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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 88401 to 88450:

  1. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Ken Lambert #122 It looks you go where you see an opportunity of profit. Nothing better for you that taking a quotation ("Our observing system is inadequate") and without having to state which exact "observing system" it is, and only once that's clearly done, state what's the level of "adequacy" Trenberth had in mind, ... no, instead of doing what is reasonable and right, you attach your "...to support and explain the AGW theory and that this state of affairs is a 'Travesty'." to feed your favourite horse: the observing system and the level of adequacy are univocally those that must explain and support AGW and the whole "state of affairs" being a travesty, a sort of pompous 'o tempora o mores' indirectly suggesting -by using a careful wording- it being sort of a confession made by Trenberth and no what it really is, in essence your personal baseless opinion. Following that, you add a crafty mix of epistemology taken form K-12 propedeutics of science, complacency for you and your kin, and an attempt to taxonomize 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. The rest are your numbers, which you won't reply if contested. You still have to answer for your calculations in #116. You wouldn't answer to the obvious bait I placed in front of you, because to do so you had to admit that you were changing the black body temperature of Earth. What did you have in mind? Tunning up the Sun? Moving the Planet 2 million kilometers closer to the Sun? Growing Earth's diameter? You simply came back again to the sole ground you are proficient: rhetorics. You will find a thousand ways to say the same and make it look like there are thousand lines of evidence which point to the same conclusion. But, that's why we are here, aren't we? And this will continue. In the end, no single message will be important, but the whole thread will reveal the a clear repetitive pattern. Don't think vehemence means lack of patience.
  2. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    Tom @ 138, I'm telling you that the chart misrepresents what is shown. It gives the viewer a false impression, that's what I've always argued. Any interpretation which is not the correct interpration is a misinterpretation, over or under or other. Even if the viewer bothered to read the caption which shouldn't be required because the series' are clearly labeled then at best they find a vague clue that the splicing was used. A clue isn't nearly good enough, detective work shouldn't be required to interpret a chart. The creator should make it clear what is shown not turn it into a sleuthing exercise. Charting shouldn't require a "best practice" guide, it's simple, you plot the data values as they are and label each series what it is. You call a proxy a proxy, and you call an instrument record an instrument record. You don't call an instrument record a proxy. God help us when researchers don't take that much for granted.
  3. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    Thank you Bern for the nice words. The perspectives I gave above are predicated on C02 levels from about 380-400ppm, which are fairly good estimates of the mid Pliocene, from current data.
  4. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    [complaint about moderation snipped] did, or didn't Dr Kevin Trenberth write these sentences in reply to Tom Wigley : [hacked private email snipped] [complaint about moderation snipped]
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Republishing stolen private emails is not acceptable. Prof. Trenberth has gone on record clarifying what he meant by that email; I think he knows what he meant by what he wrote rather better than you do. If you don't already know this, it is common for emails to be written in haste, using ambiguous terms that the sender knows the intended reader will understand from wider context (e.g. previous discussions they have had). You are not the intended reader, and are not in a position to reliably interpret the content of the email, nor am I, nor is anyone else. Trenberth on the other hand is, so please limit yourself to his intentionally published comments and the science. Complaints about moderation also tend to get deleted (after reading), so don't mix them up with what is intended to be substantive comment or the substantive comment will be deleted along with it. If you want to discuss that sort of thing, there are other places where it is on-topic; but not here, thank you.
  5. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    "It wasn't until the Quaternary Era (the Pleistocene & younger) that CO2 levels reached those that we've known for the better part of 1 million years (well, until the last 50 years or so). " But yet CO2 varied in a non monotonous way - so again what makes it vary ? Just saying "the temperature was X and CO2 was Y " doesn't prove that CO2 is the main driver. Now actually as I said it can be considered as the main driver * if the amplification factor 1/(1-f) is large * (what Sphaerica incorrectly calls the "temperature to temperature feedback") (which means actually f = A.B smaller but close to one). In this case, the main cause of temperature variation is indeed the amplified response, and not the initial perturbation, that becomes actually irrelevant. But this is exactly the same condition as B^-1 ~ A The important point however is that this is a self-consistent, but circular hypothesis. I mean that IF you consider that the amplification factor is large, you will be satisfied because is the sensitivity to CO2 to temperature (B) is low, than its inverse B^-1 is large and you will be inclined to interpret it as a "high " A climate sensitivity (in more concrete words : if CO2 varies little with temperature and that you *postulate* that the temperature varies only because of CO2, you must conclude that the sensitivity to CO2 is high). But it doesn't exclude other hypothesis , namely, that the f factor is low, that B^-1 is NOT equal to A, and that temperature varied because of other things that CO2. You just track the low sensitivity of CO2 to temperature, and that's all. This would equally well work - in other words, the system is under-constrained if you only look at one type of variation.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] If you want to know what causes the variations in CO2 on different timescale (different mechanisms are involved), then stop trolling, step away from your computer and go and do some reading and find out. There is a very good book on the carbon cycle by David Archer, which would be a good place to start.

