because it neglects ocean heat uptake."

       I respectfully disagree with your latter point. Please see the Figure 4 caption, which explains that I used an (admittedly very simple) estimated transient climate sensitivity parameter to create the figure. Fair point that it is indeed a model, and a very simple one, but it's a transient model, not an equilibrium model.
69278. John Hartz at 15:35 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Widespread degradation and deepening scarcity of land and water resources have placed a number of key food production systems around the globe at risk, posing a profound challenge to the task of feeding a world population expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, according to a new FAO report published today. The report, “State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture” notes that while the last 50 years witnessed a notable increase in food production, “in too many places, achievements have been associated with management practices that have degraded the land and water systems upon which food production depends.” Source: “Scarcity and degradation of land and water: growing threat to food security” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations news release, Nov 28, 2011 To access the entire news release, click here.
69279. Tom Curtis at 15:35 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       Andreas Schmittner @39, I'll join with others in thanking you for the time you are taking in responding here. Please do not think that we are trying to savage or unfairly criticize your paper. On the contrary, we think it a good paper. We believe the inaccuracy in the conclusion, if any, is due to the limitations of using only one model (due to budget constraints) and any limitations in the data used (inevitable with paleo-reconstructions) and do not reflect poorly on the authors in any way. In view of some responses you have received, I believe that deserves mention. Unfortunately, we are compelled to dispel the many myths propagated by fake "skeptics" of climate science, who have seized on aspects of your paper and distorted it through no fault of your own. As such our discussion focuses on those areas of your paper which can be so distorted rather than providing the more balanced assessment which in other contexts we would like to give, and which your paper deserves. In particular, we feel it necessary to show the reasons why your paper should not be treated as the last word on a complicated subject in a rush to conclude that climate sensitivity is low, and that climate change is not a problem. (When I say "we" above, it is because I believe I capture the sentiment of most SkS authors including Dana, although strictly I speak only for myself.) Having said that, I turn again to the particular point which I have focused on in comments. I thank you for your correction of my initial confusion about the difference in equilibrium response over land and sea. As you will see above, however, Pauls had already directed me to Sutton et al, 2007, and I had corrected my critique accordingly at 21:37 PM of the 28th. Discussion on Real Climate has further elucidated the issue for me. As I understand it now, there are two overlapping issues: 1) In your paper you state:

       "The model provides data constrained estimates of global mean (including grid points not covered by data) cooling of near surface air temperatures ΔSATLGM = –3.0 K (60% probability range [–2.1, –3.3], 90% [–1.7, –3.7]) and sea surface temperatures ΔSSTLGM = –1.7±1 K (60% [–1.1, –1.8], 90% [–0.9, –2.1]) during the LGM (including an increase of marine sea and air temperatures of 0.3 K and 0.47 K, respectively, due to 120 m sea-level lowering; otherwise ΔSATLGM = –3.3 K, ΔSSTLGM = –2.0 K)."

       As noted in my earlier post, this represents a warming ratio of approx. 1.76 and 1.65 respectively. Using the 1.65 value as being the most conservative, this is significantly higher than the mean of equilibrium warming ratios found in models by Sutton et al. Indeed, it is 2.46 standard deviations higher, so the disparity is statistically significant. This strongly suggest that either your sea surface temperatures are two warm, or your land temperatures are too cold, or both. If in fact it is the sea surface temperatures that are found to be in need of adjustment, then your climate sensitivity estimate will rise. If, on the other hand, it is the land surface temperature that needs adjustment, there will be little change to your estimate in that the sea surface temperature is already strongly weighted. Given this, I note that your reconstructed data shows areas of ocean north of Iceland as being warmer during the LGM than currently, which is counter intuitive to say the least. On that basis, I suspect it is the sea surface temperature which is in error so I expect an adjustment up. I further note that because the equilibrium warming ratio is driven by differences in evaporation rates and/or humidity effects on lapse rates, the equilibrium warming ratio would be expected to decline with colder temperatures so that the above discussion underestimates the discrepancy. 2) You also state that:

       "The ratio between land and sea temperature change in the best-fitting model is 1.2, which is lower than the modern ratio of 1.5 found in observations and modeling studies (19)."

