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Comments 81851 to 81900:

81851. Roddy Campbell at 10:37 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       dana - thanks. A quick (admittedly) look at Epstein, the key quote might be: 'Climate impacts were monetized using estimates of the social cost of carbon—the valuation of the damages due to emissions of one metric ton of carbon, of $30/ton of CO2equivalent (CO2e),20 with low and high estimates of $10/ton and $100/ton. There is uncertainty around the total cost of climate change and its present value, thus uncertainty concerning the social cost of carbon derived from the total costs.' I couldn't see any great justification of either the $10 or the $100 extremities? It's an interesting subject - clearly there are externalities of coal, as there are externalities of many activities, the climate change externality must be the hardest to get a grip of - what is the external climate cost of a US coal plant etc. I see they use $7.5m for a value of a life - it's not clear, or is it, that many US lives (which determine the $7.5m value) will be lost from CO2?
81852. Philippe Chantreau at 10:31 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       Considering how McIntyre has been trying to fool and mislead everybody for years, him accusing others of doing so is laughable. No attention should be paid to this charlatan, but, unfortunately, attention is easy to get in this World.
81853. michael sweet at 10:25 AM on 22 June 2011
       Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
       Eric, "The melt pool may not be significant as the sea ice extent is essential the same as last year". Last year was the lowest ever recorded. The melt pools this year appeared at the North Pole a full week before they have ever been measured before. Do you realize that the IJIS area for 2011 has been the record low of all time for the past week? It has crawled above 2010 and is now just second lowest. You appear to be arguing that since it has not set a season record minimum yet (the melt season is only beginning) that there is no problem. What would constitute a problem if being at the lowest level ever recorded for the current date is not a problem??
81854. sunoba at 10:21 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       Interesting post - thanks. As you mentioned, if a social cost of carbon is applied, then the cost of coal-fired electricity approaches the cost of solar-generated electricity. For estimates of the Levelised Electricity Cost with a social cost of carbon, please see real cost of coal-fired power and LEC - the accountant's view. Other posts on www.sunoba.blogspot.com deal analyse the LEC for various large solar installations.
81855. Roddy Campbell at 10:05 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       Dana - can you give me a clue how you're costing externalities of AGW/CO2? ref your comments 5 & 7.
       Response:

       [dana1981] See Figure 1 in the post above, and also The True Cost of Coal Power

       ?
81856. dana1981 at 10:04 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       pauls - 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. As for the selection of Teske's study, it's only logical since it was the scenario with the largest renewable penetration. That's the one I would have chosen to highlight too.
81857. dana1981 at 10:00 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       pauls - the Ecofys report (linked in the post above) also has energy demand lower in 2050. I think Jacobsen and Delucchi do too. It's really not that uncommon. For one thing, just switching to renewable energy increases efficiency, because fossil fuels and nuclear waste a lot of energy by continuing to run at their peak during off-peak hours. As I recall, Jacobsen and Delucchi found that switching to renewables would decrease energy needs by 30% by itself. Then you add more efficient buildings and vehicles, etc., and the Teske efficiency scenario is definitely plausible.
81858. Rob Honeycutt at 09:46 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       pauls... You might try reading the paper and see how they come up with their numbers. Just a thought. As Dana points out, there are other groups who've done similar reports with more aggressive targets. So, it sounds to me like, once again, the IPCC is taking a conservative position on this issue.
81859. Bibliovermis at 09:37 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       Andy S & Eric the Red, Do you think that scientists employed by petroleum companies should also be banned from being IPCC Lead Authors? Would there be any PR problems associated with that? As Dana said above, disparaging somebody work's on the basis of their associations rather than the content of the work is the pure essence of an ad hominem fallacy. No amount of kowtowing to those who manufacture controversy will stop them from doing so.
81860. pauls at 09:34 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       3, dana1981 - '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.' I agree that Lynas' arguments are low on substance but I can't really see how Teske's scenario is really plausible, at least with the all the details in the report: The way they achieve 77% renewables without nuclear and CCS is to reduce the total energy demand. This is despite world population increasing to 9 billion. With all this happening they still suggest that GDP per capita can increase at the same speed as zero-mitigation scenarios. I'm certainly not an expert in economics but I can't see how this is feasible.
81861. pauls at 09:16 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       19, dana1981 - '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.' Well, McIntyre isn't actually suggesting that Greenpeace shouldn't be allowed involvement I don't think, though that is the message everyone else on his site is taking away. He's mainly leading on 'Headline of press release was misleading/ambiguous - it's unreasonable to expect journalists to read any further than that' and 'Conflict of Interest - Teske maybe involved in selecting own study as focus.' Lynas has introduced various arguments but it's clear for him the only important point is that any ties between Greenpeace and the IPCC are unacceptable. I think he has a history with them, particularly regarding nuclear power.
81862. John Hartz at 09:05 AM on 22 June 2011
       It's not happening
       Let's get cracking on updating this article!
81863. John Hartz at 09:04 AM on 22 June 2011
       It's not happening
       The green tab for this post needs fixing.
81864. Tom Curtis at 08:51 AM on 22 June 2011
       How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
       thepoodlebites @82, If a 1 degree reduction in temperatures in the LIA caused the ITCZ to migrate 500 km south, I fail to see how a prediction of a 500 km north migration for a predicted 3 degree increase in temperatures over MWP peak values is bold.
81865. Rob Honeycutt at 08:36 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       Sphaerica... You know, that is exactly my thinking as well. I think SkS is doing a good job of making information available regarding all their claims, but ultimately it comes down to people's interest in the issue. The more and more the McI's of the world go overboard with these sorts of baseless claims, the sooner people will stop listening to them and start listening to the actual scientists. (Boy who cried wolf-syndrome.)
81866. Bob Lacatena at 08:29 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       25, Rob Honeycutt,

