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Eric (skeptic) at 00:06 AM on 6 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Riccardo, PDO is indeed not a forcing, it is an index reflecting the result of various natural forcings. Thus it explains some of the natural variation that overlays AGW. But there is an important fact about the index not mentioned above which is that the index has the global SST anomaly subtracted from it, see http://www.springerlink.com/content/5xm9ngv5fn5dc2r7/fulltext.pdf (Mantua and Hare 2002) where they explain: "Residuals are here defined as the difference between observed anomalies and the monthly mean global average SST anomaly (see Zhang et al. 1997)." I believe that is what Roy Spencer was trying to show by adding "CO2" to PDO in his graph. -
neilrieck at 23:28 PM on 5 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
I am not sure if Roy Spencer promotes bad-science accidentally or on purpose, but this is not the first time he has blundered. Recently I was searching through a database of the stolen emails from East Anglia colloquially known as Climate Gate. I found an email where researchers Mears and Wentz are mentioned as the discoverers of major mathematical errors in the algorithms used by Roy Spencer and John Christy. One error was the wrong algebraic sign. It turns out that the bad-science published by these researchers from the University of Alabama has been the primary reason why the climate models were questioned by the public at large. The errors where published in SCIENCE in 2005 with Spencer and Christy acknowledging the errors in the letters section of September 2005 issue. So why do Spencer and Christy continue to deny the science? Click the following link to see the details. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/climate_science.html#climategate -
angusmac at 23:28 PM on 5 March 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Tom @ 136 and Anom @137, I agree that I should be using decadal averages nevertheless it doesn't change the outcome of my argument as shown below.
I have plotted the MWP peak temperature as the red line and the modern peak as the blue line on Ljungqvist's (2010) temperature reconstruction in Figure C and it is evident that the MWP peak is 0.11 °C warmer than the modern peak, i.e. the MWP was warmer than the 1990-1999 mean temperature.
Tom, I also agree that the GISS data show that 2000-2009 mean temperature is 0.18°C higher than 1990-1999. Now, if I assume that the proxy temperatures respond linearly with actual temperatures, the 2000-2009 peak would be 0.18 - 0.11 = 0.07°C higher than the MWP. This is hardly unprecedented warming and is about one-ninth of the 0.6 °C figure stated by Dana.
Finally, the assumption that proxies would increase linearly from the 1990's to the 2000's questionable because, "…recent proxy data does not emulate the recent instrumental data" (Ljungqvist, 2010). Proxy temperatures are much lower than the corresponding present-day instrumental temperatures (see Figure A in #132) i.e., the so-called divergence problem. What we really need are present-day proxies so that we can compare the current warm period with the earlier proxies.
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williambaskerville at 23:01 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
@ Tom Curtis Unfortunately it seems to me that you are a person, arguing ad hominem: "silly" "look a fool". That's a real shame. You are not that kind of person I want to talk to at all. So this is the last post addressed to you personally. "However, you identify as one of your regionally cooling regions New Zealand." No, I just identify some glaciers in NZ advancing in the current (until 1998), global WP. "... of just one or two glacier records for only decade (instead of the whole century) is cherry picking. If you don't like the term, don't do it." Come on. The chart starts 1977 and not 1900. Your argument "overall decline" is only valid for the period 1998 until now, with the exception 2002-2005. If you will call this a "trend" than do so. I am fine with it. You can find a "trend" downwards on the scaled mass balance of New Zealand glaciers, starting 1998. That is true. "Finally ..." My post Nr. 33: "Gehen Sie von den möglichen Steuergrößen aus. Was bleibt übrig? Alles läuft auf dieser Skala auf die Sonne hinaus. Wenn dem so ist, müsste man sicher von einer globalen Anomalie ausgehen dürfen; natürlich durch interne Oszillationen modifiziert" My translation: Assuming potential actuating variables. What has been left? Everything leads on this scale to the sun. If this is the case, a global anomaly can be assumed; of course modified by internal oscillations. @ MarkR Scherler et al., Abstract: In contrast, more than 50% of observed glaciers in the westerlies-influenced Karakoram region in the northwestern Himalaya are advancing or stable. Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability, or global sea level You are right but I don`t think this is an argument against my statement that we have increasing glaciers in the Karakorum. -
Gilles at 22:51 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Tom#28 : I do fully agree with you. But I'm just saying that all "energy policies" reduce actually energy intensity - they do not control the whole emission rate, especially at a world wide scale. How can you prevent Chindia from using the oil spared by american hybrids vehicles? The Ville : actually hundreds of millions of chinese people went out of poverty in the last decade through an increase of their fossil fuel consumption. I think they would be happy if you show them how they could have made it in another way. -
