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dhogaza at 06:27 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
yes, I understood your use of "funny". "Like how can there be such a kerfuffle over trying to ramp up renewable energy production? Unless you're pro-fossil fuels and/or pro-nuclear, I suppose." Exactly. The economic argument for inaction is that essentially decarbonization would be so destructive to the economy that (in the extreme denialist view) we'd virtually have to give up anything resembling our modern lifestyle. Present research that points to a path that can lead to decarbonization while maintaining prosperity and you've destroyed that argument. Which puts the fossil fuel interests in a bind. But also those who oppose any form of collectivist (government) action on principle... -
scaddenp at 06:21 AM on 22 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Eric, with the current policy (do nothing), policymakers are betting a low sensitivity. This is neither likely nor precautionary. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:15 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Sphaerica... I just googled it up and it may not even be Chinese. It may be more likely western in origin but dolled up to sound Confucian. [Link.] None-the-less... An interesting decade clearly lay before us.Response:[DB] Just like this urban legend attributed to Petronius Arbiter:
We trained hard…but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was soon to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.
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dana1981 at 06:10 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
dhogaza - 'funny' as in "WTF is going on?". An absurd sort of funny. Like how can there be such a kerfuffle over trying to ramp up renewable energy production? Unless you're pro-fossil fuels and/or pro-nuclear, I suppose. -
JMurphy at 06:08 AM on 22 June 2011Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
Joshua, you should have a look at DeepClimate's analysis of Wegman's analysis (or should that be McIntyre and McKitrick's analysis ?) here and here. -
funglestrumpet at 06:05 AM on 22 June 2011Introducing the Skeptical Science team
Stevo @ 3 says it all - great work and thanks. I would love to think that my grandchildren (if my son ever stops spending all his time trying to avoid having them) will find this page on their old granddad's computer and be able to see that at least some people of this time weren't completely selfish with no concern for the lot of future generations. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:01 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
8, Rob, Just to clarify, that's not a Chinese saying, it's a Chinese curse... and therefore all the more applicable. -
dhogaza at 06:00 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
The funny thing to me is that this report was just about how much energy we can produce from renewable sources, and there's this huge controversy like meeting a high percentage of our energy demands with renewable sources is such a bad thing!
What's funny about it? If we can decarbonize without crippling the world economy, then the economic argument against taking action disappears. If they can't hide behind the cover of science skepticism and economic alarmism, their political and big business motivations are laid bare ... -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:55 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Almost all my optimism is on this one fact. Once the cost of PVs drops below coal then the economic incentive becomes to produce cheaper energy that just happens to also be cleaner. Those investment levels become FAR easier to hit when there is a clear economic advantage. The old Chinese saying is, "May you live in interesting times." Well, we are certainly living those times today. My sense is that this next decade will be pivotal for humanity on a lot of levels. -
dana1981 at 05:45 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Yes Rob, sometime in the next decade solar PV is expected to meet that threshold. As Figure 2 in the post shows, the costs are really dropping rapidly as production continues to ramp up. But remember that's the market price of coal. If there were a price on carbon emissions, solar PV would probably already be cheaper. -
dana1981 at 05:39 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
To follow up on Andy's point, by choosing Teske as a lead author, the IPCC effectively gave McIntyre the opportunity to create this manufactured controversy. You could argue the choice was a PR mistake. On the other hand, it clearly reveals the bias and double-standard of McIntyre and co, since Greenpeace isn't allowed to have a lead author, but a petroleum company is. Ultimately the IPCC is trying to get experts to contribute to these reports, and they clearly place expertise over affiliation in their selection process. I guess the question is whether they need to try and anticipate the attacks of denialists like McIntyre when making those selections. The funny thing to me is that this report was just about how much energy we can produce from renewable sources, and there's this huge controversy like meeting a high percentage of our energy demands with renewable sources is such a bad thing! -
CanadianClimateHawk at 05:36 AM on 22 June 2011Review of 2084: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Powell
I read the book and I find it sobering to say the least. One could quibble about the timing of climate events but that would be to miss the big picture we are stealing from future generations the ability to lead a healthy life. -
Eric the Red at 05:35 AM on 22 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
according to PIOMAS, sea ice volume has been below 2007 values for the past two years. http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b014e885c65ac970d-piResponse:[DB] FYI, that is a hindcast product (PIOMAS 1), with quadratic curves fitted to them. I.e., not to be taken as a prediction for future performance. The graph I posted above is from the newer system, PIOMAS 2. Less volume = less area and extent.
