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Comments 86201 to 86250:

  1. What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    thinking complex systems like weather, oceanography or ecology (well, (economy)) it is near impossible to be well aware of all the studies involved in these, so, if I was a scientist I'd welcome more review articles by accomplished scientists, this place does the same sometimes on the level of science graduates, sometimes more generally so this is to me a good place to read of climate science and and communication of it (M.Sc, Biochemistry)
  2. Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
    Hi Dana, Thanks for #78, that is what I was driving at. I'm not sure how people are trying to take away solace from these findings. A climate sensitivity of +3 K does not bode well for society, especially given that we will very likely easily double CO2. I see what is going on here, every effort must be made to obfuscate (and yes I do understand what it means angusmac) and detract form Lindzen's "prediction". Really, who do me trust, Lindzen who is an order of magnitude out or the science which has converged on +3 K for climate sensitivity, and a value which is in fact seems to produce temperatures that are a tad on the low side, with +3.5 or so providing the "best" fit using the observed radiative forcing, at least for these data. Now, what might help address some of the confusion (although I'm still not convinced the confusion in some quarters is innocent in nature) is a graphic (much easier to interpret than numbers) showing the observed radiative forcing since 1958 to present, together with the radiative forcing for the various scenarios. That will hopefully make is abundantly clear to certain "skeptics" that the relatively good agreement between Scen C is coincidence, or perhaps more accurately, the more-or-less correct answer for the wrong reasons.
  3. Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
    I should also note in comment #70 you said "I am not arguing for higher sensitivity." Then in comment #81 you asked "how long does it take for a coincidence to become reality?" If Scenario C "becomes reality", then climate sensitivity is 4.2°C for 2xCO2. So contrary to your previous claim, you are indeed arguing for high climate sensitivity.
  4. Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
    angusmac -
    "how long does it take for a coincidence to become reality?"
    This is a bizarre question. How long does it take a hypothetical scenario which is not reality to become reality? An infinite amount of time. Unless you invent a time machine, go back to the late 20th century, convince them to phase-out GHG emissions, and then alter the global climate such that it has a short-term sensitivity of 4.2°C. If you can do that, Scenario C will become reality. Look, there are an infinite number of possible scenarios you could model. A large number would match observed temp changes reasonably well. But only one scenario matches reality, and it's not Hansen's C. That's just one of the many possible scenarios that so far match observed temps reasonably well. But we know it's wrong because we've measured the actual radiative forcing to a high degree of accuracy. There is simply no way Scen C matches reality. It just doesn't (unless you invent that time machine and a way to change the planet's sensitivity). There's a phrase "skeptics" like to use but don't seem to understand that it applies to their arguments too: correlation does not equal causation.
  5. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    rpauli@5 The cow is I assume a food source, a carbon/energy input for humans. One could also say it is third hand solar energy, after the tree (second hand).
  6. Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
    Sphaerica@80, in which you state that, "Humanity, and civilization, are saved by a simple and convenient re-interpretation of history." There is no re-interpretation just a bald statement of historical measurements which show that the GISS LOTI real-world temperatures match Scenario C better than the other scenarios. If those pesky people at GISS choose to publish figures that are too low to comply with your preferred warming scenarios then it is not my fault. @79"Scenarios A, B, and C represent emissions growth patterns, not temperature predictions." I disagree. Hansen, in his 1988 congressional testimony, concentrated almost exclusively on discussing higher temperatures and the dire consequences of his (global) warming predictions. Similarly, Hansen (1988), quoted by you, expends most effort on temperature predictions and consequences thereof. He only expends one-third on emissions. DB @74, "This has been clarified multiple times on several threads." Not so. There have been many statements in SkS that Scenario C does not follow real-world emissions and consequently is irrelevant. There have been no clarifications; just repetition of the mantra that Scenario C is either irrelevant or a coincidence. I ask a simple question, how long does it take for a scenario that is nominally a coincidence to become reality? See below. Albatross@76 and Sphaerica@79, the Cambridge Dictionary defines to obfuscate as, "to make something less clear or harder to understand, especially intentionally." What could be clearer to anyone than the real-world emissions being significantly above Scenario C but real-world temperatures (GISS LOTI) following Scenario C? There is no obfuscation just a bald statement of facts. Yet, SkS repeatedly state that this is coincidence. Question: I repeat, how long does it take for a coincidence to become reality? Answer: I agree with the Hansen (2006) estimate that 2015 would be long enough to differentiate between the scenarios. This represents a period of 27 years from 1988 to 2015 but DB@74 seems to think that this is reinventing the flat tyre [I don't get the allusion]. If the real world is still following Scenario C in 2015 then there would need to be a rethink of climate sensitivity and/or forcings. Is this why SkS is so vehement in stating that Scenario C is a coincidence? Sphaerica@79, if I were to use your Scenario X with the following figures: Temperature Anomaly = 0.015175 x Year - 29.903 I would have an excellent model for the temperature anomaly between 2000 and 2011. Furthermore, if were to use this model to predict the anomaly for 2019 to be 0.74°C, and this prediction turned out to be correct, then you would have to agree that I had quite a skilful temperature model. Yet, there are no emissions used in this model. This would be a case of a dumb (empirical) model giving good results. If real-world physics gives poor results then I suggest that we need to re-examine the physics to give better results. Dana has started this process. The 3°C sensitivity model appears to give better results than Hansen's original Scenario B. It predicts 0.69°C for 2019 compared with 0.61°C in Scenario C. However, do be aware that this is not a "minor" change. This is a massive drop from the 1.10°C in original Hansen's Scenario B.
