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Comments 80451 to 80500:

80451. BBD at 04:47 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       Tom Curtis #87 Apologies - I missed this comment. A few things. First, the numbers are those worked up by Saul Griffith. I merely quote them. I'm sorry you felt that the intent was to distort - as opposed to clarify. You say that the numbers for a switch to renewables as illustrated by Griffith are equivalent to current production commitments based on a no-switch projection. To be blunt, this is implausible and you would need to back it up by breaking down your numbers and contrasting them with Griffith's. Something I note that you have not so far done.
80452. Paul D at 04:14 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn said: "1. I do an energy audit on my building and find several areas of leakage. I do a cost/benifit analysis and the payback of insulating, adding new doors etc is 5 years. I do the improvements and have now lowered my costs to less than my compitition and reduced my energy consumption per unit produced." All valid stuff. But there are other issues that affect your income that are not taken into account by the old economics. A very simple example maybe reduced biodiversity. Over say a period of 2 decades, a loss of biodiversity may have an indirect impact on your business. Recently, the environmental costs have been assessed for various types of land and habitat. Although you may consider yourself to be independent of these factors, ultimately the cost is accounted for across the state and nation that you live in. Another example is that green spaces improves health, which in turn reduces health costs. This is now a policy issue in the UK and many local councils are developing policies to cut health bills by encouraging cycling and improving green spaces.
80453. BBD at 04:11 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       JMurphy Anyone who says that the anti-nuclear lobby should not be allowed to make comparisons with Chernobyl is absolutely correct. It is a grotesque misrepresentation. There have been no fatalities and none are currently expected. In other words, such contamination as may have occurred is likely to be minor and transient. If you wish to review the facts about Chernobyl (and I suggest that you do), you will find an excellent, unbiased source here.
80454. BBD at 04:03 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       JMurphy You and I have a simple choice: back the wrong energy policy and - the lights go out - coal is not displaced from the global energy mix - potentially severe climate change You don't 'like' nuclear, but I don't believe renewables can even come close to the potential for displacing coal. This isn't an argument either of us can 'win'. It's an energy policy debate with a range of downsides. Least-bad outcomes, if you like. You can pose the terrorist scenario; I can counter by asking if you know how hard it would be to cause the release of radioactive material. Recall that modern reactor designs feature containment vessels capable of withstanding the impact of a fully-fuelled large passenger jet. You would need a lot of C4 or whatever to match that. And you would have to get a large volume of explosive past security and up next to the containment vessel. And you still wouldn't break it... You might want to ponder what a widespread and prolonged failure of the European supergrid might look like. How many fatalities would you expect? I had a feeling someone would bring up the news from Japan. Let's remember that Fukushima was a natural disaster that damaged a 40 year old plant which was both poorly designed and appallingly sited. The news about the cesium detected in child urine samples is extremely vague and inconclusive and more accurate information from a large sample is required. It is also essential to understand whether the contamination was from airborne or dietary pathways. It is a matter for serious concern. I don't think we should go any further yet. And I don't like the usual emoting and distorting that is coming from the anti-nuclear lobby either. However, your anti-nuclear sniping requires an answer, and here it is: proper perspective. Nuclear power plants in operation worldwide generate ~375GW of electricity. This is ~14% of the global total. 65 more reactors are under construction, which will add about another 63GW of installed capacity. Since 1951, nuclear has generated 64,600 billion kWh. Most of that came in the last 40 years and most reactors are 20 – 40 years old today. 64,600 billion kWh is a lot of energy. But nuclear has been around for longer than you might think. When the operating histories of all currently grid-connected reactors are summed going back 40 years, they total 11,255 years of nuclear generation. Here's the link. Get a calculator, sit down, and see for yourself. Yet since the vast majority of reactors came on line in the last 40 years, there have been 18 incidents that merited a rating on the International Nuclear Events Scale (INES). It is important to remember that in operational terms, this is 18 incidents in 11,255 years. All bar three were rated as 4 or below on the INES scale (1 = lowest; 7 = highest). An INES rating of 4 is classified as ‘an accident with local consequences’, that is, a minor release of radioactive material unlikely to result in implementation of planned countermeasures other than local food controls. The three rated above INES 4 were: 1979 Three Mile Island (INES rating 5) 1986 Chernobyl (INES rating 7) 2011 Fukushima Daiichi (INES rating 7)
80455. Paul D at 04:03 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn: "The economic incentive is then to bring down the cost of renewables so that they can compete." Probably not hugely necessary. Demand for the old fossil fuels is pushing prices up across the board. Including food prices. In the case of some food stuffs organic seems to be comparable to 'conventional' fossil fuel supported food lines. Growth in energy demand and resources in general will make a lot of alternatives economically equitable over the years. Solar energy in particular is due to tumble in cost.
80456. Camburn at 03:50 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       actuallythoughtful@24: 1. No matter what happens, sea level will continue to rise. It has been doing that climatically for 100's of years. The question is, how much additional rise has AGW added to the rate of rise. A cost of mitigation is going to be dealt with because people are still foolish enough to built houses etc near the ocean when they KNOW that sea level is rising. 2. It takes wealth to embrace new teck. With the current world economics, and the role the US economy plays in this economic situation, the current distress is plainly evident. The level of debt worldwide as a percentage of GDP of the world, is on an unsubstainable trend. 3. We can see that the trend of energy per unit of GDP has taken a turn for the better. Efficiency of production is the leading reason for this. Economics works. 4. Looking at this without predujice, my concern is the economic distress will cause enormous human distress that will result in wars, famine, etc. That is the near term threat of greatest magnitude. Until this is resolved, everything else is on the back burner. Examples of this are Greece, Egypt at present. I would think that people read the news and I don't have to post examples of the unrest. 5. Where there is wealth, that wealth is being used to reduce energy consumption. It is also being used to invest in renewable energy if the economic return is there. 6. From a business standpoint, and one of the reasons you are seeing per unit energy reduction per unit of GDP, is that all information currently available indicates a steady to steep increase in energy costs for the forseable future. Business is reacting to that stimuli, homeowners are reacting to that stimuli and will continue to do so. 7. That reaction will continue as long as there is wealth to do so. Add another tax, that will add another layer of uncertainty to the economy, and reduce the rate of switch as the wealth dries up. In conclusion: The continued rise of energy costs will speed up the transition with the least economic disruption. My lifetime experiences have shown me that government intervention in economic decissions results in poor execution and increased costs. The US medical system is a perfect example when viewed on a long term basis. I think the economic cost per unit of reduction is much better played out without government involvement as the value of dollar spent will be greater, IMHO. Michael: A bit off topic, but yes, black carbon plays a significant roll in Arctic Ice melt.