    I am amused that after your protestation that you understand falsificationism, yet again you are saying X doesn't prove Y. No observation proves any hypothesis; nobody is claiming that X proves Y, so you are trolling with a straw man, yet again.

  6. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    Back on-topic: considering the previous article, where it was stated that the last time CO2 levels were this high, sea levels were 25m higher. I'd guess the "economic analysis" to date only considers the IPCC AR4 results, out to 2100? If so, I'd love to see an economic impact analysis of a 25m rise in sea levels over the next, say, 300 years. Even with a huge discounting factor, that'll be a doozy!
  7. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    Oh, no, Dana, we can get Fox News via pay TV... in fact, it's not possible to get pay TV in Australia without Fox News being bundled in... (yet another reason I don't subscribe!)
  8. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    Thanks for that perspective, newcrusader. It's one thing to talk in abstract figures, but another to point out some of the local climatic details. It brings it home a little more clearly.
  9. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Gilles #123 What's next? An e-mail with Trenberth telling John Calvin where is Miguel Servet hiding? Trenberth saying "no where close", was he eating "a whole nother apple"? Trenberth quoting his own e-mails ("Hi Tom >blah >blah >blah >Kevin"). Trenberth using the word "travesty" one each fifty words. Trenberth loving exclamation marks and speaking in an emotional way like he's part of Jersey Shore's cast. Trenberth saying "we will never be able" to do something. Don't worry, I would be the first to complain if your message were deleted, as it clearly depicts yours, not Trenberth's.
  10. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    The early to mid Pliocene was markedly warmer then today. The American heartland was mostly desert. Human ancestors where in east Africa (Australopithecus). It has been suggested that, during the Pliocene (ca 5–1.8 Ma), an El Niño state existed as a permanent rather than an intermittent feature; The global average temperature in the mid-Pliocene (3.3 mya - 3 mya) was 2-3°C higher than today, global sea level 25 m higher-Northern hemisphere ice sheet mostly non existent in the arctic- or short lasting in duration mid winter.
  11. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    @ Gilles "I was referring to developing countries, that have no infrastructures to replace" My comments apply to developing countries just the same. They pretty much all have energy infrastructure that needs to be replaced. "maybe they just don't want to take this risk ?? well yes without a carbon tax they wouldn't.
  12. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    "Sphaerica : so what was the cause of initial CO2 variation ?" You are aware, Gilles, that the Pliocene marks the end of the Tertiary Era, when the Earth's atmosphere was still relatively rich in CO2-& other Greenhouse gases-from *millions* of years of volcanic activity between the Permian & Cretaceous eras? It wasn't until the Quaternary Era (the Pleistocene & younger) that CO2 levels reached those that we've known for the better part of 1 million years (well, until the last 50 years or so).
  13. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    390 RSVP "not considering this minutia," I think you may be getting that the wrong way round... as did a number of folk on the 2nd Law post. Basic thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and e-m theory work irrespective of the Minutiæ of the system under consideration. Anything, in which ever phase - gas, liquid, solid, plasma, Bose–Einstein condensate - will have an affective area, temperature, radiative spectrum etc. Things like surface area may not be exactly what one 'sees' - radiation may or may not be able to escape from within the body of the object, changing, for example, the affective surface area. But it matters not the the physics. Some of these abstractions of physics can be hard for folks to grasp but I would strongly advise people to tread carefully in such areas - for no other reason than to avoid another 1000+ post thread squabbling over pure confusion about physics!