  7. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    @4 seeohtoo I think that would unnecessarily complicate a simple graphic which drives the concept home with little more than a glance. Best just to think of the arrows as net contribution.
  8. Tracking the energy from global warming
    Apart from the obvious error in the sign of the imbalance (unless Stackhouse et al. misinterpreted their own data), I can see no reason why the 0-700 m OHC should follow the radiation imbalance with no delay. The average ocean mixed layer depth is much smaller than this. The simple direct comparison is definitely misleading.
  9. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    I find it rather irritating that Gilles tells us he doesn't have time to give us a physics lesson, then proceeds to make an unphysical argument. Some unnamed, unknown cause of centennial internal variability, which somehow makes both the oceans and air warm, is to blame? Sounds like a 'magical natural cycles' argument to me. For his next trick, Gilles will disappear!
  10. Tracking the energy from global warming
    Tom @113, Re this comment made at #114: "Now I will have to wait until you realize your misunderstanding" This condescending attitude of BP's is not constructive or helpful. I had a quick look at the abstract for the FLASHFLUX link you provided @113 and they state that the net radiation in 2008 increased by 0.8 W m-2. Now in my line of work at least, that means that there is an increase in the energy available to the system.
  11. arch stanton at 02:40 AM on 10 May 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
    …this is one of Lindzen's 1989 climate beliefs which has gone by the wayside, but unfortunately, remains a fairly widespread belief amongst global warming "skeptics". This is a useful factoid for those that counter denialists’ points in the ether of forums and comments sections.
  12. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Thanks Daniel.
  13. Berényi Péter at 02:19 AM on 10 May 2011
    Tracking the energy from global warming
    #113 Tom Curtis at 01:52 AM on 10 May, 2011 I repeat, you have the sign wrong. Fine. You have repeated a false statement. It does not make it true. Now I will have to wait until you realize your misunderstanding, because it does not make much sense to proceed this way.
  14. funglestrumpet at 02:18 AM on 10 May 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #6: Importance of Greenhouse Gases
    When all of these posts regarding Lindzen are complete, let us have a general discussion regarding ways that the scientific community should deal with proven erroneous statements by the usual suspects being regularly repeated, as is shown by this series of posts. Unless, of course, "two decades" of such behaviour being tolerated can be said to be anything other than ridiculous. Every time they repeat an erroneous statement you can bet that some politician somewhere leaps on it as a reason not to act and God knows it is action that is becoming more and more urgent. It isn't as though we have the church telling us that the earth is at the centre of the galaxy and that sort of stupidity that happened in Galileo's day. These people are free to act in any way their conscience leads them.
  15. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    The frequent use of " : " was a clue.
  16. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    "a perfectly adequate explanation in CO2 forcing : circular argument : the question is precisely whether we can explain a part of these variations without CO2 forcings. You cannot answer this question by saying that no, because we can explain them with CO2 only ! the point raised by Lindzen is precisely that there may be other explanations - and as far as I can judge, it has not been really disproved." Johnny = Gilles? I was wondering where I smelled logic like this before. "Officer, you're wrong. I wasn't doing 75 in a 50. Your radar gun is bad. Somewhere there may exist a radar gun that would correctly measure my speed, and since you can't disprove that possibility then I have done nothing wrong."
  17. Tracking the energy from global warming
    Berényi Péter @111: 1)
    "The FLASHFlux (Fast Longwave and Shortwave radiative Fluxes from CERES and MODIS) project derives daily averaged gridded top-of-atmosphere (TOA) and surface radiative fluxes within one week of observation. Production of CERES based TOA and surface fluxes is achieved by using the latest CERES calibration that is assumed constant in time and by making simplifying assumptions in the computation of time and space averaged quantities. Together these assumptions result in approximately a 1% increase in the uncertainty for FLASHFlux products over CERES. Analysis has clearly demonstrated that the global-annual mean outgoing longwave radiation shows a decrease of ~0.75 Wm-2, from 2007 to 2008, while the global-annual mean reflected shortwave radiation shows a decrease of 0.14 Wm-2 over that same period. Thus, the combined longwave and shortwave changes have resulted in an increase of ~0.89 Wm-2 in net radiation into the Earth climate system in 2008. A time series of TOA fluxes was constructed from CERES EBAF, CERES ERBE-like and FLASHFLUX. Relative to this multi-dataset average from 2001 to 2008, the 2008 global-annual mean anomalies are -0.54/-0.26/+0.80 Wm-2, respectively, for the longwave/shortwave/net radiation. These flux values, which were published in the NOAA 2008 State of the Climate Report, are within their corresponding 2-sigma interannual variabilities for this period. This paper extends these results through 2009, where the net flux is observed to recover. The TOA LW variability is also compared to AIRS OLR showing excellent agreement in the anomalies. The variability appears very well correlated to the to the 2007-2009 La Nina/El Nino cycles, which altered the global distribution of clouds, total column water vapor and temperature. Reassessments of these results are expected when newer Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) data are released."
