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Pete Dunkelberg at 04:32 AM on 6 May 2011Medieval project gone wrong
Mangini et al. 2007:Persistent influence of the North Atlantic hydrography on central European winter temperature during the last 9000 years (more through than their 2005 paper) finds solar variation to be the cause of European winter warm periods. More interestingly, they say that their isotope methods record mainly winter variation, while tree rings record mostly spring and summer when warming is less. Thus the best comparison with their results is with recent northern hemisphere winter temperature trends (where is the graph of that?). Arrhenius already predicted that winters would warm faster than summers, and this has generally been the case in the recent warm-up. However, NH winters are also sensitive to everything from the Madden-Julian Oscillation to tropical volcanoes, and we have seen in the last two years that some NH areas can have cold winters while Arctic amplification is concentrated farther north. -
Bob Lacatena at 04:26 AM on 6 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
27, Jesús, RC silence about what, exactly? -
bibasir at 03:15 AM on 6 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
Here is the link to Hansens paper concerning sea level rise. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf Scroll down to page 15 to see the graph where he argues that a 10 year doubling of the melt rate for Arctic and Antarctic ice is possible. It can be argued that a 7 year doubling is possible. Time will tell. -
dana1981 at 03:08 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
Good point, Albatross. At the congrssional hearing, Emanuel was referred to as an "advocate" (I've never heard Emanuel advocate anything other than good science). Meanwhile Christy and Lindzen are going on conservative talk shows and advocating inaction, talking about economics, etc. Major double standard. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:00 AM on 6 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Albatross:IMHO, ice state in the boreal spring doe snot seem to be a terribly good indicator of minimum sea-ice extent area in September.
[img src="http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/pips2_thick/2007/pips2_thick.2007050400.gif" height="220" width="200" /][img src="http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/pips2_thick/2010/pips2_thick.2010050400.gif" height="220" width="200" /] As emphasized by the comparison of BP's images to the same date on the record low 2007 year (from these, one would have projected that 2010 would have produced the lowest extent on record): [img src="http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/pips2_thick/2011/pips2_thick.2011050400.gif" height="220" width="200" /] Again, predicting any one year at any point is difficult to do. The only prediction one can realistically make is that the long term trend is going to continue to be downward, and new records will continue to be set (but not necessarily every year).Moderator Response: [Sph] Bad images removed. -
EliRabett at 02:45 AM on 6 May 2011Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011: Obsolescence by Design?
Chip Knappenberger and Pat Michaels are masters at playing good cop, bad cop, but it is an act. They are both responsible, and being nice to Chip merely advances their misconduct, in this case for hiding the incline. Anyone looking at the FKM paper could see that they were comparing a short period of rapidly rising melt, with a longer more gradual period in the 1930s. As Martin Vermeer put it, what Box offered was a low cost way of making the paper somewhat less dishonest. "This is clearly what Box means by "causal factors"... an analysis of ice melt as relating to temperature is what he would have liked to see, to provide the "depth" that he is missing. But it would have undermined the simple story line of "yet another thing that contradicts warmism"... and it would have been extra work, quite a bit of it. So, Box offers an easy way out, which would also puncture the less-than-100%-honest story line. " -
Albatross at 02:40 AM on 6 May 2011Frauenfeld, Knappenberger, and Michaels 2011: Obsolescence by Design?
Daniel, Nice summary. It also boils down to this, when the authors speak to the nature of the melting and attempt to place that melting in context, it is unacceptable to exclude extreme events such as 2010. Ignorance is perhaps one thing, but we know that was definitely not the case here. Additionally, they were aware of those 2010 data in September 2010, it is now eight months later, and by one of the authors admission, they have not yet incorporated those 2010 data. That appears to me to be the very antithesis of genuine scientific curiosity, but rather perhaps a situation where the authors had arrived at an answer that they liked, and did not wish to include data that might upset/challenge that. So what happens now? Dr. Box and others have to fill the void and do the job properly and clean up after a paper written by "skeptics". Déjà vu. Of course the failings of the journal and editor on this subject cannot go unchallenged. -
Albatross at 02:16 AM on 6 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Riccardo @244, Agreed Also, it appears that the relatively thick ice that PIPS model is 'seeing" over the central Arctic Ocean may in reality not be so. Look at the image form Cryosphere today:
Source]
One last comment. IMHO, ice state in the boreal spring does not seem to be a terribly good indicator of minimum sea-ice extent area in September.
