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Comments 89051 to 89100:

  1. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    I think we can combine Dikran #1 and pohjois #5 with CompFedUp #4 - apparently Morner thinks he's the only real sea level expert in the world. As I said, even "experts" need data to support their claims. Morner has none.
  2. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    @Gilles " the economic rules seem to be very flexible following what we want to demonstrate !" Please go back and read my previous comments, then go listen to the interviews I posted. The reason why high extractions costs wont reduce emissions has already been answered. (hint tar sands) @ Harry Seaward "How was more than 100% returned? Where did the "extra" come from?" Mostly from personal and corporate income taxes. The act which introduced the carbon tax also introduced tax reductions elsewhere. It turns out that these these tax reductions were larger than the amount collected by the tax. Hence more than 100% reduced.
  3. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Adam, " All I have done is state my opinion on the matter, and provided evidence for it." Actually no. Also, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. I am willing to entertain the notion that the recent acceleration in loss of ice from Greenland is partly attributable to regional affects and natural variability. The inconvenient fact for those in denial about AGW remains though that Box and others have considered natural variability, and it alone does not explain recent events in the region, or the planet as a whole. For example, Polyak et al. (2010) conclude that the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice in unprecedented in the past 200 years and cannot be explained by known natural variability. You are ignoring the elephant in the room Adam. And to be frank, you also appear to be trolling....
  4. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Adam, This statement is just plain wrong: "The simple facts about Greenland's temperature variaitons, simply contradict AGW" And so is this one, "mspelto, there is no anthropogenic signal in Greenland's climate. " Surely you reallize the folly of suing a point location to disprove a theory which dictates that the planet's mean temperature will increase as GHG concentrations increase? Also, as shown to you @26, Dr. Box, the person who generated the graph that you showed, does not agree with your assessment. Anyways, I thought this thread was about the rich variety of glaciers? Any thoughts on that and the fact that glacier mass around the world is in decline? And please don't trot out something from Monckton et al., or some select examples of glaciers that are not losing mass. The point is that global glacier and ice sheet ice volume is decreasing as the planet warms. And please don't try and tell us that the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining ice, it is not. Folks here are infinitely better informed than those at disinformer blogs like WUWT. Why, because we actually follow the science without distorting and cheery-picking and misrepresenting it :)
  5. Rob Honeycutt at 01:41 AM on 14 April 2011
    Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    The sad part is that the popular press gives these people credibility. They are the "controversy" and controversy sells news.
  6. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    "Dismissing an expert with a handwave on the experts turf does not make a convincing argument. Try to find some better data. " Michael Sweet, I have provided peer reviewed studies to support my argument, all of which were published within the last five years. I am sure that would indeed mean that they were reliable data sources. I am not 'dismissing an expert'. I do not know anything about mspelto or his work, but I am sure that he is probably a respectable scientist. I have not treated him badly. All I have done is state my opinion on the matter, and provided evidence for it. I have just tried to have simple debate, and explained why I have disagreed with him on some points. Could you please explain how I have treated him badly?
    Moderator Response: [DB] You reveal your ignorance by dismissing Mauri's comments & insights. Mauri is a published, working glaciologist. Even the most abbreviated Googling of his name would have shown you that, had you bothered to acquaint yourself properly about glaciology and Greenland. You lack the background to make the sweeping statements you have been making on this thread. That, sir, is the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
  7. Bruce Frykman at 01:36 AM on 14 April 2011
    There is no consensus
    This following interview with Bob Carter might be useful to this debate. Bob Carter, to me, seems to be a mild and reasonable fellow who also speaks with a soft and pleasing accent regarding the heat of climate change that is indeed man-made; the heat of the debate seen here and all over the world as well. He is in fact a paleoclimatologist. I subscribe entirely to his comments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfMB1BpPqsU&feature=watch_response_rev http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbASZUXbDME&NR=1 Would this place either himself or me, as one endorsing his comments, as "a denier" in the vernacular of the partisans here who either speak-for the editorial process of this website or are indeed directly involved with it. Your comments are welcome.