    Stackhouse et al, 2010, my emphasis. I repeat, you have the sign wrong. An increase of "net radiation into the Earth Climate System" can only be interpreted as an increase in the energy stored in the Earth's climate system. 2) The only way the lack of coverage of the Southern Pacific can be significant is if it showed an opposite trend in temperatures to the rest of the worlds oceans, and of such magnitude as to cancel out the warming detected by pre April 2003 Argo buoys in the rest of the world's oceans: Nope. Sure looks like its warming to me. You have no basis to consider the number of Argo buoys pre April 2003 to be insufficient to get a reasonable sample. If you believe otherwise, show mathematically why 750 buoys, each making multiple samples is not a statistically significant sample. Alternatively, provide alternative evidence (from XBT buoys, for example) of the massive cooling trend in the South Pacific which is required for the operational Argo buoys to not have given a fair sample. You will, of course, be unable to provide either of these because the meme that Argo coverage was insufficient pre-2003 was made up by people wishing to cherry pick a high point in the data as their start point. Both I and Daniel Bailey have provided a link to an article which clearly explains this.
    Response:

    [DB] Fixed graphic.  Tom, the GISS site uses a dynamic display; to ensure the graphic continues to be visible, post it to a static site and then link to it.  For example, I saved the image to my HD, uploaded it to SkS and then used the SkS URL to fix your html tag.  Clunky, but effective.

  18. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Oh wonderful. And Gilles is probably perplexed why 'skeptics' have no credibility. Suites me fine :)
  19. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    COW - CO2 = W2. In the U.S., a W2 is a tax statement. Therefore, the hidden message in the cow is that we need a carbon tax.
  20. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Re #50, "both arguing that contrarian blogs cannot contradict peer reviewed articles, and using your own blog to dismiss the work of real scientists." No, you are the one playing games. Had you read the multitude of posts on this site, including the one I referred you to, you should have noticed that it extensively cites the scientific literature. Moreover, John Cook et al. do not choose to distort the science in their favour like WUWT routinely does. Real scientists follow this site, so that myth has been busted. Also, John would have more scientists endorsing him publicly in writing if it were not for the fact they were working for Federal agencies. Lindzen's work has been refuted by his fellow scientists and by the observations, and their efforts are reproduced here in a format that is more accessible to the public. " you're playing a strange game here -but I think that what Lindzen says is that we cannot exclude possible long term variations - that are unnamed since they may be not identified." Please support such assertions, preferably with a link to where he said it. Also, please present a model which explains the observed warming as well as the known fingerprints associated with enhanced GHG fingerprints, and which does not have internal inconsistencies like Lindzen's musings. Yet again Occam's razor applies, one does not have to invoke mystical, hitherto undetected long-term variation to explain the observed warming. I'm also curious when this mystical long-term cycle will peak and set off a long-term cooling of global temperatures.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Sorry, Albatross. johnny is a ghost; revealed to be Gilles in disguise. I've implemented measures to ensure johnny not being a further distraction.
  21. What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    Rob, I have to disagree about civil disobedience; lies have to be overcome with the truth, not bad behavior. I'm curious. What should, say, Rosa Parks or the Selma marchers have done instead of indulging in "bad behavior"? What truth could they have told that they weren't telling already?
  22. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    Why is a big cow in the center? Is it that important?
  23. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
    How much fossil carbon in the human carbohydrate diet? Is it negligible? If not, then breathing is not net zero. There's an increasing popular literature devoted to showing the synthetic origins of much of what we call "food." (See Michael Pollan's "In defense of food" for example.) This is not a comment about the carbon intensity of agriculture (a separate discussion) but rather the source of the carbon in the carbohydrate content of our diet. There are many chemicals (polyethylene glycol, for example) in our diet that are synthesized from petroleum. I would be interested to know what portion of the CO2 breathed out by humans has fossil C. I think this would rather strengthen the "real food" argument more than anything else.
  24. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
    Good qualitative picture. Now could you please add some quantitative data e.g. how much net CO2 on average does a single tree or a square mile of forest absorb through photosynthesis? How much net oxygen does it release? P.S. "net" to take into account plants respiration. Thank you very much.