       They just want to stir up the dirt.

       Let them. The mercury is rising, the ice is melting, the fires are burning, and summer hasn't even started. It's sad, because we've all seen it coming, but I have a feeling that within a few years every ridiculous stretch like this one is going to add up to a major "holy cow, what were we thinking listening to these clowns?" Utlimately, only the court jesters that frequent the court of WUWT will fail to see that something is amiss, and that more attention should be paid to the real scientists than to the wizards behind the curtains, frantically pulling levers and speaking into oversized microphones.
       Response:

       [DB] Fixed tag.

81867. Bob Lacatena at 08:16 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC Report on Renewable Energy
       DB, The ancient Roman's actually invented urban legends, but I think that belief itself is only an urban legend. It is interesting to note that the ancient Greeks, on the other hand, invented recursion when their historians decided that the only peoples worth researching were themselves. How does this relate to the post and climate change? It doesn't, but if you delete this comment, you will be doomed to seven years of bad luck, which interestingly enough is a superstition which traces back to feudal Japan...
81868. Rob Honeycutt at 07:54 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       Eric said... "People will rememeber the greenpeace connection much more than the report content." And that's exactly why it's a manufactured controversy. McI et al (probably) understand that there isn't much there to impugn the report. They just want to stir up the dirt.
81869. Riccardo at 07:33 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       I still can't see the scandal given that there are several people from the private sector between the lead authors of the report. Doesn't they have vested interested as well? Should they leave them out as well? I don't think it's correct to judge along this line. The Governments who nominated them apparently chose to have both. When we look for solutions it is and should be inevitable to invlove those people as well.
81870. Eric the Red at 06:50 AM on 22 June 2011
       How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
       Actually it shows the correlation between sunspots and European temperatures back to 1650.
       Response:

       [DB] Not about sunspots or global temps.  Still off-topic.

81871. Eric the Red at 06:44 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured Controversy
       Andy, I agree with you. The inclusion as lead author gives the impression of partiality. Especially since this is not the first time that the IPCC has been associated with greenpeace. Dana, I agree that it is a PR nightmare for the IPCC, coming at a time when they can least afford it. People will rememeber the greenpeace connection much more than the report content.
81872. dhogaza at 06:27 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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...
81873. scaddenp at 06:21 AM on 22 June 2011
       Infographic: 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.
81874. Rob Honeycutt at 06:15 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC 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.

81875. dana1981 at 06:10 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81876. JMurphy at 06:08 AM on 22 June 2011
       Climate 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.
81877. funglestrumpet at 06:05 AM on 22 June 2011
       Introducing 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.
81878. Bob Lacatena at 06:01 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC 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.
81879. dhogaza at 06:00 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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 ...
81880. Rob Honeycutt at 05:55 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC 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.
81881. dana1981 at 05:45 AM on 22 June 2011
       IPCC 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.
81882. dana1981 at 05:39 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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!
81883. CanadianClimateHawk at 05:36 AM on 22 June 2011
       Review 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.
81884. Eric the Red at 05:35 AM on 22 June 2011
       Websites 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-pi
       Response:

       [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.

81885. Bob Lacatena at 05:34 AM on 22 June 2011
       Infographic: 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.
81886. DSL at 05:34 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81887. grypo at 05:27 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81888. Andy Skuce at 05:24 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81889. Andy Skuce at 05:13 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81890. CBDunkerson at 05:04 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81891. dhogaza at 04:59 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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.
81892. dhogaza at 04:58 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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 ...
81893. Andy Skuce at 04:47 AM on 22 June 2011
       McManufactured 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”
81894. Patrick 027 at 04:36 AM on 22 June 2011
       The 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. I
       Response:

       [DB] I took the liberty of breaking your comment up into paragraphs for improved readability.

81895. Eric the Red at 04:36 AM on 22 June 2011
       How 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.gif
       Response:

       [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.

81896. KR at 04:32 AM on 22 June 2011
       Infographic: 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.
81897. CBDunkerson at 04:28 AM on 22 June 2011
       Climate 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.
81898. Eric the Red at 04:20 AM on 22 June 2011
       Websites 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]

81899. CBDunkerson at 04:19 AM on 22 June 2011
       Websites 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.
81900. Joshua at 04:14 AM on 22 June 2011
       Climate 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?

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