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Comments 70601 to 70650:

70601. Daniel Bailey at 11:55 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       @ funglestrumpet Nice one (see this version here). Dylan was a master ahead of his time. The theme song for this generation now raised up could be this song, as the times they indeed are a-changin'. The task we now set to those who come after us may well be difficult, but it is not for us to decide that it is impossible.
70602. Bob Lacatena at 11:30 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       10, grayman, Let me adjust my tone some, because you did say that Dana had helped you out. I'd like to do the same. But you need to give me something specific that is causing you problems. A general feeling on your part that climate science is just too immature to tackle our current situation is just too vague. There's no way to correct that misconception except to get you to learn every single thing there is to know about climate science, so that you then understand how much we do know, rather than how much you think we don't know.
70603. Daniel Bailey at 11:19 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       @ Sphaerica Hey, I just try to table-set/recenter the focus appropriately. You guys are the big hitters doing the heavy lifting. :) Anyway, if you review grayman's previous comments you will note someone trying to extrciate themselves from the fog of "skeptic disinformation" as best they can. It is therefore incumbent upon us to provide a beacon of truth to pierce that fog. Something that you and the other regulars here do very well, I might add.
70604. funglestrumpet at 11:17 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Of the many tipping points to be found as the Climate inexorably Changes surely the most important one is that where the youth of today decide that enough is enough and rise up to demand action. It may be that some reading this article might actually believe that we as a species will manage to reduce our GHG emissions to such an extent that the warming will be limited to the stated goal of 2oC. I don’t think that there is a hope in hell of that happening without more than the resolution of the science, excellent as this site is at doing just that. Let’s face it, the most important aspects of the science have been resolved for some considerable time, yet are perversely denied. I have been following Climate Change since it first gained public prominence more years ago than I care to remember and all I seem to have seen is articles such as this one, each more pessimistic than its predecessors, at least articles by people with a brain between their ears that is. Such is the mindset of the powers that be and, of course, the money they can make from business as usual that the chances of them changing their ways are almost as remote as the chances of finding the droppings from a rocking horse. Bull droppings, however, are to be found a plenty. In my youth we fought to rid the world of nuclear weapons. We lost, and live on a knife edge still. Like Climate Change, great swathes of the population are fat, dumb and happy thinking that all is well. The campaign to fight Climate Change needs its own CND (with as memorable a logo) and its own Bob Dylan. We had very public campaigns in the form of marches and demonstrations. The equivalent for combating Climate Change is very subdued in comparison. Can it really be because nuclear war is acute and Climate Change chronic? Heaven forfend that my generation’s failure to rid the world of nuclear weapons should ever lead to the solving of overpopulation and Climate Change in one fell and violent swoop. Unfortunately, the problems that Climate Change might heap upon the world could have exactly that outcome. The following words of Bob Dylan from Masters of War are as relevant today as they were relevant in a different era and a different topic: Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. Those words need ramming down the throats of the fossil fuel industry executives, some scientists and a couple of Lords I can think of. However, to achieve that, something stronger than the current limp-wristed direct action is essential.
70605. Bob Lacatena at 11:10 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       10, grayman, Daniel summed it up, piece by piece, but as a whole, your paragraph contains a large number of unsupported and vague assertions. There's no meat to it, so it's impossible to argue against. You discuss other greenhouse gases and I have no idea what you're talking about. You talk about something being decided -- excuse me, "decided" -- to try to portray the current state of science as something arbitrary and ill-conceived, and yet again you provide no support for this position (nor is it in any way defensible). Then you lapse into the implication that an understanding of climate science is a religion ("true" believer). All in all, your comment says nothing except that you are angry at being taken to task and asked to clarify an otherwise vague and meaningless statement about how much or how little scientists currently understand. Your position is one of ignorance pronouncing ignorance on others.
70606. adelady at 10:43 AM on 8 November 2011
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       And just in time for this discussion, Climate Crocks has this item on storage because renewables produce too much power sometimes.