  8. Solar Hockey Stick
    Shawn @47, "I agree that recent history has been predominantly driven by anthro forcings. This does not rule out a substantially larger potential influence for solar and solar related phenomena IMO." Onr the first point we can all agree. So can you please stop entertaining hypotheticals and what ifs, and making unsubstantiated assertions? Occam's razor applies here-- as Dana patiently explains again @46, the science shows that one quite simply does not need to invoke GCRs, or some hitherto unknown and mythical solar-related forcing to explain the observed warming in the SAT record. Period. That is the point of the thread. But you seem to be trying to inflate uncertainty and fabricate doubt. Now where have I seen that trick before ;)
  9. michael sweet at 01:26 AM on 14 April 2011
    Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Adam, Do you realize that mspelto has devoted hs life to studing glaciers and has spent a considerable amount of time measuring ice melt in Greenland? Please do not treat this expert so badly, we are lucky to have him here to tell us what informed people think about the Greenland ice. Dismissing an expert with a handwave on the experts turf does not make a convincing argument. Try to find some better data.
  10. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    @Dikran Few minutes of googling reveals that Jonathan M. Gregory, C. K. Shum are also experts in sea level.
  11. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    albatross, does it mean that you contend that Trenberth's estimate does rely on a precise value of the TSI ?
  12. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    I was at EGU2006 and a group of us were "enjoying" Mörner's poster on sea level rise, with his famous tilted graph, much like in this post. We all noticed that all his references were to his own work. As we were all amusing ourselves, the man himself walked up to defend his "work". Basically he ranted that he was the #1 world expert on sea level, and that none of us knew anything. We pretty much just wandered off at that point.
  13. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    Gotta love this comment from page 12:
    Sea level (anomaly in millimetres) is rising at just 1 ft/century: The average rise in sea level over the past 10,000 years was 4 feet/century.
    Of course, "the past 10,000 years" includes a good bit of the post-glacial sea level rise--which was essentially finished by 7,000-odd years ago. So, taking the average over the last 10,000 years very nicely obscures the fact that almost all of that rise occurred in the first ~3,000 years. It's certainly more to Lawd M's liking that this more accurate caption:
    Sea level (anomaly in millimetres) is rising at just 1 ft/century: The average rise in sea level over the past 7,000 years was, well, practically nil.
  14. Solar Hockey Stick
    muoncounter #44, you are not understanding the context of what I was discussing with dana. We were essentially discussing whether it was appropriate to equate indirect solar effects with direct solar effects times a constant factor. For the graph in question, part of the time TSI and inverted GCR lie on top of one another which is consistent with such a formulation. However, this relationship does not hold all the time. And, as I'm sure you know a constant can also be a negative number. Cheers, :)
  15. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Alec, "Alec, I try to imagine what you think Trenberth has actually done to get his 0.9 W/m2 value imbalance - he certainly did NOT use any accurate value of TSI. He doesn't care about the precise value of TSI." Pay no attention to the confusionists. As you see from the quoted text, the trolling, slandering and misrepresentation of climate scientists by contrarians and "skepticsa"continues.....what a travesty, and a perfect illustration of the very problem highlighted in this essay by Villabolo above.
  16. Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    I think this post contains all you need to know about Morner. He is claiming that sea level hasn't risen (in fact that it's dropped) since 1950, which directly contradicts the observational sea level record, and yet Morner and Monckton provide not one shred of evidence that they're right and the observational data is wrong. Unless you count comically rotating the sea level graph, that is!
  17. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Daniel Bailey, I do not believe that my comments were off topic. I'm sure you'll agree that the actual cause of glacial melt, is pretty important for the whole theory of AGW. Now do you believe that post 1980 Greenland warming, and all the glacial melt described in your article is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases? ( -Snip- )
    Moderator Response: [DB] Off-topic discussions of causation snipped. My opinions of causation of the observed warming are not on-topic for this thread. You are trolling.
  18. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    daniel #104 - indeed, funny timing mentioning Morner, since I just published a post (linked by Dikran) which discusses his claims. The short answer is that opinions are like a-holes, everybody's got one. What Morner doesn't have is any data whatsoever to back up his claims. Calling him an "eminent expert" is also not warranted.
  19. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    This is deja vu all over again... As DM@737 points out, until RSVP provides some evidence (the kind with measurements and numbers and math)there is nothing here but supposition.