80457. Albatross at 03:48 AM on 3 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Norman @201, Thanks for the clarification. I have some time here to make a few short posts. Believe it or not your myriad of posts on the extreme threads has given me pause for thought. Not so much on the strength or validity of your arguments, but more so to try and figure out a way of succinctly and clearly explaining the errs of your logic to you. We seem to be talking past each other and my (and other) posts trying to reason with you repeatedly fail. Some poster shave tried analogies. I'll try one more. Let us consider the global SAT record, and let us go back to 2008. Some could argue that 2008 was not consistent with a warming world because it was one of the coolest years on record recently. But that would not be true-- the long term trend is up. Now let us consider 2010, tied with 2005 for the warmest year on record, yet a perusal of the global SAT anomaly map would allow one to identify areas that were below average-- that too could be used to (erroneously) claim that the warming is not significant or unusual. OK, well how about the fact that 1934 in the USA was for all practical purposes as warm at 1998? Surely the timing of those two extremes mean that the planet is not warming or that current temperatures are not unusual? I mean 1934 was a long time ago and anthro GHGs at that time were practically insignificant. But again, one would be wrong to deduce that-- the USA covers<2% of the planet and the planet has warmed quite a bit since 1934. And one and on one can go-- for example, but surely the previous interglacial was warmer than the current one-- indeed it was. Does that mean that the current warming is not unusual? The short answer is no. My point is that one can always seek out locations or times when the data appear to go against the long-term upward trend in temperatures. But to use those data to conclude that the warming is either not happening or not significant is both wrong and misses the point altogether. And seeking out such data is not viewing the body of evidence, but is rather an elaborate form of cherry-picking and argumentum ad absurdum, something that you and both the NIPCC have both identified, perhaps even independently.
80458. Patrick 027 at 03:38 AM on 3 July 2011
       The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
       Re 54 Michele - you keep coming back to the same basic errors. 1. In your description a few comments back, it seems you rigged the setup to have two levels radiating to space. You then said that the physics may be simpler than we are making it. But I think the underlying physics is simpler than you are making it (what physics could cause two radiating levels independent of composition and at odds with temperature), although the consequences are complex, they are complex in a simple way - I mean, it takes a lot of number crunching to get the results right, but you can understand qualitatively how a lot of it works just by picturing it (think about seeing through a fog. How far can you see. An object fades into the distance. Now consider instead smoke that glows incandescently. Given a particular temperature distribution within the smoke and whatever objects are present, how does the brightness of the radiation vary with location and direction? Sum over direction (properly weighted by geometrical considerations) to find gross and then net fluxes of radiant energy; the divergence is a net radiant cooling rate. Now consider a smoke that is not spectrally grey but rather has absorption and emission lines or bands, of various shapes, etc. You have to use the Planck function now, a more complex relationship than the T^4 proportionality, but nonetheless it always increases with increasing temperature. Absorptivity = emissivity at LTE. If not at LTE, quantitatively things change, but there can still be some qualitatively similar behavior up to a point. In the limit of particles absorbing and then emitting photons of the same energy, this becomes like scattering. You can have a greenhouse effect based on that, too, or also based on scatteriing involving photon energy changes (Raman, Compton, others...)) The cooling effect occurs within the isothermal sinks because the conversion heat->EM radiation, in effect, is a phase transition because the excitation/disexcitation takes place as change of the internal molecular energy which doesn’t affect the translational molecular KE ant thus the temperature. Molecular collisions redistribute the energy among translational, vibrational, rotational, and if hot enough or depending on other things, electronic or chemical forms. The Planck function describes the intensity of radiation that can be emitted given a thermodynamic equilibrium distribution of the energy over these forms (but you can exclude disequilibria that are not 'in play' in the relevant timescale - ie the surplus unoxidized CH4 in the atmosphere doesn't perturb LTE much for the given composition) - and it applies to any volume possessing material of some optical thickness with some temperature, provided the volume is statistically large enough, which is generally not a severe constraint, and also that the volume is isothermal, which is easily approximated by using small volumes. It applies over any time period statistically long enough, also not a severe constraint. Thus a change in temperature over space and/or time only requires using sufficiently small grid resolution to do calculations. Emission of radiation from vibrational/rotational/other de-excitation results in a cooling via providing a sink for translational kinetic energy; likewise absorption results in warming. A layer of given thickness and composition, setting aside line broadenning and line strength variations, will emit more intensely if at higher temperature. The stratopause region doesn't dominate radiation emitted to space at most wavelengths because it is so thin in terms of optical thickness. The mesopause region is much much much thinner. And if, at the same frequency, the tropopause and mesopause can both emit radiation, the would also absorb each other's radiation, to the extent the intervening space is transparent (which it isn't!) and to the extent they can emit (relative to the Planck function). If the mesopause region were sufficiently opaque you couldn't see much radiation from the stratopause or tropopause reaching space. But from the spectra I've see, the upper mesosphere and above is so optically thin you could hardly see any radiation from it reaching space and just about all radiation reaching space is coming from below. At most wavelengths it is coming mainly from below the upper stratosphere - the warmth of the upper stratosphere is responsible for the narrow spike in outgoing LW radiation (OLR) near 15 microns, where CO2 is most opaque; this is within a broader valley of OLR where CO2 is opaque enough for the brightness temperature to approach that of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere; outside of that CO2 is only opaque enough to block some of the radiation from the lower troposphere and surface. Going outward from 15 microns, the net upward LW flux at the tropopause level increases; adding more CO2 has the effect of broadenning the spectral interval over which a given opacity is exceeded, thus reducing the net upward LW flux at the tropopause (even after stratospheric/upper atmospheric cooling due to the increased net outward LW flux from the stratosphere through both top and bottom) - conservation of energy requires that this results in a build-up of energy below the tropopause. This continues until the resulting temperature changes restore approximate radiative equilibrium at the tropopause. The distribution of the temperature change **below** the tropopause is greatly affected by convection. You can't begin to successfully argue against the assertion that doubling CO2 tends to increase Earth's surface temperature about 3 K, +/- some range (Charney sensitivity - excluding some feedbacks) when you are supporting points that are false or unsupportable while the assertion itself is supported by true facts and supported points.