  14. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    "b) why is it supposed to be unable to adapt to a change of temperature and able to adapt to giving up 80 % of its energy sources in some decades ?" Wow, you really are a 1-track album, aren't you Gilles? In little more than 50 years, humanity went from the Wright Brothers to Supersonic Jet planes, long-distance air travel & even putting objects & humans into space. Yet you constantly question our ability to replace outdated fossil fuels with clean & reliable renewable energy in a similar space of time. Still, as you clearly get all your info from sites devoted to the fossil fuel industry, I can't say I'm entirely surprised by that.
  15. Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
    "The IPCC WG1 report is full of falsifiable predictions, pick one." Actually I have very hard time to find one. Seems rather that everything that doesn't match is called "weather", "noise", "internal variability" - but nowhere a definite answer of what is testing what. Note that the final conclusion that "it is very likely that the main contribution of the recent temperature rise is mainly anthropogenic " is not testable- since the "likelihood" cannot be checked in itself. And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I've not waited for you before understanding what falsificationism means - I've probably needed less time to understand it that you need to understand me.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] You are displaying your ignorance, yet again. The IPCC model projections give forecasts for the rise in temperature, all with increasing temperatures over the next century. The error bars on those projections (i.e. what is plausibly attributable to natural variability or "noise") exclude the possibility of temperatures falling (or even remaining approximately level) over the next century. So if the temperature falls over the next century, the theory is falsified.

    Lets make that more concrete, the "business as usual" scenario is A1F1, which involves rapid economic growth driven by exploitation of fossil fuels. The projection for A1F1 by 2100 is between 2 and 6 degrees of warming.

    So here is a directly falsifiable test: Follow A1F1, if temperatures in 2100 are lower than they are now, something the models clearly indicate is impossible, then the models and the underpinning theory must be wrong. Unless, of course there is a major change in natural forcings, for instance Yellowstone erupting, or the Earth being hit by an asteroid, which, but it would be idiotic to object to that sort of caveat!

    By the way, I pointed this particular IPCC projection out to you only yesterday, so you have no excuse for not being able to find a falsifiable projection in the IPCC report. I had already shown one to you!

  16. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    Humanity will adapt - what actual studies we have just show that more expensive in money and lives than curbing emissions. Feel free to point me to studies that are more creditable. Many other species wont. b/ Sorry I dont buy the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" debating trick. This thread is about CO2 in pliocene. Your question has been answered exhaustively in other places on this site and in other blogs.
  17. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    KR 387 "Water radiates from its surface" And what percentage of the ocean's mass does the surface comprise? Similarly, 98% or so of the atmosphere is NOT water vapor, or CO2. So I will grant you my post was wrong for not considering this minutia, (i.e AWG's cornerstone). And far as Riccardo (and you) confusing nuclear physics with classic heat transfer theory, I would ask who exactly is grasping at straws now? I dont think that helped Riccardo as nuclear physics is just a little off topic, however if you think we are talking about the same thing please expand. By the way, as it turns out emissivity drops off rather quickly for the temperatures you are referring to. ( -Snip- )
    Moderator Response: [DB] Pointless and inflammatory sentence fragment snipped.
  18. Last day to vote for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
    adelady - no, no, it's not 'several', it's 'many'! :-)
  19. David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
    @20 Lou Grinzo: "I've talked to groups of young people from about age 12 through college about climate change, and trying to get them to understand the urgency of the situation is very hard. A small percentage of them get it before you open your mouth and nearly all of the rest smile, nod, and then go about life as if the presentation never happened." Lou; is the comprehension of the subject, by these students, due to intelligence or curiosity?
  20. Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
    "When you look at the possibility of natural unforced variability, you see that can cause excursions that we've seen recently" And here you keep citing several studies which conclude that natural variability cannot account for the LONG term trend. Christy used the word "recently". He most likely ment the satellite era which is the last 30 years. But of course you like to misinterpret and then fight against strawmen, again. And last 30 years is claimed 100% anthropogenic by the IPCC by using the GCM:s. That is false, even your own references conclude (DelSole) that internal patterns explain 0.08K/decade for the 30 year trend. Of course you failed to cite this important phrase from the paper. And only this finding alone, makes the IPCC house of cards to collapse. AND because there were similar warm periods like MWP and RWP in the past, which yet remain completely unexplained, it might mean the ocean circulation patterns and internal variability could operate in not just multidecadal but also multicentennial timescales. And we do not have the sufficient OHC data to verify anything about this.