  20. Solar Hockey Stick
    CBDunkerson:"How do you square that opinion with the dis-correlation cited in the article? That is, "...TSI has not increased over the past 50+ years. During this time the surface temperature has increased approximately 0.6°C." I agree that recent history has been predominantly driven by anthro forcings. This does not rule out a substantially larger potential influence for solar and solar related phenomena IMO. Cheers, :)
  21. Dikran Marsupial at 01:02 AM on 14 April 2011
    Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level
    Daniel Maris has enquired about an interview with Prof. Morner, that appeared in the Telegraph. This is quite a good test of skepticism, as it contains an easily verfied, but clearly false, claim. The article says: 'When asked to act as an "expert reviewer" on the IPCC's last two reports, he was "astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one".' The relevant chapter is available here, and the second name in the list of contributing authors is Anny Cazenave, who is very obviously a sea level specialist (judging by her CV). She is leading expert in sea level measurements by satellite altimetry, and obviously has a solid background in geophysics. The fact that the Telegraph article is brought up so often just goes to show that some are happy to accept wild claims that suit their position without bothering to check the facts first, even when they are easily verified by a couple of minutes Googling. Morners claims about the IPCC fudging the satelite data are also without foundation, I'll return to them later.
  22. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    mspelto, short term trends are not statistically significant, and therefore cannot be used to come to a conclusion on different issues. Once again, I agree that the years 2003 and 2010 were unusually warm in Greenland, but you have to look at the long term and decadal trends, you can't just focus on little bits. Look, all of the dramatic glacial melting you describe in your article may seem unusual, but as shown by the papers I provided, and Dana's own graph, the warming is not anomalous when compared to previous periods of warming. If you take out the 2003 and 2010 spikes of Dana's graph you will see that there is nothing unusual with Greenland's current temperature. mspelto, Greenland has heat waves about every 60 years, and in between those, there are cooling trends, which is what the data shows. mspelto the last decade is not the 'key'. You need to look back and compare it. You need to look at all the facts about Greenland's past climate, and use it to find about how unique Greenland's current climate is. And as the data shows, the current Greenland temperature is not unprecedented in it's history.
  23. A Plan for 100% Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar by 2050
    Vladimer K - Each country has to look to its own energy solutions. For huge swathes of the globe solar energy is an obvious and good solution. In the UK we are blessed (if that's the right word) with a lot of wind. We should certainly maximise that. But that's not the end of the story. We already have 16% hydro generation of electricity. That can certaily be increased with use of mini-hydro. Exploitation of tidal and ocean current with turbines could probably add another 20%. Energy from waste can deliver huge amounts of energy. Biofuels are another option. Geothermal as well. And wave will increasingly become important. In my view we've only see the beginning of exploitation of wind. There is lots of scope for urban wind generation with a new generation of wind turbines that are multi directional and operate at low velocities. Germany is also investing a lot in carbon capture. I don't know for sure but I think some or all of those new coal power stations may come in with carbon capture. Nuclear power is an inherently dangerous technology. If safeguards fail you are faced with a crisis that can remove huge numbers of people from their homes on a semi-permanent basis and take out huge swathes of productive land. It is also now very expensive. About twice as expensive as gas. You could have gas with carbon capture for the same price. We may have cold fusion before too long, if Rossi's claims are shown to be accurate (we shall see, I'm not saying I accept them). Hot fusion is a long way off. Cheap onshore wind power (costing less than nuclear) is here and now.
  24. Solar Hockey Stick
    Eric, it's not just the stratosphere cooling, it's also the higher layers of the atmosphere. You're also ignoring many other 'fingerprints' of anthropogenic warming. The biggest thing the "skeptics" are missing here is that as Icarus noted in #41, we know the CO2 forcing to a high degree of accuracy, and it's very large (nearly 1.8 W/m2). If you want to argue that this forcing isn't driving global warming, you need both a low climate sensitivity and a larger "natural" forcing. The TSI forcing alone is an order of magnitude smaller than the CO2 forcing alone. I'm sorry, but indirect solar effects like GCRs aren't going to make up that extra 1.6+ W/m2.
  25. More wind, bigger waves, changing marine ecosystems
    #2, why not check out the How much is sea level rising? on this very site. Neither Morner or Booker have a good track record for verifiable information on sea level or climate.
  26. More wind, bigger waves, changing marine ecosystems
    Excellent article indeed, a mine of information, and most interesting for one who lives in Scotland and occasionally experiences the wind and waves of the North Atlantic! The most noticeable element of your windspeed plot is the large increase in the western equatorial Pacific - is there a particular reason for that?