Response:[DB] Ice extent and area histories are no longer reliable comps to go by. As the Barber video showed, even the MY ice no longer presents much obstacle to navigation in the Arctic.
Just as temperatures and CO2 levels are changing in greater-than-linear-fashion, so too the demise of the Arctic sea ice; the losses overall are increasing in greater-than-linear-fashion. The condition of the ice is a continuum; each season preconditions the ice for the next. The recent winter was abnormally warm in the Arctic with greater warm oceanic water penetration from the Bering Straits and the North Atlantic. This has set the stage for the 2011 summer melt season drama to be played out before us.
We are in "uncharted waters", wherin past indicators (pre-2005) of melt performance and winter regrowth are no longer the reliable indicators of things to come that once they were. Each year sees more MY ice loss through top-and-bottom melt and advection out the Fram Strait; additionally, less FY ice survives to MY ice status.
Death Spiral.
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Jesús Rosino at 02:02 AM on 6 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
Pete Dunkelberg, My undestanding is that "over 1 meter" projectons come from semi-empirical approaches (pioneered by Rahmstorf), but physical models (those used by the IPCC) don't project such high rises. Semi-empiricals may perfectly be right, but I woudln't call it a consensus yet. In any case, Hansen & Sato are way off the numbers published in the peer reviewed literature. They count on Cenozoic big ice sheets such as Laurentide that aren't here any more. And I don't really see any scientist supporting their high estimates ever (the same when suggesting that sensitivity is 6ºC). In my view, RealClimate silence about this (as previously with Hansen's Venus syndrome) si somewhat telling. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:56 AM on 6 May 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
153, Ken, 154, Tom, We all need to avoid the tactic of declaring victory rather than achieving it, and that of simply broadcasting a perception of the errors of others, rather than actually proving them. That said... it is utterly reprehensible to simply lie about what others have said, or to pretend that the previous thread of the conversation says something entirely different from the truth of the matter. It will also be reprehensible to jump on this comment and righteously accuse the other party of such guilt. Anyone who looks at this stream of comments is well advised to go back and judge that aspect of this particular debate for themselves. The evidence is mostly there (except for the utterly outrageous posts which were deleted by the moderators), and the behavior in question will be easy enough to identify. Just look for the comments that keep declaring victory, or claiming to have previously found and proven mistakes by others (without actually doing so, or by quietly ignoring any substantive rebuttals). -
Riccardo at 01:53 AM on 6 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
"The reality is that the proposition above is not true if ..." One region, one kind of ice, one day. The trick is to choose the criterion untill it matches your will. Kind of extreme cherry picking. -
Albatross at 01:37 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
All, And the thread has now been hi-jacked and derailed. Convenient, b/c now Lindzen's and Christy's failings are not being highlighted/underscored while we are debating a steady stream of red herrings and strawmen. What I find totally hypocritical of people like Lindzen, Christy, Michaels and Spencer is that they have the gall to accuse their fellow scientists who (are rightly concerned about AGW) of engaging in politics, when it fact it is the contrarian crowd who is politicizing this issue more than anyone. For goodness' sakes we have Christy and Lindzen speaking on right-wing talk radio shows, and speaking to the economics and politics of AGW, something that they are not qualified to do, yet something that they accuse others of doing as if it were a crime. What is worse, Christy and Lindzen are misrepresenting the facts and the science, and engaging in rhetoric and hyperbole. Finally, "skeptics" here are suggesting that they want to move away from FFs and towards sustainable energy-- great, but that does not appear to be what Lindzen is advocating. So on that issue you are apparently in disagreement. -
Chris G at 01:21 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #4: Climate Sensitivity
Dankd, Thanks, my own searches were narrowing down to a debate that took place in Nature between Lindzen and Covey, circa 1993. I found this reference, but I haven't been able to find a link to the article. Lindzen, R. S.: 1993, 'Paleoclimate Sensitivity', Nature 363, 25-26. referenced in PALEOCLIMATE DATA CONSTRAINTS ON CLIMATE SENSITIVITY: THE PALEOCALIBRATION METHOD I'm thinking that Lindzen's argument that there will be meridional gradient pattern differences between orbital forcings and CO2 forcings has some merit. But, I get the impression that he obfuscates between the meridional gradient and the forcings which would cause it to change. Hadley cells are predicted to expand under CO2 forcing; so, that would also cause changes where Lindzen predicted none. But that is a cursory read of your discussion link, and I haven't found the actual Lindzen article yet. Another thought I have is that Lindzen's part of the discussion appears to be an argument of uncertainty. Again, it may have been valid at the time. -
dana1981 at 01:15 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
TTTM # 56 -"Emissions haven't stopped by 2050 under your ideal global scenario. We wont be stabilised at 450ppm we'll still be increasing at 50% the rate in 1990."
