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dana1981 at 08:52 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
The chart is correct. -
Daniel Bailey at 08:51 AM on 1 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
As discussed here, Greenland’s glaciers double in speed: The Yooper -
KR at 08:37 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - The sun is directly analogous to the 1KW heater - as I posted here the solar spectra passes through the atmosphere to the Earth, affected primarily by Raleigh scattering (not GHG's), and warms the surface. The analogy is completely correct, the energy flow is from the Sun to the surface and out to space through the atmosphere. A small amount of sunlight heats the atmosphere directly (your block heater touches part of the piece of wood in the analogy); that changes only in detail, not in essentials. And the atmosphere is a radiative insulator between the Earth and space. The surface of the Earth has an emissivity of ~.97 to .98 in IR, while the effective emissivity of the Earth and atmosphere to space is ~0.612; the insulation. And that insulation makes the planet warmer than it would be without the greenhouse gas atmosphere. -
Dikran Marsupial at 08:33 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel@415 wrote: "The Sun/Earth arrangement has the heat source (the Sun) outside the Earth/atmosphere system." what you don't appear to realise is that the atmosphere is largely transparent to the suns visible and ultraviolet radiation, which directly warms the Earths surface not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is warm not because it absorbs a lot of IR radiation from the sun, but from the IR radiated by the surface that has been heated by absorbing SW radiation from the sun and by conduction/convection. Thus the atmosphere is acting as an insulator, insulating the warm surface from the cold of space. This has been pointed out to you at least twice on this thread. -
paulgrace at 08:33 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
@ #1 Matt J is right, the chart is backwards. Yes and No should be reversed in both cases. -
damorbel at 08:22 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #411 you wrote:- "Take instead a block of metal, heated on one side with 1KW of power, sitting on the other side on a huge block of ice. It will reach some dynamic equilibrium temperature, say 100 degrees." But your system has a 1kW heat source on one side (of a block) and you add some insulator (the wood) to the other side. Of course the temperature will rise. The Sun/Earth arrangement has the heat source (the Sun) outside the Earth/atmosphere system. Although your model is set up with the Earth as a heat source this is not the case. My best model is the blanket. A blanket keeps you warm because it stops your body heat escaping, as a result you are warmer than the bedroom. If you die, your body heat stops and your body (now a corpse) cools down to room temperature. If the room temperature increases (because the Sun is making the room hot) the corpse under the blanket will get warmer too because it follows the room temperature. There will be a little delay in the change of the corpse's temperature because of the insulating effect of the blanket and the thermal inertia of the corpse but after a while thermal equilibrium will be restored. It is the same with the Sun/Earth system. The Sun streams out photons with a mean temperature of 5780K. But, because of the inverse square law, the density of (5780K) photons drops with distance (photons do not lose energy with distance - just the number/m^2 changes with distance), so the (average) temperature at a planet is dependent only on the distance from the Sun. Even if the planet reflects most of the Sun's photons (i.e. it has a very high albedo) that will only slow down the rate of heating by the Sun, the planet will just get to its final temperature more slowly (than a black body planet). PS the high albedo slows down the rate of cooling also. PPS the albedo works like a blanket, and just like MFI (Multilayer Foil Insulation). -
Yvan Dutil at 08:05 AM on 1 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
Is it me or melt started around 1995? A consequence of the impredictable non-linear behaviour of climate? -
michael sweet at 07:47 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
I posted a similar response here. In order to control CO2 all countries have to cooperate. That is only possible if developed countries with the largest past emissions lead the way so the developing countries can follow. Spain generated 16% of their electricity from wind last year!! If all developed countries did that it would really start to make a difference. -
scaddenp at 07:38 AM on 1 March 2011CO2 was higher in the past
alecpiper. You trust Easterbrook? Have a look at: here and particularly here. Of course, dont take a warmist blog word for it. Pull the data, check the references (especially the metadata) and see for yourself. -
Bob Lacatena at 07:33 AM on 1 March 2011Preference for Mild Curry