mspelto at 22:48 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
In the United States we have had a very severe recession over the last 30 months. The vast majority of companies had layoffs and suffered financial losses, a number went out of business. That a few companies continued to grow is not evidence there was not a recession. The same holds for glaciers. Almost all are losing considerably volume, some are disappearing, a very few are not losing volume. The glacier volume loss is global and a strong indicator of global warming. The glaciers advancing noted by Koch and Clague are sufficient in number to indicate that they are not the small anomaly of today's advancing glaciers. The advances were also large enough to advance well beyond their former margin, that is not happening anywhere today. Again look at the synchronous response of northwestern North America glaciers in terms of mass balance change, and how this curve looks like the global signal, Rainbow Glacier charts near bottom. The latter graph I just submitted this week for BAMS State of Climate Report 2010, for the glacier section. -
michael sweet at 22:46 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Thingadonta, Your entire post has a total of zero links to data. "Others have looked" is just a bunch of deniers who do not know how to analyze data,or fabricate distortions. Provide links to peer reviewed data. If you cannot provide links to the data you will not convince anyone you have anything to say. Riccardo, You certainly have a lot of appropriate links to peer reviewed data. Are you involved in research in this field? -
Tom Curtis at 22:33 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
thingadonta, what is the correlation (r^2) between the temperature increase and solar output - PDO with a monthly plot. IF you only have a smoothed plot (which exagerates correlation) what is the correlation for that smooth plot, and what is the smoothing. And who worked this out, and where did they work it out? -
MarkR at 22:32 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
#15 williambaskerville: I did read one recent paper on Himalayan glaciers in Karakoram. It was widely reported as 'Himalayan glaciers growing' (although the Telegraph have now changed their title on that article as far as I can see). This paper looked only at area changes, and isn't a proper mass balance. But changes in accumulation might be increasing their volume there. Maybe. In terms of area, more than half were expanding there, but the mean change in area was negative i.e. total area went down in Karakoram. The data is available if you look in the supplementary material, I decided to check for myself after all the popular media rants about how they were growing... williambaskerville at 22:49 PM on 4 March, 2011 Hi, I don't think this is a argument against the MWP. Don't we actually have increasing glaciers in Norway, New Zealand and the Karakorum? Don't we have regions in the world, not getting warmer? -
Kevin C at 22:14 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
thinadonta@3: Have you tried factoring out the solar cycle from the temperature trend? Tamino does it here and several others have done similar calcs. Once you take out the effect of the solar cycle, the flattening since 2000 (which would probably be better described as an anomalously fast increase leading up to 2000) is replaced with a pretty linear trend. Here's a paper on the same thing: Lean and Rind (2009), GRL 36. -
Alexandre at 22:07 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
To me it's not even clear that the PDO "warm" phase means a warmer Pacific SST as a whole. Eyeballing the figures, it looks like the "warm" phase could even be cooler than the "cold" one. Let alone warm the globe. Does anyone have a quantitative figure? -
Paul D at 21:43 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Gilles:"for a given energy intensity, doesn't it mean that we would just prevent poor people of getting richer ?" Being poor is a political/social issue that is separate from policies legislating for carbon. If you are worried about the poor, then you are dealing with an age old issue that exists throughout history. Why would you think you are going to solve it with cheap fossil fuels? So by all means tackle it in the context of 'traditional' (aka 20th century left/right arguments). But don't pretend that a global issue that has an impact on poor and rich and different species, can be drawn into this age old and failed discussion about the 'poor'. -
Paul D at 21:37 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
As ranyl has pointed out, emissions in some cases have been exported from the EU to China/India. This is a well known issue. It is definitely the case in the UK where manufacturing has shrunk enormously and where cargo containers coming to the UK are 100% full, whilst those that leave are 50% empty. Offloading manufacturing to other nations doesn't reduce emissions, the chase for cheaper labour, fuel etc increases emissions. -
Tom Curtis at 21:01 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Gilles, the atmosphere does not give a hoot about our Carbon intensity. Carbon intensity is not a physical cause of anything. Carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere, on the other hand, is a cause of global warming. So, I don't care a hoot what you do with your "carbon intensity" if it does not reduce total carbon emissions. On the other hand, reducing carbon emissions while preserving economic growth will inevitably reduce carbon intensity (seeing you like reductions in abstract quantities so much). Further, probable consequences of Business As Usual include the loss of the Amazon rain forest, and the loss of the Great Barrier reef. These are costs always left out of economic assessments of the proper value of carbon reductions, and for good reason. If they were left in, it becomes self evident that the cost of not reducing carbon emissions is too great. -
