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Comments 70551 to 70600:

70551. skywatcher at 10:54 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Albatross, that figure is incredibly telling and quite chilling. Roll the dice. Who's next under the 3-sigma browns? Now it's a lot more people than it was 30 years ago. Soon enough it'll be common...
       Response:

       [DB] How about some more chillin', then?  From the same source:

       

       Figure 4. Frequency of occurrence (y-axis) of local temperature anomalies divided by local standard deviation (x-axis) obtained by binning all local results for 11-year periods into 0.05 intervals. Area under each curve is unity.

70552. dana1981 at 10:51 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       John H - thanks very much. Tom - I know, we discussed the incomplete final two data points in the blog post from which Figure 2 originated (linked above Figures 1 and 2). For the purposes of that particular graphic, it's a rather minor point (two data points out of thousands), and those two data points were included in "Curry's BEST" graph. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to remove them, if I have the time.
70553. skywatcher at 10:49 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Others have made the important point that it is not necessarily the global scale impact on climate of Australia's emissions cuts that is at stake here. It is the setting an example, or showing willing that will encourage other major economies to do the same. It's also the case that generally the first step is the hardest - and once investors see greater benefits in renewables than in fossil fuels, then momentum can be built. Another wee piece of good news - the Fossil Fuel Levy, which has been in place in Scotland since 1996, has finally yielded significant funds (£103m) for the burgeoning renewables industry in Scotland, despite some political wrangling. Another £103m is going to the Green Bank which is further supporting renewables investment. The Fossil Fuel Levy has now been replaced by the Climate Change Levy, which taxes non-domestic FF power in the UK - not quite the same as the Australian price on carbon, but a step in the right direction. Still more political will required to move carbon reductions forward still further, but it shows that if you get the building blocks in place, reductions can happen.
70554. John Hartz at 10:31 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       "What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls and we believe that is caused by climate change. And we should expect this to increase, sadly," Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change, told reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. Source: “Climate change to bring more floods,” Agence France-Presse, Nov 10, 2011 To access the entire article, click here.
70555. Tom Curtis at 10:14 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       Dana, I have a significant problem with your figure 2. It includes the anomalously low figure for April, 2010 and also May, 2010. As has been well documented, those two data points are faulty and should not be included an any analysis. Indeed, Nick Stokes at Moyhu has shown that those two months draw their data from just 47 stations, compared to the 14,488 station used in March of 2010. In other words, the number of stations used has reduced by 99.68%. What is worse, Nick Stokes has also shown that all temperature data for April and May of 2010 in the BEST data set comes from Antarctica. It should not need pointing out that Antarctica is not the world, and so those to months should not be used in any serious analysis. In fact, when I contacted the BEST project about this issue, Robert Rohde, lead author of the methods paper replied, saying:

       "Yes, there is an issue with the availability and incorporation of very recent data not being uniform. As a result the last two months do have far less data, and analysis of those months isn't meaningful. We expect to update the data set to incorporate more recent data in the near future and hopefully provide more uniform coverage at recent times."

       (My emphasis, private communication) IMO, it is an indictment on Judith Curry's competence that, as a co-author of all the BEST papers, she was unable to recognise the inclusion of data which "isn't meaningful" if included in an analysis. Regardless of the fact that she was happy to pass over the inclusion of faulty data (if she even recognized it), no paper or graph from the BEST project shows evidence of including those data points in their analyses. Therefore inclusion of those two data points is unwarranted. As a final note, the people who prepared the graph which Curry so obligingly accepted for analysis must have known what they were doing. BEST publishes the uncertainty level of all data in all its published data. As Tamino has shown, the last two data points stick out like a sore thumb in that regard, and so there can be no excuse from ignorance in their inclusion in any analysis: (BEST montly dat uncertainties for 1/2001-5/2010) I know you have included those two months because they where included in the graph Curry commented on. However, given the very limited nature of the data set for those two months, and the fact that BEST does not include those months in any analysis, they should not have been included.
70556. Bob Lacatena at 09:53 AM on 12 November 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       1129, Fred Staples,

       Yes, Spherica, a sceptical person would do that (ask what was wrong with the multilayer model).

       How could you so completely miss the point? The problem is not what is wrong with the model in general, but rather what is oversimplified in your mathematical representation of the model. [The answer, since you failed to find it, is that convection and evapotranspiration are still components of the system, and are not insignificant. They account for further heat transport from the surface up into the atmosphere, effectively cooling the surface below what an untempered greenhouse effect might achieve.]