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Bob Lacatena at 05:34 AM on 22 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
208, Eric the Red, Please see my responses 204 and 205 to your post 203, which are equally applicable to your post 208, where you appear to simply say the exact same thing again. A detailed response from you is required in order to support your position. -
DSL at 05:34 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
I disagree with the core of your complaint, Andy. It either sounds like you want scientists to be removed from lead authorship for rhetorical purposes (to avoid the consequences in the war of words), or it sounds like you want scientists to be apolitical (impossible, given what's at stake -- there is a conflict of interest for any human being). All of the involved scientists are associated with institutions. According to many of the doubters, the fact that a scientist is being paid by a government is an immediate sign of corruption. According to many of those who accept AGW, anyone who works for an oil company is corrupt. Despite all the corruption, science does manage to get done. The contributions must be weighed according to their scientific merit not according to their authors. Yes, I know: in the necessarily simplified world of the unwashed, non-scientific masses, scientific merit is impossible to read. The association of the author is a much more readable (and inaccurate) sign. So back to the other possibility: are you advocating for lead authors to step down if their associations are too politically volatile? I suspect that such a practice would itself be much more damaging to the reputation of organized science. -
grypo at 05:27 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
If done correctly, and with an eye toward improvement on PR, what Andy S is suggesting is not really bowing to the demands of people like McIntyre. If the IPCC were to do that, as we all know from over a decade of his nonsense, the changes would never stop, and we can all figure where the endgame is. While I disagree with Andy S about automatically disqualifying people, for whatever reason, I agree that there should already be a CoI strategy to deal with these matters, both internally and PR-wise. Somehow, this caught them off-guard, probably because the WG's II and III and very different from WG1, and they did not expect the same adherence to scientific protocol (grey lit, industry connection, etc). The alliance with Lynas is a different story. Lynas is very critical of the anti-nuke movement within the "greens". He understands the need to decarbonize the atmosphere ASAP and understands the political implications of not agreeing to nuclear concessions, and other negotiable energy sources involved, with which I am in agreement. I do hope he realizes that his motivations and that of others involved are not equivalent. -
Andy Skuce at 05:24 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
CBD 14 I'm arguing that nobody who has a vested interest through their employment, either with a corporation or a political advocacy organisation, should have an editorial role at the IPCC. The case for academics who receive some of their funding from energy companies (fossil fuel or renewable) is admittedly not so clear-cut. -
Andy Skuce at 05:13 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
dhogaza 12 and 13: no I'm not supporting McIntyre's rules, as I made clear in the first paragraph. I'm also not saying that anyone one from Greenpeace should be excluded from contributing to the IPCC, especially if they have written peer-reviewed articles, just that they shouldn't be Lead Authors. The same should go for employees of the Cato Institute, SaudiAramco or Exxon-Mobil. -
CBDunkerson at 05:04 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Andy S, if we were to apply the 'guilt by association' logic you are arguing then we would also have to rail against the inclusion of materials by McIntyre himself, Christy, the Pielke's, and various other skeptics who have been referenced in or worked on IPCC reports... given their connections to the fossil fuel industry. More reasonable to discuss positions on their merits... but in that case the 'skeptics' don't have a leg to stand on. Hence the gamesmanship. -
dhogaza at 04:59 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Andy S: You're essentially saying that the game has to be played by the rules laid out by Steve McIntyre and other denialists (though I actually haven't seen a written version of those rules). If the denialists are allowed to define the rules, they will have won. Pure and simple. -
dhogaza at 04:58 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
For the WG2 and WG3 areas of research, it’s inevitable that non peer-reviewed “grey” literature is going to have to be referenced.
What does this have to do with the inclusion of peer-reviewed research published in a legitimate journal in the report being discussed?At the very least, surely, employees of highly politicised advocacy organizations like Greenpeace should not be appointed as Lead Authors.