80459. OPatrick at 03:27 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Glickstein's presentation should be sent to all schools and they should be encouraged to show it ... ... but only with this post or similar to provide appropriate context. This is about as clear an example as you will find of the paucity of 'sceptic' argument. A few hours study should convince anyone of where the balance of evidence lies in the 'debate'.
80460. Albatross at 03:26 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Dikran @5, I guess that is the point, from time-to-time a reasoned or scientifically sound post does appear there, but such posts do not go over well at all with the readership. Watts knows that, so he probably has to do so, so as to maintain some credibility, but he also does not wish to divide his readership or educate them with inconvenient truths. Also, posts of the veracity CO2 record are pretty safe territory-- they can still accept that while denying the theory of AGW. I doubt I'll ever see a post at WUWT arguing that climate sensitivity might be close to +3 C for doubling CO2. Or a post stating that the temperature records are robust, the warming is real and mostly caused by anthro GHGs. The most telling and most egregious error made by Watts is that he is reticent to call out and correct the myths, errors and conspiracies that not only appear in the comments but in the feature posts. At the end of the day WUWT is a political site presented under the guise of science, pretty transparent to most people, but sadly enough people have been duped.
80461. dlen at 03:20 AM on 3 July 2011
       Models are unreliable
       I think, many problems concerning the value of numerical prediction arise from the term "precise". It is widely used here in a binary manner as an all-or-nothing gauge. It would be much better to talk about probabilities and ranges. Concerning the comparison of complex simulation models with polynomials: it is right, that both, because of input data uncertainty ranges, have to be fitted to the past. But in the physical models is so much more information integrated about how the world works, that common sense tells us, that their result is (again probability!) most probably more reliable than a simple polynomial. I am a physicist - I don't pretend to understand every intricacy of climate science though. But that all model output is invalid because of software bugs seems (again!) improbable to me. The models deliver results with a limited precision. But their imprecision is unknown and may lie in either direction. So for me their results represent the center of probability according to the information available. All the more as they are in line with the common sense argument, that if you put in more energy than you let get out, the thing becomes warmer. (- Yes, I know, it's the degree of warming that is disputed. If you want to estimate the degree, you start calculating, and end up at - surprise - numerical models.) And a global AGW conspiracy - seems (again probability!) not very probable to me.
80462. JMurphy at 03:18 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       BBD wrote : "It is impossible to secure a nuclear power station, but it can be made significantly more secure than interconnectors." Perhaps, but which security breach would cause more long-standing problems over a longer period of time, especially if you cannot even get near the problem and have to evacuate a large surrounding area, as would be the case with nuclear ? Which breach would be more quickly alleviated ? (Cesium found in child urine tests) I also agree with what michael sweet wrote : If a HVDC transmission line gets taken out the only problem is lack of electricity at the destination. That can be fixed much more easily that a melt down in a reactor. You also wrote : "JMurphy at 84 asked why the UK government was 'cosying up to nuclear'. It's really very obvious if you know what's actually going on." Indeed. Within two days of the disaster, they really 'knew' what was going on when they stated : "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear." And, later : "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
80463. Norman at 03:15 AM on 3 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       DB @ 205 I did visit the D Kelly O'Day site and found his raw data and viewed his various graphs. I will have to do some internet study of statistics to learn the many easy made errors when looking at trends. I am a Chemistry Major with only a surface level of statistics (I have an older brother that is an Accuary who is quite skilled in this math). On Tamino's web site "Open Mind" that Albatross linked to, Tamino did demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate statistical trends to create false and misleading trends. The demonstration he used was Arctic ice and how a short 8 year trend made it look like the arctic ice was recovering. But pulling back and extending the length of time showed that the 8 year increase was only a very small uptick on a much large overall decline. My view is that weather is, at this time, not getting worse and 2010 is not so exceptional. I am not making the claim that continued warming will not lead to an increase in severe weather patterns at some point. I am in strong favor of seeking new energy forms to raise the standard of living for people. As one can see in the IPCC disaster report I linked to earlier, poverty conditions leads to much more death rate when a hazardous weather or geophysical event takes place. Less property damage in a poor country but a much larger loss of life. My favorite choice is the Bussard Fusion reactor which may be able to fuse abundant Boron with a simple proton (hydrogen) without the release of a hot neutron per reaction of deuterium and tritium. This web site is dedicated to science. When I took science courses in College we still performed experiments in lab that have been performed thousands of times if not millions before I did them. I see posts on this page say "Leave it for the experts". That is not the way I was taught science. I was taught never to accept any authority's word on it but to investigate, research and validate the information on my own the best I can. I don't happen to believe weather patterns are shifting to a new extreme and 2010 is the first signs of it. Jeff Masters does think it is a strong possibility. My goal is to either find out if my current view is correct or wrong. I am looking for information that indicates that 2010 is not much different than many years before it (since that is what I believe is correct). As I am looking for information I am reading material from both sides. On the Climate issue I regularly read material from this web site, WUWT, Roy Spencer, Real Climate, Science of Doom and my own searches for various materials after reading a particualar article. I do try and keep an open mind on the issue. I would not be so stupid to stay the course and destroy the planet's ecosystem I live on. I may be a "denier" but I am not a stupid or blind one.