       There, Spherica, you have a model which almost exactly fits what we see...

       Um, yes, the lapse rate successfully explains the drop in temperature with altitude, but it utterly fails to explain why the surface of the earth is warmer than 255K while the earth continues to emit into space at a perceived temperature of 255K.

       However, a true AGW believer, Spherica, would...

       This is just a transparent effort to be obnoxious and condescending, as well as an effort to try to diminish the science by implying that it is a religion. It is not, and any rational human being that understands the science knows it. You did succeed in being obnoxious, however. Sadly, rather than being annoyed, I am merely amused.

       Exactly the same results as before – another model which does not work.

       Which proves what? That you can create a lot of models that don't work?

       Why any AGW proponents fail to accept this model is baffling.

       It's not baffling at all. It is because the model you present is wrong. But you go on...

       Add CO2 to the atmosphere and the outward radiation will be resisted. The effective emission level will rise. The emission temperature to space will consequently fall, as will the outgoing energy. The Sun will then warm the whole system to restore the balance. The observable lapse rate will shift to the right.

       Yes! You understand GHG theory. Now you have it! So what's your problem?
70557. John Hartz at 09:48 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       Steve, Phillipe & Aussie: I highly recommend that you read “Capitalism vs. the Climate” by Naomi Klein. She offers fresh insights into what motivates climate deniers in one of the most well written articles on the topic that I have read.
70558. John Hartz at 09:37 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       Dana: You are the BEST author in the SkS stable. Thanks for all that you do.
70559. John Hartz at 09:07 AM on 12 November 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       @Fred Staples #1129: Echoing what Composer99 said in #1130, What the heck are you trying to proove?
70560. Rob Painting at 08:34 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Eric (skeptic) @ 8 - "Not sure if extreme rainfall and extreme heat have the same statistical characteristics, although IMO they should be similar since they often result from the same blocking weather patterns." Eric, the first sentence in the Penn State page you linked to, contradicts your claim: "Rainfall does not follow a Gaussian distribution, so you cannot discern its extreme values simply by looking at the ends of a bell curve"
70561. Riduna at 08:32 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Victull @ 32 makes a valid point. If large emitters are not prepared to reduce their emissions and have their reductions independently verified, action taken by Australia will not count for much – except in economic terms. Where the economy is concerned, Australia will almost certainly gain a significant trading advantage from replacing fossil fuels with renewables. Any country replacing costly fossil fuel dependence with cheaper alternatives will gain an advantage. While USA emissions are reported to be falling, China’s are rising at an alarming rate and show absolutely no sign of peaking let alone declining. India is destined to increase its emissions and, despite declarations of good intent, so are those of Russia, Japan and Korea. Major emitters refusing to make verified emission reductions, must be persuaded to do so by adopting renewable technologies able to produce base load energy, even though it costs more than using coal. Australian legislation gives it the edge in developing and demonstrating this technology. It already leads the way in heat mining and could now become a leader in more efficient production and storage of electricity generated from solar energy.
70562. Rob Painting at 08:19 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       macwithoutfries @ 9 - "You might want to slightly edit the line" Mac, this is from the supplementary material of Barriopedro (2011): "On the other hand, proxy data suggests that the summer of 2010 in central Russia was likely the warmest since the early 1360s, maybe even further back to the 10th and 11th centuries, when similar magnitudes may have been experienced" Hence my use of the word "may". Barriopedro (2011) found that the 2003 & 2010 heatwaves broke 500-year long temperature records over 50% of Europe.
70563. Composer99 at 08:10 AM on 12 November 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Fred, this comment of yours: Add CO2 to the atmosphere and the outward radiation will be resisted. The effective emission level will rise. The emission temperature to space will consequently fall, as will the outgoing energy. The Sun will then warm the whole system to restore the balance. The observable lapse rate will shift to the right. seems to amount to an admission that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global warming. Was this your intention?
70564. Utahn at 07:19 AM on 12 November 2011
       Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
       Not sure if this is directly on topic here, but Barry Bickmore has a great video of a lecture here in Utah, talking about his previous beliefs and how we fool ourselves. http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/how-to-avoid-the-truth-about-climate-change/#comment-5348 Maybe SkSci needs to have a button for "conservatives who were swayed by the science" stories with vids and links?
70565. AussieinUSA at 07:02 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       So very true Steve @1, as I have found these people will call an apple an orange, and no matter how many times you say it is and prove that it is an apple, they don't care, as to them it is and always will be an orange. And once again another well written and presented article.