    Moderator Response: [DB] "And last 30 years is claimed 100% anthropogenic by the IPCC by using the GCM:s." Strawman. Please support this statement with a link to the specific IPCC chapter where this quote is supposedly taken. Otherwise, your house of cards strawman comment invalidates itself and will be deleted as a trolling comment.
  21. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    scaddenp #8 Two questions : a) what is the warming rate which mankind is supposed to be unable to adapt ? b) why is it supposed to be unable to adapt to a change of temperature and able to adapt to giving up 80 % of its energy sources in some decades ? which can of rate does it give compared to historical ones ?
  22. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    Sphaerica : so what was the cause of initial CO2 variation ?
  23. Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
    DM#78 : So I will help you a little bit to answer. May be you know that GCM models are commonly prone to systematic drifts that can reach 1°C/century, and have been carefully worked out throughout the history of computation to avoid these drifts , and to use "plausible" initial conditions that match just as closely as possible the steady state ? because of course we can't know what 1880 initial conditions can be ! and to conclude after that there wasn't any possibility of long term natural variations in the models ?- the main reason being that they have been carefully excluded ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I didn't say I couldn't answer, but that I wouldn't, on the ground that you are trolling. You still are. If you think you have a point, download some GCM code, do some experiments, publish a paper. That would be constructive, trolling here pretending you know what you are talking about (but not providing any verifiable references of course), following multiple posts where you have repeatedly demonstrated your ignorance, just to get a bit of attention isn't.

    DNFTT

  24. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    Dan, I was referring to developing countries, that have no infrastructures to replace because they're just currently building them, and for most of them, don't rely on private companies but on their own national ones - which interest do they have to build now useless thermal plants (one per week in China) that they should close in less than 20 years ? the only relevant argument would be "Also there is the fact that we haven't yet figured out exactly how switch off FFs just yet. This means betting on a specific low/no carbon tech brings with it a fair amount of risk with it " maybe they just don't want to take this risk ?
  25. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    "...we may eventually face the potentially catastrophic conditions of the Pliocene once more." @7 jyyh: "What's catastrophic is a magnitude/location/effect on people issue." Jyyh; I agree with your point. However, the last sentence in the post states "once more". It doesn't sound good since back then there was no civilization that would suffer a catastrophe and the situation was not 'catastrophic' to our ancestral Australopithecines back then. The people issue in my opinion is related to the fragility of civilization. Hence, that sentence would better read: "...we may eventually face conditions that our fragile civilization cannot adapt to, in the short time given." This brings us to a secondary but important issue that was brought out by Scaddenp @8. When comparing globally warm situations in the past with the present, mention should be made of the fact that AGW is progressing faster than natural warming events. Then one should emphasize how civilization cannot adapt to such rapid changes.
  26. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    That's The Australian for you. At least you don't have to deal with Fox News.
  27. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    @Dana1981. Well you should have seen the clap-trap The Weekend Australian came up with last week. An article by Geoff Lehmann, Peter Farrell & Dick Warburton that was a veritable buffet & climate denier myths. Things like "Despite predictions a decade ago that severe winters would become a thing of the past, on JAnuary 7, 2010, NASA photographed Britain entirely blanketed in snow. Claims that wind power operates only at 25% capacity (when most operate at 30% to 40% capacity nowadays) & *have* to be backed up by fossil fuel power stations (when, in truth, you could use a combination of storage & non-fossil fueled base-load power to meet demand), erroneous comparisons of *generation* costs (not transmission & distribution-one of the biggest costs of large, centralized power stations) &, most amazingly of all, claims that "An emissions trading scheme, or any other action to increase the price of carbon enough to change behaviour, is bound to fail in a democracy". I mean, that last claim would *definitely* come as a shock to the people of Germany, British Columbia or the almost dozen North Eastern US states that have such measures in place-just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Still, given the extent to which the fossil fuel industry is going to propagate misinformation, via their puppets in the mainstream media, they must be getting pretty nervous.
  28. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    How many times do we have to say its not the future temperature that is the main worry but speed of getting there. It all about rate. Adaption is easy if you have a million years to do it - hell if its only 100 years. The Pliocene is a window on what world could look like. Some parts of the view could happen quickly, others slowly (there is limit to how fast you can melt ice).