  25. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Phil, sorry, you're addressing very basic issues that should be obvious if you want to discuss these topics. Of course the energy comes from the sun - and is, in a very large extent, reemitted towards the deep space. The enthalpy change is only an extremely tiny part of the amount absorbed and reemitted by the Earth. That's why energy conservation is not a problem - there is much more energy than what you need to "warm" the Earth by a fraction of degree - you only need less than 0.1 % of this energy. So arguing that these 0.1 % could not stem from natural variations because of conservation of energy is not justified. To be a little bit more mathematical. Energy conservation doesn't imply ∆H = 0 since the Earth is an open system. It only implies ∆H = Fin-Fout (I hope notations are obvious). Now quasi steady state implies on average ∆H=0 so Fin=Fout, and you expect Fout being some complicated function of the average temperature. So the equation Fout(T) = Fin gives an implicit equation whose solution determines implicitly the equilibrium temperature. For an isothermal black body for example, Fout = S. sigma.T^4. So what is "unforced" variability ? it is the fact that for a complex system, the relation Fout(T) is by no means univocal and can depend on very complicated things like snow or vegetation coverage, oceanic circulations, cloud coverage, and so on. So even with a constant input energy, the equilibrium temperature can fluctuate, and you can even easily get spontaneous cycles when the system never reaches the equilibrium solution - that is the essence of the predator-prey model, or the ENSO. The ENSO exists because the coupled ocean-atmosphere system is never stable - the equilibrium value is unstable, if you prefer, because strong non-linear, delayed feedbacks make the temperature and the function Fout(T) vary continuously. These cycles exist both in observations and in computations, there is no doubt that they do exist. The only question is about their amplitude and their frequency. Now energy conservation has nothing to do with these questions - energy is not conserved during an oscillation. They only depend on very complicated features of non linear couplings and are totally dependent on the system you consider. Now people like KR argue that : (A) a lack of evidence for them : wrong of course, there is plenty of evidence for decadal oscillations, and good hint for secular ones. Even the variations of climate between MO and LIA seem to imply changes in thermohaline circulation. (B) a lack of a plausible physical mechanism for them : wrong again, these kind of oscillations are very common in natural non-linear system, and again hints for their existence do exist. (C) a perfectly adequate explanation in CO2 forcing : circular argument : the question is precisely whether we can explain a part of these variations without CO2 forcings. You cannot answer this question by saying that no, because we can explain them with CO2 only ! the point raised by Lindzen is precisely that there may be other explanations - and as far as I can judge, it has not been really disproved.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Note to all: johnny is Gilles under a new account name.  Please refrain from replying to him.  He has returned to waste yet more time of others.

  26. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    The graphic leaves out an important part of the carbon cycle: plant cellular respiration. Plants burn the sugar they make for their own energy needs, returning part of the photosynthetically-fixed carbon to the atmosphere as CO2.
  27. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Johnny "If you're not yourself very good professional scientists, with a very good knowledge of what you're dealing with, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to bring a valuable piece in the debate. Are you claiming you are ?" Good grief no! Like many others here, I'm not a scientist at all. I'm just an interested person who's willing (not as often as I should be I'll admit) to plough through scientific papers that interest me. I'm deeply grateful to others, more skilled than I am, who put in the time to highlight the meanings of items which, very often, I've not grasped as clearly as I'd like. The value I can bring is simply to ask relevant questions, or to refer to other items I've come across, or to encourage or thank those who put in extra work for the benefit of readers. "... unidentified, spontaneous cycles..." This I find puzzling. I can see where there will be occasional coincidences of an exceptional phase of a very long cycle like the thermohaline circulation with a strong La Nina and the IOD going a bit haywire - on a long enough time scale this might recur and look like a "cycle". The only reason I can think of for a cycle to be unidentified is that it is much longer than, say, Milankovitch. If that is the case, I can't see how it would be relevant to current warming. We know where we are with Milankovitch and, for all intents and purposes it's irrelevant. We're talking a couple of centuries with this warming process, Milankovitch (or any other cycle as long or longer) is about millennia.
  28. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    johnny - The major issues with "internal variability" for warming on a century+ timescale are (A) a lack of evidence for them, (B) a lack of a plausible physical mechanism for them, and (C) a perfectly adequate explanation in CO2 forcing. The energy accumulation in atmosphere, surface, and primarily ocean over the last 150 years or so is large and sustained - cloud and water vapor (Lindzen's favorites) have quite fast responses to conditions, and do not seem capable of a sustained off-equilibrium forcing. So: if you (or Lindzen) claim it's internal variability, then show it. And in addition, demonstrate why the well understood physics of greenhouse gas behavior does not account for the warming. That's a two-fer; the physics and reality of CO2 forcing provide a clear explanation for the observed climate change - you need to show why that isn't the case. As to Lindzen's credibility - he has been shown to be wrong multiple times, in peer reviewed articles, about the iris effect (nope), tropical cloud response as a measure of global sensitivity (debunked), and speed of warming WRT sensitivity (nonsense, and debunked). The discussions here are in large part a response to Lindzen continuing to publicly state sillyness that cannot stand up to peer review. Finally, as to the discourse here: Your snappy dismissals of various measures of variability do you little credit, and prove not a thing other than an unwillingness to discuss the evidence. If you are as knowledgeable as you claim, then present the data, hypotheses, and papers that support your view.