       Note that the warming ration of 1.5 is for transient values, not the equilibrium warming ratio which I believe to be more appropriate for comparison with LGM values. Regardless, that the UVic model gives a low warming ratio is unsurprising in that it poorly models the hydrological cycle and lapse rate changes. More importantly, a low warming ratio in the model would explain a significant part of the small overlap between ocean and land probability density functions of the estimate of climate sensitivity. To some extent it appears then, that the spread in PDF's between land and ocean is partly the consequence of limitations in the data. To the extent that is true, and given that the UVic model handles the hydrological cycle better over sea than over land, this supports the heavier weight given to the ocean value and a low sensitivity. The upshot is that while I think there is significant reason to believe the sensitivity is higher than that you which you found (1), that conclusion clearly does not automatically follow. I would greatly appreciate your comments on these two points.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] Requested correction applied.
69280. ahaynes at 15:10 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       ...or more generally, Greg Craven's "You do: everything you can to increase public demand for significant and immediate policy action to combat global climate change. (Here’s the part where you get creative)"
69281. ahaynes at 15:04 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Daniel Bailey, thank you for the work you do at SkS. And that's an excellent summing-up, at end of this post. From my "quotes" file (to which I've added your "we will be judged...") - === As Bill McKibben says: “The number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb.” ===
69282. AndreasSchmittner at 15:04 PM on 30 November 2011
       Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
       dana: you are using a model. Your model is very simple dT=a*dF,but it still is a model. One that, in fact, assumes climate is in equilibrium all the time. Remember a is the "equilibrium climate sensitivity". So you model overestimates the transient temperature changes because it neglects ocean heat uptake.
69283. DrTsk at 14:43 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Mercury bioaccumulates. Dead CFL's must be properly recycled which I don't see that happening much. LED's prices have been plummeting. From one specimen two years ago, I see 10-15 types at hardware stores.
69284. adelady at 14:40 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       mandas, you're probably right. Though at the moment the gazillion cubic metres of straw/mulch and the gigantic bags of chook/cow/other poo we're bringing in to create something resembling soil here makes me think our first vegetable crops will represent a huge carbon investment. Lugging a trailer around does horrible things to fuel consumption. But it is an investment. Now that the 4m by 1m heap of potato crop (in straw and other goodies) is nearing maturity, even if the potatoes aren't that impressive, we'll also have a good crop of earthworms. (I'm not that desperate for protein, so they're going to keep on improving the soil for further crops.) I expect we won't be vegetarian but more like potatomatocapsicarian looking at what the garden's doing. And of course, there's what to do with zucchinis. Buying a freezer to store a chocolate-zucchini-cake mountain doesn't seem very sensible - but there are limits to how many zucchinis family and neighbours are willing to take on after weeks of gritting their teeth and smiling at you. The obvious solution is chooks. But they'll have to wait until sheds and tanks are done. As for people who don't grow their own, I think council waste collection systems that provide separate containers for food waste along with other compostables might get a few people rethinking their food purchases. They can actually see the volume of their 'waste' and maybe even compare it to the volume of their shopping. And reframing sell-by and use-by dating on many products would also cut down a lot of unnecessary discarding of perfectly good food.
69285. Stevo at 14:31 PM on 30 November 2011
       Peter Hadfield addresses the recent email release
       It is interesting to note that Hadfield's style in the Youtube piece is entirely consistant with the Debunker's Handbook. A clear and simple message has been expressed with straightforward clarity. Thanks for posting it Rob.
69286. bibliovore at 13:58 PM on 30 November 2011
       The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
       Typographical error: Page 6, second to last paragraph, "This gap if filled" should be "This gap is filled".
69287. Dan Moutal at 13:58 PM on 30 November 2011
       The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
       I haven't had time to read it yet, but I just noticed that Lifehacker is featuring the handbook. Well done! One thing that might be worth considering is kindle (or other ebook) versions of this and The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism. I find the kindle to be a much more convenient way of reading stuff, but most ebook readers don't do a great job with PDF file. Might even be worth while to sell them for 99 cents to put some money back into the SkS coffers. Either way, I might be able to try and create a kindle version, but I would need a non-pdf copy of the guide to take a crack at it. And since it I will soon be spending 6 weeks travelling mostly out out of internet range I might not be able to get it done until I get back. Just a thought.
