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Gilles at 00:34 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
les : "Technology is improving for oil use in terms of efficiency and reduced CO2 production; and will continue to do so." as far as I know, burning one atom of C does always produce one molecule of CO2 , whatever you're doing with it. That's precisely why I insist on this point : "reducing" CO2 production means actually producing more usable energy and/or GDP per unit carbon. People use to say that "coal (or tar sands) produce more CO2 than natural gas", but this is deceiving : actually natural gas produces more heat than coal per atom of C - but exactly the same CO2 : one CO2 per C. So barring carbon sequestration which is very unlikely to suppress a large amount of CO2, the total amount of CO2 produced during the industrial civilization will exactly be the total amount of C extracted. Period. And improving the use of energy does not change the ultimate amount of extractible reserves. The only reason why we should stop extracting fossil fuels are 1) they have become much too expensive (or difficult to reach actually that's the same) OR 2) there are much cheaper and more convenient alternatives and they've become totally useless - which can only be true if the alternatives are not limited by their amount compared to needs Even from what I'm saying in this scenario, we would be very far from case 2). It can work only through "a major effort" and " and increasing use of mass public transportation." - well, swimming in wealth is usually not a "major effort" - this means simply that all needs would NOT be satisfied . And so until 1) is reached, there is absolutely no reason why producers wouldn't extract FF for which they would find without problem customers. -
Bern at 00:30 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Regarding the use of fossil fuels for aircraft - the US military is pouring a huge amount of funds into the development of alternative fuels for aircraft (seems they don't like spending $billions every year on oil from the middle east!). There was a story a couple of days ago about an F-22 fighter (their latest & greatest stealth jobbie) flying on a 50/50 blend of fossil/biofuel. I believe they've already flown some other aircraft on 100% biofuel. Regarding getting fossil fuel usage to zero - yes, it would be desirable, but no, it's not gonna happen. Given that natural sinks are currently soaking up about half of human emissions, though, an 80% reduction would be a good starting point! There are also some promising new technologies that may make it cheap & economical to strip CO2 out of the air on a truly industrial scale. So combine dramatic reduction of FF usage, with industrial-scale CO2 capture, and we're halfway there... -
Lou Grinzo at 00:20 AM on 26 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
Just last night I had a discussion with my wife about the intractable nature of this ongoing (non-)debate with the deniers. It's bad enough that they collectively repeat the same long-ago debunked arguments ad infinitum (ooh, had a Monckton moment there and lapsed into Latin), but proving any one of them wrong on any one point does no good. The person or "think tank" or "news network" pays no price for being blatantly wrong and simply trundles along, spewing the same falsehood. How did we wind up in a position where even science is so politicized that accuracy no longer matters to a large portion of the public??? -
CBDunkerson at 00:09 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
#831: "As a commenter said a bit ago, photons do not carry ID cards." #834: "If they wrote that, then it is not correct. Photons do carry ID cards? Will the madness never cease? 'Get the new EZ-photon identification card! Never get held up by those pesky laws of physics again! With EZ-photon you too can make your own decisions about what forms of matter you choose to interact with. EZ-photon! Because reality is just so passe!' -
damorbel at 23:59 PM on 25 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #831 (in the grey area) someone wrote:- "That photon could have come from a source of any temperature. As a commenter said a bit ago, photons do not carry ID cards." If they wrote that, then it is not correct. Photons are emitted (and absorbed) by individual (accelerating) charged particles. The source of a photon characterises it by the energy the photon has. The photon keeps this energy (unless it changes energy in a gravitational field) until it is absorbed by another charged particle, even if it has to cross the universe before this happens.Moderator Response:[DB] I am simply gobstoppered. Please think about what you just wrote some more. As written, does-not-parse.