As noted in the article,"Approximately 55% of human CO2 emissions currently remain airborne"
Thus reducing global emissions by ~50% will be sufficient to stop the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, unless natural carbon sinks become saturated in the meantime. I also think that throwing money at a technology (fusion) which is perpetually 50 years away from a breakthrough is a major waste. -
KR at 00:52 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #4: Climate Sensitivity
dankd - Thanks for the link to the correspondence. Given that one of the major criticisms of Lindzen and Choi's various papers has been the lack of consideration of energy exchanges with the subtropics, his appeal to such "dynamic heat exchanges" to critique CO2 sensitivity is rather appalling - a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black. In particular, he states (quite correctly) "...given that the Earth's major greenhouse gas, water vapor, varies greatly with latitude and altitude, it is impossible to calculate the net greenhouse effect without knowing where heat is deposited by the dynamic heat transports." This sounds like a repeat of many of the L&C criticisms. And yet his 2010 revision (17 years after this correspondence) of the L&C paper completely ignores this issue! Very sad - personally, I can no longer take his work seriously. -
Berényi Péter at 00:50 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
Black carbon is pretty inert stuff. It does not get oxidized easily at ambient temperature. -
CBDunkerson at 00:47 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
KL #69: "Marcus, I will be the first to buy your PV Solar panel when it can re-produce itself without the help of relatively cheap fossil fuels." Solar PV power is now cheaper than fossil fuel power in Hawaii and parts of Italy and California. Ergo, any solar panels produced there (and lots are made in California) can do so without the help of relatively expensive fossil fuels. Most estimates put global average 'grid parity' for solar PV some time before 2020... though now that the IEA says we passed 'peak oil' back in 2006 we're likely to see sustained large increases in oil prices and consequently in coal transport costs/final prices. -
Tom Curtis at 00:41 AM on 6 May 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
Ken Lambert @153: 1) Why be charitable? You have already taken the opportunity of my mother's ill health and my being preoccupied with helping family members shift house to declare victory. Why should this time be any different? 2) It is not your attention to the "errors of others" which makes your character questionable - it is your inability to acknowledge any error you yourself make. 3) Apposite of which, your "assumptions" have been irrelevant to every error of yours I have pointed to. That is because I calculated a particular value, ie, the net incoming energy absorbed by the arctic the summer season of 2010 - the net incoming energy absorbed by the arctic in the summer season of 1979. I know when I calculate that value and get a figure in Watts per square meter, and then I multiply by the area by 60 by 60 by 24 by 90 that I have calculated a value for a 90 day period. Your assuming that the value is actually that of a thirty day period is therefore just an error. It is, what's more an error that you repeated several times after correction, and have never admitted to. It is not an error of calculation simply because you do not bother doing the sums. In like manner, when I actually look up the monthly data for sea ice area for the respective periods, and determine the difference in sea ice area between 1979 and 2010, your assumption that the actual loss of area over that thirty year period is just the loss of sea ice calculated by Trenberth for a single year is again simply an error. It is just as much an error as if you used the diameter of the moon to calculate the surface area of the Earth, and no matter how exact your equations are, the error in the initial values means your equations are useless. 4) With regard to the decimal places, sometimes it is just easier to cut and paste. The number of decimals means nothing more, nor less than that. Typically, you however try to make so simple a matter the basis of an ad hominen. 5) Finally, your argument style of making a false statement, ignoring the correction, making it again, and ignoring the correction, and making it again, and so on until you hold the field by exhaustion of the opposition shows an absolute lack of intellectual integrity. It reminds me of nothing so much as the debating style of some creationists I have known. -
Berényi Péter at 00:38 AM on 6 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Response: [DB] The reality is that spring 2011 conditions as measured by PIPS 2.0 are worse than those of spring 2010
The reality is that the proposition above is not true if by "worse" you mean extension of thick ice is smaller in the central arctic this spring than it was a year ago. Of course if you mean something else, it can be made true. Clarify your position please. Response:[DB] See Riccardo's point below about cherry-picking.