Tom Curtis at 20:50 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
WB, your "point" is that there are regionally cooling areas in the modern warm period, so that identifying regionally cooling areas in the 10th and 11th centuries does not disprove the existence of a global MWP. I think that point is valid, as I have said. However, you identify as one of your regionally cooling regions New Zealand. As it happens, NZ has been warming over the course of the 20th century, and over that period its glaciers have been retreating, with some short duration exceptions. Therefore picking on NZ as one of your cooling regions on the basis of just one or two glacier records for only decade (instead of the whole century) is cherry picking. If you don't like the term, don't do it. Seeing a graph that obviously shows an overall decline in and then picking out just those sections of the graph which show an increase in mass balance is very silly. It is cherry picking when the refuting evidence is directly in front of us, and can only make the person who does it look a fool. Either you have a bizzare straw man view of global warming that says that all temperature rises, or glacial retreats will be monotonic; or you suffer under the mistaken notion that Koch and Clague only show occasional decades of glacier expansion against a backdrop of centuries long decline (rather than the reverse as they claim); or by pointing out short periods of increase against a backdrop of overall decline, you are cherry picking. Finally, you are apparently a German speaker. If you were not, then presenting an untranslated German text as evidence would be simple foolishness for you would not know what it means. As a German speaker, with evidently reasonable English skills translating the text should be no problem to you. If, however, you think the text is so unimportant that the Google translator can be trusted to give its sense, then I will take that assessment at its face value, and not bother. Anything whose sense is so unimportant that it can be trusted to google is not worth reading. (Your refusal to translate the German passages is a fair indication that you are merely making an implicit appeal to authority. It is the "Dr" in front of the name that is evidently important, not what they said, which you cannot be bothered conveying to us.) -
thingadonta at 20:49 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Even though the PDO would not explain a long term rising T trend, when coupled with rising solar output from 1750-1850, it correlates well with early 20th century warming (+increasing solar output), mid 20th century cooling (+flattening solar output), less so with late 20th century warming (flattening solar output). But what you have faiiled to mention is that these 3 coupled periods (sun+-PDO) correspond better than c02 does in the 20th century (eg mid 20th century cooling with rising c02), implying that climate sensitivity to c02 is low. That is, the c02 effect is weak when you intergrate PDO, solar trends, and c02 trends in the 20th century, and also up to the 1st decade of the 21st century. Others have looked at this and come up with a correlation of 24% between T and c02 since 1850, and it's currently falling (rising c02 but flattening T). This together implies very weak climate sensitivity to c02, and that most of the warming since 1900 has been from solar output + 20 year+ heat lag effects, coupled with PDO oscillation + lag effects (heat derived from same source since 1750-warming sun). C02 effect has been increasing since 1950 but is still weak, as also seen in the flattening of T since 2000. -
Gilles at 20:25 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
I think there is a confusion between two meanings of "reducing" CO2 emissions. Does it mean reducing the carbon intensity (the amount of fossil burnt for a given good or service), or the fossil fuel annual consumption (which is the former multiplied by the total consumption of goods ?). If the first one is easily defendable,the second one is much less obvious : for a given energy intensity, doesn't it mean that we would just prevent poor people of getting richer ? and there is even a third question : even if we reduce annual emissions, would it mean that we will reduce the total amount of extracted fossil fuels? if you spare say half of the fossil fuels, it means that after some period, you will be left with half of your initial amount, at at time when everything would have been exhausted if you hadn't made these conservation improvements. Does it mean that you stop extracting the remaining reserves just at this moment ? no of course. First because you don't know exactly what would have happened in a different world, and second because there is no reason to do it. So the TOTAL amount of fossil fuels is just driven by geological availability - unless we find a way to replace totally the use of fossil fuels by something else, they would just become "totally useless", but this seems to be very unlikely just now. -
Tom Curtis at 20:25 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