  27. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    I am not, in any case, entirely convinced there has been any increase in seal level. What about this article featuring the views of an eminent expert. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html Why don't Dr Morner's views count for anything?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Funny you should mention that. I'd be happy to discuss Morner if you like, but first I suggest you look into it in a bit more detail, starting with using Google scholar to look up his papers on this topic and then the responses which completely refute his accusations. Then ask yourself why Morner doesn't mention this in his Telegraph artcle.
  28. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    "About your "my guess;none", well, guess again and read carefully the same paper you quoted. You can play with words but the only "stupid"(I'm quoting you) thing here is your insistence in not providing the real A to criticize and argue departing from a bunch of imaginary As." Alec, I try to imagine what you think Trenberth has actually done to get his 0.9 W/m2 value imbalance - he certainly did NOT use any accurate value of TSI. He doesn't care about the precise value of TSI. Do you understand why ?
  29. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    "If the energy budget were well constrained by the data Trenberth would not have made the comment that is the subject of the article." Yes but sorry, the OP was about two kinds of interpretations : interpretation a) : the global value of 0.9 W/m2 imbalance has been validated by measurements (note that this COULD have been true if the TSI and TOA outgoing flux would have been measured with a good enough precision), but we have still some problems in the repartition of this energy on the ground/ocean/ice etc.... interpretation b) : we don't have any validation of this value from global incoming/outgoing fluxes, and besides, some problems in the repartition of this energy on the ground/ocean/ice etc.... the simple facts is that as I understand the OP, one could think that the right interpretation is a) (and I'm afraid that a number of readers/writers on this thread think or have thought that), whereas , actually, all the scientific literature is saying it's b). I think it is worth being stressed - that's why I do it. Alec : thanks to give this example to your students - for me, this is a good piece of real scientific dispute, with the sake of accuracy and rigor. Concerning the "flaw" in the theory, I would simply say that it is too imprecise yet to be fully tested against data - that's far from being exceptional in science, I can give you a dozen of similar examples. I'm not saying it's bad science , I'm saying it's normal scientific research on still unresolved issues - and as it, full of uncertainties. Give that to your students, please.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The usual misinterpretation of Trenberth's comment is different from both your (a) and (b) in that it is more along the lines of "we don't even know if the Earth is gaining energy". We can know that the Earth is gaining energy from indirect evidence, even if that is not "validated" by direct observations, so there is no inherent contradiction there AFACIS.
  30. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Alec Cowan 80 "If there were a flaw in the theory..." If? The study of nature has now become the study of how man is unable to adapt to it, or is destroying his environment. Believing this helps fund the promotion of flawless theories. What we can actually learn from studying nature at this point is just an added bonus, so I do believe some good is actually derived from all this.
  31. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP #362: You have some bizarre ideas. "the idea that if you tuck away a small amount over time, after many years there will be a significant pile left over." "It is my understanding that AGW assumes "all things being equal" in terms of the natural average trend, so if all things are equal, the added heat can only be accumulating." Wrong. The added heat is a forcing (and a trivially small one at that), and the energy will only accumulate so long as the energy lost from Earth is less than the energy coming into the system. A forcing that introduces a warming does not lead to an endless runaway heating, thank goodness(!!!), but to a slight warming that soon results in the warmer Earth radiating away slightly more energy to balance the heat entering the system. The larger the forcing, the longer Earth takes to come to equilibrium, at which point heat no longer accumulates in the system. The GHG forcing is much larger, resulting in a longer time for Earth to come to equilibrium, and a much greater knock-on effect in the form of feedbacks which exaggerate the warming. Eventually, Earth will come to equilibrium, with excess heat being radiated away balancing higher temperatures, a new lower albedo, and higher GHG concentration. Where that equilibrium is, and the size of the changes that it has effected on the Earth's surface, are non-trivial questions for humanity. The waste heat forcing is tiny, and so the Earth system can relatively easily reach equilibrium with this small extra forcing, which results in a total warming that is virtually undetectable in temperature records. #366 - your comment makes little sense, but I'd be interested to know where you think the greatest temperature difference should be, at the source of waste heat, or in the Arctic, far from the sources, given that as you say, the heat spreads out through diffusion?
