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Comments 93251 to 93300:

  1. It's aerosols
    I don't see any quantitative fits of the variation causes by aerosols. The break of temperature curves occured in the 40 , not in the 50's. And it's much more obviously correlated with PDO than with aerosols. My question was : maybe PDO is caused by aerosols ?
    Moderator Response: [DB] "maybe PDO is caused by aerosols" You can't possibly be serious...Pirates, maybe, Leprechauns, certainly, but aerosols???
  2. HumanityRules at 16:39 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    27 Gordon I think I acknowledged that the topic is about how Watts got it wrong. But what's more important speculation by an influential climate scientist who's helping to shape the IPCCs position or a blogger? Sorry if I disagree with the ClimateHawk's (and you) about the priority and the scope of the discussion here. Given the last sentance in the article one could argue that the topic is also why we should forget about what Hansen predicted. I'm not so sure we should do that. "In the meantime, we can stop using this conversation from 1988 as a reason to be skeptical about the human origins of global warming." Hansen was assuming CO2 would double by 2028. Are you saying that assumption is wrong? "Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount" Whether this is a prediction or speculation is irrelevant, it's helped shape the wider debate of climate science, it comes from an influencial individual in that debate. It's worth arguing the merits of it. If he still stands by what he said in 1988 (which he does) then it's well worth arguing about.
  3. The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
    What keeps being forgotten in discussions about extinctions etc is that species extinctions are not discrete events. All species rely on other species for their survival - be it food, pollination, shelter, symbiotic relationships, etc. The 'food chain' or ecosystem is like the child's game of 'pick up sticks'. Sometimes, you can remove a single stick from the pile and not much happens. Other times, the removal of one stick causes others to move and fall. Eventually, if you remove enough sticks, the whole pile comes crashing down. The ecosystem is the same. Sometimes the extinction of one species can essentially go unnoticed. However, in other cases the extinction of a species will cause cascading trophic events and can cause multiple other species to go extinct or to undergo substantial change. Eventually, if enough critical species go extinct, the whole system falls apart and there is nothing anyone can do to prop it up. What's worse, we only have a very limited understanding of which species are the critical ones. We do know there are some species such as phytoplankton which underpin almost all life on Earth - and we do know they are undergoing dramatic changes right now as a result of climate change and other anthropogenic influences. But what exactly that will mean for life as we know it is unclear. There are others - bees and coral for example. But we just don't know how many other species are out there that could cause the pile to collapse, nor what their current circumstances or vulnerability to change are. We are tampering with forces we don't understand, and which can have profound effects on our way of life. This is not about a few feet of sea level rise, or higher insurance premiums because of more extreme weather events. Despite our grandious posturings, we are an animal species just like every other animal species, and subject to the same ecosystem influences. Human survival of the current round of extinctions is not guaranteed.
  4. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    @#26 HR I took a hard look at Hansen's prediction for 2028 and discovered, he did not make a prediction for 2028 at all. He was asked in 1988, if CO2 doubles, what kind of impact would that have. He illustrated the impact of a doubling of CO2 by talking about what a meter rise in sea level would look like, he did not predict it would happen by any specific time in that interview. The 40-year period, and the 20=year period seem to have been tacked on along the way. Is it really that hard to understand the topic here? The topic is how people twisted his illustration of the impact of a hypothetical doubling of CO2 into a "prediction" of an event within a specific period of time.
  5. CO2 effect is saturated
    tjfolkerts, regarding lapse rate, you'll be interested to read Eli Rabbett's post about a skeptic named Hermann Harde, who used a climate model so simple that it had only two layers of atmosphere--too few layers to adequately represent the strength of the effect of higher layers being cooler.
  6. Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
    One of the things I have noticed about John Christy is: depending on who he is talking to, he will give entirely different answers about global warming. For example, in the bogus documentary "Dommsday Called Off", he says the Earth isn't even warming and the urban heat island effect accounts for most of the warming in surface temperatures. But, his UAH data agrees remarkably well with surface temperatures even though he says it doesn't, when interviewed by skeptical media outlets. Christy's self-contradictory claims are very perplexing given the fact that he has impressive credentials and is still actively engaged in climate change research.