70566. Fred Staples at 07:00 AM on 12 November 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Yes, Spherica, a sceptical person would do that (ask what was wrong with the multilayer model). He would conclude that he was looking at the problem the wrong way round – bottom up instead of top down. The atmospheric greenhouse effect starts near the top of the atmosphere, where outgoing radiation to space must equal incoming radiation and the temperature of the effective emission level must be 255 degreesK. If the atmosphere is capable of absorbing and emitting energy, that level will be high up, at about 5 or 6 kilometers. The lapse rate, the cooling of the atmosphere with height, something you can observe on your car thermometer, is about 6K per kilometer and it has nothing (or almost nothing, Tom) to do with radiation. There, Spherica, you have a model which almost exactly fits what we see, and you will find it derived from first principles on page 113 of FWTaylor’s Elementary Climate Physics. However, a true AGW believer, Spherica, would resist the obvious and seek an alternative bottom-up multi-layer model One model which avoids second-law “back-radiation” problems is a shell model which calculates energy flow as the difference between the fourth power of the temperatures from the surface to the first shell, from the first shell to the second, from the second to the third and so on to space. First consider a single shell model. Simple Algebra, (difficult to type) shows that the fourth power of the surface temperature equals 2 x the fourth power of the shell temperature, or 303K. Now add another shell. Repeat the Algebra, and the surface temperature will rise to 335 degreesK, and so on. Exactly the same results as before – another model which does not work. I could appeal to Occam’s razor, but I won’t. The only plausible explanation of global warming is “higher is colder”, which fits all the observations, and which depends only on the lapse rate. Why any AGW proponents fail to accept this model is baffling. Add CO2 to the atmosphere and the outward radiation will be resisted. The effective emission level will rise. The emission temperature to space will consequently fall, as will the outgoing energy. The Sun will then warm the whole system to restore the balance. The observable lapse rate will shift to the right. A few years ago all the major pundits, RC for example, supported these ideas. There is only one snag. For this model to be true the troposphere temperatures must rise earlier and faster than the surface temperatures as CO2 concentrations increase. In a multi-layer model it would be the other way round. Over at the “After McClean” thread I have quoted some of the evidence.
70567. Albatross at 06:45 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       SteveL @1, Just to echo Philippe's comments-- your post @1 is an excellent summary of what reputable scientists and policy makers are up against. Thanks.
70568. Philippe Chantreau at 06:37 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       Steve, this one nails it on the head: "it's unclear that policies will be made better by involving people who are willing to deny reality." The crux of the problem lies with these people who will stubbornly continue to deny reality until their last breath and are willing to wage an all out war against policies challenging their illusions. Eventually, when the damage is obvious beyond any kind of denial, they will deny any responsibility and shift the blame to others.
70569. Steve L at 05:59 AM on 12 November 2011
       The BEST Summary
       I think the BEST results have been important in showing that the problem with the acceptance of climate science, and more specifically anthropogenic global warming, is not a problem of data. It's not a problem of analytical method. It's not a problem of openness or peer review. It's a problem of our inability to leave the contrarians behind. Societies need the engagement of politically motivated individuals in sculpting policies, but it's unclear that policies will be made better by involving people who are willing to deny reality. We have to learn to move on without them, because one thing BEST has taught us is that fake skeptics will refuse to see the truth no matter how plainly it stands in front of them. PS You didn't mention the folks who, after BEST came out, newly claimed that Muller never was a skeptic. It adds another item to my list of what the problem is not -- it's not a problem of the messenger. Whoever tells the inconvenient truth will be demonized by these people. I'd like to see more experimentation done on this front, however!
70570. Bob Lacatena at 05:19 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       34, dana1981, I'd forgotten about that! I actually wrote a long series of posts last year specifically applying game theory to climate change policy decisions, culminating in the application of the Tragedy of the Commons: The Game of Climate Change -- Part 1 The Game of Climate Change -- Part 2 The Game of Climate Change -- Part 3
70571. dana1981 at 04:57 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Sphaerica - a Tragedy of the Commons, as well.
70572. macwithoutfries at 04:13 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       You might want to slightly edit the line "... may have been the warmest in almost 1000 years" - the link goes to a very good paper, but that one only makes that claim since 1500, and that will just provide an attack point for the deniers :(