  32. Dikran Marsupial at 00:08 AM on 14 April 2011
    Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP@372 Responding in that way to a challenge to provide some verifiable evidence to support your hypothesis is a tacit admission that you know your position has no evidential foundation.
  33. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    muoncounter 370 It's not music we have to face, but waste heat.
  34. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    Bern 369 To answer the plasma question. There is no mechanism for trapping waste heat per se, and there is no distinction to be made between waste heat and heat coming from the Sun. If the quantity of heat that the Earth is able to eliminate in the course of one year is assumed to be constant, any additional energy liberated by fossil fuels or nuclear reactors is going to be with us in the form of melted glaciers, polar caps and higher ocean temperatures. Ironically, AGW has been saying two things. 1) that warming is due to humans, and 2) the ability of Earth to eliminate heat through the atmosphere is actually slower now due to anthropogenic CO2. Based on this premise, the ability of the Earth to eliminate heat has not remained constant, but has lost its efficiency to do so. So even if you dont believe waste heat is significant, you have no basis for denying that this "small" amount of energy is not accumulating, as it is in surplus to what has been reaching us from the sun over the eons. And with this, I am not endorsing AGW. I am only quoting it to say that if you believe it, you should expect heat to be accumulating whether you think its a significant amount or not. The fallacy with the qualatitive argument about waste heat being so little is that the comparison is always being made in terms of Watts per square meter, when the comparison should be for Watt-centuries etc.
  35. Solar Hockey Stick
    Eric wrote: "the cooling stratosphere comes from lack of large volcanoes and from lowered solar UV (and thus ozone) during the solar minimum." Volcanic effects are demonstrably short term... the signal can be easily seen to appear and then fade completely within a year or so. Thus, stratospheric cooling over the course of decades is certainly not caused by lack of volcanic activity... that would only cause a brief warming and then return to baseline. The lower UV = less ozone = stratospheric cooling claim is a new one to me, but everything I've seen shows that ozone levels have been increasing since CFCs were banned. Ergo, doesn't seem to hold up. Also: "Warming at night is partly from UHIE contamination" So why does it show up in the satellite records? Urban heat islands in space? You've thrown out some excuses... they just don't seem to make any sense. Let alone have actual scientific analysis backing them up.
  36. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    Gilles! Gilles!!! What part of "absolute terms" and "not good enough" don't you understand in the phrase? It looks like the "travesty" got offspring. I don't need to know how much above sea level I am to know my feet are 10.80m +-0.05m above the sidewalk level at the main entrance. About your "my guess;none", well, guess again and read carefully the same paper you quoted. You can play with words but the only "stupid"(I'm quoting you) thing here is your insistence in not providing the real A to criticize and argue departing from a bunch of imaginary As. Your own phrase "my guess : none" is the standalone proof you have failed linking your argument to the papers. About your "dare" (I have time, blah, blah, blah). Do you really think nobody realized you took this like a fight for power. You placed 23 comments of yours so far, most of them among the last comments, telling different things to different people. I've already taken this thread so far to develop a couple of works for my students, as told in #55, and you, Gilles, are the subject. I think it applies here what dana1981 said in this site: --It's a testament to the robustness of the AGW theory that skeptics can't seem to decide what their objection to it is. If there were a flaw in the theory, then every skeptic would pounce on it and make a consistent argument, rather than the current philosophy which seems to be "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks."--
  37. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    DM , it seems you're missing the point, too. The point is not if they're uncertainties. They're always uncertainties. The point is whether the total imbalance is well constrained by the observations, because it is larger than the uncertainties, or not. And the answer is definitely, (and despite one could think after reading the OP) : no. The 0.9 W/m2 value does not come from measurements, it is only the outcome of some approximate physical model and computer simulations - it has not yet been validated by global measurements, and it doesn't fit to known data. That's all.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] If the energy budget were well constrained by the data Trenberth would not have made the comment that is the subject of the article. However, there are many lines of evidence that suggest that AGW is happening, so the fact that the energy budget is not well constrained by observations just means that we need to spend more on research to collect more and better observations, it does not imply the models are not useful or the theory incorrect.