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dankd at 00:32 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #4: Climate Sensitivity
David, Chris, Lindzen's explanation for the ice age climate changes is that they were forced by changes in the distribution of solar forcing (orbital changes) to which he believes the climate system is much more sensitive that it is to changes in mean solar forcing (or mean CO2 forcing). Here's a representative piece (including a reply by Hoffert and Covey): http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/165pal~1.pdf That note (from 1993) has no actual calculations in it, and in this day and age it ought to have been trivial for someone to have built a simplified GCM with low climate sensitivity, and to see whether it is capable of producing an ice age. That no one has done so suggests that it's not possible to come up with a consistent model that reproduces the earth's observed behavior, and has climate sensitivity as low as Lindzen proposes. -
Chris G at 00:18 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #4: Climate Sensitivity
"In the current models, for reasons that puzzle almost everyone, the cloud feedbacks are positive rather than negative." This is a gem. Yes, back in 1989, it was a puzzlement. Yet, most recently, measurements have born out the results of whatever early models Lindzen was referring to. I'm referring to the post on this site, "What is the net feedback from clouds?", and in particular Dessler (2010), "A Determination of the Cloud Feedback from Climate Variations over the Past Decade". Lindzen's concern was valid in 1989, but it no longer carries the weight it once did. David H, indeed, the disagreement between the paleologic record and Lindzen's model has been raised before, but likewise, I haven't heard of a Lindzen explanation. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:16 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
BP@68 I meant that terra preta rapidly looses its fertility if you carry on using it without maintenance. However, thanks for the reference (although your manner left a bit to be desired), it is both interesting and surprising that carbon in that form should be so long lasting. -
Ken Lambert at 00:03 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
Marcus #28 Marcus, I will be the first to buy your PV Solar panel when it can re-produce itself without the help of relatively cheap fossil fuels. { - snip - } their democratically elected governments back to 1900 who started the electricity generation industries with (except for hydro), the only feasible, abundant and cheap fuel available - fossil fuel - chiefly coal.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Accusations of ignorance and conspiracy theories are deleted. You know better than that. -
Berényi Péter at 00:02 AM on 6 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
#66 Dikran Marsupial at 23:08 PM on 5 May, 2011 terra preta is rapidly degraded and you have to maintain it or it doesn't stay fertile It explains why hundreds of thousand square kilometers of the Amazon basin are still covered by (yes, fertile) terra preta after the natives, decimated by European plagues, abandoned it five hundred years ago. Or does it? Soil Biology & Biochemistry Volume 41, Issue 2, February 2009, Pages 210-219 doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2008.10.016 Black carbon decomposition and incorporation into soil microbial biomass estimated by 14C labeling Yakov Kuzyakov, Irina Subbotina, Haiqing Chen, Irina Bogomolova & Xingliang Xu "Considering about 10 times slower decomposition of BC under natural conditions, the mean residence time (MRT) of BC is about 2000 years, and the half-life is about 1400 years. Considering the short duration of the incubation and the typical decreasing decomposition rates with time, we conclude that the MRT of BC in soils is in the range of millennia". -
Paul D at 23:54 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Wow, the big guns were brought out for that one. Mixing with the celebs. -
Ken Lambert at 23:47 PM on 5 May 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