garythompson, on the Forbes list, the mean of the rankings of the 10 states has improved from 31 from 33.6 in 2009. If we are to use your fallacy that any change in costs must be due to the introduction of a carbon price, then we must assume that the net effect of such an introduction is favourable to business. Of course, that assumption is invalid. Consequently simply pointing to a ranking of business costs in the various states is uninformative about the net effect of the carbon price, even if the rankings in all states had declined. It is not clear that the actual situation, in which 50% of the states improved their ranking, while 40% declined (as pointed out by Marcus), albeit with a 1.4 decline in mean ranking overall, would support your case even if the carbon price was the only factor that changed. A decline in ranking, after all, can come with decreasing business costs because business costs have decreased further in another state. As other factors are undoubtedly involved, the rankings leave us almost completely in the dark. -
Gilles at 20:10 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
I think it is unlikely that oscillations like PDO explain the whole XXth century trend, and that CO2 doesn't contribute to this trend. However, one should recognize that current GCM models are quite unable to describe this (and other) oscillations, and that this lowers their reliability concerning the determination of climatic parameters such as the CO2 sensitivity. If PDO contributes significantly to the warming of the last 30 years, it is not reproduced by the "natural alone" variations in GCM models (see e.g. http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-6-14.jpg ) , so this should lower the anthropic contribution accordingly -
johnd at 19:52 PM on 5 March 2011Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Riccardo, when you state "the PDO index has no trend" I assume you mean no trend in the magnitude of the index as it oscillates. But given it is an oscillation should it not be the frequency of the oscillation that is more relevant in the search for any trends rather than the magnitude of the index. Just looking at your Fig. 2: annual PDO index from 1900 to 2010, it appears that over that short time span, the index appears to have spent more time in the positive phase rather than the negative phase. Even in the reconstruction it appears as if the frequency of the oscillation has been increasing as we go. -
williambaskerville at 19:46 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
@ Tom Curtis "He does not help his case, however, by his clear propensity to cherry pick, as by using individual glaciers rather than data from glaciers for a particular region. And his comments @41 are just silly." What is my case? You've got the point in "I think ..." and "From ..." It is not a "Cherry Picking" at all. "Regional evidence" is the point. If you take it as an evidence on case A but not on case B. That is "Cherry Picking"! I only wanted to show that. "And his comments @41 are just silly. (On a side note, posting German (?) quotes on an English speaking site without translation is both discourteous and unhelpfull.)" The comments aren't silly at all. If Scaddenp argues "virtually all the rest of NZ glaciers retreat", and Rob Painting does post a picture to confirm, than I have imho the right to point out that in several years within the period 1977-2009 the glaciers advanced. The same right for all! Btw it is not my task to translate interviews. Google is in general a good "thing", I've learned from the post of Mr. Murphy, so why can`t you take a google-translator? Is it to silly to do so? My point is not that a MWP was warmer than the current WP. OK? -
Marcus at 19:37 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
"It seems that anyone who disagrees with you or anyone else in the pro-global warming crowd is from the "pro-fossil fuel brigade." Actually, that's patently untrue. I save that label only for people who (a) use extremely lame arguments to "disprove" the anthropogenic link to global warming, (b) try & use equally lame arguments to "prove" we shouldn't take any action to reduce CO2 emissions or (c) refuse to engage in a proper debate on the issues. So you, Gary & Poptech will most certainly get labeled with that epithet-as I rightly think you deserve. Although I disagree with many other people at this site, I most certainly don't necessarily accuse them all of being pro-fossil fuel industry. -
Marcus at 19:31 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
"Also, I'd argue that this study is done only after 2 - 3 the program was implemented. I think a long-term study would be more convincing." Gee, didn't stop your mate Gary from falsely trying to derive some kind of negative spin from the Forbes article-but I didn't notice you criticizing him (well, why would you, you're both on the same team). The fact is that this is a very good indicator of the potential benefits of such schemes. If you want more long term data to convince you-look at some of the beneficial outcomes in Mainland Europe. As to your criticism regarding the regional nature of this scheme-the whole idea is to provide a test-bed which other States-& Countries-can follow, & it does make a contribution to overall CO2 reduction-or would you rather we continue to adopt the "head-in-the-sand" approach that your mates in the industry keep pushing? Also, every tonne of coal or oil that remains unconsumed not only represents a reduction in CO2 emissions, it also represents a reduction in the emissions of benzene, particulate emissions, cadmium, radon, mercury & a host of other toxic chemicals that can lead to environmental damage on a local/regional level. It will also reduce the mount of environmental damage caused in both the pursuit of coal/oil & in the dumping of the millions of tonnes of waste generated from burning coal. -