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Ken Lambert at 23:55 PM on 25 March 2011Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
Marcus #100 So black coal is only the cheapest because Governments heavily subsidize it. And that is why it is still the main power source for central generation thoughout the world. So please explain the economics of selling subsidized cheap coal to China and India and Taiwan and Japan? If we were subsidizing it, there would be a net cost to the Australian economy - not a main source of foreign exchange! Is your assertion 'Voodoo' economics Marcus?? Wind farms need to be covered by base load reserve for the situations where light or no winds occur over a wide area. Without base load coverage - storage systems would need to cover at least a couple of day's supply to meet these weather events. As far as human health effects of Wind turbine noise, there are individuals who are more sensitive than others to low frequency noise. I would agree that those not being paid might be more inclined to imagine symtoms, in the same way that RSI infected the Public Service while it was lucrative - and is hardly heard of now with jobs less secure. -
WSteven at 23:51 PM on 25 March 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech You said, "All papers are listed because they support a skeptic's argument against AGW or AGW Alarm." So, yes you did unless you've reinvented english and logic. The paper, "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere" does not fall into the Sqeptic category (despite some apparent flaws) as these issues are known the climate scientists and are a matter of public record. Ergo, the paper falls into the realm of the usual skepticism which naturally prevails all of science and this paper is another attempt to resolve said issues. -
damorbel at 23:48 PM on 25 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #831 You wrote:- "What's this talk of photons having temperatures in Kelvins? A photon's energy depends on its frequency or wavelength, not on the temperature of its source" The temperature of a particle (in an ideal gas) is measured by the amount of energy (Joules) in the particle. The Boltzmann constant relates the energy to the temperature in Kelvins, the formula is E = 3/2 kT where k is the Boltzmann constant 1.3806504×10^−23J/K Photons are considered to be energetic particles, the term photon gas is used frequently. As energetic particles photon energy can be given as temperature or e/v (electron volts) Photon energy is also a function of the oscillation frequency of the electron that originates the photon, so photon energy is given by the formula E = hv where h is the Planck constant = 6.62606896×10^−34 J/s and v the frequency You wrote:- "...the temperature of an EM radiation source affects the spectrum of the radiation and that's about it." Not just the spectrum but the energy also. You wrote:- "An individual photon at a given frequency couldn't care less whether it came from a 5 gazillion degrees source or a light bulb, does it? If it does, how exactly does that manifest? A different spin angular momentum? Or what? " Each photon is created by an individual electron that gets its energy from the particle that where the electron is found. A photons energy is directly related to the temperature of the particle emitting it. When a photon is emitted it carries momentum, there is a recoil reaction on the particle emitting the photon which means the emitting particle loses the amount of momentum taken away by the photon. This is just the same but on a smaller scale, as a bullet leaving a gun. Thus photon energy is directly related to the source temperature and the photon 'knows' this because the frequency v is a direct function of the temperature. -
les at 23:45 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Regarding FFs being used somewhere: One the one hand, it's not really a problem - any more than the fact that some people still ride horses doesn't give rise to huge problems clearing the streets of New York or London of manure. Technology is improving for oil use in terms of efficiency and reduced CO2 production; and will continue to do so. On the other hand it's always been a question of the shear quantity of the CO2 emissions. I do think there will, however, be a down side. The rest of the petrochemical industry (plastics, drugs, paint etc.) depends on the cost of extracting their raw material being subsidized by the fuel industry. If oil consumption drops to low (no, I don't know how low that is) it could be that the cost of other products rises to as they shoulder more of their own cost of production. -
muoncounter at 23:42 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
#96, Harry: Smug? Hardly. Factual? Yes. Directed at Gilles, who avoids fact-based argument whenever permitted? Also yes. "let's come up with a short, but better set of survey questions that are quantitative ... and post links to the survey here, and at WUWT" Yes, let's make scientific decisions by popular vote. How many think it would bemore effective if E = mc3? The ayes have it, so it must be true. Now, that was probably 'smug.' -
WSteven at 22:46 PM on 25 March 2011Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite
Glenn "Interesting that The Pielke's et al consider the possibility of a warm bias in the surface record but don't consider the possibility of a cool bias in the satellite record...'have more confidence in the UAH satellite data set compared with the RSS data set.'" Which is a couple of reasons I found your article useful while reading the the Pielke's study.. "And how well can you compare...?" The points that you raised were very good and I admit to not having thought of them all at the time. There's a lot I'm trying to absorb at the moment. :-) Excellent article BTW, Glenn. I find I'm learning a lot. -
CBDunkerson at 22:44 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
On Gilles insistence that 'fossil fuel will still be used'... there is some validity. For instance, if most of the rest of the world converted to renewable energy it would be quite likely that Saudi Arabia would continue using oil... because they'd then have such a surplus of it that the cost for local use (no transport cost added in) would be negligible. There are also some applications which alternative energy sources can't handle yet. For instance, what other energy source has the energy/mass density needed to keep a 747 in the air? Or launch a satellite into orbit? So no, true 0% fossil fuel use in the next few decades does not seem likely with current technology. It is possible that the few remaining technical and economic hurdles will be overcome in that time frame, but by no means certain. However, even without revolutionary technological improvements we can certainly get down to some tiny fraction (less than 1%) of current fossil fuel use. -
Marcus at 22:43 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
@ Arkadiusz Semczyszak "The existence of two (or more) contradictory (even if only partially) the theory of makes it impossible a consensus. That this is my "caution" ..." Shows that you simply don't know what the term 'Consensus" means. Consensus simply means "General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision-making and follow-up action." Note the 'General Agreement'-it does *not* mean that *every* scientist in the field has to be in agreement-only the majority, a fact that your claims have not been able to alter. Also, when these skeptics provide something called *proof* to back their contradictory ideas, then maybe the consensus might be in danger but-if A.A. Marsz is anything to go by-then its not in danger yet. We *know* what caused the 'great warming' (it wasn't that great) of the Arctic in the 1930's & 1940's-it was this thing called a massive increase in solar irradiance. Yet we *know* the Sun isn't responsible for recent warming, because its been in a state of *decline* for the last 30 years-reaching levels unseen since the 19th century in just this last decade. I think its time for Marsz to go back to school. -
kdkd at 22:19 PM on 25 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
Oh dear. I've spent a while to convert the file into something a bit more web friendly and so far it's failed. This leads me to the conclusion that they're not really interested in passing their message to a wider audience. I would advise that you edit the post to advise that the pps file for download is over 100MB mind you, which is a ludicrous size for a presentation slide deck.Moderator Response:[DB] Done, thanks! It took over 3 hours just to pull the links out of the file.