  29. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    The tragedy of the commons argument is really big in Australia. Understandable when you're only 1.5% of global emissions and much smaller population than the US (although just as bad in per capita emissions). Evans made the argument, so did Monckton in The Australian, so did Lindzen in an Australian interview. And Armstrong and Christy made it in the USA. It's the "in" argument for "skeptics" right now, I guess.
  30. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    "The Wikipedia article on Pliocene Climate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate, does not make it sound like there were any "potentially catastrophic conditions of the Pliocene"." What's catastrophic is a magnitude/location/effect on people issue. Humanity has experienced the end of the last ice age, with a rise of sea level of over 100 meters, a quarter of which is projected for this partial pressure of CO2 in the long run. It's just there are not anymore many places to run to, if/when a local catastrophe aggravated by rising seas hits some coastal city. Pliocene climate itself doesn't sound too bad, though likely there were tropical areas too hot for humans (who weren't present yet). Humidity was likely high and grassfields/savannas fewer than currently (might this have had something to do with molds and other plant pathogens, can't say). Forests possibly grew ever higher and partly induced their own diminishement at the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary set by the first larger glaciation at Greenland/Arctic, Panama strait closure being the main reason, cutting the Atlantic off the tropical ocean currents and beginning the current mode of thermohaline circulation with the amount of Arctic ice, Bering Strait closure/opening, and Milankovich cycles, as the main moderators of the NH glaciations/deglaciations. (The overall warming signal should be less noisy in the SH than in the NH.) Now this is starting to drift off topic so I'll stop.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed text.
  31. Christy Crock #3: Internal Variability
    @ Arkadiusz "Nothing could be further from the truth." Sorry, but given your tendency to believe complete rubbish, in complete contradiction of scientific fact-not just in relation to global warming, but into the cancer causing effects of dioxins & DDT-based simply on the *opinion* of a single individual, you'll excuse me if I take your claims regarding "truth" with a fairly substantial amount of salt.
  32. David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
    Thanks Lou, that's nice of you to say. Agreed, people have a very hard time understanding long-term dangers. They won't do anything until the consequences are smacking them in the face.
  33. Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
    Its very interesting to see this from an Australian perspective, where we have much the same kind of disinformation at play. Just yesterday I listened to Tony Abbott (leader of the Australian Tory party-aka the Liberals) siding with the Manufacturing Union (I know, I almost died of shock too) regarding "concerns" about potential job losses that could be caused to the manufacturing sector if a Carbon Tax gets implemented. Well, I could barely stifle my laughter at this, given that Abbott was a senior minister of a Government that *unilaterally* cut tariffs across the entire Australian Manufacturing & Textile sector-a move that led to the loss of *tens of thousands* of jobs. 15 years later, & I'm still waiting to see or hear of any positive developments for our economy that arose from those policies. All it really did was make our economy far more dependent on the commodity sector-thus harming our balance of trade & making our economy much more energy/CO2 intensive, than if we still had a better mix of primary, secondary & tertiary industries. I often wonder how politicians like him can internalize such obvious contradictions in behaviour & beliefs!
  34. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    "I think sea level rises of 20-40cms per century - which seems to be the scientific consensus - are completely manageable for 99% of humanity." Oh, well if that's what Daniel thinks-without a shred of evidence to back his opinion-then we can *all* stop worrying ourselves about the myriad dangers of Climate Change. Phew, that's a relief [/end sarcasm]. Of course, even if Daniel Maris were correct in his *beliefs*, I wonder what the cost of managing sea-level rises would be compared to....oh, I don't know, significantly cutting down on our wasteful consumption of fossil fuels? .....and still he fails to tell us, in plain simple language, his position on the Telegraph Article. Still, I've never known denialists to big on admitting the many errors of their fellow denialists.
  35. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    The Wikipedia article on Pliocene Climate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate, does not make it sound like there were any "potentially catastrophic conditions of the Pliocene". So this could use more explaining in the article -- unless SkS is successful in adding a description of those conditions to Wikipedia.