       Response:

       [DB] Again, I applaud the spirit and the effort in wanting to "get it right".  In all walks of life we have the choice to trust the judgement of experts or to learn it from the ground up ourselves.  I do not personally feel the need to recreate the car from first principles in order to drive one. :-)

       But in the selfsame spirit of "getting it right" do not rely on blogs at all (even this one).  Get some textbooks on climate science and statistics.  Read the seminal papers in the field.  Do your own analysis.  In time you will come to discover that those dissembler sites (WUWT, CA, Spencer et al) have "done you wrong".

       And I have never thought you "stupid".

80464. Dikran Marsupial at 03:07 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Marco, The series by Ferdinand Engelbeen on why the rise in CO2 is anthropogenic was indeed pretty accurate. I tried to support Ferdinand on that one until I started getting a "Forbidden" error when trying to access wordpress sites from the IP address I was using - could be a coincidence I suppse ;o).
80465. Albatross at 02:59 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Actuallythoughtful @1, "Does anyone know of ANY WUWT post that is complete (ie not a cherry pick), scientifically valid and internally consistent?" Now that is an excellent question. Their may be some very isolated examples, but I am not willing to wade though the quagmire of BS to find them. Also, even if a reasoned post does appear there, the comments usually take care of cherry picking, ad homs, distortion, vitriol, conspiracy theories etc., and at that point their host, Anthony Watts, is only too happy to gently encourage them. Remember too, Anthony Watts is close to Monckton and has on several occasions allowed his site to be used from which to launch attacks on scientists. And I'm afraid that BlackBoard and AirVent may be better, but remember that it is all relative to an extremely low standard, if one could even venture to use the word 'standard'.
80466. Dikran Marsupial at 02:58 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       The best skeptic strategy for talking about global warming is what is known as "science" (i.e. leave out the politics and the conspiracy theory). If the science supports their view, they will make progress. I've often said that scentists should aim to push forward science is the way a good chess player plays chess. Instead of playing the move that maximises your advantage, you play the move that minimises your opponents maximum advantage (in other words, you choose your move assuming best play from your opponent, and don't assume he will blunder by not noticing the obvious counter to your strategy). In science this means not drawing the strongest conclusions you think can be supported by the evidence, but the strongest conclusion that cannot be refuted by the evidence (i.e. expect your scientific opponent to pick holes in your argument optimally). That way progress is slow, but it is almost always in a forward direction. This is merely self-skepticism, it is human nature to have a blind spot about your own opinions, and the difference between a good scientists and a bad scientist is the ability and desire to pick holes in their own arguments. How does this relate to the best strategy for the skeptic? Well in chess there is a thing called a zugzwang, which basically means that a player can be disadvantaged in many games by the fact he is forced to make a move. This isn't true for the true skeptic, he has the option of a null move by simply keeping quiet. In this case Glickstein appears to have voluntarily zugzwanged himself, and made a move that is easily refuted and as a result is in a worse intellectual position than he was before he made the presentation.
80467. Marco at 02:53 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Actually thoughtful: I think Roger Pielke Sr once tried to educate the Wattsians on greenhouse gases (that wasn't a big success with the commenters), and there was a post on CO2 increase being due to anthropogenic sources that, I think, was reasonably accurate (this also did not gain much approval with certain commenters).
80468. actually thoughtful at 02:47 AM on 3 July 2011
       Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
       Dana1981, with all due respect (which is plenty), I think your likelihood of finding a rational, internally consistent, science based post on WUWT is fairly low. You may be looking in the wrong place if you are looking for a valid skeptic argument. tAV (the air vent) and the Blackboard are higher up on the valid skeptical argument food chain. I personally gave up on WUWT a long time ago. I realize it is a popular site, but I haven't found a lot of valid science there. Does anyone know of ANY WUWT post that is complete (ie not a cherry pick), scientifically valid and internally consistent?
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] IIRC there was a good series of posts by Willis Eschenbach (sp?) about why the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements were reliable (may have had a few errors, but it was basically sound). It didn't go down well with the readership.
80469. BBD at 02:39 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       dana1981 A more constructive discussion of managing intermittency will probably occur if you can find 20 minutes to read MacKay's chapter on Fluctuations and Storage in Sustainable Energy. This provides insight into why I find the discussion of biofuel/gas-fired turbines as peak handling modules in a proposed baseload renewables plant troubling. What happens when you experience peaking demand during a prolonged lull or a period of intermittency sufficient to deplete whatever energetic storage you have in place? (Please recall that here in the UK at ~52N to62N in a maritime climate, solar is not a reliable alternative to wind, even during daylight hours). The answer is not 'import via grid interconnector'. One of the defining characteristics of all high-renewables energy mix projections is that they are barely capable of meeting peaking demand even with sophisticated and some would argue fairly aggressive demand-side management. All spare capacity is directed into local energetic storage as a hedge against local or regional intermittency/variability. With a conversion loss overhead of ca 30%, let's not forget. The point I am labouring towards is that there is no spare capacity elsewhere. An interconnector is not much help in a world where there is no true 'surplus' capacity. This important consideration is peculiarly absent from discussions of grid interconnectors and intermittency. It's another reason why you will find many in the energy industry privately sceptical - even scornful - of high-renewables scenarios.