Take it up with the German government, then, he was their choice ... -
Andy Skuce at 04:47 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
This controversy is not about the facts or about science. It’s about the perception of the impartiality of the IPCC: it’s politics and PR. Frankly, I’m amazed after all the controversy that the IPCC has faced in the past few years that they believed that they could maintain an aura of impartiality while including a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author. The prominent Canadian skeptic who is a master of making McMountains out of molehills plainly goes too far when he calls for all WG3 contributors to be terminated. On the other hand, it’s an error, I think, to maintain that there’s nothing that needs to be fixed at the IPCC, especially when it comes to reports on the fields of research outside the physical sciences. Among large sectors of the public, Greenpeace has a reputation as a strident militant organization, more concerned with publicity-seeking, high-profile stunts (for example in Greenland or in Turkey), rather than being a research organization, devoted to following the facts diligently, wherever they may lead. Obviously, that’s not the way that many at the IPCC see it. According to Oliver Morton —“Babbage”— in The Economist (making the case more strongly than I would):The world of renewable energy has a very strong party line, based on a belief in its moral superiority and ultimately inevitable triumph. In this world Greenpeace doesn’t look fantastical, shrill and occasionally criminal, as it does to many in business; it seems a “stakeholder” among others. And it is in this world that most of those who study and profit from renewables, not to mention a lot of those who set relevant policies, are likely to spend their days.
Yes, being suspicious of an author’s contribution based on where he is employed is an ad hominem argument, but when it comes to trust and reputation, guilt by association trumps the rules of logic, especially in a world where few people are able to sort through the details but everyone can see where the authors’ pay checks come from. For the WG2 and WG3 areas of research, it’s inevitable that non peer-reviewed “grey” literature is going to have to be referenced. Also, many of the experts in these areas are employed by energy companies, industry lobby groups and NGO’s; preventing them from contributing to the IPCC process would not be desirable, since a big fraction of the latest expertise would then be excluded. Commercial interests and political agendas are hard to unscramble from the basic technical research in any discussion on the merits and challenges of emerging technologies. Therefore, to maintain its reputation as a source of reliable and unbiased summaries of the state of knowledge, the IPCC surely needs to adopt particularly strict standards on possible or even just perceived conflicts of interest in these areas. At the very least, surely, employees of highly politicised advocacy organizations like Greenpeace should not be appointed as Lead Authors. It’s true that no fuss has been made about the participation of oil company employees to the SRREN, but most of them were not Lead Authors, and contributions with obvious big oil provenance were not prominent in the report nor highlighted in the IPCC press release. It’s no use just saying that the facts are all on the IPCC’s side; as the Skeptical Science blog repeatedly shows, contrarians lose every battle in the scientific arena. The AR4 WG1 report is beyond reproach. Yet, judging from the negligible progress we have made in arresting emissions, the inactivists are nonetheless winning the war. In Canada and the US, our leaders can scarcely bring themselves to utter the words “climate change”. The expansion of the tar sands in Canada is a major driver of economic growth; the largest and growing export from Australia is coal. In times of economic uncertainty, winning over the public to the idea that we have to shut down these industries over the next decade or two requires a compelling narrative and scrupulously unbiased information backing it up. To quote George Monbiot (from faulty memory), we need to do better than say that: “providing we radically restructure our economy, then the climate won’t be as bad as it otherwise might have been”. Against this we hear the misleading but more easily digestible: . “And now Greenpeace is writing the IPCC reports” -
Patrick 027 at 04:36 AM on 22 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