Tom Curtis #148 "However, in light of Lambert's unsavoury characteristic of claiming victory anytime a response delayed, in light of his incapability of admitting error coupled with a determination to score rhetorical points of the errors of others, and in light of his inability to keep even simple concepts straight (as for example the difference between change in incoming energy due to change in albedo (as discussed here) as distinct from the amount of energy used to melt a particular volume of ice (which he repeatedly treats as equivalent), no response will be forthcoming. I find arguments from obtuseness uninteresting - and evidently, that is all that Lambert has to offer this forum." In a spirit of goodwill Tom, I will restrain myself from suggesting that you have thrown in the towel. Would you prefer that I ignore the 'the errors of others' while being pilloried with terms such as 'ridiculous' and 'fool' when producing sound calculations based on the information from Dr Trenberth - a leading scientist in this field? I would be failing in a duty to myself and the readers of this site if I allowed gross errors to go unremarked which are intended to disprove and damage my arguments. Several time you have discovered errors and re-calculated -- only after I pointed them out. You even produced bizarre gems like this: "More usefully, the average annual temperature anomaly between the 80's and the 2000's for the area from 67 degrees north to the pole is 1.2832875654 degrees C." Was that a joke I missed or were you trying to impress the gullible by quoting a temperature to 10 decimal places? You have admitted that none of my calculations were wrong. You have disputed my assumptions, and I have disputed yours. Mine produced results close to the NET heat absorption calculated by Dr Trenberth - yours don't. Let that be the end of this fraught but necessary encounter. -
Tom Curtis at 23:36 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
TTTM @62, my plan is curtail CO2 emissions before wide spread sequestration becomes necessary. It's cheaper that way. In the event that sequestration becomes necessary I will defer to the experts, of which I am not one. I am, however, knowledgeable enough to recognise a claim that sequestration technologies are unproven to be nonsense. Some are, certainly, but your argument requires that all are uproven, which is simply false. -
Berényi Péter at 23:33 PM on 5 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
#238 Don9000 at 22:35 PM on 5 May, 2011 The Arctic seems poised on the brink of another record melting season.
Not likely. A much larger area is covered by thick ice in the central arctic ocean now than in 2007. Response:[DB] Why the cherry-pick of 2007 - a record melt year due to weather conditions (strong Arctic Dipole)? The Central Arctic Basin has not had MY ice coverage in years; all ice there now is typically first year ice, most of which does not survive the melt season regardless of thickness.
The reality is that spring 2011 conditions as measured by PIPS 2.0 are worse than those of spring 2010, a year of continuing ice loss without evident recovery and itself part of an ongoing trend towards zero and oblivion (cue: Fade to Black):
But thanks for providing readers with yet another measurement tool which they can play with: PIPS 2.0
Courtesy Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog:
NSIDC has just released its April analysis. Some interesting tidbits:
Arctic sea ice declined slowly through most of April. Because of the slow decline in April, ice extent for the month as a whole did not approach record lows, as it did in March. However, ice extent began to decline more quickly towards the end of the month.
Central Russia saw an early retreat of snow cover, as a result of prevailing warm conditions during the past winter over the eastern Arctic and Siberia.
(...)
Ice extent declined through the month more slowly than usual, at an average rate of 29,950 square kilometers per day (11,560 square miles per day). The average daily rate of decline for 1979 to 2000 was 40,430 square kilometers (15,610 square miles) per day.
Cool conditions helped retain ice in Baffin Bay, between Canada and Greenland. Most of the ice loss during April was in the Kara Sea, north of Siberia, and the northern Baltic Sea in Europe. Ice also retreated rapidly in the western Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk.
(...)
For most of April, nearly all of the eastern Arctic, north of Europe and Russia, remained warmer than average. The largest anomalies were over central Russia, northern Siberia and the Laptev and East Siberian Seas, where temperatures averaged over the month were approximately 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) above average. In contrast, most of the western Arctic was cooler than normal, with temperatures 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than average over Davis Strait and Baffin Bay.
The eastern Arctic remained warmer than average all winter. This suggests that that sea ice there did not thicken as much as in past winters, and may retreat rapidly as the summer melt season progresses.