  7. HumanityRules at 15:37 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    21 scaddenp So to be pedantic (or scientific) about this if the issue is storm surge then what are the chances that anybody looking out of the window from the GISS building in 2028 will witness flooding from an extreme weather event? Will 1:100 year events become 1:25 years events? Or will they become annual? Should Hansen state "The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water" Not even probably, likely, possibly. Will NY city see this coming and added another metre to the seawall? If we tried to look at this scientifically I suspect Hansen is more likely in the 5% region of the curve than the 95% region and that would be accepting the IPCCs version of the science. I know the point here is to show the sloppiness of WUWT but really shouldn't we be taking a hard look at Hansens prediction even if it's for 2028?
  8. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    HR, Don't make the mistake of assuming that GSL will rise uniformly. Consider this research from 2009: "A study in Nature Geoscience in March warned that warmer water temperatures could shift ocean currents in a way that would raise sea levels off the Northeast [USA] by about 8 inches (20 cm) more than the average global sea level rise. But it did not include the additional impact of Greenland's ice, which at moderate to high melt rates would further accelerate changes in ocean circulation and drive an additional 4 to 12 inches (about 10 to 30 cm) of water toward heavily populated areas of northeastern North America on top of average global sea level rise. More remote areas in extreme northeastern Canada and Greenland could see even higher sea level rise." So it may well be that the east coast of N. America experiences a greater increase in sea level than other areas will. If I were a betting man, my money would be on Hansen. His prediction may not be perfect, but it will probably be pretty close to the mark.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Nice study. Similar to the Bamber et al study in Science 2009, which found a 25% greater impact from SLR on the US Eastern Seaboard cities than the global average.
  9. Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
    Dana, Sorry, you did say that you were addressing his written testimony. You should try and watch the proceedings, they will be available online soon I hope.
  10. HumanityRules at 15:24 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    17 muoncounter "Red is just a bit above current sea level." That would be 1-7 metres (seawalls are 1.5M above SL at their minimum in the south of the island). At it's worse SLR is expected to be in the region of 10-20cm by 2028. It's still presently 3.4mm/yr and has been for the past 20 years. It's going to have to average more than 3 times that amount from now on to hit the 20cm mark by 2028. I suspect sea level isn't necessarily the issue here rather suspected increase in storm severity. Has anybody read the extended quote from Hansen. Honestly this reads like post-apocalyptic SF to me. "The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won't be there. The trees in the median strip will change." Then he said, "There will be more police cars." Why? "Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up." (this is from the Salon interview with Reiss so take it with as big a pinch of salt as you like but I don't see anybody running to correct this part)
  11. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    Hank, maybe you should check out the NOAA San Fransisco sea level charts. http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9414290 I know you are concerned about the models, but for 30 years, since 1980, there has been appreciable rise in sea level. 8 inches per century, same old, same old.
  12. CO2 effect is saturated
    Tom, Thanks for the info and the link to the other discussions - they were quite informative. I should have guessed that if a relative novice like me can think of it, then others would have already explored the idea in more depth. :-)
  13. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Glenn, I am very well aware of that. I was waiting to see whether Fred agreed that this was the proper way to experimental verify temperature spatial correlation or not. You could add in the analysis of Jones and Kelly too and probably many others.
  14. Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
    Alby - I didn't see the live proceedings, but heard that Christy said something about Antarctic sea ice. Not in his written testimony though.
  15. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    There's no shortage of garbage. But it did take 16+ years just to figure out how to fix a hole in the road. Who knows how long it'll take to figure out what to do, as scaddenp points out, in the event of a serious storm on top of some accelerated rise?
  16. Glenn Tamblyn at 14:38 PM on 10 March 2011
    Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Glenn Tamblyn @85 My Oops. Albatross's second graph is radiosonde data not Sat's. Rest of my comments still apply.