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Marcus at 22:18 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
"could give a simple argument explaining why the world would renounce entirely , for eternity, to extract some tens of Gt of carbon still available at cheap prices , increasing the total wealth" You really are a broken record, Gilles, & you still haven't provided proof to back this assertion. You're part right, in that extracting this carbon will *probably* increase the total wealth-but that wealth ultimately accrues to those who mine & sell it, not to those who burn it & ultimately will have to clean up the mess this stuff leaves behind. There are better ways to increase wealth-starting with paying the people of the developing nations a wage commensurate to the work they do, rather than being exploited for slave wages-something *no* amount of fossil fuel consumption will rectify. Similarly, helping nations to improve education & health care standards will do far more to increase overall wealth than just burning tonnes of coal & polluting the atmosphere. The fact is that burning coal is less tied to wealth now than at any point in the last 150 years-yet still people like yourself continue to cling to these outdated mythologies about the miracle panacea of fossil fuels. -
CBDunkerson at 22:15 PM on 25 March 2011The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
Not visible, but carbon monoxide is also a 'naturally occurring odorless colorless gas'... which is lethal to humans at about 670 ppm. Yet is also a nutrient (i.e. "life giving") for some types of bacteria. -
Phil at 21:57 PM on 25 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Ryan, your assertion that the earth, if receiving energy faster than it looses it, will not warm beyond 255K here violates the first law of thermodynamics - what you propose does not conserve energy. Either you are wrong or the Laws of Thermodynamics are wrong - take your pick. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:32 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
97% of climatologists who are "behind" - in 90% came from the U.S.. Science the U.S. is biggest - agreement - but it's not the whole world. For example, my country. Climatologist, a professor A.A. Marsz - a skeptic. He has significant scientific achievements - Arctic climate: In his paper he writes: “The genesis of the ‘Great warming of the Arctic’ in the 1930s and ‘40s is the same as that of the present day. Both may be considered to be attributable to natural processes and are not demonstrably associated in any way with a supposed ‘Global greenhouse effect’. Changes in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere could only explain 9% of variations in the SAT in the Arctic.” -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:31 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
@IanC The quoted fragment does not change the fact that before „... create more sophisticated models that will chip away at the uncertainty range of climate change and allow more accurate projections of future climate ..." possible to have different scenarios. Let us assume - for convenience - a direct warming of around 1.2 degrees C for each successive doubling of CO2. 1.94-1.2 = 0.74 degrees C - a positive feedback - by still "imperfect" model of the quoted paper. IV Report IPCC: “... defi ned as the global average surface warming following a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. It is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C”. What does it say skepticalscience: „The lowest estimate of warming is close to the models - 1.8°C (3.24°F ) on average - but the upper estimate is a little more consistent, at an average of around 3.5°C (6.3°F).”, “All the models and evidence confirm a minimum warming close to 2°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with a most likely value of 3°C and the potential to warm 4.5°C or even more.” The question is: whether the claim is more likely that the lower limits estimated for whole RF doubling of CO2 - is already skepticism? Does it violate the scientific consensus? And as the great "the unknown" (for negative feedbacks) we have here, this paper demonstrates example The net climate impact of coal-fired power plant emissions, Shindell and Faluvegi, 2010.: „More broadly, our results indicate that due to spatial and temporal inhomogenaities in forcing, climate impacts of multi-pollutant emissions can vary strongly from region to region and can include substantial effects on maximum rate-of-change, neither of which are captured by commonly used global metrics.” Scott and Duncan's theory ... ... when I doubt that science will give us ever satisfactory answers to important questions, then read once again over 280 pages of their work. Despite the criticism I admire the austerity of the statement, their "Benedictine" work. I'm no epidemiologist but - Haensch et al., 2010.: “Some epidemiologists and historians have denied this conclusion due to inconsistencies between the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of plague in historical records and those observed in India in the early 20 th century . Alternative putative etiologies of the Black Death include a viral hemorrhagic fever or a currently unknown pathogen.” This sentence from the above work:"...ends the debate about the etiology of the Black Death, and unambiguously demonstrates that Y. pestis was the causative agent of the epidemic plague that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages."- But this probably just “pious wishes”. Similar "pious wishes" may contain a question: “Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change ...” The existence of two (or more) contradictory (even if only partially) the theory of makes it impossible a consensus. That this is my "caution" ... -