  29. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    johnny I am perplexed by your contributions to this thread. You seem to be postulating a long term "natural variability" whereby heat is transported into the atmosphere @49. From what I understand you do not believe this heat is from the Sun (either directly by increased insolation or indirectly via increased trapping of outgoing energy) and so it is from another part of the Earth. However you have repeatedly suggested that people should not expect a cooling region of the planet to compensate for the warming atmosphere (by the statement "the Earth is not a closed system"). Where, then, is this energy coming from if not from the Sun ?
  30. Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011: Obsolescence by Design?
    FK&M 2011 use a four station temperature index for their reconstruction, with the stations being (from North to South) Ilullisat, Nuuk and Qaqortoq on the west coast, and Tasiilaq on the east coast. As can be seen in the following map, this gives their temperature index a distinctly southerly bias. This may not seem to matter much, but as seen in the following two charts, Greenland ice melt is not always confined to the southern regions of Greenland. A possible reason for this discrepancy is not hard to find. Negative modes of the North Atlantic Oscillation result in unusual warmth over southern Greenland. In that they only use a southern Greenland temperature index, it seems unlikely that FK&M will have captured northern Greenland ice melts with their reconstruction.
  31. What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    "It's good that Scientists are reading SkS, but presumably they already know the Science..." Not necessarily. Someone specialising in glaciology or geology may not be to up to speed on the physics of clouds for example.
  32. muoncounter at 23:40 PM on 9 May 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    #49 Adelady: "I'm having a problem with what you're getting at." Well said. Don't you enjoy it when a new 'skeptic' breezes in and seems to know immediately that everything here is wrong and that only he or she is in possession of the whole Truth? Except: #25: "I have no idea of the natural noise of the system" Great! Let us know when that quantity is available; until then, this 'natural variability' argument is moot. #23: "variations of the heat content can occur with small imbalances due to any cause of variability (for instance oceanic circulation), without "cooling" anything anywhere." That's fun because it conflicts neatly with #43: "Some regions can cool, like the Gulf coast, but not because the conservation of anything" Of course, parts of the 'cool' Gulf Coast are now sweltering in the 90s and suffering in drought; other parts wait as the 500 year flood heads their way. #45: "I would be interested in continuing the discussion if I were sure that it could be hold in an open and peaceful way, without censorship ... so good bye. " And the inevitable cry of censorship. And like others who've said 'goodbye,' unfortunately that word doesn't mean much. Here - exactly two comments later, we get the beautifully circular #47: "All this wouldn't be contradictory with the fact that the warming is still compatible with the natural variability (which doesn't mean that it proves there is no anthropogenic component)" All I can take from that last is that it could be this or it could be that; our new expert really doesn't have anything of substance to contribute after all. That's great science.
  33. Berényi Péter at 23:39 PM on 9 May 2011
    Tracking the energy from global warming
    Daniel, you can of course delete any comment at will, but that does not change the fact Tamino does not even mention satellites in the post you have linked.
    Response:

    [DB] Firstly: Your comment was deleted due to being in conflict with this portion of the Comments Policy

    Posting personal details of another user results in your account being banned from Skeptical Science.

    It is noted that Tamino does not regualarly make an appearance at SkS.  But since Tamino is his Internet nom de plume, honor that personal preference he has made.  Your repeated usage of his personal name is thus interpreted as being an invasion of privacy.  Please respect that in future comments.

    Secondly, Tamino's post was referenced as a prime example of the lengths that some go to take OHC data out of context.  A focus on recent expanded ARGO data without the context of historical data is also an example of that.

    OHC

    Lastly, if you feel that ARGO data is so suspect and unusable, then stand behind your position with the due diligence of publishing your analysis.  There exist a number of publishing entities that would do so.

  34. Ken Lambert at 23:31 PM on 9 May 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
    Marcus Lets get the terms right for a start. I assume you mean that $0.06c/kW-hr means 6 cents. With a dollar sign and a cents sign it could be confusing to those who are assailed by errors of two orders of magnitude on this blog. Let us assume your costs per kW-hr are roughly in the ball park. PV Solar: 33 cents without storage or grid costs. Wind: 8 cents without storage or grid costs. Solar-Thermal: 10-12 cents without grid costs. Coal fired: 6 cents (as low as 4 cents) without grid coats. Hydro: 3-5 cents without grid costs. I pay 19 cents for business power so 30 cents seems too high for coal. This includes about 7 cents for the grid costs and 12 cents for the power 'retailer'. Why would you use the coal fired retail price as a comparison with the renewables? Are you suggesting Solar/Wind and other 'renewables' be sold to consumers with no gross margin for the retailer? The cost of PV Solar and Wind need to be increased to allow for storage devices, and some grid connection cost to get some comparison with 24/7 base load power provided by coal/hydro/nuclear. Even on the above numbers without storage devices PV Solar is still 5-8 times the cost of coal or hydro, with lower availability on cloudy days and in winter. Wind has an availability in the 12 - 25% range - Both need to be covered by other base load sources for the rest of the time. Do the 8 cent Wind costs cover the availability and storage issues? Certainly not the storage. Your assertion that "for local energy supply (say, within around 5km-10km of the generation site) the total costs for PV solar even out quite nicely." So what are your grid costs for these 'close' sites? Whichever way it is cut, PV Solar and Wind are a long way from providing base load at anything near coal and hydro costs. No doubt PV Solar will reduce more sharply than Wind which has theoretical limits to efficiency - but both suffer from the fundamental issues of sensitivity to variable weather systems and low energy density. If we could afford a 25-30% portion of Wind & PV Solar - what happens when a large weather system of heavy monsoon cloud and rain sits over a wide area for days or even 1-2 weeks as happened recently in Queensland. Where will the reserve capacity to cover large power losses come from?