    You are incorrect to say that the model do not fit known data, if the projections lie within the known uncertainty of the data, then they "fit" (statistically speaking) as accurately as is meaningfull, given the limitations of the data. AFAICS, the data do not rule out an imbalance of 0.9 W/m2, the uncertainty of the observations themselves is too great to make such as distinction.

  38. Solar Hockey Stick
    shawnhet#38: "sometimes the relationship btw GCR and TSI is can be represented as TSI times a constant value and sometimes it can't." No. They are inverted, which is not 'times a constant value.' As far as 'sometimes it can and sometimes it can't,' what good is that?
  39. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    "I was referring to your [snip] pro-fossil fuel ideology." my whaat ? " Cars were a very expensive luxury item when they were first put onto the market. It took many decades for them to become affordable for *all* people. The same is true of the first TV's. So in truth, with the exception of oil, my claim holds very true." you just forget something : we already have cars. " its simply going a bit slower. " oh BTW, concerning your " Well Iceland currently has around 50 hydrogen powered buses, both at home & abroad-which isn't bad for a program only started in 2005." actually the link says :"The three original hydrogen buses did not lead to a wholesale transformation of the Reykjavik fleet. Instead, now all buses run on conventional fuels. "The bus project has now been terminated; we are waiting for the next generation to be built," Arnason said." seems they're going slower .. backwards.
  40. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    les : maybe you could also read that . Opening words : "The range of absolute total solar irradiance (TSI) values measured by different exo-atmospheric radio- meters is currently about 5 W/m2, which is about 0.35 % (3500 × 10–6, Fig. 1) of the exo-atmospheric absolute TSI value at a distance of 1 astronomical unit (AU) from the Sun. This difference is greater than the indi- vidual standard uncertainties reported for most of these instruments, and greater than the 0.02 % per decade value typically stated as required to understand solar vs. anthropogenic forcing in climate change.The discrepancy between different instruments during the same time indicates the presence of unknown systematic bias" Do you really understand what real scientists are saying ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] From a statistical point of view, it is unsurprising that the range in TSI values is larger than all of the individual standard uncertainties, never mind most of them, for the simple reason that the range is implicitly picking out the maximal discrepancies, rather than the mean. What the scientists are saying is obvious, they are saying there are thought to be remaining "issues" with the instruments and hence the measurements have a degree of uncertainty that have yet to be corrected. The same is true of virtually every dataset used in climatology, and the journals etc are full of discussion of what to do about it and the caveats it puts on the conclusions. This is merely standard operating procedure.
  41. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    les : your small percentage of 0.35 % , multiplied by the average 1/4 * 1360 W/m2, gives 1.19 W/m2, which is larger than the theoretical 0.9 W/m2 imbalance. And this doesn't include the uncertainty on outgoing TOA LWR emission (I hope you know what I'm talking about). Can't you really understand that ? this thread is getting totally surrealistic - are you only understanding what we are talking about ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] See my original constructive criticism, which implied that the difference between ACRIM and PMOD is that ballpark and very much less than the discrepancy between the un-calibrated products.
  42. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    75 : DM : did I say anywhere that ACRIM and SORCE/TIM scientists are bad ? may I remind you that the original point was the following quote "However, our measurements of how much energy from global warming is flowing through our atmosphere, land, and melting ice, are well known." And I only say that no, the amount of incoming and outgoing energy flow through the atmosphere, land, and melting ice, isn't certainly "well known" at the accuracy needed to test the theoretical value of a 0.9 W/m2 imbalance, as everything just above demonstrates. does anybody still not understand that ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Blatant trolling, I didn't say that you said anything of the sort. I was pointing out that that the material under discussion was written in a good scientific manner rather than like an "insurance policy".

    We understood your point the first time round, my criticism was merely that your choice of data ws "over egging the pudding" and detracted from the strength of your presentation. The fact you are still blustering about it detracts from it even more.

  43. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP#363: "A so called GHG "fingerprint" would show up as higher high temperatures in arid sunny climates." Nonsense. Greenhouse gases mix in the atmosphere. The warming is not localized. Face the music and provide some evidence that supports your waste heat notion. There is plenty that contradicts it. #367: "It doesnt matter if I am wrong, in the sense that the waste heat that is accumulating doesnt care if you are right or I am wrong." One could conclude that if you are wrong, waste heat is not accumulating. But if that's your take, then never mind.