70607. Michael Hauber at 10:34 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       I think it is often wise to look for step functions in a process measurement environment (such as I've been trained in). In many corporate processes performance tends to be relatively flat with random noise until someone makes a change to the system (i.e. introduces a new machine, or changes the standard procedure) which produces a step function. So much confusion in climate science (and indeed other spheres) is causes by people learning rules that work very well in one context, and trying to apply them to a different context. I do come from a context were step functions are a very useful tool, and I can't help but be attracted to the idea that there is a step function in climate. One intriguing possible explanation is to consider a recharge oscillator type mechanism. Perhaps over a period of 10 or so years the climate works in such a way that it is typically losing heat at a slow rate until a threshold is reached and the climate 'jumps' into a new state of higher heat for some reason. This would produce a sawtooth type effect with short steep up-slopes and slow gentle downslopes that cancel out to create no trend. Then if you add a Co2 warming trend on top of this, then the gentle downslopes become close enough to flat that you can't spot the difference and you get a series of up-wards steps.
70608. oneiota at 09:42 AM on 8 November 2011
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       Thank you KR for this post. The above link to Archer and Jacobson isn't working for me, but the paper can be found here: Archer and Jacobson 2007
70609. adelady at 09:40 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       "My issue is with dependability based on current technology. It is not there yet" and not so long ago we couldn't access email on our phones. Dependability requires two things. Better management of your own demand. Having just recently installed solar here I can assure you that it focuses the mind tremendously. (Especially in this between times season, neither heating nor cooling required, we ensure we generate more than we use. A bit of pocket money will come in very handy.) The other thing is storage and transmission. To get back to the phone example, there are industrial products, flow batteries are my favourite du jour, that just need scaling down to domestic consumer size. Just as phone function has improved to allow email and similar applications at the personal consumer product level. I'll be there when they're available - so our daily solar 'excess' would first be retained to run our home at night on our own stored power. I expect fancy transmission software would be required to draw domestically stored power at times of high demand rather than just having to accept it when we now generate it (or release storage in my future scenario). And then there are newer, not-quite-commercial things in the offing. I'm hanging on to our current car until I see something better matching my own notions of technical improvement in that area. The more demand, the sooner we'll get there.
70610. KR at 09:17 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sasquatch - I've replied to your comment on Can renewables provide baseload power
70611. KR at 09:16 AM on 8 November 2011
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       Sasquatch - As I stated on the earlier thread, renewables can be reliable sources of baseload power. The big misperception that I see is that most people look at renewable power units (single sites), rather than systems. Archer & Jacobson 2007, as I pointed you to earlier, examined wind systems with 19-20 sites, and found that 33-47% of the average output was reliable as baseload power by current availability standards. Extending that, an overbuild of 2.5-3x capacity would be required to provide baseload, with the remainder perhaps available for biofuels, direct CO2->liquid fuel production (net carbon impact of zero), desalination, or other more intermittent uses. Solar, in particular solar thermal, offers the possibility of multiple day backups at individual units with molten salt or other heat storage mechanisms - increasing unit up-time, and adding those benefits to the system support shown in the wind study. The reason a system becomes an order of magnitude more dependable than individual units is because a reasonably sized system extends over more than a single weather pattern - meaning the entire network can't be downed by a single cloudy low pressure system or locally dead air. I would be interested in your reactions to the Archer & Jacobson paper - if you have a chance to read it, please comment on this (on-topic) thread. Solar PV power, incidentally, is on a Moore's Law cost curve, and should soon be cheaper than coal on a per kW basis - even without externalized costs of coal burning accounted for. The same goes for wind power as production ramps up. And renewables are currently the fastest growing sector of power production: solar alone is estimated to provide 50% of the worlds electricity within 50 years - we could likely do it faster if we tried.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] Link fixed per request.
