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Comments 69351 to 69400:

  1. Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 1 - Factors Influencing CO2 Emissions
    31, MA Rodger, If you are going to show CO2 atmospheric variation then you must also show CO2 emissions variation, and scaled proportionately to allow for a fair visual comparison. Compare apples and apples, not apples to miniaturized oranges rolling up a ramp.
  2. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    For charcoal substituting to coal, here a Hanrot et al 2009 study. Iron and steel industry accounts for 5% of total energy use, and 3-4% of GhG emissions according to Xu et Cang 2010 . Not the main issue for mitigation – if oil and coal could be used as commodities where they are strictly necessary in industrial processes rather than as energy sources for transport or electricity, it would be a great leap forward. I must emphasize (for all of us including me!) that if an energy-economy model is needful for simulating energy transitions, it is because in such discussions, we tend to poorly estimate the global quantities (requested for a certain level of production in the future) and furthermore, to add each energy solution in the mix a) without controlling that it is compatible with others in a certain land availability, b) without estimating the equilibrium cost of the energy in question and c) without ensuring that this energy can be implemented specifically where the needs (and workers!) are, or will be in 2050. Even energy-economy models have difficulties to track all the relevant factors, and this is probably one of the reasons for which they diverge in their conclusions about what we can and cannot do from now to 2050.
  3. Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 1 - Factors Influencing CO2 Emissions
    Sphaerica @29. Blue line = CO2 annual increase (or decrease), 12 month rolling average (after a fashion) x 40% & plotted as ppm of atmosphere. Thus it is a trace of annual changes in emissions. For total emissions annual change in GtC multiply by 2.5*2130. (Perhaps the line is less wobbly that you were expecting.)
  4. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    scaddenp @72, agreed that it is expensive to do it other ways. However the carbon for the CO can come from charcoal. As trees (the source of charcoal) draw their carbon from the atmosphere, iron reduction using charcoal as the reducing agent is carbon neutral. Again there is likely to be a cost in switching from coal to charcoal. I do not think it will be sufficient to have a major impact. More importantly, CO2 production in the reduction of iron is a small component of total industrial emissions and so can be one of the last areas of significant emissions reduction without significantly setting back the effort to reduce emissions. Just because something has to be done now does not mean everything has to be done now.
  5. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Tom, you can forge with an arc furnace but it is CO that does the reduction from ferrous oxide to iron. Pretty expensive to do it other ways.
  6. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    If Schmittner et al 2011 low climate sensitivity depends on moderate warming from Last Glacial Maximum (LGM = peak glacial conditions) to the Altithermal (peak interglacial conditions), there will be debate among specialists. For example Shakun et Carison 2010 found a 4,9 K difference between the two periods. See also IPCC AR4 6.4.1.2 for a broader context on LGM.
  7. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    Sphaerica @476, I believe best estimates of the change in global temperature between the current era and the last glacial maximum are around 5 degrees C. Certainly that is the value Hansen uses in this calculation that appears to pop up in all of his papers of late: A link to a PDF of Schmittner et al can be found in my preceding post.
  8. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    Schmittner et al 2011 propose three possible reasons for their low climate sensitivity, or which the first is low estimates for the difference in temperature between the current era and the LGM:
    "We propose three possible reasons why our study yields lower estimates of ECS2xC than previous work that also used LGM data. Firstly, the new reconstructions of LGM surface temperatures show less cooling than previous studies. Our best estimates for global mean (including grid points not covered by data) SAT and SST changes reported above are 30–40% smaller than previous estimates (21, 23). This is consistent with less cooling of tropical SSTs (–1.5 K, 30°S–30°N) in the new reconstruction (12) compared with previous datasets (–2.7 K) (24). Tropical Atlantic SSTs between 20°S–20°N are estimated to be only 2.4 K colder during the LGM in the new reconstruction compared to 3 K used in (23), explaining part of the difference between their higher estimates of ECS2xC and ΔSATLGM (–5.8 K)."