  36. David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
    If someone wanted to know if this site was worth his or her time, I would point to this post (and the comments) and say, "If you care about the havoc we're unleashing on ourselves with carbon pollution, this is THE site for debunking those who would sell your future for their current profits." I've talked to groups of young people from about age 12 through college about climate change, and trying to get them to understand the urgency of the situation is very hard. A small percentage of them get it before you open your mouth and nearly all of the rest smile, nod, and then go about life as if the presentation never happened. It's about as depressing as anything I've experienced.
  37. alan_marshall at 12:51 PM on 16 April 2011
    Last day to vote for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
    My vote is already in.
  38. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Rob #120 Quite right Rob, your quote is in context. Dr Trenberth is lamenting the fact that "Our observing system is inadequate" to support and explain the AGW theory and that this state of affairs is a 'Travesty'. This is the classic 'its there but we can't measure it' argument, which Gillies and I would probably agree turns the scientific method on its head. Theory follows observation - is confirmed or modified by more observation - and made robust by successful prediction confirmed by more observation. Which of our AGW scientisis predicted a flattening or zeroing of OHC increase with broader and more accurate observation by Argo analysis? And which scientist came up with the idea that you can 'correct' a raw observation of 6.4W/sq.m by a reduction factor of 5.5W/sq.m and still call it evidence of a warming imbalance??
  39. CO2 limits will harm the economy
    cloa513 - good points. But please suggest a better way to reduce carbon emissions that is compatible with your political philosophy. "Skepticism" about climate science because you don't like proposed solutions is illogical.
  40. A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
    Ton Curtis #69 Sorry to hear of your mother's illness. I travelled the same path 5 years ago. Your item #3 above is incorrect too. Using your areas and depths, the heat absorbed in warming 3.8E12 m2 of Seawater 100m deep by 2 degC in 30 years is: 3.8E12 (area m2) x 100 (depth m) x 1025 (density in kG/m3)x 3.85E3 (specific heat in J/kG-degC)) x 2 (degrees C) = 2.999E21 Joules. But this is over 30 years - so divide by 30 to get the per annum number. 2.999E21 / 30 = 0.999E20 Joules/year. Close enough to 1.0E20 Joules/year. Your number is 4.3E20 Joules/year - only 4.3 times the actual number.
  41. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    Without going back and looking at the details, I can't be sure, but I can think of a few reasons right off the top of my head. Most importantly think of the amount of our energy infrastructure than needs to be replaced. It is one thing to make solar (or wind or whatever) cheaper than coal, but it is quite another to convince energy producers to shut down their coal fired power plants. Same thing goes for cars airplanes, ships, and pretty much anything that emits GHGs. And while some forms of FF have alternatives that are almost ready to go, some forms (or uses) of FF don't. Not yet anyways. Also there is the fact that we haven't yet figured out exactly how switch off FFs just yet. This means betting on a specific low/no carbon tech brings with it a fair amount of risk with it (which is why I would like the free market to figure it out and not the government), so any price advantage of low/no carbon tech has to be large enough to justify taking the risk. Otherwise it would make sense for companies to just go with the slightly more expensive sure bet. And there is also the massive inertia of FF interests, which brings with it a large resistance to change (this is somewhat related to the above notion, but exasperated by the immense power of FF interests) And finally there is the fact that economic models tent to overestimate the costs of environmental policy, because the underestimate the creativity of the free market.
  42. CO2 limits will harm the economy
    Everyone of those taxes produced a massive bucreacracy- Government would have to assess every single carbon dioxide emitter- Your IRS will need employ new people to assess a whole group of tax payers in a totally different way than they have ever done before. Every tax written is a mess of exceptions, special rules. Put in a transfer tax (involves only few extra line of code on financial institions' computing) and abolish all your other taxes. Either fire the IRS or set them to analyse the mass of new information to catch terrorists, organised crime, and general fraud.
  43. Daniel Bailey at 12:06 PM on 16 April 2011
    A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
    @ Tom Best wishes for your mother's speedy recovery; my prayers are with you both.
  44. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    By way of informing other readers. The "consensus value" of 20-40cm is no. from IPCC AR4. Hard to believe that there are people who dont know the caveats associated with those no.s but to quote IPCC: " Models used to date do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedback nor do they include the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow, because a basis in published literature is lacking. The projections include a contribution due to increased ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica at the rates observed for 1993-2003, but these flow rates could increase or decrease in the future. For example, if this contribution were to grow linearly with global average temperature change, the upper ranges of sea level rise for SRES scenarios shown in Table SPM-3 would increase by 0.1 m to 0.2 m. Larger values cannot be excluded, but understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood or provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise. {10.6}" In short, the no.s only include what could be estimated reliably at time of AR4 deadline. Things havent improved that markedly since then in terms of understanding non-linear ice sheet response but the no.s are clearly lower bound. The Vermeer and Rahmsdorf sem-empirical estimate (80-190cm per 100y) is the best no. published since then and would represent current consensus.