69288. mandas at 13:50 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       A lot of the focus of energy saving concentrates on the obvious things - standby electric power, more efficent vehicles, low power fluoro lights, etc. But you can actually make a bigger difference by reviewing your not so obvious uses of energy. For example, the energy required to produce a couple of kilos of beef is substantially greater than that for the equivalent vegetables, so becoming a vegetarian is actually an excellent way to save energy (if you want to become a vegetarian). A less drastic solution would be to cut down your meat intake, or to stop eating fast food. A large part of the problem is over consumption and wastefulness. How about you ask yourself if you really need all the material good you possess, or whether you need to replace things so quickly. Have a look in the mirror. Do you eat too much? Do you waste food? It will be wonderful when all our energy comes from non-polluting sources. But the problem of too many people consuming more than they realy need will remain, unless we substantially change our approach to life.
69289. Tom Curtis at 13:47 PM on 30 November 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       adelady @37, for a while I went to school in Hamilton in Victoria, just across the border from South Australia. At every sports event you would see a small gang of children busily working the stands and scrounging any glass bottles left behind in order to collect the 5c refund when the bottle was returned to South Australia. Consequently, the sports grounds where essentially liter free, and this was in 1973. I was stunned when I returned to Queensland to find not such refund payable, and consequently heavily littered sports grounds, shopping malls etc. Consequently I am a huge fan of the South Australian system. On a similar but more general line, Germany has now made the manufacturers and sellers of goods responsible for waste disposal. I understand the effects have been good, although I have not seen a cost benefit analysis. The TV program from which I got this information indicated that cost wise the system was working well, but how reliable is any TV program? Regardless, in the absence of a cost/benefit analysis clearly showing the method to be inefficient, again I am very much in favour.
69290. Tom Curtis at 13:36 PM on 30 November 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       WyrdWays @34, apology accepted. I am not sure why you consider some of these options on "the wild side of techno-feasibility". Where I live, every time I go shopping I have a choice between normal, organic, or hydroponic tomatoes and NASA has been researching the possibilities of hydroponic wheat since at least 1989. Also where I live, we have a reserve filter base desalinization plant capable of providing 20% of the water needs of a major population center. Obviously that could be expanded at need at the cost of increased of water supply. To my mind switching to an electrolysis based system makes sense in a world of renewable energy. During the day solar power can split water into hydrogen and oxygen which at night is then burnt to provide power and pure water. I do not claim, however, to have costed this method, but see below. Harvesting 10% of solar power is, I believe a reach. In fact I suspect we will instead harvest much of the solar power in the form of wind power, thereby allowing nature to store energy for us at the cost of some efficiency. We will also harvest some of the wind power as wave power with the same trade of. This will be supplemented by geothermal, hydro, and tidal power. We may also utilize nuclear power and it is still conceivable that fusion will finally become a practical power source (although I believe the practical application of fusion has been forecast for 50 years into the future for the entirety of my 50 some years). The point is not that a particular technology will be our energy supply salvation. Rather, it is that there is abundant energy to meet our future growth needs well into the future, and indeed, to do so sustainably. As for orbital solar power stations, assume that I am wrong by all means. That still leaves us with approx 225 years of growth before we genuinely need to switch to a near zero growth economy. (Assuming of course that practical fusion power is still 50 years of in 2235 AD.) But in that event the switch will be made without the need for significant political argument because there will be little basis to sustain the growth. All of these comments come with a very important caveat. I am not a futurologist, and I do not predict the successful implementation of any technology. What I do know, however, is that there are many apparently technologically feasible ways to accomplish everything we need to sustain growth into the future. And while I do not need to predict of any of them that they will pan out, those who think long term sustained growth is impossible need to assume that all of them will not pan out. IMO that is not a viable position. Given that, and given that economic growth, all else being equal is a good thing, and given the clear political suicide of a party actually advocating zero (let alone negative growth), I believe tying the response to global warming to a zero growth sustainability model places an unnecessary hurdle in the path to tackling global warming. (That leaves aside the issue that I would consider a zero growth model potentially ruinous in and of itself.)
69291. Daniel Bailey at 13:24 PM on 30 November 2011
       Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Continue Climbing
       @ Sphaerica You forget the fallback mantra underlying the "anything-but-fossil-fuel-derived-CO2" agenda:

       "It's turtles, all the way down..."

       And turtles produce... ...methane.
69292. scaddenp at 13:18 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       NZ - 91 octane is bouncing around NZ$2.02 - $2.10 (say US$1.60 per litre. Looks like UK citizen paying something like US$2.08 per litre.
69293. adelady at 13:11 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Speaking of lighting. We're planning to replace the decrepit late 60s/early 70s kitchen here, and I'm going to imitate something I saw in a cafe. A mirror! They've placed a mirror about 4ft long, 18in wide on the ceiling - basically it's directly above the area where customers stand to order/pay. It means they need very little lighting apart from the windows. All I have to do is line it up with the not very large window and keep it away from steam etc. Means I won't have to worry about lighting for new positions for oven and other appliances. Nifty! (Thankfully this house has conventional ceiling heights, not the 11ft+ monsters in our old (very old) house. Wouldn't have been anoption there.)
69294. Bern at 12:52 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Re gas pricing - it was $1.49 per litre here in Australia when I filled up last night. That was diesel, but petrol(gas) and diesel are similarly priced at the moment. One suggestion - diesel vehicles are generally far more fuel-efficient than gasoline / petrol engined vehicles. I used to fill up my previous car every 10-12 days, but the diesel I bought to replace it a few years ago only gets filled about once per month! Combine that with the high price of petrol/gasoline, and you can see why diesel cars are so popular in Europe (and are becoming more so here in Australia - I was the third person in my 40-employee office to get one).
69295. Bern at 12:48 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       DrTsk: yes, CFLs have mercury. It's a very, very small amount, though, and not a problem unless you're in the habit of breaking CFLs in sealed rooms. :-) (personally, I find all those mercury switch central heating thermostats used in some cold climates to be a far greater risk) LEDs are great - I replaced the halogen downlights in our kitchen with LEDs a few years back. Being early model LED downlights, they're not quite equivalent to a 50w halogen in light output, but they're more than bright enough (how bright does your house really need to be at night?) Cost-wise - they cost me, each, about 50 times the halogen bulbs I replaced. Based on the price I paid, I would have to run them for 4 hours a day for 7 years to make up the $$ cost difference. That's ignoring the fact that the halogens were burning out at the rate of 1 every 6-9 months, and I also had to replace one transformer that died (and another was clearly on it's last legs when I pulled it out to install the LED transformer). I will say, though, that costs have come down at least 50-60% since then, so the payback period is now only 3-4 years (or less!), for about 4 hrs per day of usage. We've had them for maybe 3 years so far, and I'm planning on replacing a few other light fittings with LEDs. One disadvantage - the halogens used to throw an enormous amount of light up in the ceiling space. Wasted energy, generally, but it was quite handy on the rare occasions that I was working up there... Now I have to carry an LED worklight up with me. :-)
69296. adelady at 12:23 PM on 30 November 2011
       Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
       'lets live with less banner' Being a fair bit older than most of you young whipper-snappers, I grew up in the era when bottles and jars were made with a now defunct impression. "This bottle always remains the property of Bickfords/Lion/whoever." Recycling bottles wasn't a matter of putting glass into a certain receptacle. It was returning property to its rightful owner. We'd be a lot better off rethinking our approach to material things than saying we have to make do with less. The reason this process is no longer used is that businesses decided they'd rather let their bottles go into the waste stream than pay wages to people to collect, clean and reuse them. We don't have to reinstate that process. But we should at least work out the costs and benefits of handling such things better than we do now. Of course, I speak from the lofty moral height of a state which has had container deposit/ return legislation for decades and recently outlawed lightweight plastic shopping bags. Remarkably, neither the economy nor the society has collapsed. We certainly have 'less' stuff in the case of the bags, and we're so used to the container rules that we're horrified by the ghastly piles of cans and bottles on roadsides and other public places when we go interstate. Cans and bottles vanish from our streets and public bins within minutes or hours. Keeps the place tidy, and lots of people with little opportunity get themselves some regular pocket money at the recycling depots. (The deposit recently increased to 10c per item. Yay!) Making do with less? Just go for this kind of low-hanging fruit, just like the first energy targets should be the low-hanging stuff - cost little, benefit lots. When we are more used to paying attention to certain kinds of material purchases, it's easier to move on to others.
69297. jimb at 12:19 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       re. #9 My 'back of the envelope calculation' shows that $3.00/gallon gas translates to about 80c per litre, a price most of the developed world has not seen in a long time. Here in Alberta for example, the average price per litre for regular gas is $1.09. A simple, but politically impossible task that might encourage the use of more fuel efficient cars would be to bring the price of U.S. gas more in line with the rest of the developed world.
69298. DrTsk at 12:11 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       CFL's have mercury, why not LED's ???
69299. John Hartz at 12:08 PM on 30 November 2011
       Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
       UEA's climate scientists have been hounded and falsely vilified because of the hacker's lack of understanding of basic scientific methods. Millions of decent people struggling to come to terms with climate change have been misled by his half-baked information. Most grievously of all, the billions of families who scrape by on less than $2 a day have had their lives put further at risk. What would most help these impoverished families is for the UN climate talks in Durban to result in a strong climate deal. This hacker attack, timed to derail the process once more by falsely undermining the science, is the last thing they need. If the hacker's moral purpose is to help the poor, then he has scored a spectacular own goal “Climategate Hacker Scores Own Goal” Huffington Post, Nov 29, 2011 Click here to access this article.
69300. tmac57 at 12:03 PM on 30 November 2011
       Climate Solutions by Daniel Bailey
       Re-the skinflint approach,I think that this will ultimately be the thing that will turn the tide.I have heard many stories of companies that changed their business practices for what they considered to be the greater social good,only to find that they unexpectedly reaped finincial savings beyond what they expected. This kind of win-win is the message that needs to reach the ears of CFO's and shareholders of companies worldwide.

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