Michele, sorry, no, that's not right at all. CO2 optical thickness decreases roughly exponentially away from the band center. With optical thicknesses of intermediate value, a thick layer of air emits to space, or in any direction from any level (a thicker layer of the upper troposphere, potentially extending to and including the surface, will be the source of radiation upward at the tropopause, for example). Not that it's impossible to have a convective layer aloft, but this just isn't the case for the mesosphere. The CO2 band actually encompasses somewhere on the order of ~ 30 % of the blackbody radiation in a spectrum for temperatures in the range of the surface and most of the atmosphere. This includes parts where the atmosphere is partially transparent, though. Radiative forcing: When you increase the density of a component with cross section (opacity), cross section density, optical thicknesses over the same paths increase in proportion. The distances photons can travel shrink. The emission weighting functions become more concentrated and overall closer to the location for which they are based. With a potential for some variation when starting with great transparency, eventually the brightness temperature approaches the actual temperature; if there is not a disconinuity in optical properties or temperature, the net flux goes to zero. (At the effective TOA, an effective discontinuity, the net upward flux is just the upward flux.) The net upward LW flux at the tropopause must (global annual average, in the approximation of zero convection across the tropopause) balance the net downward SW flux, equal to solar heating below that level, or else energy is being gained or lost from the troposphere+surface. Where CO2 is saturated at the tropopause level, the net flux is already zero and can't be farther lowered. But doubling CO2 approximately shifts the same range of optical thickness values out from the center of the band, into where the atmosphere was more transparent. This reduces the net upward LW flux at the troposphere - for upward LW radiation at the tropopause, it 'lifts' the effective emitting level (which is just a representative concept for the emission weighting function) off the surface (if it was there) and to higher and higher levels, and for downward LW radiation, it pulls the effective emitting level from the dark of space, into the stratosphere, and lower into the stratosphere. Think of the effective emitting levels (EELS) forming a landscape; the net LW flux can be large when the EEL for upward radiation is on a warm surface and the EEL for downward radiation is in space; bringing them close together eventually makes their temperatures nearly equal and so the net LW flux goes to zero. For radiation at the tropopause level, the two EELs are, around the CO2 band a hill rising upward from the surface and/or clouds and water vapor within the troposphere, and a valley dropping down from space. When the two meet at the band center, adding more CO2 continues to widen the hill and the valley, reducing the interval of relatively larger transparency and increasing the interval where the net LW flux is zero. If the climate was previously in equilibrium, the radiative fluxes are now imbalanced, and energy accumulates below the tropopause level - until the the warming that results increases the upward LW flux (which occurs outside the saturated part of the spectrum) to restore balance. It is here where the lapse rate matters - without convection, the radiative fluxes at each level would combine to determine equilibrium temperatures; but with radiative equilibrium being unstable to (moist) convection within the troposphere and surface, the whole of the two warm to balance the radiative fluxes at the tropopause level (and at TOA) while the distribution of that warming is determined by the convective lapse rate, which itself may be temperature dependent (hence the lapse rate feedback), and from various other complexities that arise when considering the full 4-dimensional climate system. I have up to this point skipped the effect on the stratosphere; adding CO2 cools the stratosphere, due to a combination of the temperature profile being as it is and the spectra being as they are. The stratosphere has little heat capacity relative to the convectively-coupled troposphere+surface (including the ocean, or at least the upper more rapidly mixed portion of it) and tends to reach radiative equilibrium much faster. This reduces the downward flux at the tropopause level, having a cooling effect, and so rather than using 'instantaneous forcing', we often refer to the tropopause-level forcing with stratospheric adjustment - this is the forcing that the tropopause+surface must respond to. However, there is also a feedback when the warming below the tropopause increases the upward LW flux, as some of that is absorbed by the stratosphere, increasing the LW flux emitted by the stratosphere by that amount, some of which is downward - however the stratosphere on Earth is relatively transparent to much of the LW radiation upward from below, perhaps even more so to the increase in LW radiation. IResponse:[DB] I took the liberty of breaking your comment up into paragraphs for improved readability.
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Eric the Red at 04:36 AM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
This popped up over at RC, comparing the long-term European temperature records with the global datasets. http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/co2_temp_1650-2010-6OeMR.gifResponse:[DB] This is part of JBob's long-standing efforts to counter known global effects with local measurements. It is meaningless and has little if any bearing on the topic of this thread.