70573. Bob Lacatena at 04:11 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       32, victull, Yes, but if China uses Australia's excuse (the USA isn't cutting emissions) and the USA uses the same excuse (China and Australia aren't cutting emissions) and if Europe abandons its investment (we can't compete because China, Australia, and the USA aren't cutting emissions) then the world goes to hell and we all lose. Australia needs to do this, and to step forward and put pressure on other nations to follow suit, who in turn must also put pressure on other nations to follow suit. The USA should be considered a laughing stock and the black sheep of the world on emissions and climate change. Getting there means that the rest of the world needs to lead where the USA is failing to do so. The argument that Australia should stay in the herd and remain one of the sheep because other flocks are bigger and eating the same grass just doesn't cut it. This is a very, very dangerous game of chicken to be playing, waiting to see who will cut emissions first.
70574. invicta at 03:48 AM on 12 November 2011
       Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
       PaulD@11 How important is getting the message across to the disinterested public. I suggest that even your clear and not technically difficult comment would leave a lot of them yawning. How scientist talk to the public must be a factor in the equation. If eg Dr Phil Jones had said something like "No, I would say that the warming trend of 0.12deg C since 1995 does not quite achieve statistical significance....." a great many lurid headlines might have been avoided. But probably going OT
70575. Kevin C at 03:25 AM on 12 November 2011
       The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
       Sigh. I withdraw all of the previous comment. I was fooling myself by adjusting the baselines. Sorry. I now think that BEST have got the CRUTEM3 data correct. I can reproduce the BEST, NOAA and CRUTEM3 lines from their plot, although to do so I have to tweak the baseline for the CRUTEM3 value. (I suspect the difference between the weighted combination of hemispheres and the global cell average is the issue here). I'm still having trouble reproducing their GISS line though, even with the data Robert pointed us to.
70576. skept.fr at 03:18 AM on 12 November 2011
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       Hello, Concerning the divergence problem, I suggest you should be more cautious in the formulation you choose. Two examples from d’Arrigo 2008, whose review is your main source : D’Arrigo 2008 : « Although limited evidence suggests that the divergence may be anthropogenic in nature and restricted to the recent decades of the 20th century, more research is needed to confirm these observations » Your choice : « The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating its cause may be anthropogenic. The cause is likely to be a combination of local and global factors such as warming-induced drought and global dimming. » You are quite more affirmative than your source. D’Arrigo 2008 : « However, the relative scarcity of ring width and density records from the lower mid latitudes, tropics and Southern Hemisphere precludes making definitive conclusions about the spatial extent of this phenomenon, and more research is needed to more fully evaluate the extent of the divergence problem worldwide » So clearly, it’s impossible to say for the moment that DP is limited to circumpolar forest (your « mostly high tlatitude »). For example a well-known scientist of the field observes that mid-latitude tree-rings are also of concern, and that the phenomenon is quite widespread except for low-latitude : « Evidence for reduced sensitivity of tree growth to temperature has been reported from multiple forest sites along the mid to high northern latitudes and from some locations at higher elevation. This alleged large-scale phenomenon reflects the inability of temperature sensitive tree-ring width and density chronologies to track increasing temperature trends in instrumental measurements since around the mid-20th century. » http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~rjsw/papers/Buentgenetal2009.pdf Hereafter, another example at mid latitude with a very recent analysis showing a divergence in Alpin Larch (since 1990) and rising some problems for temperature-calibration in order to reconstruct past climate variations. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X11004109 IPCC AR4 also mentions : "Others, however, argue for a breakdown in the assumed linear tree growth response to continued warming, invoking a possible threshold exceedance beyond which moisture stress now limits further growth (D’Arrigo et al., 2004). If true, this would imply a similar limit on the potential to reconstruct possible warm periods in earlier times at such sites. At this time there is no consensus on these issues (for further references see NRC, 2006) and the possibility of investigating them further is restricted by the lack of recent tree ring data at most of the sites from which tree ring data discussed in this chapter were acquired." http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html#6-6-1 It means that if some trees are affected by such a non-linear treshold related to temperature/humidity pressure (no specifically anthropogenic-induced factors), the DP is not necessarily limited to modern era and that tree-growth may have been affected in some locally warmer period in the past. So I suggest you're a bit overconfident and selective in some preliminary conclusions of this very active field of research. Best