  35. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Adelady, I refer to natural variability with the meaning I think Lindzen is referring to. This can include variations of forcings as you mentioned, but also identified (as ENSO, which is not only "atmospheric"), or unidentified, spontaneous cycles. Obviously a century scale global trend can not be attributed to short term decadal oscillations, but I think that what Lindzen says is that we cannot exclude possible long term variations - that are unnamed since they may be not identified. I understand you think he's wrong - I didn't understand why. Just a side remark : do you think that it is plausible that a renown climate scientist like Lindzen could "simply" forget the law of conservation of energy , or didn't see the very simple argument that deep ocean should have cooled ? you're playing a strange game here - both arguing that contrarian blogs cannot contradict peer reviewed articles, and using your own blog to dismiss the work of real scientists. If you're not yourself very good professional scientists, with a very good knowledge of what you're dealing with, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to bring a valuable piece in the debate. Are you claiming you are ?
  36. Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011: Obsolescence by Design?
    In fact, the probability that all 20 previous values within the range of statistical significance are lower, is just the probability the 2007 was higher, or using your simple test of the upper bound of that probability, 0.975^20 =~= 0.60.
    Sorry- Yes. I goofed that up in the comment. That's what I get for scrawling on pads while writing comments. I did it this way in my blog post. However, as I noted before: that's the upper bound. The MI for 2007 is not on the edge of the 95% confidence interval, but further in. But that problem is not amenable to discussing in comments, so I did it at my blog. (Actually, I did a slightly different problem at my blog-- but I'll be posting this exact one.) So, the cummulative probability for 1928 v. 1931 is .73 not 0.95 and the one for 1931 is 0.76 not 0.95. The product is 0.55. Accounting for all years get you down to 12.6% and 2007 was probably not a record. But 2010 may be. Because FKM is published we can compute this when the 2010 data are in. (They aren't yet though.) So...what do you estimate for 2010? I can run the numbers baed on your estimate for 2010 and add it at my blog.
    I say your naive interpretation, of course, because it assumes the difference between actual and reconstructed values follows a normal distribution (which is unproven)
    Sure. I made one of the most common assumptions in statistics. Aware that these are open questions, I asked Chip for the underlying data. The errors do look normal as tested by plotting the histogram and eyeballing the histogram. There are only 30 or so values in the reconstruction, so we aren't going to have much power to reject the assumption of normality, and really, this looks pretty normal. Even if you want to call it naive, I'm comfortable making a very common assumption.
    hat the values are independent,
    The correlogram suggests the errors are uncorrelated.We only have 30 errors. Once again, you can call this naive, but I'm comfortable with assuming the errors are uncorrelated.
    (As there are known to have been no major tropical volcanoes in the period 1920-1960, the latter is particularly important.)
    I agree there weren't any, but I'm not sure how you think this affects the distribution of the residuals, (i.e. 'errors' or difference between the reconstructed MI and the one that would have been measured by satellite if the satellite had been in place back in 1928.) The point of the calculation is to figure out whether it's likely 2007 is or is not a record. This is separate from explaining why we may or may not be seeing a record. It's important to keep these two issue separate. In any case, there weren't any major volcanic eruptions after something like 1993. So...?
    It assumes that the values determined by satellite observation have no uncertainty.
    Yes. At my blog where I have more space, and can proof-read more easily, and insert images more easily etc, I say this. :) FWIW: If the values determine by the satellite have uncertainty, the probability that 2007 is a record will be lower than we calculated.
    (Note, I am not making any claim of wrong doing, only of statistical bias that resulted from perfectly reasonable methods.)
    Well.... in fact, I checked the things you are assuming I did not check, and the problem is a typo in the comment. It seems to me that while you may be well intentioned, you are
    Now if you where to calculate the autocorrelation of the series excluding the three years after any major tropical volcano, and use that autocorrelation in determining the probabilities of any given year exceeding the 2007 (or 2010) value, I would be very interested. I am, unfortunately, not mathematician enough to do that myself; but I am logician enough to know that without factoring autocorrelation in, your probability calculations are effectively worthless.