    If there estimates of LGM temperatures where equivalent to past values, that would increase their estimate of climate sensitivity by about 50%, giving a climate sensitivity of around 2.5 to 3.9 (lower median of 3.45). Therefore Schmittner et al presents us with a dilemma. If they are correct about temperatures then climate sensitivity is lower than previously thought, but the impact of a given change in temperature is also much greater than previously thought. Alternatively, if they are wrong about temperatures, then their estimate of climate sensitivity is a significant under estimate, and the data actually supports a higher climate sensitivity than currently expected. Of these two possibilities, the second seems more likely. If the impacts of temperature are greater (as with the first alternative), then surely the feedbacks for a given temperature change are also greater contrary to that hypothesis. However, as always, more study will be needed to resolve the issues raised. Whatever the outcome, this is not a paper that can be considered conclusive, and nor is it capable of a simple interpretation. Unless, of course, you are prepared to declare all other papers on this and related topics wrong by fiat, solely on the basis that this paper suits your prejudices.
  9. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    I'm a little confused... without seeing the paper, how can a temperature swing of 10-12˚C since from LGM to present, with an increase of CO2 from 180 to 280... less than a doubling... translate into a climate sensitivity of 2C, or even 3C? Is the paper saying that most of that change was the result of orbital forcings, or that the bulk of the change is so asymmetric compared to today that very little of that will be felt? Is there a link to an open copy of the paper anywhere?
  10. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    I haven't still read the paper, but a 2,3 K sensitivity is among the IPCC range and three models of the IPCC AR4 find a 2,1-2,3 K sensitivity for 2xCO2. So, that one study among many others arrives to the same conclusion from a LGM reconstruction is not a surprise, and certainly not the last word in a domain where there are many publications each year. #474 skywatcher : do you think to sea level rise? If it is the case, I don't know if a 3.3 K warming on a glacial condition will have the same effect that a 3,3 K warming on an interglacial condition (like ours). Intuitively, I'd say there was much more ice to melt 20ka ago than now, at mid latitude and low altitude. We should observe what semi-empirical ice models obtain with an imposed 2,3K sensitivity.
  11. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Skywatcher @61, not only had Watson been a chairman of the IPCC, the supposedly damning email was written in January of 2001, ie, while he was chairman of the IPCC. This highlights the desperation of the deniers on two points- That they would consider it untoward that a highly qualified chairman of the IPCC should have input into the writing of the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers; and That they are dredging up eleven year old emails to prosecute their case. Seriously, where it not for the fact that there is a "sucker born every minute" and that those suckers get to vote, the only suitable response to WUWT would be gales of laughter.
    Moderator Response: [Albatross] Fixed hyperlink tag.
  12. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    #473 oneiota, I think there's an SkS article in the pipeline about the relevant paper, but in this case it is intriguing to see what skeptics consider supports their position. This paper does not support their position at all, but I don't think they realise why. The paper uses a climate model to estimate a relatively low climate sensitivity - the climate model in question has a remarkably low temperature difference between LGM and present conditions (3.3C) compared to published estimates usually towards 5C or more. The consequence of this is that the paper implies a much greater impact on the climate system for every degree of warming. Although it suggests fewer degrees C per doubling CO2, we'll also need fewer observed degrees C to create a climate change as large as LGM to present. And we're already well on the way to doing that, if this paper is correct. To me, that make for particularly worrying reading, and not a cause for optimism, as various news outlets, including the BBC, have implied.
  13. What's Happening To Tuvalu Sea Level?
    When I started reading this article, I thought the "Tuvualuans have claimed detrimental sea level rise already" aspect would centre on salt infiltration of their ground water. The article was excellent, and Rob has done a good job describing the basics of sea level estimation. (I'm learning here, thanks.) But I wonder, what about measuring salinity in coastal aquifers. Obviously the modeling for the purposes of estimating sea level rise would be quite difficult. But in terms of detecting important impacts, wouldn't that be a helpful thing to monitor?