70577. victull at 01:23 AM on 12 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       About 83% of Australia's baseload electricity is generated from coal. The rest is Hydro (about 6%), Gas and other fossil fuels and renewables. China will have about 25 times Australia's coal fired capacity by 2020, so if Australia's Carbon Tax reduces its carbon emissions by 5 or 10%, we are talking about saving about 36 hours of China's coal fired emissions per year. The effect on the planet will be slight if not unmeasurable. Australia is a major coal exporter to China, and the Gillard Govt approves such exports. For the Australian Carbon Tax to have any global effect - the major global emitters need be on board. Perhaps contributors to this debate could assess the liklihood of the USA, Europe, China, India enacting similar carbon taxes which will have the effect of reducing global carbon emissions.
70578. Eric (skeptic) at 01:23 AM on 12 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Not sure if extreme rainfall and extreme heat have the same statistical characteristics, although IMO they should be similar since they often result from the same blocking weather patterns. This link http://climate.met.psu.edu/www_prod/features/rainextreme.php has a discussion of calculating the extreme value of "N-year events" from past rainfall events. That short discussion does not examine trends or attribution. But it does contrast somewhat with the Gaussian assumption in Figure 1. Also Figure 1 is too short a period of record to obtain a meaningful probability distribution IMO.
70579. Paul D at 00:35 AM on 12 November 2011
       Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
       Invicta@1 Assigning probabilities to single events should be possible now. A probability doesn't assign a direct cause to an event, it just states the likelihood of an event being caused by one of two possibilities. So even if it had a high probability of being caused by AGW, it doesn't actually mean that event was caused by AGW. Really what you are asking scientists to do isn't much different to what is already being done.
70580. chriskoz at 00:27 AM on 12 November 2011
       CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
       I took time to read the concluding remarks from Everett's testimony. I don't agree with his arguments about "plasticidity and resilience of affected organisms". The facts are: background extinction rate is just 1 per my. Our current human-induced extinction rate already is 10-100 times higher and as soon as by 2050, we can wipe off some 20-30% of all species as we discussed here. That matches the major extinction events. Does it make sense to boast about "resilience of organisms" up to that point and say that it's still "all right"? We are clearly causing such massive devastation of species diversity and it is good because such thing "happened in the past" (only four times many milions ya)? Even the moral part of that story aside, how can anyone draw a conclusion that "nothing bad happens" if it is repeated now? Another remark from Everett is even more disturbing, because it's simply insane, quote: Despite severe and abrupt ocean climate changes in terms of currents, temperatures, salinity, pH, and other parameters, the biology changes rapidly to the new state in months or a couple years. These changes far exceed the changes expected with human-induced climate change and occur much faster. The estimated 0.1 change in alkalinity since 1750 and the one degree F. temperature rise since 1860 are but noise in this rapidly changing system First of all, Everett confuses climate with weather here when talking about "abrupt changes" in months or couple of years. I assume climate scientist should know the distinction. But the last statement that global warming of 1F from 1860 is "noise in this rapidly changing system" irritates my sense of sanity. If you have high school level knowledge about signal theory, just look at those temp graphs, either BEST or GISS or HAD, you clearly see that this 1F or 0.6C is the trend. Noise is that Everett's "rapidly changing system". And the whole argument does not make sense. Being not an expert in this field, I don't understand why such incoherent rambling can be pronounced by a fellow who works in NOAA and IPCC. And why this rambling can be accepted by Congress as a "testimony". Can someone explain if Everett wanted to say here something sensible or should I be left with an impression that he does not understand what he's talking about?
70581. Kevin C at 23:04 PM on 11 November 2011
       The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
       John: Sorry to spoil the narrative, but the stuff about CRUTEM3 is wrong. Not your fault - the BEST team messed up the comparison again. The problem is that - just with GISS dTs - CRUTEM3 is not a land-area average and therefore not comparable to the others. The problem is discussed in AR4 here. Once they fix this, I expect the final figure to look more like this: . (I generated corrected CRUTEM3 data by re-averaging the gridded data, but a weighted average of the hemispheric sets should give a very similar result. The graph also depends on the choice of baseline, of course.) Extrapolation over the arctic is not a factor for CRUTEM3, since it is a land-only product. The residual differences between CRU and the others seem to come down to the following factors: 1. Different (smaller) set of station data (~4k stations). 2. Constant angle grid, leading to undersampling of high latitudes. 3. No extrapolation into empty cells. I'm looking at these, and my tentative conclusions are as follows: For CRUTEM3, (1) causes the lack of warming over the last decade. (2) leads to a suppression of the total temperature of the last decade, but doesn't change the picture within the last decade. (3) has a smaller effect than the other two (weak evidence only). Of course all the differences in the land indices could easily be swamped by the fact the global indices (which are what we are really interested in) use different SST data. I haven't even started looking at that.
70582. Bernard J. at 22:29 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Focusboy at #24:

       ...fossil fuel provides 100% of Australias [sic] base load and peak load power...

       Huh?! Have you not heard of the Snowy Project? Have you not heard of Tasmania - you know, one of the states of the Commonwealth of Australia? Do you really need to have the truth spelled out for you? Really? Seriously?
70583. JMurphy at 21:07 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Focusboy : "Govt doesn't have a great track record of investing in anything!!! Insulation....schools.... etc. Why not give tax breaks or investment incentives to private companies to come up with the technology?" How about nuclear power ? Who did all the investing in that ?
70584. alan_marshall at 20:45 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       More than one solution There is indeed more than one way to price GHG emissions, and the Fee and Dividend approach advocated by James Hansen and The Climate Lobby has, in my opinion, a lot to recommend it. As noted by Tom51@ 15, it was successfully implemented by British Columbia in 2008. Its present price of $25 per ton of CO₂, and annual increment of $5 per ton, happens to be nearly identical to a proposal I independently put to both the Austalian Labor and Liberal parties last year as part of my personal campaign to get a price on carbon. Nevertheless, I fully support the scheme introduced by the Gillard government. It is effectively a hybrid scheme, acting as an incrementing carbon tax until 2015, when it transforms into a cap and trade scheme through floating the price of permits. There are two features of Cap and Trade schemes that are not presently part of the Fee and Dividend approach, but could be incorporated if so desired. The first is the price on GHGs other than CO₂. For example, the Australian scheme charges dirty coal mines for their fugitive methane emissions at $23 per tonne of CO₂eq. As a result, the biggest such miner, Gujarat, has already made plans to reduce its emissions by a whopping 83% by simple measures to control ventilation and drain gases for flaring. That’s how a carbon price works! The second feature is carbon credits, the ability for businesses to purchase offsets to reduce their liability. James Hansen thinks these are dodgy, and indeed some are, but properly audited offsets need to be part of the mechanism so that we can begin to sequester, through both biological and industrial means, the excess CO₂ already in the atmosphere. We are now at 393 ppm, and the consensus is that we need to get back below 350 ppm. I think we need to avoid a fight between supporters of Cap and Trade, Fee and Dividend, Cap and Dividend (which caps production) and any of the other proposed mechanisms. Our struggle is rather with those who deny the science of climate change and would do nothing to reduce emissions. The above schemes, properly implemented, can all radically curb emissions, so I dissent with Karamanski @ 13 on that point. Both Cap and Trade and Fee and Dividend are capable of implementation on a provincial, national or global level. There is also no reason in principle why a Cap and Trade system cannot return a 100% dividend to citizens. My present position is that we need a principled formula, such as some version of Contraction and Convergence, for setting emission reduction targets for each nation. Then each country can decide for itself what mechanism to use to achieve its target.
70585. Philippe Chantreau at 18:38 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Idealism won't get us anywhere and but denial is sure to get everybody backwards to dark places. If the carbon tax achieves the goal of making energy more expensive in Australia then perhaps it will help people understand that energy is a precious thing and it is not to be wasted or used carelessly. This entire world is living a Las Vegas type of life based on artificially cheap energy and countless other "externalized costs." Heck when you see how Wall Street, big banks and the whole she-bang work, you could say it's living off of money that doesn't even exist. But the ship, the physical support of all this madness, has a bow and a stern, it is finite. The boundaries are slowly catching up with us and our outrageously careless lifestyle. Australian are blessed to have a chance to learn about the boundaries while there is still room and the country is rich enbough to manage a low-pain transition. Consider yourself lucky indeed.
70586. Rob Painting at 18:11 PM on 11 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman @ 4 - "One may be able to claim that global warming will have a greater probability of causing a higher avearge temperature during a heat wave, evidence does not show or prove the conclusion that frequencies of heat waves will increase." Norman re-read the post again. If the temperature series follows a gaussian distribution (as illustrated in figure 1) then it will indeed have more record-breaking warm events with warming. That's one of the key points affirmed by this study. If you look at the analogy in the basic version of this post, it's like the incoming tide rising higher and higher. Of course record-breaking warm events will increase. It's a no-brainer. The essential difference between the probability of record-breaking in the GISS and Moscow July temps is due to the larger standard deviation (i.e natural variation) at Moscow. This lowers the probability of record-breaking.
70587. Rob Painting at 17:36 PM on 11 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Nobody at All @ 2 - to describe Pielke Jnr's comments as a critique is being very, very charitable. None of his comments indicate he even understands the paper. Check out the Real Climate article hyper-linked in the post above. As for the NOAA follow up, I wonder why they change their definition of Western Russia between the original paper and their response? It's evident there is strong warming in and around Moscow (north west quadrant) in their graphic. Which is a better indicator of record-breaking temperatures in Moscow in July? Moscow itself, or the Western Russian region? We'll have to see how it plays out, but I note that Rahmstorf & Coumou have applied their analysis to a stackload of other datasets. The paper is still in pre-publication.