  17. Glenn Tamblyn at 14:35 PM on 10 March 2011
    Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    scaddenp @83 Which is exactly what Hansen et al did when developing the methodology for the GISS temperature series. Details here http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha00700d Abstract of Hansen & Lebedeff 1987 "We analyze surface air temperature data from available meteorological stations with principal focus on the period 1880-1985. The temperature changes at mid- and high latitude stations separated by less than 1000 km are shown to be highly correlated; at low latitudes the correlation falls off more rapidly with distance for nearby stations. We combine the station data in a way which is designed to provide accurate long-term variations. Error estimates are based in part on studies of how accurately the actual station distributions are able to reproduce temperature change in a global data set produced by a three-dimensional general circulation model with realistic variability. We find that meaningful global temperature change can be obtained for the past century, despite the fact that the meteorological stations are confined mainly to continental and island locations. The results indicate a global warming of about 0.5-0.7°C in the past century, with warming of similar magnitude in both hemispheres; the northern hemisphere result is similar to that found by several other investigators. A strong warming trend between 1965 and 1980 raised the global mean temperature in 1980 and 1981 to the highest level in the period of instrumental records. The warm period in recent years differs qualitatively from the earlier warm period centered around 1940; the earlier warming was focused at high northern latitudes, while the recent warming is more global. We present selected graphs and maps of the temperature change in each of the eight latitude zones. A computer tape of the derived regional and global temperature changes is available from the authors" 'Computer tape'! How times have changed.
  18. Glenn Tamblyn at 14:26 PM on 10 March 2011
    Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Fred S @70 etc "At RC you will find that the crucial "fingerprint" of AGW is the simultaneous warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere. Since the UAH data shows no warming of the mid-troposhere since 1979 (the only significant warming period) this data alone would be sufficient to destroy the CO2 theory. Gavin Schmidts (of RC fame) response to me on this point is interesting: [Response: The MT (mid-troposhere) data has a very significant contribution from the stratosphere (which is cooling) and so is not expected to be rising very substantially. This is the whole reason why MSU-LT and the Fu and Johnson approaches were developed. - gavin] So, assuming that the UAH luminaries have not understood this argument, and are consequently publishing misleading data, is the stratosphere really cooling?." Fred The UAH (and RSS) mid-troposphere products (TMT) are based on using the T2 channel from the satellites. This signal originates primarily form the lower & mid troposphere but around 15% comes from the lower stratosphere where there has been cooling. So the signal recorded by T2 is an underestimate of the tropospheres actual temp change. We know the stratosphere has been cooling based on the T4 channel from the satellites. Virtually all of its signal orginates in the lower stratosphere with minimal contamination from the troposphere. In 1992 Spencer & Christy at UAH created a new temperature product using a mathematical technique that removes the stratospheric influence from T2 (but unfortunately also much of the mid tropospheric signal as well) This is their TLT product. In 2005 RSS added a similar product. All the analyses from RSS show greater trends than UAH. This is believed to be due to several factors, primarily their different handling of the short overlap time between the NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 satellites and differing methods of handling Diurnal Drift. The Mid troposphere data shown by Albatross is the RSS T2 analysis - warmer than UAH T2 but still not compensating for stratospheric biasing. Several teams have looked at other analysis techniques - referred to by Gavin, Vinnikov & Grody and Zou et al. Fu & Johansen's method uses a different technique to extract temps from between the 830hPa to 300hPa levels and remove the stratospheric influence; these show warming throughout the entire troposphere at levels equal to or higher than the TLT products. But their method isn't useful for obtaining local or regional trends. However, NOOA maintain a running analysis using FU et al's technique applied to both the UAH and RSS TMT products here http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/msu This may be the source of Albatross's second graph. Vinnikiv & Grody used a quite different technique again and produced even warmer results 0.20 to 0.26 C/Decade and this is without removing the stratospheric bias. Recently Zou et al have published a newer method for performing the critical intersatellite correlation needed to have an on-going trend over multiple satellites. They report a trend 1979 - 2010 of 0.137 C/Decade for TMT again without removing the stratospheric bias. You can see that here http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/mscat/mscatmain.htm