  14. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    An interesting article in Science (Express) by Williams et al. . The abstract : "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 is the subject of vigorous policy debate but there has been little physically realistic modeling of the energy and economic transformations required. We analyzed the infrastructure and technology path required to meet this goal in a specific economy (California), using detailed modeling of infrastructure stocks, resource constraints, and electricity system operability. We find that technically feasible levels of energy efficiency and decarbonized energy supply alone are not sufficient. Rather, widespread electrification of transportation and other sectors is required. Decarbonized electricity becomes the dominant form of energy supply, posing challenges and opportunities for economic growth and climate policy. The transformation demands technologies that are not yet commercialized and coordination of investment, technology development, and infrastructure deployment." Their results from the Californian case (world’s sixth largest economy and 12th largest emitter of GHGs, per capita GDP and GHG emissions similar to those in Japan and Europe), converge with IEA WEO 2011 we're discussing : reducing 2050 emissions 80% below the 1990 level would imply to include nuclear power and CCS in the mix. Their energy scenario needs three steps : "Three major energy system transformations were necessary to meet the target (Fig. 2). First, energy efficiency had to improve by at least 1.3% yr−1 over 40 years. Second, electricity supply had to be nearly decarbonized, with 2050 emissions intensity less than 0.025 kg CO2e/kWh. Third, most existing direct fuel uses had to be electrified, with electricity constituting 55% of end-use energy in 2050, compared to 15% today." As for the IEA WEO scenario, sustained gains in energy efficiency are the necessary condition of success : "The rate of EE improvement required to achieve the target and enable feasible levels of decarbonized generation and electrification—1.3% yr−1 reduction relative to forecast demand—is less than the level California achieved during its 2000-2001 electricity crisis (22), but is historically unprecedented over a sustained period."
  15. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    "I don't know to which post by Perseus you refer" : This one . For Germany, see for example recent articles from Spiegel , either on cost of wind electricity from Baltic or on environmental and aesthetic concern about high voltage lines . Of course, it is not a technical problem per se. But as we translate the 2K/450 ppm objective in real energy decisions, there will be more political debates of this kind. (And, in my opinion, more pressure toward climate modellers and energy-economy modellers for reducing their remaining uncertainties.)
  16. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    I noted with interest a recent paper published in Science where a lower median sensitivity is proposed with reduced uncertainty: "Abstract Assessing impacts of future anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently impeded by uncertainties in our knowledge of equilibrium climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2 to 4.5 K as the 66% probability range, and nonzero probabilities for much higher values, the latter implying a small but significant chance of high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid. Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations, we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7 to 2.6 K 66% probability). Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought." Needless to say some of the less informative news outlets are trumpeting this as "another nail in the coffin" for AGW alarmism.
  17. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    MangoChutney, is that really all that you and Watts have anymore? Watson had an illustrious career as an environmental scientist (with a chemistry PhD background), and became Senior Scientific adviser in the Environment Department of the World Bank, a position he was amply qualified for based on his background. Having also held the chairmanship of the IPCC before Pachauri, he had the temerity to ffer some advice by email to the IPCC, something he was utterly, amply qualified to do. That Watts is having a hissy fit about this is not surprise - he's still desperately trying to cover for being proven completely, utterly wrong by the BEST project. That you trust Watts as a source of information is rather sad - debunking WUWT articles is really like shooting fish in a barrel with an AK-47. MangoChutney, in among the conspiracy theorising, I wonder if you have had the opportunity to come up with any scientific arguments for your claim that the Tropospheric Hot Spot is a fingerprint of AGW, discussed by Albatross and myself on this thread (please respond there), or responded to Albatross' scientific challenge on this thread (please respond there)? After all, I would hate to think that skeptics such as yourself would be lacking in scientific arguments and resort to innuendo, slander and conspiracy theory. From your posting here, that would appear to be the case. So ... do you actually have any science to back up your viewpoints?
  18. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    skept.fr @68, although discussion normally focuses on the production of electricity. However, nearly all smelting requirements can be carried out using arc furnaces or plasma arc furnaces, industrial heat requirements can to a very large degree be supplied by electricity, and at a very high efficiency. With regard to Germany, sorry, coming from Australia I find it difficult to believe that running power lines across Germany is a significant cost relative to production and use of the energy. Sorry, I don't know to which post by Perseus you refer.
  19. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    More seriously, one thing I've noted about Climategate the squeakquel is how closed is the loop of information deniers allow themselves. FOIA 2011 links only to denier takes on the information, while there are almost no deniers bringing up emails in places where people know, or might try to find out the context. Despite all the noise they are trying to make, it is clear that they have no confidence in this release of emails as evidence of anything much.