    For testing whether or not a record occurred, the recontructed melt index is "deterministic"-- they are already observed. The temporal autocorrelation that would matter is the one for the errors that matters. The temporal autocorrelation for the MI themselves is not zero and matters to a slightly different question. (That different question is an important one, but I haven't done it yet.) I'd invite you to visit this post and suggests questions you think might be worth testing. I discuss 3 questions there, but, in truth, there are 4 questions with 4 different answers. The question we are discussing here has to do with "is it a record". The conversation has gone that way because that's what the wording in FKM seemed to be discussing. (I've emailed Chip, and it turns out that was the concept they were discussing. The wording was clearer in the first version submitted.) But if you go back to my previous comment, you'll see I've been considering other questions someone might ask. I discuss these at my blog. One is: Where does 2007 fall in the range of MI that likely occurred during the period of the reconstruction? (I call this Q2.) If you note above: I said that 2007 is outside the ±95% confidence intervals for that. There is a third question I thought of, which is a tweak on Q2, which focuses on the full range of natural variability (given matched forcings). I haven't done that one because (a) I thought of how to word it yesterday just before company was arriving and (b) it's a bit more complicated than the other ones. The complication in the computation requires me to formally account for the temporal autocorrelation in the melt indices-- but actually, accounting for that will do the opposite of what you 'like' relative to Q2. I do think you'll be interested in the posts showing various features I'll be putting up this week. If you visit the blog posts, you'll be able to ask for other graphs, which I can make. If I need to get additional data from Chip, to account for whatever it is you think needs to be accounted for, I'll get the data.
  37. Rob Painting at 22:27 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    John Bruno - I guess we'll have to disagree on that point. One only has to consider examples of the recent past, such as slavery, segregation, apartheid, womens rights, gay rights etc, etc. Change was not implemented simply because those in power, or voters, were convinced of the truth. No, disruption and protests, often violent, were necessary to implement momentum toward change. Many people had to put themselves in harms way. Look at what access to information and the truth has done for western society today: obesity (nothing - it's an epidemic) and rates of smoking uptake in youth (again dismally disappointing). NZ has a high rate of skin cancer because of high UV levels. Go to the beach in summer and you'll see hundreds of people sprawled on beach towels,"baking" themselves to an early grave. And this despite decades of TV campaigns on the risks of UV exposure. It's going to take a tad bit more than the truth to overcome this global paralysis. I wish it were otherwise, but people do underestimate the power of denial.
  38. Berényi Péter at 22:04 PM on 9 May 2011
    Tracking the energy from global warming
    #110 Tom Curtis at 21:01 PM on 9 May, 2011 You have interpreted it as a decrease, which means you have the wrong sign for Heat Content anomaly as measured by satellites in your second and third graphs. That is not so. Please try to understand first what's being said and shown and subsequently provide your reflections. That sequence is much more convenient for all. The sign of satellite heat content anomaly is correct indeed, which, among other things, can be seen from the brief increase during 2008 and in the first half of 2009. If you still claim direct OHC measurements before mid-2003 are correct, you should inevitably say satellite radiative imbalance measurements at TOA prior to that date are in error. Is that your position? BTW, you may notice how ARGO coverage improved between April 2003 and April 2004, especially in the Southern Pacific. Here is current coverage:
    Response:

    [DB] Tamino has much to say about this specific topic here.

  39. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    (Oops, hit the submit button too early) On the other hand, surface O3 and other pollutants will still need to be dealt even if we do successfully limit our CO2 productions @John Cook The graphic looks good. You're not finished making the graphics for this important rebuttal I take it?
  40. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    This graph begs the question - What happens when the trees and perennial vegetation die off?
    I don't think it does, the graphic is specifically about the respiration carbon cycle. Ozone pollution would be a separate topic.
  41. What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    Artful Dodger, scientists don't know all science. And climate change science is a massive and diverse body of knowledge. I am sure even the most knowledgeable climate scientists don't know all the science explained at SkS. The biologists don't know all the physics and vice versa. SkS science has also taught us how to deal with and respond to all the non-science in this realm (which may be greater in volume than the real science!). Policy people do read SkS. And if they don't directly, they learn from it indirectly from the people that do read it, eg, they read books by James Lawrence Powell, Naomi Oreskes, Bill McKibben and many other authors who rely heavily on SkS. Point being; education-it works and SkS is the course textbook. Rob, I have to disagree about civil disobedience; lies have to be overcome with the truth, not bad behavior.
