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pauls at 20:51 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
30, dana1981 - 'if McIntyre had limited his criticisms to the press release, I wouldn't have had a problem with that. But he went a tad bit further. "Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch." I'd say that's a tad bit extreme if you're only complaint is about a flawed press release.' It's very extreme invective but nonetheless his complaints as written are banal on one point and unfounded on the other. You should probably know by now this is NFM - Normal for McIntyre. -
Bern at 20:45 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
JMurphy, the reason most scientists wont go around claiming McIntyre was demanding WG3 be put to death, is that they have moral integrity that they wont compromise to make a political point. Yet another point of differentiation with the hardcore deniers, some of whom seem to have sold their souls, and their scientific integrity, to the devil that is the fossil fuel industry. While I admit it would be very tempting to start slinging mud, if you do, you'll end up with a discourse akin to that seen in Question Time in the parliament (for those outside Australia - picture two bunchs of petulant children from different clubs screaming at each other across a fence, and you wouldn't be far wrong. If you're still curious, you can see video here.) -
JMurphy at 20:05 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
The world has come to a strange place when the suggestion is now made that science needs PR to be able to get its message across properly, and all those involved in it need to have no external associations with any group that can be used as propaganda against them - whether valid or not, doesn't matter. And it is certainly true that people like McIntyre would hate to be ignored. What would be even better, would be to use their own tactics against them, i.e. 'McIntyre said "Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated" - that is a shocking demand, tantamount to asking for death sentences on everyone involved in IPC WG3.' Not what he was suggesting ? How does anyone know that for sure ? Maybe he should release all his emails, so we can see what he really thinks. Until then, anyone can believe what they want about him and can make things up as they see fit - a tactic known as so-called skepticism. -
pauls at 20:01 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
14, dana1981 - I certainly don't dispute that energy demand can be reduced over time with improved efficiencies. What I can't see is how this can be coincident with unfettered growth in per capita GDP. Essentially Teske 2010 claims that economic growth can be decoupled from energy usage altogether (normally 'decoupling' refers simply to breaking the link bewteen economic growth and fossil fuel use). Is there anything which can back this up? 20, Tom Curtis - Table 10.3 in the report shows figures for both Energy Demand and Energy Intensity. While all four of the featured scenarios show reductions in Energy Intensity by 2050, ER-2010 (Teske) is a huge outlier in producing a reduction in Energy Demand by 2050. -
grypo at 19:57 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
David Horton "(a) we are constantly on the back foot as each new bit of idiocy comes up, constantly responding, being defensive, instead of offensive, and (b) treating this sort of crap as if it was a serious comment dignifies it and magnifies it into exactly that. McIntyre would hate to be ignored! " Good points. This is why the IPCC should have had something in place to deal with this before. They didn't, so they, and anyone defending them, look like they are playing catch-up. Had this not been picked up and run with by Lynas, there'd be less reason to worry about the PR aspect. But Lynas' response has been spun to be anti-IPCC when the situation is much more nuanced. He's like a their trophy. -
David Horton at 18:50 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
"Urging those in the real world to ignore this crap, as David Horton@33 writes,sounds more like capitulation than a winning strategy to me." - if you knew me you would know that precisely the opposite was true. I just think that (a) we are constantly on the back foot as each new bit of idiocy comes up, constantly responding, being defensive, instead of offensive, and (b) treating this sort of crap as if it was a serious comment dignifies it and magnifies it into exactly that. McIntyre would hate to be ignored! -
JMurphy at 18:50 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Chemware, could you provide further details of the increase in cost that you mention ? -
JMurphy at 18:46 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman wrote : "Disasters are increasing but not enough data is available to determine if hazards are increasing." It seems, Norman, as Tom Curtis has shown, that you do not read what evidence you are presented with and cannot find out simple information for yourself. However, even when you are presented with it all (and even if you might have read some of it), it seems that you do not want to accept that which goes against your world-view. If you had read the post of mine which you were apparently replying to, you would have spotted the very same quote that you repeated. You would also have found out that it was produced by Oxfam, although it does reference the Munich Re report, and that it gives good definitions of all the relevant terms. It would help if you could compare what you believe to be the case, and what is actually the case, especially with regard to 'disasters', 'hazards', etc. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:02 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