70588. Stevo at 16:51 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Focusboy @ 25. All of us who post here at SkS know to be very careful when posting on politically related topics. The Clean Energy Authority is to be an independant body, not a government department. I'll not make any comment about either the Labor party, the Greens, nor the independants. This site is not the forum for such discussions. This site is concerned with climate science. Right now it appears that the Australian Federal Parliament has heeded the word from climate scientists. Any comments we make regarding the efficacy of political policies should be viewed through the lens of peer reviewed science. There are several topic threads at this site where discussions of how to meet base load power generation can be found. Such matters are best discussed on the appropriate threads.
70589. Albatross at 16:27 PM on 11 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman @4, The area studied in your post is rather arbitrary. Please look at the latest paper that Hansen et al are working on. Available here. They conclude: "The "climate dice" describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more "loaded" during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate outliers. These extremes were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering much less than 1% of Earth's surface. Now summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology, typically cover about 10% of the land area. Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. If global warming is not slowed from its current pace, by mid- century 3σ events will be the new norm and 5σ events will be common." Please note the highlighted text. Also, not the following key figure from Hansen et al. (2011) for a truly global perspective: Jun-Jul-Aug surface temperature anomalies over land in 1955, 1965, 1975 and 2003-2011 relative to 1951-1980 mean temperature in units of the local standard deviation of temperature. [H/T Daniel Bailey]
70590. Stevo at 16:23 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Agnostic @23, As a former member of an Australian political party who drafted some policies relating to environmental matters, I'm just pleased to see that the legislation has put it's foot through the door. The first year of operation will allow the public to see that carbon pricing will not cause the sky to fall - and thus leave those who would repeal the tax with so much less wind in their sails. Subsequent years will most likely see changes and adjustments made to the existing legislation. The biggest hurdle has been crossed, now it just a matter of keeping the bill in law and ammending and improving it to suit needs.
70591. Focusboy at 16:22 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Oh Marcus! "Some of the money raised in the first 3 years will be going to an Independent Authority that will invest the money in Clean Energy Projects. Luckily, thanks to the efforts of The Greens & Independents-in both Houses-neither Coal Seam Gas nor Carbon Capture & Storage will be included for funding by said Authority." Govt doesn't have a great track record of investing in anything!!! Insulation....schools.... etc. Why not give tax breaks or investment incentives to private companies to come up with the technology? And what do you mean 'luckily'? What you are saying is "luckily" the govt decided not to invest in the only two currently viable technologies that could replace some of our peak power load. How is that lucky? I admire your idealistic view of the world - but idealism won't get us anywhere....
70592. Focusboy at 16:18 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Lots of backslapping and feel good comments here, but I don't read anything anywhere that tells me what the carbon tax will achieve? A price on carbon, yes - but if Australia has no alternative fuel sources (fossil fuel provides 100% of Australias base load and peak load power - which is 93% of Australias total power usage) then a price on carbon will just make everything generated using fossil fuels (which is everything!) more expensive. To argue that Australias consumption will reduce means that someone has discovered a viable base load power alternative which didn't exist yesterday (or that Australia has agreed to go Nuclear) - You can't dial up or down coal fired power stations. So - for those of us concerned about real climate action - the carbon tax achieves nothing.
70593. Albatross at 16:15 PM on 11 November 2011
       Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
       Skywatcher @9, Too true. Who will be this austral summer's drought/heat wave victim, or next boreal summer's drought/heat wave victim? Southern Africa is currently enduring a heat wave, with temperatures between 35 C and 45 C. Also see here. Is it now their turn for a 2 or 3 sigma event?
70594. Norman at 16:07 PM on 11 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Rob Painting "That continued warming of the Earth will cause more frequent and intense heatwaves is hardly surprising, and has long been an anticipated outcome of global warming." From the two graphs below it would appear that the intensity of heat during a hotter phase does seem to be greater in the more recent years, but it does not show an increase in the frequency of hot cycles. One may be able to claim that global warming will have a greater probability of causing a higher avearge temperature during a heat wave, evidence does not show or prove the conclusion that frequencies of heat waves will increase. source. source.