les at 21:19 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
51 Gilles - 1st. I am certainly not playing with words. Well, they may only be words to you - but in reality the relate to actual theory and practice and have substantial technical meaning. When someone just throws them around it's a clear indicator they're not really clued in. The fun thing about your reference and use of economic is that you are doing exactly what you say is illegitimate to do for climate modelling... If you look behind the words to the science, it's obvious. regarding your question #51 That clearly begs so many questions that I'm tempted to suggest that it's an insult to everyones intelligence even to ask it! Regarding your question #45 "Now a question concerning a 100 % renewable energy world : with these hypothesis, which fraction of people could leave on vacation overseas , for instance in Maldives islands, following you ?" Who knows, not everyone likes fish so much and a vacation on the Maldives may not be that appealing. Others like snorkeling, maybe it would suit them. I don't know how these and other preference break-down on a global basis. sorry not to be of more help. Maybe the Maldives tourist office could be of more help. -
ranyl at 20:57 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Considering the account is already well in the red, doesn't that mean that every ounce of carbon emitted means just adding to the total that has then be removed to get anywhere near safe? Doesn't matter if the CO2 is building a fridge or a wind turbine it is going into the atmopshere and therefore will have to be removed again if 350ppm is to be acheived. Therefore renewables don't reduce atmospheric CO2 as they area source of CO2 emissions and that a proportion of that CO2 will have to be removed again to reduce atmospheric CO2. Clearly to produce power renewables cause far less CO2 emissions than coal but they do still casue CO2 emissions and compared to stopping using the power there is no contest. And also keep in mind that LCA or very likely to be on the low range of reality as infra-structure inputs are rarely counted nor the CO2 costs resultant from secondary effects of the production of the materials, like eco-system disturbance from mining. Can't help feeling that we need to start considering a CO2 budget that is upfront and final, that is we have x tonnes of carbon we can use and that is it, so no payback accounting or offsetting just an upfront amount and that upfront amount has to not only provide the energy to build all the energy replacement but also all the additional infra-structure and product replacements. So say the CO2 budget is set for 400ppm peak (it doesn't feel exactly safe to go higher), means for the UK the budget is less than 1 years of the UK's currents emissions if the budget is equitably distributed across the globe. Now considering the need for adaptations and priority services (hospitals) that isn't exactly much to spend on renewables to sustain the extremely high energy use we currently luxuriate in and means that for every ounce of carbon spent of renewables you want the maximum out, so putting a solar panel array in driving rain drenched West Scotland wouldn't make much sense! Anyway all this conjecture on carbon budgets isn't in actuality going to make much difference, as the carbon industry is huge powerful and popular; what government is seriously going to BAN the use of fossil fuels any time soon, especially considering the military consequences of doing so, war is the biggest user of carbon and fastest way to destroy habitat and there no way your running an aircraft carrier on solar panels! I've reduced my peronal power usage by ~80% or more and amazingly I'm still alive and not in the third world. Surely if everyone markedly reduced energy use wouldn't acheiving the carbon sequestering situation needed be a lot easier and an awful lot quicker? And do keep in mind that CO2 isn't the whole sorry there is CO2e and the larger current threat of biodiversity loss which also need major changes to occur to create a future that is sustainable. -
Gilles at 20:46 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
les, instead of playing with words, maybe you could give a simple argument explaining why the world would renounce entirely , for eternity, to extract some tens of Gt of carbon still available at cheap prices , increasing the total wealth (at least for some time) of the world, for a "cost" of only a few more tenths of degrees? I'd like to know your opinion about the question at the end of my post #45, BTW. I have a funny story to tell you about that. So how many people could afford to travel to Maldives Islands, in this 2050 world? -