An interesting comparison and 'other factor' here is comparisons to military spending. Dana's figures give a cost of $500-$700 Billion per year. World military spending is around 1.3 to 1.5 Trillion per year. How much of that military spending is really about protecting energy security? And consider how much military spending is actually 'wasted'. Not spent for its intended purpose. Australia is replacing its Leopard tanks with wizz-bang Abrahms, replacing its F111 & FA18 fleet, its entire destroyer & frigate fleet, planning for the replacement of its submarine fleet etc. And they have hardly ever fired a shot in anger. A small number of sorties in the Iraq war, a few small bombardments around Basra. The pasrts of our military that have carried the heavy lifting for many years are the special forces units, military transport aircraft and transport ships. Most oif the rest has been ever ready but not used. A world with fewer Big Power confrontations and Energy Security missions, oops I mean Carrier Battle Group deployments, is surely a world where we can still have our military security at a fraction of the cost. Isn't that a hidden cost advantage of moving away from energy sources that need to be transported around the world? -
Chemware at 17:08 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Why has the cost of on-shore Wind power risen so much (50%+) in the last 5 years or so ? -
Riduna at 16:33 PM on 22 June 2011Australia’s contribution matters: why we can’t ignore our climate responsibilities
Of course Australia can influence regional emitters like Indonesia to do better but it seems to me that when our neighbors look at our policies and action we are taking they might be expected to first ask for an explanation of: • How are Ministerial assurances that coal use will grow as an energy source consistent with reduction of Australian CO2 emissions? • How is provision of financial assistance for coal production and use is consistent with placing a price on carbon or reduction of CO2 emissions? • How will development of CCS technology reduce CO2 emissions, knowing its application is so expensive it makes production of electricity from renewable sources cheaper than using coal? • How does excluding agriculture from a carbon tax help reduce CO2 emissions when that sector contributes over 20% of Australian emissions? • How is assisting the motor industry to produce more fossil fuelled vehicles consistent with the government aim of reducing CO2 emissions? • How is CO2 reduction achieved by increasing Federal and State government dependence on revenue derived from expanding coal production and use, rather than aiming to reduce that its use and dependence on its production? • Why have we adopted a target of reducing our emissions by 5% by 2020 when climate science advises reducing by 95% by 2050 and when other have adopted targets of 20-25% by 2020? -
Andy Skuce at 16:30 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Phillipe@37 You may well be correct, probably the hard-core skeptics never will be convinced by anything; a lot of them are pretty dug in, I agree. However, the group we are trying to reach are the many people in the middle who don't have a strong opinion either way. Without them on side, we're going nowhere. Recent polls show that US public opinion is growing more skeptical, even as the evidence mounts. The evidence says that the contrarians are winning the only debate that matters. Urging those in the real world to ignore this crap, as David Horton@33 writes,sounds more like capitulation than a winning strategy to me. -
Paul D at 15:38 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
quakka: "If you want to pursue this energy intensity argument in the EU and Japan, then the purported improvements in energy intensity must take into the account the rising embedded energy in imported goods. Do they?" The reason is that emissions need to be accounted for based on consumption and government responsibility. If production is exported but the nation that exported the production continues to consume at the same rate, then effectively the consumer nation is held responsible for the emissions of the producer country. The consumer nation does have a choice as to how much it consumes and hence is responsible. -
Eamon at 15:35 PM on 22 June 2011Renewables can't provide baseload power
I can see how burning crop residue and plantation forests can be renewable - but how can they be clean? How much CO2 does this energy generation method use? -
Michael Hauber at 15:29 PM on 22 June 2011Australia’s contribution matters: why we can’t ignore our climate responsibilities
Personally I think Australia is too small to take a dramatic leadership position in climate change. We should be matching what other's are doing, and going a step or two further to encourage others to lift their game as well. And many other countries are doing plenty to combat climate change, with some high rates of renewable energy uptake already achieved in some European countries, and high rates planned in the near future in China for instance. I am personally amazed at how much is actually getting done on climate change globally despite the lack of a strong agreement to force such action. I can think of two possible explanations for this: a) despite the fact that politicians know that causing real pain for their electorate by raising energy taxes will cause voter backlash and reduce their chances of re-election they are committed to doing the right thing despite the significant personal cost. Contrary to what nearly all of us believe about politicians they are really in it for what they believe is the good of the country, and not for the pay perks or the glory and power of it all. b) The actions taken to date are cheap and will not have any noticeable impact on electricity costs or jobs or anything else that could cause a voter backlash. If we were willing to pay any real cost on climate change we would be able to do significantly more. c) Politicians have a secret plan to siphon of the extra carbon taxes to fund the creation of a one-world government. -