  20. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    skept.fr @57, I believed a conspiracy theory once. Then I turned 13 and learned how to think ;)
  21. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    The question to Mango was just to judge his/her sincerity in search for truth - I've asked it of other posters and about other misinformation sites. If the answer is that no about amount of debunking would stop someone from hopefully trawling the garbage rather than looking at the published science, then little point in getting into a discussion. On the other hand, if say 10-20 articles of garbage that can be shown unequivocally to be wrong when referenced to published fact is enough, well perhap SkS could create such a resource for that pretty easily along line of "Monckton Myths". For WUFT, Wotts up with that is already something a headstart, and Tamino has also regularly taken stuff apart.
  22. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    #56 Tom : I’m afraid your point will not convince conspiracy theorists. They interpret the world with paranoid circular reasoning – ‘the better proof of the malign influence of the Devil is that we cannot prove nor disprove its existence’ –, so if the ‘conspiracy’ doesn’t appear clearly, it implies surely that the conspiracy is even more powerful than all we can imagine!
  23. Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 1 - Factors Influencing CO2 Emissions
    A correction to #27, read : humanity produces (rather than consumes) approx 500 EJ/y. There is a lot of energy losses (approx 200 EJ/y) during the conversion and distribution of primary energy sources so as to provide energy services for final consumption. But these losses are not specific to fossil fuel energy, and affect also renewable energy or traditional biomass, so the term of our choices (more or less primary energy / final energy) for the future are unchanged. #28, #29 : I don't clearly understand the issue... there are annual variations of CO2 atm. concentrations due to variability of climate (efficiency of biological-physical pump) and of economic activity (for example 2008-2009 recession), but the long term trend is due to economic activity, and it is correlated to the multidecadal growth of our fossil-based economy.
  24. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    So if I understand Mango-Chutney' precious WUWT article correctly, a climate scientist who was chair of the IPCC consulted with other members of the IPCC about the contents of an IPCC assessment report, and this is considered proof of a conspiracy by the World Bank? The two most absurd things about this whole manufactured controversy is the absolute refusal by deniers to all any context to effect their interpretation of the emails; and the shere paucity of the results. If you have access to a data base of 22,000 emails from a small group of people involved in a conspiracy, you would expect that conspiracy to receive frequent mention. Your proof of conspiracy would not be limited to 20 or 30 vaguely worded emails that could possibly be considered proof of conspiracy if you remove all context, look at them from the right angle, squint and make sure your tongue is in the right position. In this case, if the World Bank was co-ordinating the IPCC response to global warming (surely a complicated excercise if it where to be undertaken), they would have needed far more than 32 emails and far more than three of those emails would have contained information related to that effort. But for Mango-Chutney and WUWT, innuendo is an adequate substitute for evidence so long as they get to confirm their bias against the IPCC.
  25. What's Happening To Tuvalu Sea Level?
    Very clear and interesting. The abstract says : "Besides this sub-decadal ENSO signature, sea level of the studied region also shows low-frequency (multi decadal) variability which superimposes to, thus in some areas amplifies current global mean sea level rise due to ocean warming and land ice loss." Do we know the cause of this regional low-frequency variability? Have climate models any predictive skill about that in the Tuvalu area, for the coming decades?
  26. What's Happening To Tuvalu Sea Level?
    Perhaps the people of Tuvalu will follow suit.. The battle between some of the world's most powerful energy companies and an Alaska village that's losing ground to climate change heads to federal appeals court on Monday. Nine Kivalina residents, having survived the recent mega-storm that walloped western Alaska, will be at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to watch their lawyers argue that ExxonMobil Corp., BP, ConocoPhillips and other corporate Goliaths owe the village at least $95 million in damages. A key Kivalina argument charges that the energy companies are engaged in a conspiracy to cover up the link between their emissions and the earth's warming temperatures. A similar argument proved pivotal decades ago in helping smokers prevail in court against tobacco giants. “Alaska village alleges climate change cover-up by Exxon, other energy companies” Alaska Dispatch, Nov 25, 2011 To access this article, click here.
  27. The Debunking Handbook Part 5: Filling the gap with an alternative explanation
    pirate, This series of articles requires facts to debunk myths. It doesn't work the other way round; myths don't debunk facts. Example: when shown data points representing surface temperature, people correctly judged a warming trend irrespective of their views towards global warming. You'd have a hard time establishing 'it's cooling' with those facts.