(Emphasis added)
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Dikran Marsupial at 23:08 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
BP@65 Can you give a reference for carbon (in the form of charcoal) having a long half life in soil. I ask as your terra preta example seems to suggest otherwise (terra preta is rapidly degraded and you have to maintain it or it doesn't stay fertile). It seems more likely that increasing the carbon content of the soil will just increase soil respiration (i.e. those abundent bacteria). -
Bob Lacatena at 23:04 PM on 5 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
238, Don9000, Interesting, but I wouldn't get too carried away with either the descent of the curve, or any particular measure of melt "performance." On the descent of the curve... sudden changes in winds and currents, clouds, temperatures/stalled air masses, etc. all lead to abrupt and unexpected reversals (in either direction). At the same time, for example, any 15% ice graph is a limited, scalar representation of a complex system. It's is breaking down a hugely complex dynamic to a single "representative" number. IJIS offers a different estimate and a more informative graph. My own opinion is that the COI number (30% or more instead of 15%) is a better method for most purposes, and the ice area instead of extent at Arctic ROOS is useful information. But none of these shows ice volume (i.e. area * depth) or the nature of the ice itself, so they all have limits. Lastly, looking at the actual geographic distributions in concentration at Cryosphere Today is hugely important to see what's happening. The animations give a sense of "flow" and hint at what might happen next, or what's happening now that's different from the past. Their archives and date-to-date comparison pages are great tools, too. For example, I don't know how often the huge drop in concentration that we now see at the pole itself has happened in the past. This year to date has been looking very scary, not necessarily because any measure of melt looks fast, but rather because all around this year looks different, and different can lead to fast or maybe scary fast. Then of course, later in the year it's fun to actual see things with your own eyes, using the North Pole Cams to see the melt pools develop, along with an occasional rainbow. -
Daniel Bailey at 22:44 PM on 5 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Thanks, Don. The mild Arctic winter has preconditioned the sea ice cap there for a near-record to possibly a record melt season. It will be interesting to watch unfold, like a train wreck. Or a Curry post. The Yooper -
Berényi Péter at 22:43 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
#62 TimTheToolMan at 20:59 PM on 5 May, 2011 Ploughing charcoal into fields isn't sequestering it. It is. Carbon content of charcoal has an extremely long halflife in soil. But it is not a big deal in itself. Carbon sequestration for its own sake is plain silly and prohibitively expensive like turning plantation timber into charcoal then burying it in abandoned mines. However, adding charcoal to tropical oxisols makes perfectly good sense. With the help of some bacteria abundant there it turns them into extremely fertile terra preta. Even if you can't "save the Planet" this way (I don't think it needs saving), you can certainly save people (from poverty & famine). The method does not work so well for soils found in temperate regions, although it may depend on finding the right kind of bacteria that would serve as an interface between plant roots and nutrients adsorbed on the (huge) surface of charcoal particles in that environment. Also, you do not need timber to produce charcoal powder. Just about any agricultural waste suffices if it is burnt in a low oxygen environment. If it is done properly, you can even extract some energy during the process, because hydrogen contents of organics have to be oxidized anyway (to water) and the carbon monoxide should be trapped and burnt fully (unlike CO2 it's a poison). -
muoncounter at 22:39 PM on 5 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Don9000#238: But it's back within the two sd gray bars, so it must all be a natural cycle. For now. -
muoncounter at 22:37 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
TTTM#40: "Nobody likes being told what they can and cant do." True enough. But many learn in childhood that's the way of the world. We drive on the correct side of the road, stop at red lights and don't get to throw our waste products out into the street. Oh, sorry, exception for the last one of those: we've been throwing our fossil fuel waste into the collective street for years. -
Don9000 at 22:35 PM on 5 May 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
The Arctic seems poised on the brink of another record melting season. The May 4 update on the National Snow and Ice Data Center website explains that after a slow April melt, the melting trend has recently accelerated, and the trend line, as seen in the daily image update, is poised to drop well below the 2006 record. National Snow and Ice Data Center website
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Pete Dunkelberg at 22:34 PM on 5 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
# 22 Jesús Rosino - more than + 1 meter not supported by a physical model? Are you thinking of a linear model? -
Marcus at 22:23 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