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KR at 04:32 AM on 22 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Eric the Red - I believe the content of your last post (you have a duplicate there, don't know which one the moderators will leave) was fully stated earlier in your previous post, or possibly this one. They certainly were not deleted. You've received several answers since then, with Tom Curtis's probably the clearest. Median values (not means, but the 50% median, very important in asymmetric distributions) cluster strongly at 3C, with only one of the AR4 median values more than 1C away. Recent instrumental estimates have higher variability, which isn't surprising since they won't have enough data/timeframe to clearly estimate long term feedbacks. When you have independent measures (different proxies, instruments, models, etc.) that all produce similar results, the uncertainty decreases with each additional estimate, not increases. 3C per doubling of CO2 is a very solid value. It would be interesting to apply Annan and Hargreaves methods for Bayesian inference to the full set of estimates, rather than just three, and see how tight a limit the full set of experiments constrains that sensitivity. "I don't know why politicians should bet on low, high, or mid-range climate sensitivity values, as they all have a high probability of being wrong. " Politicians should bet on the most likely numbers, as they have the highest probability of being right. Again, your attitude strikes me as a "Yes, but..." form of denial, and in particular of delay of action. -
CBDunkerson at 04:28 AM on 22 June 2011Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
Joshua, it is true that plagiarism does not "necessarily" indicate a lack of veracity in other matters, but it certainly begs the question. In any case, the problems with Wegman's report fell more into the category of 'political spin' than factual inaccuracy. That is... he noted that various authors had worked together on various papers... and then implied that this suggested a dark conspiracy and failure to properly check results. True factual statement, completely bogus implication. The Wegman and NAS reports contained virtually all the same observations... and based on these reached diametrically opposed conclusions. -
Eric the Red at 04:20 AM on 22 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
That is a strong statement. Do you have any evidence to support it?Response:[DB] "I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."[Source]
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CBDunkerson at 04:19 AM on 22 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Eric, extent isn't a particularly useful metric except for determining trends over a long time period. As DB notes, volume is the defining factor... though unfortunately much more difficult to measure. Extent = area / average concentration From this simple formula it is clear that extent is as much determined by how spread out the ice is as by the amount of ice surface... and it completely ignores how thick it is (and thus how much energy is required to melt) Volume = area * average thickness Comparing this formula to that for extent we can see that extent is essentially a proxy for volume with two potential error factors (no thickness component and variable concentration). The lowest extent was in 2007 and at the time that was also the lowest volume, but volume in 2010 was significantly lower and thus far volume this year has been lower than 2010. With the two 'error factors' it is still possible that the 2007 extent will not be broken, but as the volume continues to drop it becomes less and less likely. -
Joshua at 04:14 AM on 22 June 2011Climate change denial and the abuse of peer review
What say you to the oft heard response that Wegman's plagiarism doesn't necessarily detract from the veracity of his analysis? -
Eric the Red at 04:13 AM on 22 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
I will try again, since the moderater insists it will work. The studies do not suggest thatthe values are centered close to 3. In fact, they suggest the opposite. Models show clustering around three, will paleo data consistently shows higher values with temperature data showing lower. There are several clusters of estimates, without a smooth distribution. KR linked to a nice series of climate sensitivity papers. So far, I have only read through the first two pages. Some papers show higher climate sensitivity ranges; Sanderson 2.45 - 7.32 and Hergerl 1.5 - 6.2, while others show lower; Schneider 1.08 - 2.3 and Padilla 1 - 3.2 (do not ask me how anyone can list three sig. figs. in their determinations). Risk analysis may be fine for policy makers and insurance agents, but makes for poor scientific study. I would not advise anyone to accept a mean value (3.0) or median value (2.6 or 2.8) in making decisions when such a wide range exists. It may be a good starting point, but one should realize that it could be off by a large amount. I do nto know why politicians should bet on low, high, or mid-range cliamte sensitivity values, as they all have a high probability of being wrong. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:10 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Dana... But that whole equation is supposed to flip sometime in the next decade, right? I keep reading that PVs are projected to fall below the cost of coal this coming decade, even without subsidies. -
dana1981 at 04:04 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
luminous - that's a bit of a tricky question, because it depends what you're factoring into the price of a new coal plant. In this post I mentioned the true cost of coal power - in short, the market price is cheap because it doesn't reflect the costs of the climate change and impacts on public health (which economists call "externalities"). If you don't include those external costs, coal is cheaper than most renewable energy sources (onshore wind is close). If you do include those external costs, most renewable sources are already cheaper than new coal plants. Putting a price on carbon emissions would be a major step in making the market price of coal more accurately reflect its true cost. Basically in the real world, it's cheaper to replace old power plants with renewables. But in the current market, it's usually cheaper for an electric utility to replace them with new coal plants (or natural gas). Which is why so many of us (including most economists) are pushing for a price on carbon emissions. -