80470. Mike_H at 02:37 AM on 3 July 2011
       Throwing Down The Gauntlet
       I have a modest suggestion. I believe we need to actively introduce climate change into the presidential primary debate. The news media considers it a “second tier” issue and will not do it. But in the early primary states of NH (my home), Iowa, and North Carolina, we have a unique opportunity. We can use the “retail” face-to-face forums in these states to confront the current primary field with intelligent questions about climate change. The problem we face, though, is that candidates are good at providing easy talking points and individuals do not have a chance to ask follow ups. This strategy, sometimes called “bird dogging” means have thoughtful and informed questioner’s at every “town hall”, debate, and rally. Asking follow up questions based on the candidate’s earlier responses. I have already asked Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann questions. The Romney query set off a huge amount of discussion and debate. Bachmann’s response, much less. But we need others to continue to the “discussion”. For that reason I have started a FB page to track the current candidates answers on climate change with the hope that others can ask follow up questions. Individuals can use this page to learn about prior positions, suggest possible questions, and post information about any coverage their question gets. I can also suggest a few strategies to increase the likelihood that you will be picked to ask a question. Stop by at the page and get involved.
80471. BBD at 02:08 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       I have just read your article co-author Dr Diesendorf's 2010 paper. If Dr Diesendorf thinks that including the phrase 'Renewable Energy Deniers' in the title adds to the credibility of what follows, he is deeply mistaken. This is exactly the sort of poisonously defensive rhetoric that hardens opposition. It certainly does not persuade. A note: here in the UK, we experience winter anti-cyclones lasting for days. The geographic extent is often the entire British Isles (as occurred during the extremely cold period in December 2010). Wind speed falls below the operating threshold for wind generation over the entire country. The entire of Northern Europe can experience very low wind speeds during anti-cyclonic conditions. This is not rare, nor is it unacknowledged. That's why there's talk of hollowing out mountains to build the level of pumped hydro backup required to manage intermittency and grid balancing when we have 30GW of installed wind capacity. The costing of the proposed massive expansion of wind in the UK energy mix does not include either the very considerable grid extensions necessary (including offshore connectors), nor the humblingly vast sums required to create a huge pumped hydro backup. In fact the whole proposal is viewed by many familiar with the deeply worrying detail as a policy disaster of unparalleled proportions. JMurphy at 84 asked why the UK government was 'cosying up to nuclear'. It's really very obvious if you know what's actually going on.
80472. michael sweet at 01:49 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn, You claim "I know from 1st hand experience with costs that a carbon tax". What carbon tax do you currently pay to give you first hand experience? If you do not pay a carbon tax you do not have first hand experience and you are making false claims. The lead post gives DATA that supports their claim that a carbon tax is cost effective. You are merely saying what you think (but you claim what you think is fact). You have produced no evidence or data to support your wild claims, as usual. I dismiss your claim made with no supporting evidence.
80473. actually thoughtful at 01:47 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn, Your point that the economy is becoming more fuel efficient (GDP/unit of fuel is going down) is true. However, the GDP is going up at a rate higher than the fuel intensity is going down. So your positions (Business As Usual) will lead to a catastrophic failure of human civilization through lack of food due to climate change (this is not a guaranteed outcome, however, it is likely enough that prudent people will take action). If we somehow avoid that, your position does GUARANTEE a trillion dollars plus is in new taxes to relocate most of the population centers on the East and West coast of the United States. Your avoidance of a minor bother now (a rational carbon tax) is forcing HUGE costs on the next generation. This is inter-generational theft at its finest. So please tell us why we should risk collective doom so your business enterprise can flourish (until we fall off the cliff)? Given that the carbon tax is fairly applied to everyone, it shouldn't have any direct impact on your business (unless, of course you are not as efficient as another producer, or the market decides your product is not worth having at the all-in fuel price. If that is the case, that is going to happen anyways, as you admit (fuel prices are already rising). If you product is important, it will not be price sensitive, and all your competition will be raising prices as well. The worst case under a carbon tax is a short term round of inflation. The worst case under BAU is the end of the earth's capacity to carry 7-9 billion humans. You are a businessman, you understand minimizing risk, which would you choose? Why? As for your changes so far - good for you. I assure you there is much, much more you can do. One example is to move your business to a state with more easily accessible renewable resources (I realize that is not a preferred option, but I don't want to hear your knee-jerk rejection of easier ones, like hosting a wind farm on your property (as you say, wind is big in your area) or putting up solar (which works in Canada, so it is hard to see why it doesn't work in your corner of the universe)). You do have options, and most of us support limiting your options to foul the nest, which seems to be your number one goal. I am against.
80474. BBD at 01:44 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       dana1981 How fast can they spin up? It would have to be near-instantaneous for peak. What about thermal stress on the plant? You seem to think you can go from cold shutdown to operating capacity at the flick of a switch. You can't. What is the mass/joules conversion ratio for the plant you have in mind? How many tons of biofuels will be required, per hour to deliver the specified capacity? We need to look at the numbers now. Thanks - D
80475. BBD at 01:41 AM on 3 July 2011
       A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
       CBDunkerson SEGS: - 1,600 acres of the Mohave - best insolation in US - Capacity 354MW - Claimed output (unverified) 75MWe - Load factor 21% See the problem? You aren't going to power the planet with solar. It's wishful thinking.
80476. dana1981 at 01:28 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn, the main thrust of the article is that strong investment in renewables and/or a carbon price (which can help fund that investment) accelerates the process of transitioning to renewables, thus benefitting the economy. The fact that the transition is happening doesn't mean it can't happen faster, and help the economy in the process.