Wow Tim, you really have *no clue* about the carbon sequestration potential of soil biomass, if you don't think that putting organic carbon into the ground isn't sequestering it. The initial point of bio-sequestration, though, is to significantly *reduce* the trajectory at which CO2 emissions are rising-& both bio-char & algal biomass represent a relatively cheap & easy way to do that-certainly much cheaper & easier than building dams & massive pipelines, or moving tens of millions of people to higher ground. It is also much cheaper & more effective than liquefying CO2 & burying it under ground. The reality is that pilot projects have shown that algal biomass can absorb between 55% to 80% of the CO2 released by a 1000MW coal power station. As I said above, once you've tied up that CO2 in biomass, you can use it to make petroleum substitutes (thus displacing the CO2 emissions produced by burning petroleum products directly), you can use it as a fertilizer or high protein feed (again, displacing the emissions that would normally be generated from manufacturing these products), you can use it to make bio-plastics (again, displacing the CO2 emissions that would be generated if you made those plastics directly from fossil fuels), you can also gasify it & burn it for heat & electricity (again, displacing the CO2 that would normally be generated if you mined the coal or natural gas & used that for electricity). Heck, you can shove some of it down into a empty mine-shaft for all I care. The point is that you're effectively *re-using* the CO2 emissions generated from the burning of fossil fuels, thus significantly reducing the rate at which CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise. Now, if you couple that with greater energy efficiency (Demand Management), greater use of non-carbon based energy sources, greater use of bio-gas for base-load energy(from landfill, sewerage plants, forestry sites & farm residues) & reforestation, you could get the trajectory of CO2 emissions to flatten out completely, even *fall* slightly. It can be done, & at a fraction of the total cost of your extremely lame, & hideously expensive "adaptation" approach. -
SNRatio at 22:16 PM on 5 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
#23, newscrusader "Now the AMAP assessment finds that Greenland was losing ice in the 2004-2009 period four times faster than in 1995-2000." There are conflicting data on the rate of Greenland ice loss, and if the ice sheet was closer to balance in 1990-95, a fourfold increase does not have to be very significant towards very rapid meltdown. Four times very small is still very small. It is only when we have reached a much higher rate of ice loss than today, and it keeps on multiplying, that we can start talking about a rapid meltdown. And we are definitely not there yet. But I can't see how anyone can be so sure we won't get there, in some not too distant future.Response:[DB] As an FYI, the dangers to changes in SLR from Green Ice Sheet mass loss lie less in surface melt, which is still considerable, than they are due to increases in calving and ice stream transport in marine terminating glaciers like Jacobshavn, Petermann and Zacharaie.
The latter, Zacharaie, is the one with the most potential to change from its current transport and calving dynamic into a different dynamic/phase state of greatly increased transport and calving.
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Pete Dunkelberg at 22:15 PM on 5 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
How safe is 450 ppm CO2? Think of sea level. How high was it the last time CO2 went above 440? How high can the sea rise by 2100? Given that the great, massive ice sheets will slip into the sea faster as they warm, and that the process can hardly be expected to be merely linear, + 5 meters can not be ruled out even if it is the high end of predictions. Anything over + 1.5 meters is a very large problem. How quickly can you move a large city? Where would you put a whole bunch of them in a hurry? Policy implications: first note that we are on course to far exceed 450 ppm by 2100, and time does not stop then. To sanely set policy, one must first bound the risk, or in other words determine a worst case scenario. Then set policy to allow virtually no chance for that case. Conclusion: stop burning carbon. We have other energy sources, we only lack a decision to use them.Moderator Response: [DB] 1.5 meters is a fraction of Miami, but about 90% of its high-end real estate. -
witsendnj at 21:47 PM on 5 May 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
"Climate change can be solved – but only when we cease to deny that it exists. This book shows how we can break through denial, accept reality, and thus solve the climate crisis." Really? Is that what the science says? I think this website is fantastic, and I appreciate all the work that you do to debunk the deniers. But that assessment seems fatuous. The climate change already in the pipeline is nothing short of catastrophic for humans and most other species. To say we should "accept reality" and "thus solve the climate crisis" is surely a contradiction in terms. Or maybe just marketing. -
TimTheToolMan at 20:59 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