  42. David Horton at 21:38 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    Just teasing John!
  43. New SkS graphic: the Respiration Carbon Cycle
    This graph begs the question - What happens when the trees and perennial vegetation die off? Wait - why would they? Well, aside from deforestation, droughts, disruption of the nitrogen cycle, and wildfires, they are being slowly poisoned by air pollution. It's well established science that at current ambient levels of background tropospheric ozone, annual crops yields experience stunted growth in the range of 10 - 20%. The quality and viability of seeds and nuts is also impaired. (See this research: http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php?sid=368143) As background levels continue to rise, it is expected that a concurrent increase in damage will result. With a burgeoning population and other adverse extreme weather impacting crops, we could see widespread famine soon. Aside from annual crops it seems reasonable to wonder what effect ozone has on longer-lived species like trees and shrubs, which are exposed to high summer levels season after season. And yet very few people do wonder, because since many species of trees can live for centuries, and can become so large, and because there is no control atmosphere for comparison with ambient levels of ozone, there is no funding and almost no research into the impact on mature trees, and in general, which leads to a sense of resignation and total apathy about their fate in a world where they, in essence, cannot breathe or photosynthesize. I expect that when we run out of oranges, avocados, peaches, cherries, apples, pecans, walnuts and maple syrup, not to mention lumber and paper, perhaps then people might notice that our trees are suffocating in a poisonous brew of toxic volatile organic compounds and stop blaming opportunistic insects, disease and fungus. And then maybe some enterprising scientist will get funding to study exactly what difference the mandated addition of ethanol and the resulting acetaldehydes and peroxyacetyl nitrates mean for emissions, because all indications are that the longer-lasting resultant ozone isn't being accounted for in models currently in use. I hope that happens before we run out of oxygen.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Hot-linked URL.
  44. Tracking the energy from global warming
    Berényi Péter @109: 1)
    "As you can see the story the data tell is somewhat different from the standard one. Heat content of the climate system is not increasing, but decreasing."
    Stackhouse et al clearly indicate that there was a decrease in Out going Long Wave Radiation in 2008, and a decrease in Reflected Short Wave Radiation. With near constant incoming Short Wave Radiation, a reduction in outgoing radiation means there was an increase in energy stored in the ocean/atmosphere system. You have interpreted it as a decrease, which means you have the wrong sign for Heat Content anomaly as measured by satellites in your second and third graphs. That also means that the Heat Content Anomaly of the ocean/atmosphere system is increasing contrary to your claims. As the supposedly decreasing HCA is the basis of your entire analysis, your employing the wrong sign renders the analysis false. 2) On a side note, your rejection of Ocean Heat Content data prior to mid 2003 is without basis and constitutes the grossest sort of cherry picking. ARGO buoys where deployed as early as 1999. If there was a fundamental flaw in the Expendable Thermobathygraph (XBT) measurements, it would show in distinctly different trend in measured temperatures between XBT data and ARGO data. No such divergence in trends exists. Picking mid 2003 as the start of the ARGO era rather than 2002 when hundreds where already operational, or November 2007 when the target of 3000 operational buoys was first achieved has no basis other than to provide a high OHC as the start point of a cherry picking argument.
  45. Rob Painting at 20:36 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    How do we speak to Power? Mass civil disobedience. Still too many comfortable people in western societies, that will change.
  46. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    johnny "... the warming is still compatible with the natural variability ..." I'm having a problem with what you're getting at. When you talk about "the warming" I presume you mean that 1. The atmosphere is warming. 2. The ocean is warming. When I hear 'natural variability' I think --- 1. The sun's been a bit cooler the last few years. 2. Volcanoes are not doing anything interesting. 3. ENSO and the other large atmospheric features are just chugging along in their usual fashion, up for a while, down for a while. But I get the impression that this is not what you mean by 'natural variability'. Could you clarify?
  47. funglestrumpet at 20:25 PM on 9 May 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    sgmuller@10 "They get away with it because organisations like Murdoch's News Corp are actively following an anti-AGW agenda." Your comment exposes why this side of the argument is losing the war, despite winning the battles by providing sound science with proof that global warming is, and will increasingly be for some time to come, a problem. Take 'Anthropogenic' out of the discussion and assume that the global warming is due to some mysterious cause, as yet unidentified, and the discussion centres on prediction of future warming. There is no disagreement to the fact that it is warming and the deniers have no idea as to where it is going. All their suggested mechanisms have been proven to be invalid. That leaves them with no arguments to put forward to stop us, as a species, taking whatever action that we can in order to combat it. GHG are a proven source of heating, no matter where they originate, so reducing them is obvious. We can agree to continue to try to find the source of the heating because, clearly, combating global warming is not going to be cheap and nations should be expected to contribute pro-rata their culpability. When that discussion comes, you can bet the 'heat' of discussion will be several orders of magnetude greater than that of the current debate. But by then, the world will fully engaged and there will be a lot of pointing to sites like this one in order to prove that the science was known early on, therefore ignorance that SUVs etc. etc. could be a bad thing will not be a legitimate defence. Its like 911, 'truth will out' eventually.
  48. Artful Dodger at 19:35 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    It's good that Scientists are reading SkS, but presumably they already know the Science... So, is anyone in a Policy role reading? We know they are listening to the millions of U$D pushed into their pockets through the hands of Lobbyists. How do we speak to Power?
  49. David Horton at 19:08 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    Worth noting, for all of us who voted, that Professor Naomi Oreskes and Alliance for Climate Education have been named 2011 Climate Change Communicators of the Year. http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/
  50. David Horton at 18:14 PM on 9 May 2011
    What scientists are saying about Skeptical Science
    Oh, OK, I think you are pretty good too John, but don't you go getting a swollen head now!
    Response: [JC] I do note the comments apply to SkS as a whole which is a group effort with a number of contributors.

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