80477. Tor B at 01:09 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn (9 end) 20+ years ago my central New Hampshire (USA) home had a ~1 kWh/day photovoltaic system with marine battery storage and a propane generator back-up. We heated with wood and were frugal (e.g.: used outside cold for winter refrigeration; I walked a km to get to my employer's home and carpooled to work; kids walked 2 km to get to bus stop). The alternative would have been to pay 50% more up front to have electricity mains brought to the house AND pay rent on two utility poles in addition to paying for electricity used. The cost of photovoltaics is way down now; the cost of mains electricity isn't. I'm not saying your business could make this particular transition; of course the infrastructure is already in place. We all make choices and then rationalize them. I recall a high school classroom discussion on conservation when a fellow student considered the suggestion she walk (instead of drive) the full block from her home to school a ridiculous idea. Go Google! (at least as it relates to this blog's focus)
80478. Camburn at 01:04 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Michael: Yes, that is what they say. I am giving you the luxury of 1st hand business experience. I will take observed reactions to economically modeled reactions any day of the week and year. The wild, outrageous claims? Interesting perspective as my banker would completely disagree with you.
80479. michael sweet at 00:51 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn, If you read the article we are commenting on, they say that if we put in a carbon tax that the economy will expand to more than cover the cost of the tax. Why don't you read the lead post? Please present data that suggests the tax will not be cost efective or stop making wild, outrageous claims. You post on this site a lot and very rarely link to data. Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
80480. Camburn at 00:40 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Tom@18: Yes, the cost of energy is general. But because of that cost, business people are looking, evaluating, and implimenting to reduce the consumption of energy. So, on a per GDP basis, the amount of energy used declines. You indicate that renewables are more expensive(externalities excluded). At this point you are correct. The economic incentive is then to bring down the cost of renewables so that they can compete. That will happen for a host of reasons, but the most prevelant one is that the cost of fossil fuels is doing what ecnomics dictates and is going up. I have the luxury of living in a state that has abundant energy. Veryyyyyy abundant fossil fuel energy. Yet, even with that large reserve, there are exciting things happening on the renewable/alternative energy front, researched here. An ecnomical hydrogen fuel cell is not very far from reality. How do I know this? I know a person working on it. We have Bison Elec working on hydrogen production via wind energy. We have, as I have posted a link to, large elec wind farms with more going up. There are a lot of things happening that it seems few know about. As a business owner, I see every day the effect of rising energy costs. You talk about a carbon tax being good. I know from 1st hand experience with costs that a carbon tax will immediately stiffle production, and certainly drive up costs. Redistribute wealth....yep....take from me....as a large energy user.....give to someone who uses less. Yet, my energy consumption produces a product. So in order to stay in business the price of said product has to rise. What this incorporates is another tax on production......not consumption as my consumption has already declined on a per unit basis because of the improvements I have incorporated. To decide what person "A"s energy consumption is would have to incorporate what my energy consumption is as person "A" buys my product. That is already happening when they buy the product as the price is included. To add another layer is pound foolish, and economically destructive.
80481. Eric (skeptic) at 00:35 AM on 3 July 2011
       Throwing Down The Gauntlet
       Pete, interesting link, thanks. Here are a few more details: http://solarcooking.org/saussure.htmThere are lots of solar heater designs on the web that I loosely followed, but I made one error using acrylic instead of polycarbonate. I still need to replace that. Believe it or not, the black foundation doesn't look that bad from down the hill. Marcus, I would not mind at al having part of my yard flooded although some of my neighbors might. The key benefit is a more stable river level, right now a normal flood is 10 feet of rise and an extreme flood is 30 feet making it impossible to have any kind of dock and difficult to do the small scale hydro (it would have to be anchored and completely waterproof).
80482. Tom Curtis at 00:19 AM on 3 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn @17, the problem with that scenario is that the rise in the price of energy is general. Consequently, while it does provide incentive to become more energy efficient, it does not provide significant incentive to switch energy sources. Indeed, such incentives that it does provide for switching encourages energy producers to switch away from the more expensive (externalities excluded) renewable sources to the less expensive (externalities excluded) carbon intensive fuels such as coal. In contrast, a price on carbon not only encourages consumers of energy to reduce their consumption; it also encourages producers to seek a competitive advantage by switching to low carbon and zero carbon energy sources.
80483. hank at 00:02 AM on 3 July 2011
       Antarctica is gaining ice
       http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL047553.shtml doi:10.1029/2011GL047553 Sudden increase in Antarctic sea ice: Fact or artifact? Three highly-cited data sets depict a sudden large increase in Antarctic sea ice This step-change is fake and is related to a switch in source data Recent sea ice trends are significantly exagerated becuase of this data problem (typos in the original) http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL047553.shtml
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Links activated
80484. pdjakow at 00:01 AM on 3 July 2011
       Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
       Easterbrook false temperatures in 1999-2010: I think that time scale is also wrong.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] links and images added.
80485. WheelsOC at 23:58 PM on 2 July 2011
       Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
       Speaking of non-climate scientists trying to use the past to predict the future mechanism-free, here's yesterday's guest post by J. Storrs Hall at WUWT. Take all the increased temperature spikes on a graph of GISP2, overlay those with the global instrumental temperature record, and voila! He ends the post by saying, "Prediction of the 21st century is left to the reader as an exercise," and right on cue many comments reflect exactly the conclusion he wants you to draw. Entertainingly enough, some are calling out the science-free nature of this approach while in the same post dismissing the climate modelling done by legit researchers.
80486. Dikran Marsupial at 23:37 PM on 2 July 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       Cheers Riccardo (good summary ;o). If it does get published, it would be good if a peer-reviewed response were submitted. Submitting it to the Journal of Forecast is a neat trick, they wouldn't be able to get it published in a climate journal because of the lack of physics, the reviewers at JoF are likely to be only able to review the stats, but not the significance of the findings to climatology. Obviously that won't stop some drawing firm conclusions about climate from it.