  44. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    les, you could profitably also read the text around the figure on acrim home page (it's like insurance policies, you know ... read everything and particularly what is written at the bottom of the page ) "The causes of the ~ -0.35 % difference between the ACRIM3 and VIRGO results and the SORCE/TIM results are not presently understood in this context." If you need a translation : we don't have any f.... idea of which is the right one between the two.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] They don't claim they do AFAICS, and more to the point, they are completely open about the fact that the reason for the difference is not understood. That is the sort of language good scientists use.
  45. Harry Seaward at 22:39 PM on 13 April 2011
    How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    Dan @ 199 How was more than 100% returned? Where did the "extra" come from?
  46. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    If we are worried about the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic Sea Ice the spectacular and significant changes in both have all occurred in the last decade, that is why the last decade is the key. It is the outlier and that is why the last decade has seen these historic responses in both sea ice cover and ice sheet behavior. If this decade was similar to others those large cryospheric indicators would have responded in kind.
  47. Harry Seaward at 22:27 PM on 13 April 2011
    How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    Marcus @ 209 Impediments galore exist in the legal world. Most of the alternative energy projects in the US are caught up in permitting red tape and lawsuits. Most of the opposition comes from "green" groups and their illogical not in my backyard attitude.
  48. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    "I'm curious to know which "ideology" I'm supposed to have" I was referring to your [snip] pro-fossil fuel ideology. "I concentrate on Iceland because it is a perfect benchmark for me, since everything converges to make it an ideal case. If it has *not* been achieved there, where the hell do you think it will be ?" As I've said, Iceland is still on track to achieve a fossil free future by 2050. If they can achieve it, with such a small population & specialized economy, then larger more diversified economies should be able to achieve that goal *even quicker*. Unfortunately we're still being impeded by vested interests. "Actually, the reality is just the opposite, but you may need to refresh some historical facts : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller" You are *aware* that oil prices in the US were strictly controlled in the US, by government policies, right up until the end of WWII? By contrast, coal-fired electricity cost more than $2 per kw-h to generate (in today's money) back at the end of the 19th century. It took close to 50 years to get the prices closer to those we enjoy today. Cars were a very expensive luxury item when they were first put onto the market. It took many decades for them to become affordable for *all* people. The same is true of the first TV's. So in truth, with the exception of oil, my claim holds very true. "No - it is simply a proof that a rich country can make some advertising on "green technologies" on a very small scale, but quickly stops spending useless money when they're in deep economic trouble, and cannot afford anyway these expensive "danseuses", as we say in French." Did you even *read* the article you linked to? They haven't ditched the scheme at all, its simply going a bit slower. The point is that it *proves*, in spite of your hand-waving, that it *is* possible to replace hydrocarbons with hydrogen for such things as fishing boats & buses & other heavy vehicles. That remains the case in *spite* of the financial crisis.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] inflamatory adjective snipped
  49. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    72 Gilles "so which cross calibration do you propose now ?" Why not ask the satellite science team? They have some superb material explaining cross calibration. http://www.acrim.com/ e.g. Hint: real scientists let the team managing the devices / experiments provide the results 'cos they understand the data.
  50. How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
    OK Gilles, I'm going to explain things s-l-o-w-l-y, so that even *you* can understand. I made it abundantly clear, time & again, that I was *not* talking about what is *currently* being done, but what can *potentially* be done-here & now. From my extensive reading on the subject, there are a number of inescapable facts: 1) There is *currently* no technical or economic impediment to making a transition to a 100% renewable energy electricity grid (& yes that includes hydro). The only impediments or political inertia & the overwhelming power of the fossil fuel lobby. 2) There is *currently* no technical or economic impediment to making a transition of our transport network to a mixture of hydrogen, electric & bio-diesel. 3) There is currently no technical or economic impediment to making our industrial sector 100% *Carbon Neutral* Now this conclusion is based, not just on reading material from Green Groups, but from reading Science & Technology magazines & the reports of hard-nosed energy & economic organizations (like the EIA). The transition won't happen overnight but, as long as vested interests don't get in the way, it is entirely possible to achieve these goals in about 20 years-probably less time in developing nations where a pre-existing energy network doesn't already exist. Now, unless you can provide *evidence* to prove my above claims wrong, then I'm probably just going to ignore any of your future hand-waving rants.

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