Rob Painting at 19:30 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Blessthefall - "The last time I checked the "problem" that is being addressed is called "global" warming, not United States warming or Delaware warming or New Hampshire warming" True, but The US is the major polluter, both historically and presently. Seems like a lame excuse to do nothing. "There's a reason why we use coal and oil as our primary sources of energy: it's cheap and efficient" But it's not really cheap at all. Remove government subsidies and factor in the environmental cost (whoa!, that would be a biggie!) then they are in fact incredibly expensive. Depends how you choose to define it eh?. "if there is any company that could possibly benefit from a new energy source - whether it be solar, wind, or whatever - it'd be those evil guys from the "fossil fuel brigade." Dude (or dudette) that doesn't make any sense. The fossil fuel industry has an infrastucture worth trillions of dollars. Why would they be happy in that being rendered obsolete?. And now that global warming is causing world food shortages we are seeing societal upheaval in poor countries, like those in the Middle East. Have you even been down to your local gas station recently?. The price of oil is skyrocketing and oil companies will be making record profits. Why the heck would renewable energy interest them?. -
Marcus at 19:26 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
"There's a reason why we use coal and oil as our primary sources of energy: it's cheap and efficient. Moreover, your comments seem to suggest that you believe the oil companies are fighting, or trying to prove global warming wrong because it affects their bottom line. If you stopped with the ad hominem attacks and thought about it, you'd know that, if there is any company that could possibly benefit from a new energy source - whether it be solar, wind, or whatever - it'd be those evil guys from the "fossil fuel brigade." Wow, just how much bunkum can you squeeze into a single post? I make those accusations of people who use any kind of straw-man argument to attack attempts to reduce our continued over-consumption of carbon-rich energy sources. As to your claims of about how "cheap & efficient" it is-total rubbish. (1) The limitations of physics means that coal power stations will *never* be more than 35% thermally efficient. (2) Almost all coal power stations have to produce the same amount of electricity 24-hours a day, & often have to push that electricity out over a distance of 20 kilometers or more. This means that, at night, large amounts of electricity are being generated that isn't getting used, & over long distances as much as 15% of the electricity being generated never reaches its destination (due to transmission & distribution losses)-so much for "efficient". As to being cheap-well it is *now*, but only after *trillions* of dollars of government support over the space of more than 100 years. Renewable energy has become cost-effective in a shorter space of time, & with much less government intervention. Even today, though, many of the costs of coal mining & combustion (the externalities) are covered by the tax-payer, not the coal industry. As to your final point, until every last ounce of oil & coal is depleted, the fossil fuel brigade will remain deeply opposed to renewable energy & energy efficiency-because every megawatt of energy not generated from fossil fuels is another dollar that isn't being earned by them. Still, nice to see you & Gary trying to double-team me on behalf of your beloved industry. -
Blessthefall at 19:07 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Also, I'd argue that this study is done only after 2 - 3 the program was implemented. I think a long-term study would be more convincing. -
Blessthefall at 19:01 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
I still don't understand why single states or countries are imposing cap and trade systems. The last time I checked the "problem" that is being addressed is called "global" warming, not United States warming or Delaware warming or New Hampshire warming. Whether one thinks humans contribute to climate change in any significance or not, myself being in the latter group, it's a waste of money and time to pass cap and trade systems when the entire global community isn't on board - the US can reduce emissions while China, India, and other growing economies go unchecked. Moreover, I think that a study similar to this one should be done during a period of economic growth, not economic decline. Then we can truly find out if these cap and trade systems work. Marcus, I've read your comments on this website for quite some time. It seems that anyone who disagrees with you or anyone else in the pro-global warming crowd is from the "pro-fossil fuel brigade." Why is that? There's a reason why we use coal and oil as our primary sources of energy: it's cheap and efficient. Moreover, your comments seem to suggest that you believe the oil companies are fighting, or trying to prove global warming wrong because it affects their bottom line. If you stopped with the ad hominem attacks and thought about it, you'd know that, if there is any company that could possibly benefit from a new energy source - whether it be solar, wind, or whatever - it'd be those evil guys from the "fossil fuel brigade." -
Same Ordinary Fool at 18:23 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