80487. Norman at 23:32 PM on 2 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Tom Curtis @ 203 My post at 195 was more for DB. He was asking that I would start doing some of my own statistical analysis. I was not doing an indepth analysis to make a point with this. I was just looking for raw data. After about 7 or 8 pages of searches the Perth Australia page came up with raw data. So I plugged the data into an excel spread sheet and made trend lines. It was more an exercise for DB to determine if I was on the right track with a small data set before I would work on a larger one. Entering lots of data on an excel spreadsheet is time consuming and one has to be very careful not to add a wrong data point (typing error). I enter it and check it over. If at least I was on the right track I could then tackle larger data sets. I have already been steered away from selecting one data point with my Omaha snowfall connection to temperature post. Now I am seeking regional areas and the longest data trends I can find. I think I would pale matched against your searching skills (a master at selecting the correct key words). I type in what I think will get me data and scroll 10 pages of the same material that has nothing to do with my search. You do have internet search skills I do not.
       Response:

       [DB] While I can appreciate wanting me to vette your methodolgy, I'm hardly a statistician (Dikran would be the person to ask on that).  But I do know enough about stats, having followed Tamino's Open Mind for the past 4 years and climate science (and science in general) for about 30, to know that a focus on a few data points out of a larger set is improper, as I noted previously.

       Depending on what level and scope of analysis you're trying to do will also determine the types of methodologies you need to follow to come to a proper conclusion.  As you're dealing with climate science data, the link I gave you earlier to D Kelly O'Day's site should be of a great profit to you, as you can easily see how someone well-versed in analysis in Excel and R does it (replete with actual workbooks).

       If you're going to do it, and I applaud the effort, do it right.  Perhaps Dikran can suggest a primer on time series analysis to help.  Dikran?

80488. Camburn at 23:31 PM on 2 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       actually thoughtful@13: How about this scenerio: Looking at costs, I see my cost per unit of production has risen because of the price of energy. 1. I do an energy audit on my building and find several areas of leakage. I do a cost/benifit analysis and the payback of insulating, adding new doors etc is 5 years. I do the improvements and have now lowered my costs to less than my compitition and reduced my energy consumption per unit produced. 2. I do an energy audit on my machinery that runs in said building. By installing invertors on my larger motors I have an energy and cost of maintainence payback of 3 years. I quickly invest in invertors. 3. I look at my fuel costs and identify ways to cut gallon/acre useage. I incorporate those improvements. I have not paid an energy tax. I have lowered my unit energy costs. I have been able to maintain a profitable business and enhanced my long term viability. This is what is happening all around. The idea of a carbon tax is to provide incentive. The reality of it is that increasing energy costs are doing this effectively because there is already an incentive. Micheal: Why add another 3% cost to anything? Why redistibute revenue at all? I present you with facts from a real world economic model. That is not gibberish, that is facts.
80489. adelady at 23:25 PM on 2 July 2011
       Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
       batvette "It comes down to people don't drive their kids to Disneyland." Why wouldn't they if they had an electric vehicle and there were recharge/replace facilities along the highways instead of servos? Or they could choose high speed rail powered by electricity (from renewable sources). You're confusing conservation with efficiency. Conservation is about using less of something in order not to waste it. Efficiency is about using the best resource for the task. For transport, using fuel that doesn't have to be mined, transported and burned is much more efficient.
80490. Riccardo at 22:40 PM on 2 July 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       The paper was submitted to Journal of Forecast but hasn't been published, not there at least. The statistics leave much to be desired, physics is absent; but even if they were sound, they discovered that the climate in Australia is sensitive to no less than the nearby ocean! How could they come to global conclusion and even make projections remains a mistery.
80491. Dikran Marsupial at 22:27 PM on 2 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       P. M. Williams, "Modelling Seasonality and Trends in Daily Rainfall Data" (available here) will be of interest to those interested in extreme precipitation (it is more concerned with the statistical methodology than the data, but an empirical study based on this method would be really interesting). Essentially it alows you to model the probability of rainfall and the parameters of a Gamma distribution describing the plausible amount of rainfall as a function of time. This allows you to see how the distribution of rainfall has changed, see e.g. fig 2, which show that the probability of rainfall, the mean rainfall and also ranfall variability at Pomarico have all declined since the 1950s, especially the variability (as measured by the standard deviation). Integrating the upper or lower tails of this distribution gives an indication of the kinds of extreme events we might expect to see in the future. In the case of Pomarico, it seems likely that droughts are becoming a little more likely, but that heavy rainfall is becoming less likely (the Gamma distribution is skewed, so that if the standard deviation is reduced, the upper tail will come in more than the lower tail). IMHO this paper ought to be much better cited than it is.
80492. Tom Curtis at 22:25 PM on 2 July 2011
       Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
       batvette @49, the review board was not from the same faculty as Michael Mann, and hence independent. As to the "other flaws", we have been through this before @29, 35, and 37 above. There we established that: 1) You just make up "facts" because they suit your argument; and 2) The allegations against Michael Mann where reviewed using the standard procedures as laid down by their by-laws for Penn State, procedures which are in line with those typically required in US and Australian universities. You had nothing of substance to say then, and the mere passage of time adds nothing to your attempts to beat up an issue where none exists.
80493. michael sweet at 22:06 PM on 2 July 2011
       Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
       Camburn, There you go with your wild, unsubstainted claims again. It is well known from Social Security that the government can collect a tax and redistribute it for less than 3% of the total revenues. Please provide data to support your gibberish that revenue cannot be redistributed. It is tiresome to have these deniers come in again and again with their gibberish and have to discuss it with them as if it were facts.
80494. kdkd at 22:02 PM on 2 July 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       Yes I've come across this Stockwell and Cox paper before. Aside from the dubious affiliation (I mean has anything scientifically worthwhile come out of the Institute of Public Affairs?), it just seemed to me like a bunch of statistical description with a very limited attempt to place the data in the context of a credible physical model.