  28. apiratelooksat50 at 10:05 AM on 26 November 2011
    The Debunking Handbook Part 5: Filling the gap with an alternative explanation
    I, too, find this article very interesting. The old adage "a knife cuts two ways" comes to mind.
  29. Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 1 - Factors Influencing CO2 Emissions
    28, MA Rodger, I didn't ask for a line showing CO2 levels, I asked for the change in emissions (you know, the other factor that contributes to the wobble in CO2 levels).
  30. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    53 - scaddenp Mango has already posted that the wuwt article looks iffy in post 45... Probably he/she knows the rest of the site is iffy as well.
  31. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Scaddenp @53, Probably no amount of rubbish and refutation will convince some people that WUWT is not credible. Even if the conspiracy theories were true, they would have no bearing whatsoever on the theory of AGW (i.e., the physics, the chemistry et cetera). The planet does not give one iota about "the emails", and the theory of AGW is not "threatened" by any of this nonsense. All the climate system will do is continue warm (with ups and downs) in response to the cumulative effect of humans pumping gigatonnes of tonnes of CO2 (and other GHGs) into the atmosphere each year. Sadly people like Mango appear to believe that the Two-Year-Old Turkey magically makes AGW a non issue. I wish. Actually, they probably think from the outset that it is a non issue and are using Two-Year-Old Turkey to rationalize their misguided beliefs.
  32. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Mango, just a quick question, how much rubbish on WUWT would have to be debunked before you gave up reading it? 1, 5, 50, 100 articles?
  33. Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
    Global leaders will gather next week in Durban, South Africa to determine how to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius. This limit would entail de facto agreement to a global carbon budget of no more than 660 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions between now and 2050, climate science says. But at the current pace of emissions, countries will blow through the entire carbon budget before 2025. After 17 years of negotiations, the 193 nations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) charged with developing a strategy to ensure global warming does not exceed two degrees Celsius have failed to curb the growth of carbon emissions. In Durban, they will engage once more in what has ballooned into extraordinarily complex negotiations mired in political blame games and arguments over money. No one thinks that situation will change anytime soon. Source: “Radical Change Needed at Durban Conference, Experts Say” by Stepehn Leahy, IPS, Nov 24, 2011 To access this in-depth article, click here.
  34. The Debunking Handbook Part 3: The Overkill Backfire Effect
    TruthatLast posted the cosmic ray nonsense before here and I suggested he/she take it to the appropriate thread. It would appear he/she has not read the article (or possibly is just posting without reading following ups). Given this is repeat behavior, perhaps moderators should delete TruthatLast comments till they appear in the appropriate thread with a willingness to discuss.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Agreed.
  35. Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
    Speaking of Africa... While Africa has successfully avoided conflict over shared water courses, it will need greater diplomacy to keep the peace as new research warns that climate change will have an effect on food productivity. Climate change introduces a new element of uncertainty precisely when governments and donors are starting to have more open discussions about sharing water resources and to consider long-term investments in boosting food production," Alain Vidal, director of the CGIAR’s Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) told more than 300 delegates attending the Third International Forum on Water and Food being held in Pretoria, South Africa from Nov. 11 to 18. GCIAR unites agricultural research organisations with the donors. "To prevent this uncertainty from undermining key agreements and commitments, researchers must build a reliable basis for decisions, which takes into account the variable impacts of climate change on river basins." Source: “A Threat to Food Security in Africa's River Basins” IPS, Nov 15, 2011 To access this in-depth article, click here.
  36. Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
    Patrick, this is a science blog where assertions, especially outrageous ones, are expected to be supported by data. That poorer countries are the one most vulnerable to climate change is very well documented (see AR4 for starters). Your opinion piece by contrast appears to be a political narrative designed to appeal to right-wing sensitivities without supporting evidence.
  37. Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
    Patrick @14, "The poorer countries are the noisiest on this issue because they have their eyes on the massive transfers of money from the developed countries." What an offense statement. You provide no evidence for your hypothesis other than an opinion piece from a blog. You are also forgetting to mention that the poor nations are the ones demanding a drastic reduction in GHG emissions. They do not need or want your kind of "help", do not claim to speak for them or know what they wish based on one person's rant on a blog.