perseus at 20:39 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Re dana1981 at 05:30 AM on 25 March, 2011 - Carbon capture more expensive than alternatives Dana - I have no doubt that renewables are the most cost effective power generation mitigation methods for low to medium penetration scenerios. My scepticism tends to be greatest for high penetration levels of renewables since the cost of storage techniques have to be included for 100% renewable strategy. The problem tends to be most acute when weather conditions require much longer storage timescales of several weeks or even months. Winter anticyclonic conditions over Europe come to mind. I think most cost calculations assume storage periods of days at most. Of course we could just go without power during these rare periods, but this seems to be politically unacceptable. The problem is we need to build a lot of storage to cover that period which is very expensive indeed. Many prominent environmentalists such as George Monboit and Mark Lynas have realised this, and eventually come round to accepting the need for solid baseload generation, nuclear in their case. In my wind article you can see how I attempted to partly solve that problem by integrating space heating via CHP and heat pumps into the electric generation mix, which requires using some natural gas but allows greater renewable penetration. -
les at 20:37 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
I 48 Gilles - I absolutely think there's relationship between economy and game theory*! Read what I wrote. Nash equilibrium is part of game theory, not cost-benefit curves - although individual agents may choose to use those. It certainly is not used in calculating marginal cost curves !! * Well, to be more precise, game theory is a useful model to calculate some aspects of economic relationships. It is very often used in computer simulation of economic models to look at the range of outcomes and, there by, the probability of future situations. This is, believe it or not, much the same procedure people use with climate models where they have to vary a range of parameters to look the the likelihood distribution of projectsion and model parameter fits and stuff like that... ... stuff you have objected to very strongly. Soooo... I guess you could not possibly think that game theory has any possible relationship to the economy - any more than you think that climate models have a relationship to the climate. And further, as the economy is also a non-linear / chaotic system... a whole pile of other 'skeptical' arguments which apply to the climate apply to economic modeling. I do hope we're not cherry picking here! -
cloa513 at 20:34 PM on 25 March 2011There's no empirical evidence
How about the pushing of Human Caused Global Warming is just a distraction to postpone doing the necessary things to reduce consumption of oil, reduce consumption of coal, prepare ourselves and the environment for whatever climate changes occur! Pushing the idea that you are effectively know how it all works is a time waster. Plenty good reasons to reduce oil and coal consumption. Its just pushing the all the blame on to industry when individuals consume the electricity and resources. -
Gilles at 20:01 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
les : and you think there is no relationship between economy and game theory ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory#Economics_and_business -
70rn at 19:38 PM on 25 March 2011The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
@ 23 Food colouring turns water into wine? Man, just think of the super low budget undergraduate drinking opportunities... But seriously, I get your point - my personal favourite in a typically pointless net battle was as follows, 'if you think 400 ppm can't block light, go and stir the best part of a cup of ink into your bath water next time you wash' (mine holds a 450 litres (roughly) - 400 ppm is 180mls. -
Gilles at 18:58 PM on 25 March 2011Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
Dana, I took the 50 % figure from here "at equilibrium, this CO2 change [from 1900 to 1940] would be expected to cause a 0.22°C increase in the average global surface air temperature." Due to the ocean lag and other anthropogenic effects, "the best estimate of the anthropogenic contribution to the 1910-1940 warming is approximately 0.1 to 0.15°C". " for me 0.1 to 0.15 is roughly 50 % of 0.22. So 50 % is not excluded , but " that only 33% of the equilibrium warming is realized over the period in question is not physically plausible." To say that, you have to have an accuracy of a few 10 % on the relevant quantities - for instance on the equilibrium increase due to CO2, that you stated later to be "1.4°C equilibrium warming from CO2 thus far. " But here , we learn that climate sensitivity is only very broadly know with a factor 2 of 3 of uncertainty. So the whole discussion about "accuracy " and "inaccuracy" is very confused for me - I just see play with numbers with or w/o error bars following the need, sometimes it's accurate enough to exclude, sometimes not ... sorry but the real accuracy of your numbers is totally unclear. -
les at 18:50 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
good grief. Gilles is now doing to the dismal science what damorbel did to thermodynamics. Nash Equilibrium is nothing, directly, to do with marginal costs nor, indeed cost/benefit curves. It's an equilibrium point in game theory. -
jatufin at 18:46 PM on 25 March 2011The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
This colorless "argument" goes in to same category as "There's only 1 in 10,000 parts of CO2 in air, it's ridiculous to say that could affect anything." But I think you need only couple of PPMs gobolt to tint glass. And how many drops of food color you needed to turn a gallon of water into wine? Any other examples in visible spectrum? -