To these comments: "1880 to 1940: A period of warming. The mountain glaciers recede and the ice in the Arctic Ocean begins to melt again. The causes of this period of warming are unknown." Some possible causes. Low level CO2 warming from the modest increase of CO2 till then. Slightly higher period of Solar activity. Low levels of Volcanic activity. And your transition point of 1940 may more accurately be 1945. Final contributory cause. A change in the nationality (and thus measurement method) of the ships taking the majority of SST measurements during the war years to those immediately after adding a small warming bias during the war years and a small cooling bias afterwards. "1940 to 1977: Cooling period. The temperatures are cooler than currently. Mountain glaciers recede, and some begin to advance. The tabloids (and climate science) inform us of widespread catastrophes due to the "New Glaciation". The causes of this period of cooling are unknown." Causes. Increased GH Gases. AGW was occurring then as evidenced by the fact that night time temps do show warming over that period. But this was masked by cooling effects. Increased volcanic activity. And much higher aerosol levels due to the post war boom before we started introducing Clean-Air Acts in the 60's/70's. All those Aerosols masking the warming. After 1970, the air gets cleaned up, GH gas warming intensifies and temps (and heat content in the ocean) start to climb, now only interspersed by two major eruptions - El Chinchon & Pinatubo. And Solar output is a little lower so warming really is greater. Then the 2000's 'flattening'. Particularly if we use the El Nino of 1998 as a bad reference point. What has happened this decade? A long and deep Solar Minimum at the end of the decade. Increasing dirty industrialisation in China, India etc. Increased Contrails from the growth of air-travel. So more masking aerosols at the same time as reduced solar output. But even then it was only a levelling off, not a real drop. Consider. 1998 and 2010 are roughly equal for average temp depending on which source you use. 1998 was one of the biggest El Nino's, an event that warms the atmosphere. 2010 was (still is) a huge La Nina, an event that cools the atmosphere. So 1998 + Warming El Nino matched by 2010 and cooling La Nina and milder Sun and more Aerosols. Looks like something else in 2010 is holding the temps up against these other forces. Could it be...GH Gases? (Moderator. I am on a @&%!ing lousy Internet Connection at present. If possible, grovel, beg, could you insert some links to SkS arguments related to the points I have just made)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Added links.
  19. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    Charlie - if sealevel stays are 3-4mm per year, then I would say no problem. We can adapt fast enough. If it exceeds 10mm/year, that is another story but that is the prediction for latter part of this century. Frankly worrying about Manhattan seems a little twee compared to issues of storm surge, erosion and salt-invasion on the big deltas of the world.
  20. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    muoncounter: "Yes, it's called landfill". That's exactly what I meant. Do you expect our ability to fill in shoreline will be reduced or enhanced in the future? Here is a graph of the sea level rise at Battery Park, per NOAAs records. Note that it has pretty much risen at the same rate over the last 150 years, and has not yet drowned the city.
  21. It's too hard
    It's a bit of misdirection at work. What makes for a high standard of living is not ready access to fossil fuels. It's ready access to energy. If that energy just happens to come from, say, solar / wind / hydro / nuclear / biofuel sources, then, well, what do you know, the standard of living is still the same! I also agree with michael sweet's comment at #5: many developed economies are running quite nicely with far lower carbon intensity that the US or Australia. But, no, it's all about "I've got a right to drive the kids to school in a two-and-a-half-tonne SUV that gets 12 miles to the gallon!" The low-hanging fruit is definitely points 1 and 3 in the article above. The cost is minimal, but the savings in terms of energy are quite substantial! By "minimal cost", I really do mean minimal, e.g. with far stricter fuel efficiency requirements on new vehicles, total fuel consumption would drop significantly as older vehicles were replaced. What would the cost be? Approximately zero, financially, but certainly a lot of complaining from people who like to drive huge cars with thirsty engines... What about better insulation of buildings? Well, there are plenty of case studies pointing out that this is a net positive over the longer term, as you generally make back more than the cost of the insulation in terms of lower energy bills. This is only going to become more so as electricity and gas prices continue to rise.
  22. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    "Manhattan has consistently expanded in size," Yes, it's called landfill.
  23. The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
    A catastrophe for pseudo-skeptics would be higher taxes, more expensive fuel, or horrors, regulations. Raising the global mortality rate by several million a year is just fine so long as they are long way away and preferably Muslim.