70612. Glenn Tamblyn at 09:03 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Not sure if this is OT or not. In reply to several of the comments above about the viability of renewables. It is critical to distinguish between whether renewables are viable as a mainstream baseload power generating system toay, at current levels of penetration into the market and whether a virtually 100% renewables based system is viable are two very different questions. Its a bit of a chicken and egg question. Basically a 100% renewables solution is technically viable today. However, during the transition from a few% to 100% there is a big hole. Renewables become highly technical viable when you have diverse generation systems, including a good proportion of Solar Thermal with storage, widely geographically separated generation with a a smart load balancing grid that uses High Voltage DC for efficient long distance transmission. Add some hydro, geothermal etc which can be base load, some grid connected energy storage - battery farms basically such as Vanadium Flow Batteries etc. Then look at what constitutes true base-load as distinct from policy generated base-load. Electricity tariff schemes that seek to transfer as much load as possible to low demand periods - night-time - through lower rates are based on the need to keep as much demand as possible for the big coal plants that can't easily be ramped up and down. With a renewables system we need different tariff policies that focus demand in daytime when the sun is shining. Put those components together and a renewables system is totally viable. However we have a 'how do we get there from here?' problem. And the transition has a cost thatneeds to be born - it is simply what the cost is of making an absolutely necessary transition. We need to redesign our energy systems, not just our energy generation system. Ideally the key legacy role of FF is to provide the generation backup needed as we transition to the new system. However with current economic policy, I don't believe designing/building the new system is actually the central policy focus. Rather we are trying to use the manipulation of markets through Carbon Pricing to get the markets to bring about the changes we actually need as an indirect by-product of their pursuit of profits. Personally I don't think that relying on indirect methods of achieving the change needed is really treating the problem with the urgency it requires. As to Nuclear, I look on it as the lesser of two evils. To be avoided if we could, but use it if we must. My larger problem with Nuclear is that unless we use older reactor designs then nuclear is coming from much the same low base as Renewables. And I think many folks underestimate the huge engineering demands on an entire country needed to support a nuclear power program. Nuclear is so hard to progress at a meaningful scale and rate that it isn't actually a very good answer anyway. Far better to proceed with renewables at a massively higher pace than now, and also address the transitional technical challenges at the same time. And I don't think this whole of system redesign can be done effectively by market mechanisms. Markets can achieve some progress but they are to slow and haphazard. We certainly can't afford the equivalent of the VHS vs Beta wars over renewables. It will waste too much time.
70613. skywatcher at 08:52 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       I'd be interested which "projections from the models" have the globe staying as cool as the Holocene Optimum. I'm not sure that even the ones where emissions are magically set to zero from now have us staying that cool... Switching to renewables is a very positive move for society - the technology development, infrastructure development, manufacturing and maintenance has real potential to provide a large economic boost. Hands up which economies would like one of those?
70614. Sasquatch at 08:49 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sphaerica @ 88: It is not peak availability that I was referring to. But, since you brought it up, it really is an issue. My issue is with dependability based on current technology. It is not there yet. One day I hope it is. In the meantime (KR@87) we can use our existing infrastructure and burn cleaner sources of fuels (natural gas) until the technology catches up and we can have dependable power. Sphaerica, I know the drawbacks can be overcome, and I believe they will be within our lifetimes. But, until then they are inferior products that can at best augment our current methods of producing power.
70615. grayman at 08:33 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Sphaerica @6. Thank you for the correction, I did mean "much", but yes i did mean "unknown" Call me what you wish, Does CO2 effect temps, yes, but not as much as has been "decided" it does. Considering that there other GHGs that have a bigger effect. And no i do not think there is some mysterious, magical forces that are the problem, on the contrary, it is a mixture of so many things that are at work to pretend that we know that Y problem will be fixed by X solution. There are so many "what ifs" in play that i do find it hard to justify some of the "could be" fixes. I do not denie that the globe has warmed some and i do not reject science, though some of it is quite iffy at best no matter which side of the argument it comes from, i surely do not refuse all of the solutions, suggestions or wish to ignore what is happening! Dana has taught me a few things that i used to denie, reject or refused to beleive. Does this mean i am a "true" beleiver now, no, i still see things different than him and you, but now with my eyes and ears open wider. Dana is one of many i can thank for that, from this site and others i go to that do offer many compelling views.
       Response:

       [DB] One of the primary things to learn about this website is the need to be able to substantiate a postion.  For example:

       "Does CO2 effect temps, yes, but not as much as has been "decided" it does."

       Based on what, exactly?  Source citation, please.

       "Considering that there other GHGs that have a bigger effect."

       Again, what do you base this on?  Source citation, please.

       "some of it is quite iffy at best"

       Which parts?  There is actually quite little I find "iffy" but maybe that's just me.

       "Does this mean i am a "true" beleiver now, no, i still see things different than him and you, but now with my eyes and ears open wider."

       To be honest, it's not a question of what one "believes".  Nor is it about "sides" or "tribes".  It is about science.  Observable, testable science that best explains what we can see and measure.  It's not called climate beliefs nor climate faiths.  It's called climate science. 

       Every post here at SkS contains links to the peer-reviewed, published research so that readers can check things out for themselves.  So no one has to take things on faith here.

       So please take the time to tell us where you got the ideas for your assertions I noted above.  For they are not supported by the literature and the science.

70616. Albatross at 08:12 AM on 8 November 2011
       Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
       Muoncounter @84, Yes, I too thought at first that he was contradicting himself, but I think that he was trying to say that temps. had (allegedly) neither gone up or down. So no cooling, no warming, no change. And the models are wrong, inadequate and misleading and useless, of course, unless they support Pielke's personal point of view :) But that is how subtle his messaging is. Things are worded so that it is easy for those in denial about AGW to read into it what they want, ideally that warming has stopped and that "CAGW" is not a concern. Either that or he is very confused. These word games and cherry-picking games that people of Pielke's and Curry's stature play are not only incredibly annoying, and they betray their bias. They are no longer in pursuit of knowledge and truth, but ever more creative was to feed the doubt and uncertainty monsters. Those are pretty much the only options they have now... To answer Pielke and Curry's own question. The statisticians were correct, the warming has not stalled or stopped, it has not cooled and Pielke's pet metric contradicts his own claims (at least when one looks at all the data).
70617. muoncounter at 08:08 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       88 Sphaerica: Here's a good one: “A consensus of my friends who are scientists believe that a wind farm of this scale will shift the earth off its rotational axis and send it hurtling toward the sun in a matter of decades” The response? I think if you check carefully you’ll find that either a) your friends are not actually scientists b) they are pulling your leg Learn some physics. Maybe some maths. Hell, just learn something based on facts. Don't you just love that reply?
70618. oneiota at 08:07 AM on 8 November 2011
       There's no empirical evidence
       The latest preliminary estimates of global CO2 emissions for 2009 and 2010 has been released by the CDIAC "These estimates show that 2010 was by far a record year for CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture. Globally 9,139 Teragrams of oxidized carbon (Tg-C) were emitted from these sources. A teragram is a million metric tons. Converted to carbon dioxide, so as to include the mass of the oxygen molecules, this amounts to over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The increase alone is about 512 Tg-C, or 5.9%, over the 2009 global estimate. The previous record year was 2008, with 8,749 Tg-C emitted; the 2010 estimate is about 104.5% of that, or 391 Tg-C more." I found this graph interesting at the least for the breakdown of sources:
70619. Bob Lacatena at 08:05 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       It's funny how often the "natural variability" meme is popping up these days. Basically, deniers refuseniks science-rejectionists are waving the white flag on "the globe isn't warming", "greenhouse gases can't effect temperatures" and "global warming is a good thing." They're down to claiming that everything we know is overwhelmed by mysterious, magical forces that we don't understand ("natural variability"), and therefore we can simply ignore what is happening, and what we do know, because the ship will right itself.
70620. Bob Lacatena at 08:00 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       5, grayman,

       considering that so little is still unkown about the climate and its variables.