KR at 14:59 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
quokka - I'm actually of the opinion that synthetic fuels (carbon neutral) will be part of the ongoing solution. There are several in development now, including (as I've referred to before) one for aviation gas that is in the US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) approval cycle (Swift Fuels). -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:51 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Andy, nothing that goes toward controlling CO2 emissions will ever be credible to so-called skeptics, no matter what. -
quokka at 14:50 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
#22 Bern Partially true, but in some of the high renewables scenarios, there is a lot of biomass. The issue of the efficiency of heat engines is not going to go away any time soon. We don't even know yet how widespread the deployment of EVs is likely to be. It may turn out that carbon neutral synfuels of some type have a big role to play. Again the issue of heat engine efficiency looms large. I completely agree that there is an urgent need to dramatically improve public transport, but sometimes it is far more difficult than is commonly supposed. I spent a decade or so working in London as a contractor - some short term and some long term contracts so I got around a bit. I always had a car but I would rather slam my finger in a car door than drive to work every day as opposed to use train or underground. A lot of people in London share that sentiment. London has an extensive and heavily used rail and underground system and quite good local bus services. But the rail and tube is essentially a spoke network. If you need to travel any substantial distance across those spokes, then the buses take way too long and there is no alternative but to drive. This is why the M25 ring motorway (six lanes in each direction in parts) is the busiest motorway in Europe. There is no easy, and certainly no cheap solution to this problem. The existing rail and tube system has taken over a century to build. London is certainly not the whole world, but each public transport network will have it's own set of issues to address, and some of those issues are damned difficult to resolve and are going to take many decades, if indeed they are ever addressed. What I see repeatedly is an attempt to shoehorn purported solutions into the best of all possible worlds. It is done, not because those worlds are the ones that we are most likely to inhabit, but because of emotional attachment to alleged solutions. -
Albatross at 14:38 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Tom @149, Indeed. Up. -
jyyh at 14:26 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
"They just want to stir up the dirt." and what's so dirty in Greenpeace? I'm not a member though. But still, the message here was that 77% of the energy could be from renewables by 2050. -
Tom Curtis at 14:18 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Camburn @143, the study you reference suffers from several major disadvantages. This first that using annual discharge is a poor proxy for extreme weather events. Extreme weather events come in the form of both droughts and floods (among other things) which have opposite effects on river discharge. So, rather than use annual river discharge the study should have looked at change in the variability of monthly discharge; and changes in the maxima and minima of monthly discharges. Without doing so, the study is not even capable of being an adequate proxy for increased extreme events. Further, the study takes no account of potentially confounding factors. Fairly obviously increased evaporation due to rising temperatures will be a confounding factor, but no notice is taken of it. More crucially, increased water use by humans for personal, industrial or agricultural use is a major confounding factor. For one example of the studies ignoring this, one of the rivers analysed is the Thames. It is hardly plausible, however, that the growth in London's population (between 25 and 40% depending on the district in the last decade) has not increased the water usage from the Thames, and hence reduced discharge rates. -
Tom Curtis at 14:01 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Albatross @148, it is worthwhile using the controls to look at the extremes in one day precipitation as well. -
Bibliovermis at 13:57 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Andy, Controversy manufacturers will spin anything to suit their purpose. Preventing energy experts from authoring energy chapters will not quiet the muckrakers. This is another one of those contrarian contradictions. The IPCC is a purely political ploy that is politically tone-deaf... right. -
Patrick 027 at 13:47 PM on 22 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
Re [DB] - thanks. -
Bern at 13:44 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
quokka: you're forgetting that the actual efficiency of use of primary energy is, in many cases, very very low, e.g. coal fired power stations rarely convert more than a third of the primary (thermal) energy into useable electricity. Burning liquid fuels in car & truck engines is even less thermally efficient - <20% for petrol(gasoline) engines, maybe as high as 40% for a well-tuned diesel. Replacing a petrol-powered car with an electric one will result in more efficient energy use, especially if you charge it with electricity that doesn't come from burning fossil fuels. And that's completely ignoring the issue of energy wastage, which is a far bigger problem (e.g. driving a 12mpg truck to your desk job, when you could be catching public transport). Many (most?) industrial users can significantly reduce energy usage with no changes to their output at all. Those that make the effort usually reap the benefits, saving tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on their energy bills (or millions, for large industries). You can hardly claim that most industries in China that produce goods for Europe & Japan have been optimised in terms of their energy use. That's not to say that rolling out energy efficiency across the entire global economy would be easy, nor cheap. But it would pay for itself quite quickly. Whether it would be enough to entirely offset growth in world economic activity, I don't know. -