thepoodlebites at 03:59 AM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
I just read an interesting article in Scientific American, March 2011, A Shifting Band of Rain. There's a good reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere temperature anomaly during the Little Ice Age, about -1.0 C cooler than present. Here's an interesting observation from the article, "when solar energy reaching the top of the atmosphere decreased by just two tenths of a percent for about 100 years, the ITCZ migrated south toward the equator by 500 kilometers." The prediction is another 500 kilometer migration to the north by 2,100, based on projections from increased GHG. This prediction is pretty bold considering that the ITCZ is about where it was during the Medieval Warm Period. -
Eric the Red at 03:55 AM on 22 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Nice graphic. The melt pool may not be significant as the sea ice extent is essential the same as last year.Moderator Response: (DB) The volume is what matters; by melt season's end, 2007 will fall. -
KR at 03:53 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
While generally rather ignorant of Australian politics, it's my understanding that they are ramping up to vote on a carbon tax. This would be a significant move towards controlling CO2 emissions - a major country investing in controlling their GHG footprint. Given that, it's not all that surprising that various "skeptic" sources are ranting loudly; JoNova, Watts, assorted 'Business as Usual' associated mouthpieces, etc. While not confident about it, I'm hopeful that the increasing rant level, decreasing rationality of objections, and yelling about such terribly minor issues as the authorship of this peer reviewed article indicate that the deniers are beginning to run out of steam. They can still do a lot of damage in the political arena, but I believe it's becoming more and more obvious to the public that their objections are, to a great extent, hollow shells... -
Paul Magnus at 03:49 AM on 22 June 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
This use to be available as a pdf download right? where is that gone? I have been waiting for this on kindle but it is taking ages. Why is it so many environmental books dont come out on ebook for right away? -
dhogaza at 03:45 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Keith Kloor's not fit to wipe Revkin's shoes, in terms of influence, so I didn't bother mentioning him. I think Revkin's definitely worth pointing out, though, since he's possibly the most prominent NY Times voice on climate change issues and has a long standing track record of using folks like RPJr as his go-to source on the science (rather than, well, climate scientists).That's how the integrity of the attacks is being presented: one possible flaw, even though tiny and not central to the findings, is cast as evidence that the entire document is fatally flawed.
Not just the document, but the entire IPCC. That's what they're after, bringing down the IPCC. Never mind that WG3 is much less rigorous than the most important working group, WG1, which analyzes and summarizes the state of the science. If you can undercut one group's work, even a small part of it, even on points which have no merit, you can undercut the entire process or even kill it entirely. -
actually thoughtful at 03:43 AM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
It is a small point, but part of the rise in insurance claims is a trend (in the US at least) for increased population densities where climate change driven disaster is likely (and, per Tom Curtis, that is everywhere), specifically the forest urban boundary in the West/Southwest, along rivers, and along shorelines. However, this trend is minor compared to the impact of increased energy and moisture in storms. I appreciated the idea that the lower differential in temperatures that global warming brings should translate to weaker storms, but the observable reality (see Tom Curtis at 116) actually indicates the opposite. -
NewYorkJ at 03:42 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
dhogaza: "The very URL exposes his error: "new-ipcc-error-renewables-report-conclusion-was-dictated-by-greenpeace" DSL: "Further, he has, like Watts, allowed his comment stream to fill up with garbage and shown an unwillingness to address the garbage." Lynas has also shown an unwillingness to address critique of his arguments. I tried multiple times to point out the obvious problem with the headline (that dhogaza linked to) and other arguments on his blog, but to no avail. Then he comes back with the "circle the wagons" response to characterize anyone dissenting from his argument. End of discussion. Minor issue with Dana's point: "And unfortunately, a few other influential figures (i.e. Mark Lynas and Anthony Watts) have bought into McIntyre's glaring logical fallacy." Watts would predictably buy anything that bashes the IPCC, so that's not a matter of chance.Response:[dana1981] Agreed re Watts, but it's still unfortunate
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KR at 03:42 AM on 22 June 2011When scientists take to the streets it’s time to listen up
Eric the Red - While a few "test" posts appear to have been deleted, I don't see any of your posts with content that have been removed. Certainly there don't seem to be any posts containing examples of misrepresented papers (as you claimed earlier), as per dhogaza's or my questions, that have been deleted. But I'm not a moderator, perhaps I've missed something. I would suggest (re)posting your examples, paying attention to the Comments Policy while doing so.Response:[DB] You are correct, on all counts. You haven't missed anything, O' Sharp of Eye.