Gilles at 18:28 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
scaddendp : I don't understand very well what you're looking for here. If it is simply to seek scientific information, why don't you simply read AR4 instead of loosing your time here ? I think pretty much you need is inside. If you want to convince people who are not convinced, how can you do that if you exclude them from the discussion ? Now thanks Harry. I could well have been among the 97 % who answered "yes" , it seems to get warmer, and yes, mankind probably contributed to this warming - among other things. Mankind contributed to a lot of environmental changes, actually. And so? should mankind be declared a pollutant ? -
trunkmonkey at 18:02 PM on 25 March 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
My best understanding is that el ninos are thought to be caused by an atmospheric failure of trade winds into the ITC in the easern Pacific, depriving the tropical Americas of the oceanic Ekman transport that fosters upwelling. The reverse would presumably be true for la ninas. If I may be forgiven an observation as a naturalist rather than an expert, I have been watching the SST anomalies in this years la nina and it appears to me that the cold water is emerging in a standpipe plume (a point source)in the western Pacific and splaying eastward against the prevailing winds and currents. If the ENSO and possibly other ocillations have deep enough pockets to skew global average temperature that much, and the periods of the ocillations appear irregular, how do we know anything at a decadal scale? -
Glenn Tamblyn at 17:31 PM on 25 March 2011Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite
WSteven Interesting that The Pielke's et al consider the possibility of a warm bias in the surface record but don't consider the possibility of a cool bias in the satellite record. Also this statment "We generally have more confidence in the UAH satellite data set compared with the RSS data set", That John Christy, on of the authorts of this paper is one of the principles behind the UAH data set doesn't enter into this? And recent revisions to the data UAH & RSS data sets have significantly narrowed the margin. And how well can you compare global trends for Surface & Troposphere without considering latitudinal changes. Antarctic temps have been held down by the effects of the Ozone hole. Models, as V&G showed above predict more surface than tropospheric warming in the high North. Without breaking your analysis latitudinally, what are you really looking at -
Gilles at 17:29 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Another remark, illustrating the "Nash equilibrium" (the fact that things tend to stabilize when the marginal costs equilibrate the benefits). Start from the graphics displayed Fig 1, and assume that we add to Fig 2 just the amount of FF you need to reach the "baseline" of 520 EJ. Obviously things would be much easier. We wouldn't have to make so many efforts, we could keep more cars (I know that some people dislike cars and are fond of public transportation, but you would agree that they're enough people who think just the opposite ?) , so I don't think we would lack of potential consumers. Now what would be the effect of these extra 260 EJ ? well by eyes it's approximately the current consumption (which produce an extra +2 ppm/yr) multiplied by half of the triangle height, say 25 years, so +50 ppm. Well + 50 ppm , it's not negligible, but it is not that terrific . If we assume a 3°C per doubling , it makes 3*ln(500/450) /ln(2) = 0.5 °C , that is the same increase that from 1970 to now. Now you have to convince people that a 0.5 °C has more drawbacks that doubling the energy consumption of the planet - that is that these extra 260 EJ - with the same efficiency, without spoiling energy wouldn't bring anything valuable compared to the drawbacks of increasing the temperature by 0.5 °C. Good luck ! -
Gilles at 17:11 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
34#NYJ : "For Jevons paradox to be correct, the average miles driven would have to increase to beyond 100,000 miles." You're wrong : it says just that then nobody can prevent 10 times more people to have a car (or any combination of this : 3 times more people driving 3 times the distance, for instance). And yes : there are enough people without cars in the world to multiply by 3 the number of cars. May be you should realize that the whole world is much poorer and live very differently from NewYorkers ? Mucounters : I said that Iceland produced already much more renewable energy than their current total personal needs , including FF (it's enough to close their aluminium factories, but there is still enough places to build dams and geothermal plants to keep them). I don't see with your figures that Hawaii produce much more renewable energy than their total needs. Now a question concerning a 100 % renewable energy world : with these hypothesis, which fraction of people could leave on vacation overseas , for instance in Maldives islands, following you ? -
Harry Seaward at 16:03 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Muoncounter @ 90 via Gilles: Question #2 in the oft referenced survey is qualitative instead of quantitative. The question Gilles asked to assign a figure or range is entirely scientific. Per your rather smug response: "Your opinion of what 'should have been added' is entirely irrelevant. The survey was taken, the results published. If you disagree with the results, perhaps you can cite the results of a survey of your own." Between the two camps, let's come up with a short, but better set of survey questions that are quantitative in nature (i.e., something we can measure) and post links to the survey here, and at WUWT and other climate sites and tally up the results. -