80495. Tom Curtis at 21:57 PM on 2 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Norman @195, the increase in severe weather events expected from global warming at the moment is slight, and the occurrence of severe weather events sporadic. Consequently the noise is very large compared to the signal. So, if you choose just one, or a few locations it is unlikely that there will be a statistically significant trend, and whatever trend there is may be in either direction. That is the nature of noisy data when you do not have a lot of data to work with. In contrast, if you look at a lot of data, as for example, as done by Munich Re, a signal can be detected. Or you could look at the trend in the length of warm spells Australia wide: You will then see that the trends you find in the Perth heatwave data are in fact artifacts of the noisy data. You can also check parallel information, such as the general trend in Perth temperatures, which would have shown you the same thing: Frankly, I should not have to chase down this auxiliary data for you. If you were what you purport to be, you would be doing it yourself instead of seizing on any little piece of data you think could undermine the position you oppose and rushing in a post which shows no significant thought on the topic.
80496. Dikran Marsupial at 21:46 PM on 2 July 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       Having skimmed the paper, it looks to me like another case of someone thinking stats trumps physics; they are wrong, it is the other way round (I am a statistician, and I greatly prefer a model with a strong physical explanation than merely statistical support). The Chow test is not reliable in this case, as it is based on sum-of-squares errors, which implicitly assumes a Gaussaan noise process. However the noise process for climate data is non-gaussian; it has a quasi periodic cyclic component, due to ocean circulation such as ENSO. Now if they were to find a step change in the data after it had been adjusted for the effects of ENSO (i.e. look at the resudials of a regression of temperatures on MEI, as has been done frequently), that would be a different matter entirely. I very much doubt that the Chow test would identify a step change in that case, which would mean that surface temperatures are affected by ENSO, something we have known for decades. The reason that Easterling and Wehner find periods of low warming or cooling is exactly that - internal climate variability. Secondly, it is obviously cherry picking to start a trend at a conspicuous maximum. This is true even if you include statistical significance becuase if you optimise the start date to bias the result in a particular direction (e.g. by choosing to start at a maxima) then it invalidates the significance test anyway. Essentially you are performing many simultaneous significance tests, one for each start point. Each test has a probability of a false-positive or a false-negative. If you pick and choose the test to make the argument you want, you vastly increase the overall chance of a false-positive or false-negative, and hence it is cherry picking. In stats this is the "multiple hypothesis testing problem". Lastly, using the start point of the dataset is not cherry picking, it doesn't mean the results are robust to the choice of start point. It is not reasonable to expect a linear trend in temperatures on a centennial scale; climate forcings have changes in many ways over that period - solar forcing explains much of the waming in the first half of the 20th century, aerosol cooling explains a mid-century plateau and CO2 radiative forcing has become dominant from the late sixties. So the Chow test is a bit of a straw man. It is always going to find a break point, simply because the linear trend is known to be wrong. That doesn't mean that it is a step change though, that is just the only alternative offered to the straw man of a linear centennial scale trend. I suspect that if they had started in say 1960 (giving a period where CO2 radiative forcing is asserted to be dominant according to e.g. the IPCC), I suspect the Chow test would no longer identify a step change because a linear trend over that period is more plausible. The paper shows a lack of self-skepticism. Has the paper been published in a peer reviewed journal? If so, I'll give it more than just a skim, but as (essentially) a statistican, I am not impressed by it.
80497. les at 21:34 PM on 2 July 2011
       Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
       I can't be bothered to "define" smart consumption for you. You've don't it twice for your self I don't suppose anything I have to say will make any impact. And, yes, I can see you're lost; but as you say, you're not the subject of this thread so I'll leave that there.
80498. Dikran Marsupial at 21:14 PM on 2 July 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       The abstract of Stockwell and Cox suggests a rather poor grasp of multiple hypothesis testing and the nature of cherry picking. Finding a statistically significant result does not refute the possibility of cherry picking. If you look at 100 independent events (e.g. trends at different site), at the 95% level you would expect to see five statistically significant events even if all trends were due to random chance. Cherry picking is about searching for events that make your argument, in contradiction to the broader picture; this is still possible if you restrict yourself to "statistically significant" events. Also it is rather unsurprising that there is a change in the datasets around 1997. In 1998 there was an extremely strong El-Nino event. It is difficult to detect the difference in a noisy dataset between a step change and a linear trend with a quasi cyclical variability (ENSO). Physics provides an answer, the linear trend model has a plausible physical explanation, can the same be said of the step change model? I'll comment again when I have read the rest of the paper. This is just my impression from the abstract.
80499. Marco at 20:58 PM on 2 July 2011
       Roy Spencer on Climate Sensitivity - Again
       Ecoeng, thanks. I do note it is a regional reconstruction. Also note that it does discuss possible reasons for the observations, including several that have little to do with expansion/contraction.
80500. batvette at 20:55 PM on 2 July 2011
       Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
       Les, now you've lost me. Is what I'm doing transparant or am I employing cheap tricks? Seems to me it's one or the other, not both at the same time. But WTH, I'm not the topic here, at least I hope not. So I'm curious, can you define "smart consumption" for me? While we would all believe this means stopping for groceries on the way home from work, not going home and the light bulb turns on and think "oh yeah I think I need groceries" and making a seperate trip, fact is high gas prices already drive this and the rest of us aren't as dumb as you'd like to think. It's not as simple as "let's cut out all that needless, wasteful energy use that we can easily eliminate by just being smart, because leaving that porch light on all night didn't employ anyone!" It comes down to people don't drive their kids to Disneyland. They stay home and watch a Disney movie on pay per view. People don't drive to the beach. They watch Baywatch on pay per view. (okay I ran out of analogies here) There really is no denying here that the overall message is "we need to consume less because it's been harming the planet" and there is truth to that but why would anyone enter a discussion on it by denying if people listened to that it would harm a consumer based economy?

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