Albatross at 13:42 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
People should also look the annual U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) (with Tropical Cyclone Indicator) for 1910-2010. Note the the downward decline in CEI from 1910 to 1970, and since then an upward trend. With greatest frequency of extreme events in the first decade of the 21st Century. And it is still early days in our stupid experiment. -
Patrick 027 at 13:38 PM on 22 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
... I didn't even mention the mesosphere or thermosphere in that last part because - while their meager optical thicknesses are important to their own energy balances and in determining radiative equilibrium, they are so tiny compared to the stratosphere (as a whole, anyway) and troposphere that they barely make any difference. -
Albatross at 13:31 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman @140, "Do either of you know of any study done to determine if the number is increasing (please Albatross no models or guesses...just actual countable numbers) " Well, I'm affronted :) Stanley Chagnon is your man and Google is your friend. FWIW, I have an idea as to how we can objectively look at this, but it will use a model. -
Albatross at 13:20 PM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Ken @87, The link @80 works. Re "I went there in the early days and found that the site was far inferior to SKS, with no where near the quality of science contributions. " Empty rhetoric mate. The post at RC is written by Feulner. -
Bern at 13:14 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
David Horton: we can't just ignore it, because debate in the public sphere isn't about who is right, it's about who shouts the loudest and the longest. Disinformation like this needs to be fought by providing actual, verifiable, factually correct information. Eventually, some of the journalists covering climate change stories might start to include it themselves in their coverage (assuming their editors let them present a slightly less imbalanced viewpoint, that is!). The more the general public see that these deniers are just blowing off steam, the more they'll pay attention to what the actual scientists have to say. It'll be a long, hard road, but it's one that must be travelled. As for Monckton: yes, I hope he pulls out that swastika slide at his presentation in Perth. If he does, I think that one slide will do more for climate change science that an entire presentation by a real climate scientist... -
scaddenp at 13:06 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
camburn - all rather useless because they are not linked to what is actually predicted for those indicators and regions. The WG2 link to rivers reports on 195 rivers. It still didnt distinquish between places expected to dry versus those expected to get wetter. -
Camburn at 12:55 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
This is a good peace talking about tornados in the USA. Note from the graphs that precipable water is well within historical ranges as well as other items required to produce tornadoes. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/events/2011/tornadoes/climatechange.html Just some papers for thought and I hope these help you in your search of knowledge. -
scaddenp at 12:51 PM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Realclimate is not trying to do same thing as Sks. However, the contributors are publishing climate scientists so the discussion there is rather more informed on the specialized areas. -
Camburn at 12:48 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
And here is one on global storm days: "However, the global total number of storm days shows no trend and only an unexpected large amplitude fluctuation driven by El Niño-Southern Oscillation and PDO. The rising temperature of about 0.5°C in the tropics so far has not yet affected the global tropical storm days. " http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2010/2010GL042487.shtml -
Camburn at 12:46 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman: Here is a study on hydrology that only uses stations that have at least a 50 year history so that a trend can be detected. The results of the study show that there has been no increase in hydrological events verses the long term mean. http://itia.ntua.gr/getfile/1128/2/documents/2011EGU_DailyDischargeMaxima_Pres.pdf -
scaddenp at 12:36 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman, is there a model which claims thunderstorms in those latitudes will increase? As far as I know, the expectations of a warming earth are increased precipitation in some regions, increased heatwaves, and increased drought in some regions. The detail of what events and at what confidence level (likely, very likely) are here. Temperature statistics on heatwaves, and river flood frequency are the most likely parameters to be available in a form reliable enough for study. -
Ken Lambert at 12:35 PM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Albatross #77 Your link to Realclimate did not work. I went there in the early days and found that the site was far inferior to SKS, with no where near the quality of science contributions. -
David Horton at 12:32 PM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