70595. Riduna at 15:16 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       The Prime Minister and Members of Parliament sitting on the cross benches do indeed deserve congratulations for passage of legislation putting a price on carbon. The real value of this legislation is that it gives certainty to investment in energy generation from the least polluting sources and provides substantial public funding to promote the development and application of technology to curb carbon emissions. However, in other respects, is it worth boasting about? There are no performance targets associated with the legislation and the purely nominal target of reducing carbon emissions by 5% below 2000 level is just that – nominal and giving a poor example to major emitting countries. Worse, government is very unclear about the actual level of reduction it aims to achieve and, when clarity is sought on this point, it refuses to provide any response. One might, at the very least, have hoped for orderly reduction in dependence on and use of fossil fuels. Instead we get repeated, categorical assurances from the Minister for Climate Change that coal has a long and lucrative future and investment in it is encouraged. The legislation provides a good structure for reduction of carbon emissions and the orderly, rapid abandonment of fossil fuels and development of the innovative technology required to achieve this. Indications are that there is far too little political will to actually achieve these outcomes. Actions speak louder than words – particularly ambivalent ones.
70596. alan_marshall at 15:16 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Tom51 @ 15 When Tony Abbott seized the Liberal Party leadership from Malcolm Turnbull in December 2009, he won by just 42 votes to 41. As the impacts of climate change become ever clearer, Abbott’s support is unlikely to increase. And when we consider that not just Turnbull, but 3 other former leaders of the Liberal Party have supported pricing carbon, Abbott is beginning to look a bit lonely. With David Cameron, John Key, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gordon Campbell, we have conservative leaders from 4 similar English speaking economies taking firm action to reduce CO₂ emissions. These men ought to serve as good role models for whoever leads the Liberal Party in Australia.
70597. alan_marshall at 14:52 PM on 11 November 2011
       Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
       Arkadiusz Semczyszak @ 11 The revenue raised by pricing carbon will be used for legitimate purposes. All taxpayers with incomes below $80,000 will get tax cuts - most about $300 a year. Combined with adjustments to welfare payments, this means that 55% of revenue will be returned to households, with 2 in 3 receiving compensation at least equal to the impact on their cost of living. The balance of the revenue will be used for industry assistance and a renewable energy investment fund. Tony Abbot describes this as a “money churn”, but he missed the point. The price differential between products and services that are emissions intensive, and those that are not, will still provide the same incentive to alter spending behaviour, regardless of how much compensation is paid.
70598. skywatcher at 14:34 PM on 11 November 2011
       Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
       That figure (Hansen's Fig 6) is a very elegant way of expressing how extreme events (the 2-3 sigma reds and browns) are on the rise due to AGW, but not uniformly everywhere every year. The next time somebody suggests Texas wasn't extreme, or that Australia / Europe / Russia / Amazon has had such events before therefore there's no problem, they should be referred to that graphic. Roll the dice each year, fancy being under a red or brown in your local summer? It's getting more and more likely...
70599. chriskoz at 14:14 PM on 11 November 2011
       CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
       Good article, chukbot. Thanks for debunking one more piece of misconception. I found minor detail worth the correction. In Pedantic Semantics section you say: If the pH of a solution changes from 9 to 8, the solution has acidified, even though it is still basic. IMO, it's more correct to say: If the pH of a solution changes from 9 to 8, the solution has acidified, even though it is still alkaline. I'm not a chemist but I think from primary school that 8 is definitely alkaline, since it's 1 degree above (10 times more alkaline ions) the basic.
70600. Chris G at 13:59 PM on 11 November 2011
       Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
       DB, I think one would have to have a moderate understanding of statistics to understand just how chillingly dead-on that paper is to what I really did not want to hear. I don't know how to convey what an increase from 0.1-0.2% to 6-13% coverage of 3 sigma (or greater) anomalies means to a person who doesn't know what a Gaussian distribution is. Dr Hansen's saying that "...there is no need to equivocate..." is perhaps an understatement. I was hoping that recent events would remain anomalous for some decades; the data would indicate that is unlikely. It's all there in figure 6, Europe 2003, Australia 2009, the Amazon, Russia and the Middle East 2010, and Texas 2011. The area with 3 sigma warming sometimes pops in different places in different years, it waxes and wanes, but it is growing inexorably. Thanks, I think.
       Response:

       [DB] The graphic that Chris refers to is this one:

       

       Figure 6. Jun-Jul-Aug surface temperature anomalies over land in 1955, 1965, 1975 and 2003-2011 relative to 1951-1980 mean temperature in units of the local standard deviation of temperature.

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