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luminous beauty at 03:37 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
A question that always arises in my mind is: What is the difference in the investment cost of renewables and the investment cost in replacing existing fossil energy plants, plus the infrastructure that supports them, as their economic lifetime expires? I hardly ever see this addressed except that renewable plant costs are, in general, going down and fossil plant costs are going up. I also note that the geothermal sources are conservative low hanging fruit estimates compared to the MIT study that gives estimates of 14,000ZJ, 200ZJ - 2000ZJ potentially extractable, for just the continental US. To coin a phrase; What's Up With That? -
dana1981 at 03:36 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Lynas has not raised any substantive criticisms of the report. He's unhappy that the 77% plan phases out nuclear power, but that's neither here nor there - the plan is both technically and economically feasible. As Rob suggests, to discuss the manufactured controversy and ad hominem attacks, please see the sister post linked at the end of this article. -
dana1981 at 03:31 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Eric #1 - it's pretty clear that McIntyre has been the leader of this manufactured controversy, and Lynas jumped on his bandwagon, though he may have taken it further. dhogaza - true, Revkin's initial reporting on the subject was quite poor. If we were making a list, we could also include Keith Kloor, from what I've heard (I haven't visited his site recently). But I didn't intend to make a list, just to provide a few examples of poor vs. good coverage of the subject. And it's certainly not even remotely true that Greenpeace dictated the conclusion of the report. -
DSL at 03:27 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Eric, Lynas has echoed the sensationalism--indeed, I might say alarmism--of McIntyre. Further, he has, like Watts, allowed his comment stream to fill up with garbage and shown an unwillingness to address the garbage. When the larger context is understood--as dana points out--then the strong reaction to it ("more of the hoax!") appears not only uncritical but a little insidious. We might use the analogy of the dam here: critics are looking for the slightest, tiniest crack in the dam, because small cracks can become large cracks and lead to the complete failure of the dam (AGW). That's how the integrity of the attacks is being presented: one possible flaw, even though tiny and not central to the findings, is cast as evidence that the entire document is fatally flawed. Yet the IPCC report is not a dam. It is more like a forest. Teske et al. (2010) was peer reviewed, but if it still represents a conflict of interest, if you think (without evidence presented ("exposing the conflicts")) that it's still a flaw in the process, then it is a tiny flaw--one plant in the forest. If the plant dies, the forest still lives (indeed, it grows stronger on the decomposition of that plant). It's rather more interesting that McIntyre, Watts, and their comment-bots need to seize upon and seriously misrepresent this rather insignificant element of the report. Given the context, it doesn't just suggest desperation; it is desperate. -
dhogaza at 03:16 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
"I would suggest reading the full article before posting" It would be nice, wouldn't it? Just as it would've been nice if Revkin had read the report he was criticizing before jumping on the "IPCC == greenpeace == evil" bandwagon. -
dhogaza at 03:15 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
I would say that Mark Lynas is full of it. The very URL exposes his error: "new-ipcc-error-renewables-report-conclusion-was-dictated-by-greenpeace" That's simply a lie, pure and simple. So is his claim that the peer-reviewed paper in question is "grey literature". That's just bullshit. In essence he says "I don't like the journal, therefore IMO it's grey literature". -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:14 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Eric... I would suggest reading the full article before posting. The link you're providing is already provided in the body of the article. -
dhogaza at 03:13 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
You might want to add Andy Revkin (who runs the DotEarth blog for the NY Times) to your list of sinners. "Now, it may be argued that the 77% goal is not politically realistic, but the IPCC report did not and cannot evaluate political feasibility." He fails to make that distinction and it's clear that he didn't bother to read the report before jumping on the bandwagon because he stated that the report ignored the magnitude of the investment cost that would be required if that goal were to be met. His error was pointed out to him in the comments, and he amended it, but it's the kind of error that only gets made if you've not read the report you're criticizing ... -
Eric the Red at 03:03 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
I would say that Mark Lynas has been the leader in exposing the conflicts. http://www.marklynas.org/2011/06/new-ipcc-error-renewables-report-conclusion-was-dictated-by-greenpeace/ -
Eric the Red at 03:01 AM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
There is no current participation because my last three attempts have not registered.Moderator Response: (DB) Posting a comment with the sole word "Test" in it did not constitute a comment with any substance, so it was deleted.
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