So if I have this right Tom would tie up vast tracts of land for the purposes of growing trees to be buried in mines. Is that really your plan? Where would we do this, Tom? Ploughing charcoal into fields isn't sequestering it. And why are you now worrying about a runaway greenhouse effect? Surely if the earth could runaway then it would already have done so when we had thousands of ppm and no permanent icecaps in the past.Moderator Response: (DB) Read up on the faint young sun hypothesis for a correction to your last statement. -
chris1204 at 20:44 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Congratulations John! -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:31 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #4: Climate Sensitivity
It is worth noting that with Lindzen does not agree well, and some skeptics - as noted Sk.S. and behind them other blogs Well, the climate sensitivity is a problem " in itself". Uncertainties are large - -
funglestrumpet at 20:27 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Congratulations! I am reminded of two quotes: 'A journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step' (Lau Tzu) and 'If you are not on the road to Utopia, you are not on the right road.' (Unknown) I am sure that you are headed towards Utopia, I only hope that for the sake of all of us you get at least half-way there. -
nealjking at 20:02 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Congratulations, good show! But you need to work a bit on your stance for photos: Arms behind your back? No way. -
scaddenp at 19:26 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
A model is something which take a inputs "scenario" and get the outputs. You can model say a cannonball, and construct scenarios for elevations of 10,30, and 45 degrees. However, if you actually experiment with an elevation of 30 degrees, why would you be interested in comparison with the 10 and 45 predictions? Comparing with Scenario C is like noting that your 10 degree elevation prediction matched it better because your model overestimated the powder. Simple is useful for education, not real world. By that logic you should love Wally Broecker's pretty spot on prediction of 2010 temperature that he made in the 1970's. However the model used, while actually an amazing thing, makes Hansen's model look seriously sophisticated. A wet sphere (no ocean) dry part on 2/3 of upper hemisphere from memory. Wally overestimated the CO2 (thought we would be at 400) while the model only had a sensitivity of 2.3 from memory. (I'm away from papers). You want real airplanes to be designed from a high school flight model, because it's simple? No. Hansen did what he could within the limitations of the day. You want as much real world physics in there as possible for a good prediction. -
wanyden at 19:08 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Congratulations. -
newcrusader at 19:08 PM on 5 May 2011Why 450 ppm is not a safe target
From the AP article: (From a Post at CP) Now the AMAP assessment finds that Greenland was losing ice in the 2004-2009 period four times faster than in 1995-2000. That’s a doubling time of about five years, a continuation of which terminates the ice sheet by about the 2060s. This is exactly what Hansen was worried about in his recent paper. It’s true that there’s no paleo-analog for such a rapid collapse, but similarly there’s no paleo-analog for the unnatural forcing we’re applying. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet would disappear at least as quickly, and if both go that’s about 13 meters sea level rise. Continued thermal expansion, a relatively modest contribution from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and minor sources would likely push things into the 20 meter range. -
Tom Curtis at 19:04 PM on 5 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #3 and Christy Crock #5: Opposing Climate Solutions
TTTM believes that sequestering carbon is an unproven technology. However, the simplest method of sequestering carbon is to turn plantation timber into charcoal. The technology to to that was in wide spread use several thousand years ago. The charcoal can be buried in abandoned mines (if ploughing it into fields is considered unwise. Other technologies are available if less proven. In fact, so long as we actually achieve zero emissions, the increase in CO2 levels will reduce to a quarter of its highest value just as a result of the natural "sequestration" in the ocean abyss. That process will take one to two centuries, so waiting for it my be a bit reckless. However, given sufficient time, this process will reduce 560 ppm to 350 ppm, ignoring the risk of triggering a runaway effect. (It takes around ten thousand years for the remainder of the CO2 to be eliminated by natural means.) The key point is, the sooner we stop emitting Carbon, the more time we will have to evaluate the risk of our then current CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and to take extra steps to reduce it if necessary. The alternative of following a path of adaption only is an experiment in seeing how well humans can survive in the face of massive ecosystem collapse and (if continued long enough) anoxic oceans. -
kampmannpeine at 18:43 PM on 5 May 2011Brisbane book launch of 'Climate Change Denial'
Congratulations John, if you need somebody to help translating the book into German, give me a shout ... Jörg
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