WSteven at 15:49 PM on 25 March 2011Meet The Denominator
So Poptech came on SkS's FB page in defence of his 850 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming (AGW) Alarm. Since he kept insisting that the papers by Roger A. Pielke Jr. and his father supported AGW skepticism I decided to read the Rogers' papers on Poptech's list. I've just finished reading "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere". That paper is skeptical, but not in the fashion of the contrarians. It's more skeptical in the way science in naturally skeptical and analyzes a problem between ground and satellite sensors that climate scientists appear to have been working on for some time now. So, that's one paper that Poptech should remove IMHO. -
Bern at 15:47 PM on 25 March 2011Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
Just to add a comment - I have a colleague who has quite a number of years' experience dealing with noise from wind farms. He has a *very* low opinion of the folks pushing "wind turbine syndrome". I think it's much more likely that it's an annoyance issue, rather than a direct physiological effect - although annoyance can lead to stress & the associated physiological impacts that has on the body, and then there are psychosomatic issues as well. However, these are not *directly* caused by the noise from the wind turbines. The fact that everyone who has a financial interest in the turbines is devoid of symptoms also suggests this is the case. -
WSteven at 15:30 PM on 25 March 2011Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite
Oddly enough, I just finished reading "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere" [Pielke Jr. et al, 2009]. This particular article in combination with this one couldn't have come at a better time. [OT] As for the Pielke Jr. article, I don't think it means what Mr. Poptech thinks it means. -
HumanityRules at 15:27 PM on 25 March 2011Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
61 IanC Ooops sorry about the links the solar/climate review is here and it's well worth reading, covering most of the interesting aspects of the science that come up on this website. I would look at the issue from the other direction. I think climate scientist like to understand what happened in the past because it gives them more certainty about the assumptions they are using to project future change. I'd argue that the lower TSI goes the less they are able to explain past change and the less the theory looks complete. -
Bern at 15:17 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
I'd also like to add my agreement to Glenn's post at #41. One of the most effective policy actions that could be taken would be for a government to legislate that, for example, no new fossil-fuel power stations will be permitted to be built after, say, 2015. Add restrictions on upgrades / enhancements to existing ones too (perhaps only allowing them if it can be demonstrated that renewable options can't do the job), along with a concrete timeframe for phasing out fossil power. If the Australian Government, for example, said that all coal-fired power stations *must* be shut down by 2030, you can bet there'd be a lot of investment in alternative energy sources... Although I'm certain that we'd also hear plenty of howls of protest that all it will do is ensure that Australia goes "back to the stone age" in 2030 when the power gets turned off. -
getricks at 14:50 PM on 25 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Read urban heat island effect title..Got it..it answers my questions,,please feel free to remove my above rant..LOL. Thanks. -
scaddenp at 14:26 PM on 25 March 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
Decades? Ocean cycling is something close to 1000 years. ESNO amounts to ocean/atmosphere heat transfer. You dont see much sign of "draw down" on the OHC to 2000 meters shown in #40 of this thread, let alone total global energy budget. -
trunkmonkey at 14:02 PM on 25 March 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
I have been struggling with a concept that seems to be conceded by [--snip--] and [--snip--] alike: that the super el ninio of 98-99 raised global average temperature. At what time scale is the global energy budget reconciled? If the answer is anually, to concede this point means that the ocean-atmospheric system had to draw down some "fossil" savings account to boost the temperature. -
Bern at 14:00 PM on 25 March 2011The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
Here's a question. Sceptics often tout the fact that CO2 is a "colourless, odourless gas" as 'evidence' that it can't do any harm - a 'see no evil' kind of thing. We also know that CO2 is *not* colourless in the IR spectrum. Has anyone taken pics in IR to show CO2 emissions from, e.g. power stations, or industry? I imagine by careful selection of the frequency & temperature sensitivity, you could see the plumes from industry against the background glow of the atmosphere.Moderator Response:[DB] Carbon Tracker has maps, movie animations and even their own Youtube channel.
Not at the fine-grained resolution you want, though.