The time period (say, 1910 to the present) of current warming (global or hemispheric) obviously can be well defined. The same cannot be said for the skeptic's proposed warmer 'MWP'. How coterminous are their geographical data points? Which century is favored? Increasing snowfall (and its timing) explains many of the anomalously advancing glaciers. This is the explanation for the Karakoram glaciers that are growing, while the Himalayan glaciers are retreating. Some high latitude glaciers can benefit from the increased water vapor in the atmosphere, picked up over warmer oceans. And, as I remember it, Mt. Shasta glaciers in California benefit from both El Nino weather south of it, and La Nina weather north of it. -
Marcus at 18:19 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
"the bottom 10 in 2008 remained in the bottom 10 in 2010 2 years after passing the cap and trade systems. that is what i call an *epic fail*." How can it be considered "epic fail"? No one ever said that Cap & Trade was going to reduce the cost of doing business in those States-only that it would not significantly *increase* business costs-whilst still generating additional income for the State Economy-a fact that appears to be borne out by the Forbes piece that you cited. I certainly don't expect Cap & Trade to miraculously reduce business costs in the space of little more than 2 years-especially not compared to the relatively low income States like those in the South. That you do-or seem to-just suggests that you're setting up a Straw-man. A tactic I've come to expect from the pro-fossil fuel brigade. -
Marcus at 18:02 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
So to summarize Gary-you tried to spin the Forbes data to insinuate that Cap & Trade had directly led to an increase in business costs in the States where it was implemented. Yet even a cursory reading of the figures you present don't even come close to proving your point-both because the majority of the States you mentioned either improved or remained unchanged & because you cannot actually prove that any increases in business costs can be directly associated with Cap-&-Trade (& Forbes, at least, is wise enough to to make such an unfounded assertion). Interestingly, many of the 10 States in that Forbes piece are ranked quite high on the Economic Climate & Growth Potential categories-which further undermines your already massively weak case. Like I said, I define that as an *epic fail*. -
Marcus at 17:56 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
"blue collar workforces have white collar employees (engineers, scientists, HR, managers, etc.) to support the manufacturing process" That might be true, but a factory employing 1,000 people is going to have the majority of that workforce be blue-collar (probably around 80-90%), whereas a financial planning or R&D business employing the same number of people-for example-is going to have close to 100% of that workforce be white-collar. So the only one showing his ignorance here is *you*. -
Marcus at 17:53 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Hey Gary, the only one attempting spin here is *you*-I was just telling it like it is. You chose to focus on cost of business, yet the "evidence" you presented *failed* to do prove your point-indeed, given that the majority of States you mentioned *improved* in their ranking, it actually hurt your point. The idea that States with high business costs pre-Cap & Trade will become areas with very low costs virtually overnight is the worst kind of straw-man argument, but one that I've come to expect of the hard-core denialist brigade (of which you're clearly a member). Seriously, when you can provide solid *evidence* that Cap-&-Trade has significantly increased the cost of doing business in those 10 States, then I might listen, but right now you haven't even got circumstantial evidence to back your assertion. I do find it funny that people like you are so "skeptical" of AGW, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, yet expect us to swallow your rubbish claims on the basis of incredibly *weak* "evidence". Given that this is a frequent "Modus Operandi" of yours, I just figured you'd be better off on Watt's site-where such an MO is not only tolerated-its endorsed. -
protestant at 17:40 PM on 5 March 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
@ Moderator in message #133: So? NH extratropical includes europe therefore it is already accounted for. No reason to choose spesific locations which represent only a small fraction of the globe. -
garythompson at 17:05 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Marcus - you can spin this any way you want but the purpose of this post was to show how carbon cap and trade improved business. the bottom 10 in 2008 remained in the bottom 10 in 2010 2 years after passing the cap and trade systems. that is what i call an *epic fail*. if you call that a success then that is your opinion but i do not call that a success. the good news is that the northeastern states in the US will reduce their carbon footprint because businesses will be leaving those areas due to the high taxes associated with those policies. blue collar workforces have white collar employees (engineers, scientists, HR, managers, etc.) to support the manufacturing process so your argument reveals that you have no manufacturing/business experience. i don't know what WUWT has anything to do with my comments but if you need a villian to rally against i guess that is who you choose to represent your straw man. i choose to come to SkC because i view this as the premier site for debating the science related to climate change. -
apsmith at 16:23 PM on 5 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
A bit more of a write-up on this issue (thanks Kevin) here. -