       False. [I'm presuming you meant "much" instead of "little", or else "known" instead of "still unknown."] Which "natural cycles" do you believe are not understood and are capable of actually adding energy to the system and increasing its overall heat content?
70621. Bob Lacatena at 07:54 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Can anyone imagine a world which runs on wind or solar power, where some unexpected downside is uncovered (let's pretend that harnessing solar power leads to global cooling, or that the use of massive wind farms is altering the rotation of the Earth)? And the solution is to switch to fossil fuels? Imagine, then, that that entire power grid -- electric transmission lines, elaborate power-storage facilities using massive flywheels or molten salts or hydroelectric storage of some sort -- then needs to be replaced with the infrastructure needed to harness fossil fuels: oil wells, coal mines, methods of transporting the raw fuel, refineries and processing plants, methods of transporting the refined fuels (gas, coal, oil, LNG), the dangers of explosions, methods of distribution, the creation of coal and gas powered electrical power plants, and a whole, global fleet of vehicles (cars, trucks, ships, planes) that must be transitioned from electric power to internal combustion engines. Sasquatch finds seeming insurmountable problems in wind and solar power, because of very simple storage and peak availability issues. Can you imagine if that same logic were applied to a migration to fossil fuels instead of away from them?
70622. muoncounter at 07:33 AM on 8 November 2011
       Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
       83 Albatross: So Pielke says: a. the statistician's report is not valid because it uses an incorrect metric, b. the article is correct and the system "has not cooled" and c. the "warming temporarily halted". That's not even a cherry-pick; it's blatant contradiction. Are there choices d. None of the above and e. All of the above?
70623. Albatross at 07:17 AM on 8 November 2011
       Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
       Muoncounter @82, That is interesting, because in the 2009 article by Pielke that you linked us to he says: "Nonetheless, the article is correct that the climate system has not cooled even in the last 6 years." But then a couple of sentences later he claims: Perhaps the current absence of warming is a shorter term natural feature of the climate system. However, to state that the “[t]he Earth is still warming” is in error. The warming has, at least temporarily halted." We now know that his claim about the earth system not warming is demonstrably false. Pielke saying "temporarily halted" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Sadly Pielke and Curry and others can keep playing this game ad infinitum. But their game has been outed here and elsewhere (by Tamino, for example), they can no longer claim ignorance. They can choose to keep cherry picking and cherry picking those data that and metrics of subsets of metrics (e.g., 0-700 OHC) that conform to their preconceived notions, but in doing so they lose all credibility and fool only themselves. Now what trick/s will they use next I wonder? ;)
70624. KR at 07:01 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sasquatch - Yes, 50% is an improvement. But natural gas is still a CO2 source, still leads to increasing temperatures, and should be avoided if possible. All of the externalized costs discussions regarding coal apply as well to natural gas - the CO2 production is a societal cost not currently accounted for in natural gas prices, making it artificially cheap. In regards to the OP - the only gain from switching from coal to natural gas will be a few years (at most a decade or two) delay in reaching a two degree Celsius temperature rise. Fossil fuels are just a bad idea. All that aside - it appears quite possible to produce dependable baseload power with renewables.
70625. CBDunkerson at 06:47 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Steve Case, the IPCC AR4 report was based on science which is now about six years old. The Church & White research was published this year... and is consistent with several other studies which have found that Antarctica is now contributing to sea level rise. Basically, AR4 is out of date.
70626. Steve Case at 06:42 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       [DB] I see that the Church & White source you list shows the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributing to sea level with the same sign. If you take a look at table 10.7 in the IPCC's AR4: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-6-5.html Antarctica is projected to contribute negatively to sea level. It would follow that the current contribution must be negative as well. Who am I to believe?
       Response:

       [DB] "I see that the Church & White source you list shows the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributing to sea level with the same sign."

       Nice goalpost shift.  At least you could acknowledge that you were wrong.

       "Antarctica is projected to contribute negatively to sea level."

       Based on what?

       "It would follow that the current contribution must be negative as well."

       Does not parse/your logic doesn't hold.  Actually, Antarctic land ice is decreasing at an accelerating rate.  Antarctic sea ice is neutral wrt sea level change.

       "Who am I to believe?"

       What does belief have to do with science?  Formulating hypothesis', testing them to build an evidenciary chain strong enough to eventually form the basis for theory is the goal.  Peer-reviewed science published in reputable journals are best.  Assertions without evidence tend to get ignored.  FYI.

       But by all means, don't take my word on things.  Look them up for yourself.

70627. grayman at 06:35 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Hi Dana, good article. We differ over causes of warming, and i still believe that the trend may or not continue, that is still something to see. Not giving enough credence to natural varability, considering that so little is still unkown about the climate and its variables., much less the effects of this solar system on it. The records that we do have, and i mean temp wise only go back so far and the coverage is spotty at best the farther back we go. We can agree that climate change is a slow process. I still beleive that to much emphasis is being made on CO2 with so many other unknowns. But still a good article and you have good reason to be proud of it. Well done.
70628. Sasquatch at 06:30 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       KR at 85: From a recent paper published by the University of Maryland, natural gas has about half the GHG impact of coal. That is more than slightly better. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044008/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044008.pdf
70629. AussieinUSA at 06:22 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Jeremy Hance @74 - Thankyou for the links, that is exactly what I was hoping for. Ashley
70630. KR at 06:20 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sasquatch - I believe questions about dependable power should go to the Can renewables provide baseload power thread. That said, there's a very interesting paper from Stanford, Archer & Jacobson 2007, indicating that with wind farms alone, using 19 interconnected sites in the western US, that: "It was found that an average of 33% and a maximum of 47% of yearly averaged wind power from interconnected farms can be used as reliable, baseload electric power." (emphasis added) The multiple sites lead to some portion of the collection area receiving significant power at almost every moment. Adding solar into the mix, particularly thermal solar with thermal storage backup, should only improve those numbers. Natural gas, which you seem to prefer, is only slightly better than coal - it still leaves us in the hole, increasing greenhouse gases, and would be a foolish choice of direction.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] Link fixed per request.
70631. scaddenp at 06:14 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Camburn - "We have had periods within the Holocene as warm as the projections from the models and survived quit well. In fact, one period was called the Holocene Optimum." Camburn, whether a warmer world is better or worse is not the point. The point is rate of change. The solar forcing producing the HCO was slow. Note also the lack of complex agriculture and a world of 7 billion.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] World population corrected by 3 orders of magnitude. :)
70632. Steve Case at 06:04 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Regarding Figure 5 Ocean heat content may be a big number in terms of joules but it's low density, Chapter five of the IPCC's AR4 tells us that "Over the period 1961 to 2003, global ocean temperature has risen by 0.10°C from the surface to a depth of 700 m." http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-es.html That 0.1°C is presented without error bars. If error bars were included, it may very well be that there was no heating at all and no change in heat content.
       Response:

       [DB] "That 0.1°C is presented without error bars.  If error bars were included, it may very well be that there was no heating at all and no change in heat content."

       The paramount word in your phrase is "if".  How about less unsupported assertion and actually reading all of the sources available instead of just a hand-picked few?  From Church & White, the source for Fig 5.:

       

        

       

       I would posit that if "skeptics" read more with the intent to understand than there would be less of a heightened clamor about "error bars"; really, that becomes a dead giveaway (as seen above).

70633. rab at 05:54 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Very well put, Dana. One could go even farther and argue that the temperature data indicate rises much steeper than 0.2C/decade, interspersed with “shifts” downward. It might even be a fun exercise for Tamino to try: choose 0.4C/decade, and as Jensen, fit 3 breakpoints and their 4 levels between 1960 and 2010; that’s a total of 7 parameters to cover 50 noisy data points. Should be easy as the standard is not high: the deviations in the Jensen fit are hardly smaller than the noise fluctuations. Or choose a more limited range per Rapp (30 years, 2 levels and one shift year for 3 parameters, oh wait, I’m cherry-picking a starting point, so let that vary as well, that’s 4 parameters...) That’s right, Rapp’s fit is really 4 parameters. To claim as he does that the shift of 0.3C (at 1998 in data that clearly fluctuates by +/- 0.2C) is “obvious” makes obvious only one thing, namely, that he has lost his objectivity. This disqualifies him from doing any science.
70634. Sasquatch at 05:54 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sphaerica @ 73: From a site promoting the development of wind energy, wind turbines generate electricity 70-85% of the time, but not always at full output. That leaves 15-30% of the time that power has to come from somewhere else. Currently, the generated electricity is fed directly into the grid and there are not any viable methods for storing it. From Renewable UK (http://www.bwea.com/energy/rely.html) the following is found: "Wind energy can be relied upon, even though the wind is not available 100% of the time. Wind turbines generate electricity for 70-85% of the time, but not always at full output. Most wind turbines start generating power at wind speeds of around 3 or 4 m/s (when the output is a few kilowatts), generate maximum ("rated") power at around 15 m/s and shut down to prevent storm damage at 25 m/s or above. The proportion of time that wind turbine is generating between these wind speeds depends on the average wind speed at the site. Most sites where wind turbines are installed in the UK have wind speeds in the range 7.5 - 9 m/s and so generate for 70-85% of the time." Solar dependability is obviously impacted by lack of direct, consistent sunlight. Also, the size of installations required to generate an appreciable amount of power can be prohibitive. From solarhome.org (http://www.solarhome.org/infoalternativeenergy.html) "Disadvantages: •Solar radiation may only be collected during the daytime •Such things as weather, location, and seasons may affect sunlight availability •Solar technology is still too costly for most people •A lot of surface area is currently required for strong power, which means many, space-taking installations are needed"
70635. dana1981 at 05:54 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       muon @1 - thanks, and yes that should say Figure 6 (updated now). It really is a bizarre argument because of the implicit acknowledgment that the planet is just going to keep warming as it keeps stepping upwards. I guess interminable warming is okay with "skeptics" as long as it's naturally caused.
70636. muoncounter at 05:48 AM on 8 November 2011
       Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
       Nice job. A great follow-up to part 1. Small nit: In the next to last paragraph, you say "until we get the radiative forcing in Figure 5 under control," do you mean Figure 6? Notice that these 'steptics' only work with a few decades of data. Good luck finding steps over the long term: I suppose any 'steptic' is tacitly admitting that the climate is indeed warming as each successive step is a jump up. No doubt they expect the same unknown and unexplained mechanism that mysteriously causes these steps to suddenly switch to a negative any day now. One could also argue that a step response requires a system that can pass high frequencies. --source High pass requires low inertia; how can the 'steptics' justify that?
70637. PhilMorris at 05:48 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       The need for power is the root of the problem. Unless we're all prepared to return to living as in the middle ages i.e. with virtually no power needs other than to keep warm, we have to find and implement non-fossil fuel power generation immediately. Solar and wind are excellent green alternatives, but I wonder whether they can be deployed quickly in sufficiently large numbers to make any difference. I believe the time has come for a serious, Manhattan style public/privately funded project to develop and commercialise fusion reactors. Generating electricty using non-fossil fuels is the only real solution. Fossil fuel use should be restricted solely for air travel.
70638. muoncounter at 05:14 AM on 8 November 2011
       Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
       81 dmyerson: Here is one such report. Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book. Only one problem: It's not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press. Of course, the usual characters deny the validity of this because it is "not based on the much more robust metric assessment of global warming as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content." Moral of story: When you don't like the answer, change the metric.
70639. John Hartz at 05:03 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       @renewable guy #68, Sphaerica #75, and MA Rodger #78: When all else fails, read the source paper, i.e., Joeri Rogelj, William Hare, Jason Lowe, Detlef P. van Vuuren, Keywan Riahi, Ben Matthews, Tatsuya Hanaoka, Kejun Jiang and Malte Meinshausen. Emission pathways consistent with a 2 C global temperature limit. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1258. 2011. To access a free PDF of this paper, click. here.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] Thank you! I had hunted all over looking for a copy that I could download.