  24. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    Man seems to be keeping ahead of the ocean. Manhattan has consistently expanded in size, even as the sea level rises. http://www.racontours.com/archive/coastline_anim.php
  25. The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
    I'm quite willing to agree that climate change is only one of the factors that might drive this mass extinction event (which already seems to be well underway). But making a bad situation worse is never a good approach. Reading some of the responses above to my comment, I was struck by a thought: it seems many of the AGW 'skeptics' have an attitude of "Hey, I got mine, why should I care?" This particularly applies to the biodiversity that is being threatened by mass extinction, although I've seen quotes suggesting that some of them don't hesitate to apply it even to their own children. I can only put it down to a profound ignorance of the role that ecosystem services play in ensuring the quality of life that we enjoy today.
  26. Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
    Dana, Didn't Christy also make the misleading comment that the Antarctic is gaining ice? I can't remember is he said that or that the Antarctic sea-ice is increasing. Either way, both are wrong and/or misleading. RickG, Yes, it was quite partisan and the Republican's especially seemed to intent on using their 5 minutes to make ideological rants or spout as many myths about climate science and AGW as they could. They should be ashamed, yet bizarrely they wear their ignorance like a badge of honour and (wrongly) perceive themselves as Galileos. Incredibly disappointing and discouraging that a nation who put men on the moon and which has made so many fine scientific discoveries has now sunk to this. What is annoying is that the EPA have addressed all their concerns in detail, see here.
  27. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    For the record, here's the Sea Level Rise Explorer map of Manhattan. The red strip along the southwest side of the island is the West Side Highway. Red is just a bit above current sea level. The PATH trainyards just south of 34th St are a particularly low point; the aircraft carrier referred to is part of a museum a few blocks north. The GISS office is uptown and uphill a bit (in the green), but with a good view of events. If you zoom the map, look for Broadway and 112St, about 1000' off the river.
  28. HumanityRules at 13:41 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    "Your prior comment was deleted due to violations of the Comments Policy." Which one? It made exactly the same point as MattJ in #1 except with a little more sarcasm (and I thought fun). OK I'll quote MattJ and say I absolutely agree with him. "That still sounds implausible, not at all helpful to getting people to take the issue and the predictions seriously."
  29. HumanityRules at 13:34 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    You don't like sarcasm?
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Your prior comment was deleted due to violations of the Comments Policy.
  30. HumanityRules at 13:32 PM on 10 March 2011
    Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    Erm maybe I should eat my words :) I thought I'd post a link to a webcam of West Side Highway so people could follow the progress of the rising water. I got this one which seems to show an aircraft carrier travelling down the road. It looks like we're too late! http://www.earthcam.com/panasonic/new_york_wshw.html
  31. Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
    I watched the hearing and was very disappointed with the proceedings. It seemed the policy makers (both sides) were more interested in making their own statements than trying to solicit and understand any of the science. It also seemed that both sides directed questions to get the answers they wanted to hear.
  32. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Fred S, Thanks for the reassurance; I guess nuclear plants are safe after all. However, on a more relevant matter for this thread: I note that your fair summary is clipped verbatim from 'The global warming scam'. Google "4,000 years ago to AD 900: Global cooling begins" and you get the whole thing, kicking around the denier echo-chamber since 2005 or so. As you've seen from the response, that's not a much of a source. If you care about your own credibility, please investigate some real science.
  33. It's too hard
    Gilles, "if you really think that the influence of fossil fuel consumption on the standard of living is less obvious... " I most certainly did not say that; I simply said that your attempt at substantiating your point failed dismally. It would be far more beneficial for the conversation at large if you tempered your opinions with actual facts. That is really what this website is all about. Facts can be discussed and evaluated; opinions just hang in the breeze.
  34. Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
    "But there is a real place in the debate for those people, those with dirt under their fingernails, who are in the unique position to be able see whether the way the climate performs in theory is how it actually manifests itself on the ground." Yep, like the people I & my fellow employees talk to on a pretty regular basis-& you want to guess what their feeling is about Global Warming John? They're even more nervous about it than the scientists are-because they're seeing first hand the negative impacts that warming temperatures & more extreme hydrological cycles are having on their crop yields.