Marcus at 15:54 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Also, why only focus on the cost of business aspect? Why not growth potential, or economic climate? The cost of business has a lot of factors associated with it-not least the kind of business & who they need to work there. A business with a predominantly blue collar workforce, which has little or no overheads, will have less costs than one with a white collar workforce with lots of overheads. Its no surprise that the States with the best rankings come from States known for businesses that don't require a highly skilled or educated workforce...again, epic *fail* Gary. Your point relies on a false correlation-& a correlation which doesn't even seem to exist to boot. They must love you over at WUWT, where opinion masquerading as fact is de riguer. -
Marcus at 15:41 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
So lets see then-New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey & New York all *improved* in rank; Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts & Delaware have all declined in rank-whilst Connecticut has remained unchanged. Which tells me that cap-and-trade has had *no net impact* on cost of business in the United States. I know it wasn't your intention, but thanks for effectively proving our point-namely that Cap & trade will not have any net negative impact on the cost of doing business-certainly no more than any other regulatory factor-yet it *will* have a positive impact on the environment. Talk about an *epic fail* there Gary. Time to go back & haunt WUWT where you clearly belong. -
dana1981 at 15:09 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Cam burn - maybe try reading the article you're commenting on. Garythompson - your argument strikes me as similar to claiming that Japanese people live relatively long because they eat a lot of rice. States that were ranked low by Foerbes prior to cap and trade are still ranked low by Forbes. Shocking! By the way, in California we haven't implemented cap and trade yet. -
garythompson at 14:55 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
For further clarification on my post #10, that ranking was for 2008, before the passage of many of these carbon cap and trade systems. Let's see how they rank now. Here is the link showing the ranking in 2010. and the ranking based on business cost rank is: 12th delaware 40th new hampshire 41st rhode island 42nd vermont 43rd new york 45th connecticut 46th new jersey 47th maine 49th maryland 50th massachusetts It should be noted that california is 44th - They also passed a cap and trade system since 2008. -
garythompson at 14:43 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
See the following link from Forbes magazine ranking the states in the USA based on several variables. Once you are on the page click the column entitled "Business Cost Rank". Here is the ranking of the states that were listed in this post. 3rd delaware 40th maryland 41st new hampshire 42nd rhode island 43rd vermont 44th maine 45th connecticut 46th massachusetts 48th new jersey 49th new york Note there are 50 states in the USA and delaware is ranked 3rd due mainly to its easy business incorporation laws (Many corporations in the USA are incorporated in this state although they reside elsewhere). It appears that all but one of the states you listed in this posting are among the worst states in the USA to do business in. Is there a correlation between this ranking and their use of a carbon cap and trade system? Mr. O'Brien from new hampshire isn't the only one who thinks carbon cap and trade systems are not 'pro business'. -
Camburn at 14:37 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
New Hampshire voted this week to leave the NE coalition on carbon. -
Chris3699 at 13:24 PM on 5 March 2011It's too hard
I'm all for a carbon tax but how do we stop companies from trying to protect their profit margins by passing the burden of the tax on to the consumer or by sacking their workers? My guess would be that if we had more government run businesses, who were on board with looking after the public interest, they could undercut the prices of the privately owned companies if they tried to pass the burden of the carbon tax on to the consumer, thus ensuring that the majority of the carbon tax would come out of their profit, as it should. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 13:18 PM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Dana #5 "Americans are deathly afraid of taxes...." I don't know that this is true of over half of Americans if there is good reason (and many think there is good reason in this case), but some are dead set against taxes, as are some in other countries. Australians can be as dead set as any. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:07 PM on 5 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
More warming is inevitable (resistance is futile!):
"Departure of sea surface temperature from average for 2010 from the NOAA Daily Optimum Interpolation SST Anomaly data set for October 2010. Areas colored red are warmer than the 1971-2000 average, areas colored blue are cooler than that average. A large region of record warm water temperatures extended along the west coast of Greenland, leading to record warm air temperatures and record melting along the western portion of Greenland in 2010. Ocean temperatures along the southwest coast of Greenland (60N to 70N, 60W to 50W) computed from the UK Hadley Center data set during 2010 were 2.9°C (5.2°F) above average--a truly remarkable anomaly, surpassing the previous record of 1.5°C set in 2003. Sea surface temperature records for Greenland began in the 1920s."