It is time that we in the real world started just ignoring this crap isn't it? I mean, someone who is so concerned about the environment that they join an environmental group mustn't be one of a number of people summarising the (accessible) work of many other people because ... well, um, because he is obviously concerned about the environment and we wouldn't want anyone like that involved in thinking about the environment ... A ten year old schoolboy of below average intelligence could see through the illogic of that and yet it is presented by a couple of people and we all run around saying oh my goodness gracious quite right, environmental concern should really play no part in our consideration of the future of the environment. Time to ignore these mendacious fools. Oh, and Monckton? A five year old of below average intelligence would think his performance about "Nazis" would be over the top in the preschool. Again let's start ignoring him. Plenty of other people will treat them seriously, like our retiring senator Mr Minchin who announced proudly this week that he might set up a "Friends of CO2" group on retirement. Laugh? I nearly died. -
Ken Lambert at 12:31 PM on 22 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Tom Curtis #76 "I am now at a complete loss to explain why you should quote the irrelevant uncertainty for absolute measurements rather than the directly relevant uncertainties for relative TSI when attempting to rebut KR #62." Because we really don't know what absolute level of TSI will produce an equilibrium condition on Earth in the absence of AG forcings. It is OK to look at relative TSI back as far as satellite measurement goes and find only the 11 year ripple - but if that average TSI was at an absolute level higher than an 'equilibrium TSI' to start with (a 20th century solar maximum for example) - then that would contribute an increasing energy input to the Earth system. -
Tom Curtis at 12:28 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman @136, following the United Nations, certain technical terms are used to define potentially harmful events. These are defined by the International Federation of Surveyors as follows:"Hazards can be single, sequential or combined in their origin and effects. Each hazard is characterized by its location, intensity, frequency and probability (UN/ISDR 2004, p. 16) and might lead to a disaster. A disaster is defined as a serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses, which exceed the ability of an affected society to cope using only its own resources (EEA 2006). The extent of the disaster depends on both the intensity of the hazard event and the degree of vulnerability of the society. For example a powerful earthquake in an unpopulated area is not a disaster, while a weak earthquake which hits an urban area with buildings not constructed to withstand earthquakes, can cause great misery (GTZ 2001, p. 14). Due to this fact, hazard events are only classed as catastrophes when human beings or their property are affected. The term natural catastrophe is used when a natural event is so intense that people suffer and material assets are affected to a substantial degree and on a more or less large scale. A “great” natural catastrophe is defined by the United Nations as a natural catastrophe that distinctly exceeds the ability of an affected region to help itself and makes supra-regional or international assistance necessary (cited in Munich Re Group 2005, p. 12). Generally this is the case when there are thousands of fatalities, when hundreds of thousands of people are made homeless, or when economic losses – depending on the economic circumstances of the country concerned – and/or insured losses reach exceptional extents."
(My highlighting) Munich Re explicitly refers to the UN definition in their discussion of Great Natural Catastrophe's from which the chart you link to is drawn. So, to make this clear, Natural Catastrophe's are hazardous natural events which adversely effect humans. They are on the increase as is shown in the chart in my 116. Indeed, that increase has continued, as newer versions of the chart show a continued rise in natural disasters with 2010 having the second highest number on record. It also shows a continued significant correlation with annual temperatures. Weather related natural disasters do not exactly correlate with weather related events because as the population increases, the probability that a weather event (hazard) will adversely effect a human increases. This increased probability is not a direct match to increasing population because most of the increase in population comes from an increase in density of population in already populated areas. Consequently for most natural hazards, the location in which they occur is almost as likely to result in harm to humans now as it was 50 years ago. There is, however, some increase in that smaller natural hazards are more likely to result in some harm now than would have been the case in the past. Counteracting that effect is the fact that improved building standards and awareness and warning of risks has reduced the risk of harm. The net effect is probably best indicated by the rise in geophysical events, which, because effectively unaffected by climate, is only a consequence of the sociological factors. The trend of increase in geophysical events shows an approximately 50% increase over the period 1980 to 2010. In contrast, the trend in meteorological events shows a 100% increase, and hydrological events shows a 200% increase. This has lead Munich Re to conclude that:"Yet it would seem that the growing number of weatherrelated catastrophes can only be explained by climate change, The view that weather extremes are more frequent and intense due to global warming is in keeping with current scientific findings as set out in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report."