  35. Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
    "•Cereal grains including rice, wheat, barley, oats and rye average between 25 and 64 percent higher yields under elevated CO2 levels." Well perhaps-*if* the plants in question are getting sufficient nitrogen, water & trace elements, & are not also being subjected to abnormally warm weather. Also, recent FACE trial results (from Horsham in Victoria) suggest that-even in ideal conditions-any such gains are short-term only, as the plants quickly become acclimatized to the higher CO2 levels.
  36. Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    Timothy Chase: Please contact me ASAP. mandias-at-sunysuffolk.edu
  37. Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
    I am so tired of the right's penchant for equating predictions with prophecies. There are always conditions inherent in predictions that if changed outside the assumed or stated limits nullifies the prediction. It becomes neither right nor wrong.
  38. The Climate Show Episode 8: Kevin Trenberth
    I asked about the OLR "trend" in NOOA data. Gavin Schmidt's response: "it's almost certainly from the NCEP reanalysis. The trends are corrupted by changes in the observing network and uncorrected biases in obs make these trends not robust and untrustworthy. If you look at the ERA interim, I'm sure it would look very different." Note exactly the first time there has been issues with NCEP reanalysis trends that arent. While I note papers using the OLR from ERA-interim (eg Claudio Belotti, Richard Bantges and John Harries), I cant actually find the data so maybe not released yet. Anyone know better?
  39. Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    DB: Since you believe Tamino's use of the wrong SST dataset in an analysis is "de facto standard in climate data analysis", there's no reason for me to continue to discuss this matter.
  40. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Further to what RickG said. Fred, thought experiment - you could set up temperature monitoring network over say a small region, measure for a couple of years to get some averages, then start comparing anomaly temperatures from these stations to see how well they are spatially correlated. If the temperature anomalies are highly spatially correlated, then could reduce no. of station. If not, then you need to increase network to get better estimate of region temperature. Seem like a reasonable experiment to you? You would accept its results?
  41. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Agnostic - google for their "contributions" over at realclimate. See what you think (same old, same old despite helpful responses obviously ignored). Perhaps comments policy needs an extra clause: claims in responses must be substantiated by data and/or papers.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Indeed, some have a knack for saying less with more. As for the comments policy, repetitive unsubstantiated claims can and have gotten deleted in the past; that can also happen in the future. :)
  42. michael sweet at 11:27 AM on 10 March 2011
    It's too hard
    Gilles: According to this Wiki page almost all European countries and Hong Kong produce about 25% of the CO2 per capita as the USA. My observation is that their living standards are about the same as the USA. Can you provide data to support your extraordinary claim of standard of living depending on fossil fuel consumption, or would you rather continue to assert this claim without data? Obviously it is possible to live well with 25% of USA emissions, Europe is doing it now. You have provided little or no data to support your claims. Why should I believe your hand waving?
  43. Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
    The Penn State model is a useful educational tool for visualizing projected big picture impacts of climate change on agricultural production. Stockle et al. at Washington State University (USA) recently published the results of a similar modeling project focused on climate impacts on rainfed wheat, irrigated potatoes, and irrigated apples, three major crops eastern Washington, which has a cool semi-arid to sub-humid climate. They compared four climate models over using the IPCC A1B scenario (middle of the road CO2 emissions), linking them to a well-tested crop growth model. For each crop they ran 4 scenarios, 1) climate effect alone, 2) climate + adaptation (variety and planting date shifts), 3) climate and CO2 effect, and 4) climate + CO2 + adaptation. Modeled temperature increases by late century were around 3 C (compared with 1975-2005 baseline) and precipitation increases were projected. Only winter wheat showed yield increases from climate alone (at some locations), while spring wheat, apples and potatoes declined. Including CO2 effects and adaptation resulted in projected yield increases for apples and potatoes, but decline in quality could be an issue. In some ways this study approaches a best case scenario. The simulations assumed adequate nutrients (likely to be true) and sufficient irrigation water (more problematic given that snowpack is a major local irrigation source), and did not account for extreme weather events, or changes in weed, insect or disease pressure. The authors also noted uncertainty of the extent beneficial effects of CO2 as another caveat.