The Yooper
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dana1981 at 12:24 PM on 5 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
HR #98: sensitivity refers to the average temperature change across the whole planet in response to a CO2 change. I suppose you could break it down geographically and figure out a region-by-region sensitivity (the poles would have a higher sensitivity than lower latitudes). -
nigelj at 12:11 PM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
I will clarify the glacier issue in New Zealand, since I live there. There have been short term periods of advance of most glaciers as in 1990, which has now turned into an extended retreat. Over the last 100 years the trend is most glaciers are retreating, or a nett decrease in ice mass. From NIWAS website "Despite the sensitivity of New Zealand glaciers to changes in both precipitation and temperature, the volume of ice in the Southern Alps dropped by roughly 50% during the last century. New Zealand’s temperature increased by about 1 °C over the same period." http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/glaciers-continue-to-shrink2 -
Tom Curtis at 11:53 AM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
I think Williambaskerville as a point. Looking at the moderator's response @24, it is clear that the entire eastern Siberian peninsular was cooler in the 2000's than during the period from 1959 to 1980. No one here would want to argue from that that the world has not warmed during the interval. From the article, I gather there is firm evidence that Spain, and a significant area of the Rocky Mountains is much warmer now then during the MWP. However, this is again just regional evidence. We should not argue from just two regions that global temperatures in the MWP were significantly lower than current temperatures. In that much, WB is right. He does not help his case, however, by his clear propensity to cherry pick, as by using individual glaciers rather than data from glaciers for a particular region. And his comments @41 are just silly. (On a side note, posting German (?) quotes on an English speaking site without translation is both discourteous and unhelpfull.) Nor does he help his case be ignoring the fact that reconstructions of past hemispheric or global temperatures consistently show peak MWP temperatures equivalent in some decade in the period 1950-2000, with modern temperatures clearly exceeding that range. That is not a slam dunk for a cooler MWP once error bars are taken into account, but it does show that a cooler MWP is more likely than not on current evidence, and possibly even likely in IPCC parlance ( > 66% probability). What I do not understand is the rhetorical battle over the MWP. If peak global temperatures during the MWP were 0.5 degrees C greater than at present, what would it matter. The presumed forcings of the MWP are still absent today; and global temperatures are expected to rise by 6 to 8 times that on conservative estimates. The denier focus on the MWP seems to me to be futile point scoring based on an attempt to cultivate ignorance. -
HumanityRules at 11:37 AM on 5 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Thanks Dana I've got another general question. Is global climate sensitiviity a real world phenomenon? What I mean is that with ideas such as polar amplification would actual climate sensitivity vary in different regions? -
Tom Curtis at 11:04 AM on 5 March 2011A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs
Alexandre @4, A carbon tax is simpler to enforce, but has the disadvantage that it does not allow the trade of carbon credits. That trade is essential for the efficient allocation of carbon usage between industries, and between nations. Ideally, we should be working towards a world system in which each nation is allocated a portion of the maximum acceptable global emissions based on a per capita basis fixed at some reference year. We should then allow trade in carbon credits so that those with maximum current usage can reduce carbon usage at a more gradual pace, purchasing credits to compensate for their excess production of carbon. ranyl @3, while a carbon price will not significantly reduce demand for energy, to which we are adicted, it will significantly change the best means of sourcing that energy. The only way this is not true is if alternative power sources are so inefficient as to by not commercially viable at any reasonable price (contrary to the claims of their advocates). -
robert way at 10:58 AM on 5 March 2011Icing the Medieval Warm Period
scaddenp at 08:30 AM on 5 March, 2011 Individual glaciers as a proxy can be dubious but widespread changes are a good indicator of climatic changes. Furthermore, ice caps in the high arctic such as those mentioned previously by me are extremely sensitive to climatic changes with a small climatic change soliciting a large response.
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