In contrast to a plot of natural disasters, a plot of great natural disasters is a poor measure of the increase in natural hazards. This is partly because they are fewer in number, so that random factors of location can make a very great difference in the consequences of the natural hazard involved. A magnitude 9 earth quake in Antarctica would be an interesting geophysical event, and may not be more than a natural hazard. The same earthquake with a shallow epicentre under Los Angeles or San Francisco would be a very significant great natural catastrophe. Other factors effecting the risk of a great natural catastrophe include population density, relative preparedness, and the economic means of the society to handle the consequences of a natural catastrophe. The equivalent events in Australia and in Somalia may be a natural catastrophe in Australia and a great natural catastrophe in Somalia simply because Australia has, and Somalia does not have, the means to respond to the disaster. And finally, and probably redundantly by now, the graph that you link is of great natural catastrophes, which is why it shows so different a pattern. -
Norman at 12:17 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Tom Curtis or Albatross, Here is a NOAA article with the number of severe thunderstorms in USA a year. Number of severe thunderstorms in US a year. This article says there are around 100,000 thunderstorms in the US per year. Of those 100,000 about 10% are severe as explained by the criteria in the article. With such a large number of events per year it should be easy to see if the frequency is increasing, decreasing or staying the same over given time period (sufficient to prove if a warming planet is increasing the number of severe thunderstorms a year). With hurricanes the yearly number is fairly small and may be difficult to establish a noticeable trend but with the large number of severe thunderstorms a trend should show up much more clearly. Do either of you know of any study done to determine if the number is increasing (please Albatross no models or guesses...just actual countable numbers) -
scaddenp at 12:12 PM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Norman, looking at IPCC WG2, it would seem that IPCC largely agrees with you. At the time of publication, there were a number of indicators showing increase in extreme events, but it mostly noted that problems with record-keeping and global data sets make this a difficult exercise. -
quokka at 12:07 PM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
#20 Tom Curtis If you want to pursue this energy intensity argument in the EU and Japan, then the purported improvements in energy intensity must take into the account the rising embedded energy in imported goods. Do they? While there is trend in the developed world towards a greater proportion of economic activity to be in service industries eg leisure, education, health etc, that are in general less resource intensive (including energy), extrapolating this to the developing world on a scale that would reduce energy demand seems a bridge too far. With another two billion people on the planet expected by 2050 and over one and a half billion currently without electricity the potential for enormous increase in energy demand is quite plain. This does not mean that all these people will be lifted by magic out of poverty to a reasonable standard of living, but the historical trend is quite obvious and in the absence of some catastrophic event quite irreversible. It is frequently (and quite reasonably) argued that addressing climate change is about managing risk. Using dubious assumptions about worldwide energy demand being reduced by 2050 seems to me to represent extreme risk. It is far from impossible that demand could simply explode. This report suggests that world energy consumption increased by 5% in 2010. Even allowing for the effects of the GFC - Ouch! -
Norman at 11:51 AM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Tom Curtis @ 129 You claim "The problem here seems to be that you do not appreciate how global warming must impact in a chaotic system. Put simply the fact that the mean global surface temperature is 0.6 degrees warmer than it was a century ago impacts on every weather system. As the regional expression of that temperature increase is part of the initial conditions for every weather system on Earth, every weather system is a consequence of global warming. Note that this is a trivially true fact - it follows from the definition of "chaotic"; and it is also uninteresting. But not remembering it means you will hopelessly miss frame any search for the effects of global warming on extreme weather events." Actually I would agree with your statement... Global Warming = Climate Change. I am not questioning this postition. Here is the leap I question. Global Warming = Climate Change = Increased Frequency of Extreme weather events. Note please. I am not stating in a "denier" mentality that Climate Change is not increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. I am stating I have not been presented enough valid empirical evidence that this is indeed the case. First of all, what is an extreme weather event. Who is doing the counting? Is this an opinion? To be a valid study and scientific topic a rigorous definition of an extreme weather event is needed for accounting purposes. A record high temp or cold would obviously be an extreme weather event along with record rainfall. These would be the easy ones to document and record for a tally sheet. But what of the others? What if the temp is only one degree lower than the record? How much above normal would be considered extreme? -