70640. Bob Lacatena at 05:01 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       79, CBDunkerson, Not to mention the fact that improved efficiency in things like building insulation, actual use of transportation (i.e. using more locally grown goods rather than transporting locally available items across continents) and other behavioral changes would also help. The solution entails a lot of changes, each done in considered moderation, as each makes sense, but without hesitation. The last part is the thing. Hesitating. Waiting. BAU. If we keep waiting until the situation is a nightmare, then it will be as dark and difficult as those like Sasquatch paint the situation to be.
70641. CBDunkerson at 04:55 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sasquatch, the statement that renewable power sources are "not capable of adequately supplying our energy needs" is just ridiculous. Available solar power is greater than all other sources combined, and available wind power is greater than all other sources except solar. As to 'dependability'... if we ever run out of sunlight we'll have much bigger problems to worry about. You are presumably referring to the fact that the amount of sunlight / wind in a given area varies. Which is true... but hardly an insurmountable problem. Build a large and efficient enough grid and you can always transmit power from areas where the sun is shining / the wind blowing to areas where they are not. Build power storage and you can 'stockpile' energy for later use. Build high altitude wind or space solar facilities and the supply IS constant. As to environmental impact... miniscule in comparison to fossil fuels and potentially near zero if sited carefully. Distributed solar power is particularly promising... put solar power generators on building roofs, utility poles, parking lots, sidewalks, and possibly even roads (if durability issues can be worked out) and you'd be able to generate vastly more power than we currently use while taking up no additional land.
70642. dmyerson at 04:45 AM on 8 November 2011
       Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
       When ever this topic comes up (has warming stopped?), it's useful to point to the AP study where they hired a group of statisticians and gave them climate data without telling them what it was and asked them to characterize the trends, if any. They clearly came to the conclusion that the recent decade was noise and not a change in the trend. Could there be a better "blinded" study? The link I had to that has died - wasn't a permalink - but there are many reports of it that are easy to find.
70643. MA Rodger at 04:41 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       renewable guy @68 To clarify the numbers. You give 30.6 gtCO2 as 2010 emissions. This is likely a provisional figure for emissions CO2 from fossil fuel & cement production. Also provisional, CDIAC give this same figure as 9.139 gtC or about 34 gtCO2 which is higher although saying that, all the figures I have seen for 2010 have been 9.0+ gtC (or higher than 33 gtCO2) It is now necessary to add the emissions from land use change. Latest data I have seen is for 2005 but it had been 1.4 - 1.5 gtC for the preceding years. So a figure of 1.35 gtC is quite conservative. This yields a total 2010 figure of 10.5 gtC = 38.5 gtCO2. The 48 gtCO2 figure comes from "...would need to peak during the decade and fall to 44 gigatons by 2020. Emissions this year are expected to hit 48 gigatons." I would suggest the "this year" referred to is 2020. (I was always warned about using the word "this" in academic writing and here we find a good example of how not to use "this".) This is but my interpretation of the numbers used. If you are fussed to nail it down, the man to ask is the author wot wrote the lines, Jeremy Nance.
       Moderator Response: [Sph] No, "this year" does refer to the current year. The difference lies in CO₂ versus CO₂-equivalent emissions. See the previous comments by John Hartz and myself.
70644. John Hartz at 04:30 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       @renewable guy #68: You cite the following statement from the OP. “How do we stay below a global rise of two degrees Celsius? According to a new study involving researchers various climate institutes, greenhouse gas emissions would need to peak during the decade and fall to 44 gigatons by 2020. Emissions this year are expected to hit 48 gigatons.” The figures in this statement are gigatons of annual greenhouse gas emissions expressed in CO2 equivalent. Fossil fuel emissions are a subset of these numbers.
70645. Bob Lacatena at 04:29 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       73, Sasquatch, Please support your assertion that alternative energy forms are not dependable. [My personal thoughts on nuclear energy are that they are like every other energy form... they have their drawbacks, so we can't afford to go "all in" but we also can't afford to ignore them. There are some nuclear solutions that work in some situations, and for which the repercussions will be less than that of continued FF use. Nuclear energy does offer an alternative that in the short term is probably almost required to keep emissions below the 2˚C danger level. But going happily down the nuclear road without giving other solutions serious consideration and effort can ultimately be almost as bad as BAU FF use.]
70646. Bob Lacatena at 04:25 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       68, renewable guy, I'm a little confused, but not entirely. I traced the 48Gt statement to section 3.2 of an advance copy of "The Emissions Gap Report" (final copy available here). That in turn attributed the number to "Misrepresentation of the IPCC CO2 emission scenarios" (Manning et al, 2010) available here. But I find no reference to the stated numbers, or any specific numbers, in the Manning remarks. I also find that that particular original statement has been dropped from the final copy of "The Emissions Gap Report" as far as I can see. But related material in the final report says this related to one of the figures:

       All emissions in this figure and chapter refer to GtCO2e (gigatonnes or billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent)—the global warming potential-weighted sum of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases, that is, CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs and SF6, including LULUCF CO2 emissions.

       So I think the difference is that the lower number represents actual CO₂ emissions, while the higher represents all GHG emissions stated as CO2 equivalents (CO_2e).
70647. Jeremy Hance at 04:18 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       @ AusseinUSA As stated in the article that data is based on a comprehensive analysis published in the journal Energy Policy. You can read an article with more detail here: http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0126-hance_cleanenergy.html OR Links to the paper itself can be found here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20029784-54.html
70648. Sasquatch at 04:00 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       Sphaerica @ 72: You are avoiding the elephant sitting in the room. Dependability. Power has to be dependable. Right now, and for the near future, alternative energy is not dependable. It is also not capable of adequately supplying our energy needs. The technology is improving, and I hope to see it get to the point some day that we can depend on it. What are your personal thoughts on nuclear energy?
70649. Bob Lacatena at 03:52 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       69, Sasquatch, Every energy form considered is going to have drawbacks (obviously). Human existence and civilization destroys ecosystems. But to compare the potential for destruction represented by FF use to the damage caused by the rational and considered use of other energy forms is an unfair misdirection. Also, all energy sources other than FF will be considered expensive simply due to volumes (i.e. it's cheaper per unit to do a lot more of something). That is, an existing global infrastructure currently based on FF makes continued FF use cheap, while a dearth of working applications and demand for other sources make them comparatively expensive. If solar and wind power were used in greater volume then they would be cheap and FF use would be more expensive. So it's a catch-22. You don't want to extensively try other energy sources because FF is cheap because you aren't trying other energy sources. As long as we simply find reasons to avoid switching and putting effort into alternative energy sources we are on the road to perdition.
70650. Bob Lacatena at 03:44 AM on 8 November 2011
       Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
       67, Tom Curtis, No argument here. There are four behaviors I find utterly unacceptable:
       • Ignoring valid questions and arguments and just moving on to other points, or repeating the same thing over and over in complete oblivion to evidence presented to the contrary
       • Distracting readers with accurate information but with an invalid interpretation or only conveniently partial presentation of that information (like appinsys does)
       • Refusal to provide the sources for stated assertions so that their accuracy can be tested
       • Providing patently false information
       Of these, the last is the most reprehensible and easily, clearly and unarguably identified, and should not be tolerated in any fashion. At a minimum, a time-out is in order.

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