  45. A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
    Ken Lambert @68, over the last few days I have been busy taking my mother to medical appointments and the emergency ward of a hospital (amongst other things). Forgive me if I did not respond immediately to your request to reiterate what I have already clearly stated in 54 and 56 above.
  46. A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
    Tom Curtis, You are quick to reply to my full and clear calculation Tom, but you have so far failed to show how you calculated the 2.2E21 Joules as I have requested in #64 and #65. I was showing the heat attributable to "Arctic ice loss" and comparing with Dr Trenberth's 1E20 Joules/year number. My quick number only considered ice loss as clearly shown in the calculation and is within 20% of Dr Trenberth's number showing that the ball park is right. Don't try to make it something else. Show me how you got to 2.2E21 Joules in your original calculation at #54. Why can't you show that?
  47. Muller Misinformation #2: 'leaked' tree-ring data
    climatewolf: 1) Skeptical Science did not draw the debate into, what I agree are, irrelevant minutia - Muller did. And before that McIntyre did, and Watts did, and so on. Your suggestion is a suggestion that no response be made to Muller's slanders, but not responding will not make the slander cease to exist. It will just continue to exist, but in a vacuum in which the truth is not available for the general public. 2) Although Skeptical Science has responded to Muller's slanders with this post, that does not in anyway obviate the fact that they have discussed the substantive issues in great detail with other posts. And it is those other posts that get highlighted in the side bar under the "Most used skeptic arguments". 3) A noted biologist (I forget who) once said that he got into debating creationists to see if their arguments could highlight genuine flaws with the logic of evolutionary theory. After 30 years of debate, he expressed his complete disappointment, for not one substantive issue had been raised. Something very similar can be said about the "skeptics". Most of their objections are based on either a complete misunderstanding of basic physics, or of climate science, or of basic empirical facts and nothing else. Others of their objections amount to magical thinking. There are a few people amongst the "skeptics" who are on the fringe of science in that their "scientific" work, while sparse and of low quality, does actually discuss real issues - but even they are prone to publishing shere nonsense in popular forums (including in testimony to congressional inquiries). 4) This means that rebutting "skeptic arguments" may be very informative to the lay public in that the arguments play on common misunderstandings, and the rebuttals, therefore, clear up those misunderstandings. But rebutting those arguments contributes almost nothing to the advance of knowledge about our climate.
  48. Muller Misinformation #2: 'leaked' tree-ring data
    Hi again, Apologies, I just realised I did not respond to one of your points. I do not believe all sides have equal weight, I believe the sceptics should have their chance to challenge, and should be responded too. As this site says, it is important to challenge and question everything to ensure that the science is the best we can make it. So, I believe the sceptics have their place, as do the their challengers. Regards Wolf
  49. Daniel Bailey at 11:10 AM on 16 April 2011
    Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected
    @ Rovinpiper For more background on past predictions of models and which have come to pass as expected, see http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html. HTH, The Yooper
  50. Muller Misinformation #2: 'leaked' tree-ring data
    Hi Daniel, Thanks for the reply, I agree with all that you say and as a layman, I am trying to get to grips with as much of the science as I can. I thought I made it clear I completely agree that Muller is wrong. My point was more about whether the argument should be drawn down to this level. Without the scientific background I find myself more able to comment on the debating logic. To clarify the 50/50 skeptic statement. I am fully convinced that the burning of fossil fuels by man has increased the Co2 content of the atmosphere and hence has had a warming effect on the climate. My scepticism is related more to the political rather than the science side. So 50/50 means agree with the science, disagree with the politics. Regards Wolf
    Moderator Response: [DB] Understood. Just remember that politicians have but one goal: getting re-elected. When it comes down to science vs politics, the science has far more to trust. Have the courage to believe what the science you've learned tells you. And then learn some more. And ask questions here if you need help.

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