  38. Memo to Climategate Hacker: Poor Nations Don't Want Your Kind of Help
    While you say that the poorer countries are the ones most concerned about climate change, that is not really the case. (-snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Political/ideological statements snipped. Please see the warning you were given here.
  39. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    @DB I was talking about the World Bank connection not Watson (yes I know his connection with the IPCC and the World Bank etc)
  40. Arctic Sea Ice Hockey Stick: Melt Unprecedented in Last 1,450 years
    #52 : Pauls : I'm with Skept.fr on being skeptical of these findings Oh, hem, I'm not particularly skeptic of the paper we're discussing, I just quoted its findings. For the MWP or MCA in general, I think our level of understanding will progress, the paleoclimate community is very active. All studies conclude that the 1970-present period is unusually hot in the past thousand years on a hemispheric or global scale, it seems unlikely this result will substantially change. But the precise signature and mechanisms of past variability at centennial scales are still unclear and reconstructions may diverge for the amplitude of pre-industrial temperature changes (eg the 'spaghetti' schema in AR4). Mike Mann himself continuously refines his work (Mann 2009 differs in many details from Mann 1999) and so do the other teams working on past climates. Jan Esper 2010 made an interesting synthesis of the progress accomplished since the IPCC AR1 and the current research priorities of paleoclimate community.
  41. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Sphaerica @49, Like the refuted and Delingpole, most "skeptics" and those who deny the theory of AGW are no more than "interpreters of interpretations". Anything to help them deal with their cognitive dissonance I suppose. And they also seem to very much enjoy misrepresenting and distorting stolen emails. Nice hobby. Not. History will not look favourably on the hackers and people like Watts and McIntyre. Quite the partnership they have going-- Watts and McIntyre were amongst the first recipients of the second release of stolen emails. So Watts and McIntyre and the hackers make quite the misinformation team. I wonder if Norfolk police have spoken with Watts and McIntyre yet and if so, if they are cooperating?
  42. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Mango... try reading this: Too hot for head of climate panel. I particularly like this section:
    But the US wants him out... The oil industry seems to be behind the move.
    So you are mortified and trembling at the thought of some bizarre global conspiracy by the World Bank to undermine American democracy, while you give a free pass to the wealthy corporate interests that are actually undermining American democracy. And at the same time, America has enough control over who is in power at the World Bank to replace anyone they wish who has an opinion and approach that they (or their corporate puppet-masters) dislike. Like Anthony, I too wonder what the Occupy Wall Street movement thinks of this, but unless they're as shallow in their approach to research as he is, I doubt they come to the same conclusion that he does.
  43. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    47, MangoChutney, Wow. That's a laughable interpretation and misrepresentation. Yes, I read the (-snip-) "article." Did you follow the link to see who Robert Watson actually is and why he would write such e-mails? Did you bother to do any such simple research yourself before coming here, (-snip-)? Have the black helicopters passed, rumbling and screeching, over your house yet? I can't wait until history looks back on AW and labels him clearly and harshly for what he truly is.
    Response:

    [DB] Inflammatory snipped.  We must model what we wish others to emulate.

  44. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Personally, I find it an exceeding waste of my time to peruse known disinformationist websites such as that. Root canal therapy would be favored.
  45. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    that was a quick answer. you've read the article already?
  46. World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
    Tom : ‘energy consumption for direct heating in industrial processes is included in estimates of total energy use. Therefore this is not an additional requirement on top of those already being discussed’ I agree with that, but often (here adelady or Agnostic), energy transition examples are limited to substitution from gas or coal electricty to RE electricity, although electricity is not the major part of energy end-use in our societies. For industry in particular, IPCC SRREN recalls : 'The potentials and costs for increasing the use of RE in industry are poorly understood due to the complexity and diversity of industry and the various geographical and local climatic conditions.' (Technical Summary, 118). There are opportunities, specially for low-heat demanding industries, but it is uneasy to determine the pace of transition. For example, Germany must presently deal with a problem of this kind, after the nuclear ban. Windy places are located at the North of the country, but industrial regions are rather in the South. So, the cost is not just to install on- and offshore farms in the windy Baltic, but also to build high-voltage lines across the country and modify the grid. All is feasible of course, but as you say, there are 'economic, social and ecological costs' : climate issues are not the sole factor of human decision. There have been much debate about these topics when Nicholas Stern published his report, some years ago : if you take the worst (but still uncertain) trajectories of climate change models' estimates and the lowest discount rate, you conclude that benefits largely exceed costs, even with the most ambitious energy plan ; if you take the best (but still uncertain) trajectories of the same models' estimate and the highest discount rate, you may well conclude that some scenarios of energy transition will cause unuseful harm to present and next generations. For the rest, and notably GDP related to energy choices, I think the debate will continue with the 2nd part of perseus post.