  44. A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
    "And I repeat : I do not take as granted the speculations about 2020. I'm just looking at ordinary people around me." I do so love how some people turn anecdotal evidence into general *fact*. This claim is as utterly pointless, Gilles, as your earlier question to me. Though I do know several people who own either an EV or an HEV, even if they didn't it wouldn't change the basic fact that an both classes of vehicle generate only an average of 13kg of CO2/100km (even if powered entirely from coal) compared to around 25kg of CO2/100km in a standard car run by a reciprocating engine. Of course, even if you ignore the benefits of the reduced CO2 emissions, there is the obvious reduction of benzene, ozone & particulate emissions at the source-which is good for the health of pedestrians & bike-riders who have the share the road with car drivers.
  45. A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
    Gilles, even an HEV has a lower CO2 footprint than a regular vehicle-a fact you seem utterly determined to ignore. If you use an HEV solely for the daily commute, then you probably won't even need to use the petrol-burning component-yet even if you do need to burn petrol, it will still be several times more efficient than in a reciprocating engine-which gets less than 20% thermal efficiency. Why don't you just come clean, Gilles, & admit that your dislike of HEV's & EV's is because you see them as a threat to your Oil Industry shares.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Please dial back the rhetoric a bit. Whether or not someone has, or hasn't, "oil industry shares" isn't germane to the topic of this post. Thanks!
  46. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Fred, I think you are wrong about comparing temperatures of different areas of a plant to the planet. For measuring the average temperature of the planet, NASA/GISS uses a grid system consisting of some 8,000 grid boxes of which there are many measuring sites within each. Regions do vary greatly but that is what gives the global average. What happens in one region can affect another. But in your plant setting the average temperature of the building is not an issue as there are probably many areas with separate thermostats that are set and controlled specifically for those areas. They do not affect the rest of the plant. As for you reactor temperature that is very important to control. If it starts getting too high that is a serious problem. The Earth as well has critical temperatures that seriously affect the many environments.
  47. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    There are times when I wonder if Gilles and Fred intend making a genuine contribution to the debate – in this case the need to limit atmospheric CO2 concentration to 350ppm by 2100 and how this might be done – or, in the tradition of the best denialists, simply make misleading, unsubstantiated, or untrue statements? If the latter, it seems so pointless, particularly on SkS.
  48. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Also false, Fred, is your claim "The tabloids (and climate science) inform us of widespread catastrophes due to the 'New Glaciation.'" See the Argument "Ice age predicted in the 70s" about climate science predictions. What the tabloids published is entirely irrelevant.
  49. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    Fred Staples, you wrote: "1940 to 1977: Cooling period. The temperatures are cooler than currently. Mountain glaciers recede, and some begin to advance. The tabloids (and climate science) inform us of widespread catastrophes due to the 'New Glaciation'. The causes of this period of cooling are unknown." Your claim of unknown cause is false, as explained in the Argument "It cooled mid-century."
  50. Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
    I will respond to all the comments, but I should first say something to muoncounter (55) so that he can sleep more soundly. I was writing about the measurement of ambient temperatures which related to working conditions, not core temperatures which related to nuclear safety. The problem was that, with relatively few measurement sites, and measurements which were neither continuous nor simultaneous, it was impossible to know the average temperature of the building. All that we could measure was trends at the measurement sites, and even these would be distorted by ventilation changes, doors opening and closing, etc. The parallels to global temperatures are obvious, which is why I made the point. However, think about the core temperatures, which are seriously important. We had (in my day) fixed points inside the core recording temperatures continuously. The maximum permitted core output depended on the average temperature, and the safety of the reactor depended on the highest temperature of an individual fuel element. Both these temperatures were strictly limited, but, by definition, not measured. Inevitably, we had to use a combination of statistics, probability, and sound theory backed up by laboratory based measurements. I hope that helps, but I am not sure that it will.
    Moderator Response: Respond to each point on the appropriate thread as the responders have pointed you to. A general thread such as this one is okay for starting conversations, but getting into more detail must be done on more relevantly narrow threads. Feel free to post comments here, simply linking to your responses on the relevant, narrow threads.

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