Norman at 11:42 AM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
JMurphy @ 130 and 132 I have already looked at both the extreme temp links you posted. I still can't find temp records outside the US. Intellicast web site gives every major city in US historical temp data (record high and low and years they happened). Accuweather provides nice monthly anomaly graphs for any given city a few months worth. The anomaly graph has the normal high and low line along with the record high and low so one can see in a glance if temps look too high. Maybe Europe has nice web pages for temp extremes. I read through your link at 132. Here is the conclusion to the study. "There is a statistically significant increase in all disasters, and this trend is driven mainly by a rising number of floods in all regions and by more storm events in Asia and the Americas. Changes in population do not fully explain the rising number of floods, nor can the trend be entirely attributed to changes in how disasters are recorded. It was not possible to directly analyse the effect of climate change on disaster trends; however, there is insufficient evidence to exclude the possibility that climate change is increasing hazards and hence trends in reported disasters. This effect is unlikely to be very large, because the magnitude of climate change over the past 20-30 years is relatively small when compared with (for example) the growth in the world’s population over that time." Basically the Munch Re report can not be used to determine the frequency of extreme weather events (hazards). An EF5 tornado is only a hazard in a field with no people present. It is recorded as a disaster when it strikes a populated area. Disasters are increasing but not enough data is available to determine if hazards are increasing. -
Tom Curtis at 11:29 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
pauls @12, from my reading of the report, the scenario assumes a reduction not in demand, but in energy intensity, ie, Kilowatts used per unit GDP produced. Further, they assume a reduction in energy intensity at the same rate as is currently being achieved in the EU, and to a target level which has already been achieved in Japan. Prima facie, that is not an implausible target. -
Norman at 11:15 AM on 22 June 2011Linking Extreme Weather and Global Warming
Tom Curtis Why does Munch Re have two very different graphs of weather related catastrophes? Here is another one that is much different in look than your 116 post graph. Another Munch Re graph. -
Andy Skuce at 11:07 AM on 22 June 2011McManufactured Controversy
Bibliovermis @ 29 Yes I do think that anyone working for an energy company or a political advocacy group should not be a Lead Author/Editor of a report like the SSREN (see me @ 15, above). But I recognize (as I said in my post @11) that the IPCC probably can't be/shouldn't be as picky when it comes to contributing authors, which is all the more reason to have people who are clearly unconflicted making the final decisions on content and emphasis. For what it's worth, the report would have been diminished without Teske's scenario being included. I think. However, the report would have been more convincing, especially to skeptics, if the senior authors had all been people--probably tenured academics--whose integrity and independence from any pressure from their employers could be clearly demonstrated. Basically, my objection is that the IPCC's political tone-deafness is making the contrarians' rhetorical case for them. -
Eamon at 11:03 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
Dana1981@3 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. Of course phasing out nuclear power is pertinent - it's a low-carbon power source. If the scenario in the Greenpeace report doesn't pan out then all we've done is increase carbon emissions for little gain. -
quokka at 10:57 AM on 22 June 2011IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
@dana1981 & MartinSAccording to SRREN, renewables are already developing rapidly. Of the 300 gigawatts (GW) of new electricity-generating power plants added globally from 2008 to 2009, nearly half (140 GW) came from renewable sources.
Yes, I read that too in the summary for policy makers and it is a poor and misleading representation of the true state of affairs because it does not mention capacity factor. The correct way to gauge the contributions of new renewables build is to weight the nameplate capacity by the capacity factor to determine how much of electricity that will be generated from the new build will be low emission. The picture will be far less rosy with PV nominally up to about 20% (12% in Germany) on-shore wind nominally up to 30% (reportedly 17% in Germany), hydro very much site specific but around 45% worldwide. Etc. I don't know the exact figures, but it is very unlikely that renewables would represent more than 25% of new build and quite possibly considerably less when correctly assessed.
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