  47. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    Mango, WUWT is known to not be a reliable/credible source of information. I'm surprised that you are taken in by their spin and misinformation.
  48. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    what do you guys think about the World Bank connection? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/world-bank-global-warming-journals-and-cru/ Looks iffy to me
    Response:

    [DB] "what do you guys think about the World Bank connection?"

    Much ado about nothing (the usual WUWT fare). A few nanoseconds on Google: Robert Watson

    "Looks iffy to me"

    Then why post it here?

  49. Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 1 - Factors Influencing CO2 Emissions
    It has been deemed off topic but Sphaerica @14 & @16 did ask for an extra line (which did take more than one tea break to draw). Image and video hosting by TinyPic
  50. Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey
    skywatcher at 09:49 AM on 25 November, 2011 caerbannog #39, I've seen you post your excellent reconstruction in quite a few places now, and am yet to see a skeptic reply with an alternative of his own. I'm guessing you haven't seen one either? Thanx for the thumbs-up on this. I know that I risk "sounding like a broken record" by posting my results all over the place, but I think that it's important for as many people as possible to see how easy it is to replicate the global-temperature results that so many deniers insist are the product of "secret data manipulations". I started playing around with the temperature data a few months ago, mainly out of curiosity. Found that I could get pretty decent "in the ballpark" results via "straight dumb averaging" of the station temperature anomalies. At the time, I didn't even consider coding up a proper geospatial gridding/averaging routine (figuring that it would be too much work). But a little later, I decided to take a closer look at the gridding/averaging procedure -- turned out to be quite a bit easier to code up than I expected. I took some "lazy man" shortcuts, like setting my grid-cell size to 20 degrees x 20 degrees (at the Equator, with adjustments to keep the grid-cell surface areas approximately equal as you moved north/south). With such big grid-cell sizes, I didn't have to bother with interpolating to empty grid-cells, since the grid cells were large enough that almost all of them contained station data. Took a couple of other shortcuts as well, mostly motivated by laziness on my part. Given the shortcuts/approximations that I made, I was quite surprised to how well the output of my crude little program matched the official NASA results. I didn't do any kind of "tweaking" or "experimenting" to get the results that I've been posting -- what you see above is what popped out of my program on the "first try". Then when the CRU released its raw "climategate" temperature data, I ran that data-set through my program. Got nearly the same results. My results really are the product of just a few days of "wing and a prayer" programming. There is nothing particularly clever or sophisticated in my code -- it's all very straightforward. Most of the coding work was "book-keeping" stuff -- i.e. keeping track of data gaps and accounting for the varying station data record lengths. If all station data record lengths were identical, and there were no missing temperature samples (i.e. no data gaps), this would have been a super-simple "programming in your sleep" exercise. The bottom line is, the Muir Russel Commission was correct -- validating the published global-average temperature results is really quite straightforward; it is something that someone with reasonable coding skills can do in just a few days (starting from scratch). This really is a project that could be broken up into a sequence of homework assignments for first-year programming students. You know, deniers really love to repeat that "31,000 scientists signed a petition doubting global-warming" talking-point. But in all the years that deniers have been attacking the surface temperature record, why didn't even one of those 31,000 "scientists" ever roll up his/her sleeves and actually *analyze* the temperature data? The really big "take home" lesson here is -- deniers often spend *years* making claims that take no more than a few *days* of work to disprove. And it's always someone else who ends up doing that work.
    Response:

    [DB] The lay reader will note that Caerbannog is the author of A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data, wherein he documents his efforts in great detail.

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