-
scaddenp at 13:43 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Glenn, I agree. Dont build another coal power station is a good way to focus industry on the problem. -
dana1981 at 13:33 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
For the record, this article has been re-posted on TreeHugger. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 13:14 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
An important point to remember when considering the costs of any new renewable and high efficiency plant and equipment. Some opinions make it sound like the cost of all these things will be an additional cost compared to zero cost with BAU. But this overlooks the fact that much of this equipment - Coal power plants, refrigerators, cars - will reach the end of their working life and need to be replaced anyway. So what the cost is really depends on the rate of the change. If it proceeds at the 'mortality' rate of existing plant it is simply the difference in the capital cost of the old vs new technolgy. If we want to make a transition faster, then we have to include the capital losses from equipment being written off early. To this end, one of the key areas to focus on is not building new equipment that isn't renewable & efficient. Each one of these built today is a possible capital loss several decades from now. Their is an important issue wrt to a transition to renewables that is often put forward in the skeptic argument Renewables can't do baseload As various studies have shown, a fully fledged renewable power system, with geographically and climatically dispersed generation and a smart distribution network can meet all power needs. But during the transition when renewables are only a small part of the mix then they do need FF backup. Its a classic Chicken & Egg problem. Existing FF generation will be needed during this transition period to provide the buffering until the new grid is large enough to be self-buffering. So arguments about the limits of renewables at their current scale aren't relevent to the viability of the completed grid. So in order to manage the transition well with minimal economic pain, we need to ramp up deployment of renewables and efficiency improvements as fast as possible preferably much faster than currently, without targeting the shutdown of FF plants initially (except for the really bad ones perhaps). We need them for the transition period. Its building the new equipment that matters. So sights like protesters picketting coal power stations is perhaps misguided. Perhaps picket government and business demanding more and more investment in/deployment of renewables instead -
scaddenp at 12:25 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Well David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy without the hot air" most certainly considers it. Powering Europe from renewables has some pretty major hurdles, technological, environmental, and economic, which tend to be glossed over. I personally suspect nuclear is a better option. Its not clear whether some of these plans are talking about just electricity generation or considering transport fuels as well. -
BlueRock at 12:09 PM on 25 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
To add to the WWF study [sorry if it's excessive!]: * Zero Carbon Britain 2030: "A sustainable, secure, efficient Britain can be powered without relying on fossil fuels or nuclear power." http://www.zerocarbonbritain.org/ * Europe could be 100% renewable by 2050. A "super-smart" grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, wind farms in northern Europe, hydro-electric from Scandinavia and the Alps and a complement of biomass and marine energy could render carbon fuels obsolete by 2050. Nuclear energy not needed. http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/News-Releases/Come-sun-rain-or-high-wind-Europe-could-create-a-100-renewable-electricity-supply-by-2050-e5e.aspx + http://www.pwc.co.uk/pdf/100_percent_renewable_electricity.pdf * Providing all Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power. "We suggest producing all new energy with [Wind, Water and Solar] by 2030 and replacing pre-existing energy by 2050." http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/january/jacobson-world-energy-012611.html + http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/susenergy2030.html + http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030 * Zero Carbon Australia Energy Plan. A ten year roadmap for 100% renewable energy. Baseload energy supplied by renewable sources. Affordable at $8 per household per week. http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/zero-carbon-australia-2020 * Total Surface Area Required to Fuel the World With 100% Solar + Wind: http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 + responses to the usual nit-picking: http://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/esz1u/if_we_were_to_power_the_entire_world_with_solar/c1apasd + http://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/esz1u/if_we_were_to_power_the_entire_world_with_solar/c1apfva * Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/big_picture_solutions/climate-2030-blueprint.html * Germany to become 100% renewable by 2050. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/04/germany-the-worlds-first-major-renewable-energy-economy * The Combined Power Plant. How Germany will provide 100% renewable electricity by 2050. http://www.kombikraftwerk.de/index.php?id=27 * How Germany will achieve 100% clean, safe, renewable energy by 2050 - regardless of what the weather does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR8gEMpzos4 * Clean Energy 2030. Google's Proposal for reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. http://knol.google.com/k/clean-energy-2030# * Decarbonizing Civilization: Powering the Globe Entirely with Wind Energy by 2050. http://www.energyboom.com/wind/decarbonizing-civilization-powering-globe-wind-energy-2050 * Battle of the grids: how to deliver 68% renewable energy by 2030 and nearly 100% by 2050. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Battle-of-the-grids/ * Road map to zero carbon, renewable energy in Europe by 2050. "Nuclear and / or coal-with-CCS plants are not essential to decarbonize power while safeguarding system reliability." http://www.roadmap2050.eu/ * UN Report: How Two Per Cent of Global GDP can Trigger Greener, Smarter Growth While Fighting Poverty. http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=659&ArticleID=6902&l=en&t=long * EU Roadmap for moving to a low-carbon economy in 2050. "The share of low carbon technologies in the electricity mix is estimated to increase from around 45% today to around 60% in 2020, including through meeting the renewable energy target, to 75 to 80% in 2030, and nearly 100% in 2050." http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/roadmap/index_en.htm ~~~ Curiously, I've never seen any plan from any independent source that recommends nuclear....
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