Curry is going to be reviled 20 years from now as the scientist who abandoned her profession, her beliefs, and her integrity in order to become a professional concern troll for denialism. Variations on this story line wait for Watts, Inhofe, Monckton, and any number of others. It's going to make for fun reading, and they all have it in their destiny. They can lie and distort all they want now, but the truth, when it arrives, will be "undeniable." End of story. When we reach a point where the public begins to panic, because in spite of all of their clever arguments, temperatures continue to unequivocally rise and extreme events become more and more common and alarming, then I expect Curry to try to salvage her reputation in the eyes of history (along with any number of other high profile deniers) by back pedaling, insisting that she was just being open minded, and that she really was trying to build bridges, and that she's sadly misunderstood and being unfairly victimized. I'd love to be at a major climate science meeting come that time, and to hear the intense silence that falls when she enters the room. -
hank at 07:30 AM on 1 March 2011Climate sensitivity is low
> total atmospheric window is simply the quantity No, it's not a quantity. It's a term defined in various ways in papers published in science journals. It's never defined as a quantity. -
robert way at 07:28 AM on 1 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
Jeff T, Rignot et al (2011) is in press at Geophysical Research Letters -
scaddenp at 07:28 AM on 1 March 2011Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project
"Vast riche$ await anyone who can scientifically break the chain of evidence & show the AGW is a non-worry" Lets to heart of what you are taking issue with in above statement and also the question of whether AGW is result of biased evaluation of data. I think DB is right in his statement and here is why. The motivation to find that AGW is non-worry is immense for a scientist (not a technologist though as you point out). 1/ Its hard to make your name with me-too science 2/ A Nobel prize awaits your successful effort 3/ Given the half-baked stuff funded by fossil fuel fronts, its got to be easier to get money there than from cut-throat world of conventional funders. Furthermore, since mainstream scientist employers are not accessing this money on whole, you can have the money yourself instead of salary. 4/ At a personal level, who wants AGW to be true? (Yes, there are luddites and atavistic dreamers but these arent the scientists I know). Its also important to understand the difference between "lobby science" and conventional funding sources. There isnt conventional funding for "pro-AGW" science nor should there be for "anti-AGW" science. There is funding for finding out what we dont know. The funding provider is indifferent as to whether the result is supportive or not of a given theory. On the other hand, can you imagine Cato or SPPI being pleased with results that support conventional climate theory? I also know that FF has very considerable internal research capacity. However, it is choosing to fund lobbying and disinformation rather than pursue an alternative theory. My take on climate science from an outsider is that an alternative theory is going to be tough. To get that Nobel prize will require a theory that accounts for all current observations and yet lets us off the hook. For my 2c, the unknowns that are worth pursuing are: 1/ A hidden negative feedback that will reduce ECS. Clouds and aerosols are favourite but face the problem that you need a mechanism that is working now or in future but didnt work in the past as low sensitivities make paleoclimate and 20th Century climate extremely difficult. 2/ A hidden natural energy flow that somehow mimics the signature of GHG. Any others? You can hope on those, but it isnt the way to bet or vote. -
Alexandre at 06:59 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
This is a fascinating subject, and that's where the real challange lies. I recommend again the work of Elinor Ostrom, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on this subject. I've read two of her books, and I recommend both, being the first more math, and the second more descriptive of the institutions: - Rules, Games and Common-pool resources - Governing the Commons -
r.pauli at 06:39 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
The tragedy of the commons is the core concept facing civilization. And it leads one to observe the greater tragedy as the human failure of understanding and implementing change. -
MattJ at 06:09 AM on 1 March 2011Monckton Myth #15: Tragedy of the Commons
I don't know what readers Dana had in mind that would recognize the term "Nash equilibrium". And the table he gave in that context made even less sense: he said "Either side can only tie or win if they don't reduce emissions, and they can only tie or lose if they do reduce emissions." BTW: the notation of the payoff matrix also needs to be explained. For many readers, "7,7" looks like 7 and 7/10, NOT 7 for the US, 7 for Australia. For that matter, where is the equilibrium? The post should point it out explicitly and explain WHY it is an equilibrium. Finally, since, as the Wikipedia article on it points out, the Nash equilibrium DOES often lead to strategies no one would actually implement, since they are both counter-intuitive and on Pareto-optimal. Under such circumstances, the entire discussion of Nash equilibrium does not contribute much in the first place. -
scaddenp at 06:07 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
"I am most interested in what you write but two lines is just a bit too little to give me a proper grasp of your point." An experiment is proposed. You use your understanding of thermodynamics to calculate a result. Result is also calculated by textbook thermodynamics. Results are compared to what actually is observed. If your method fails, then do you concede that your understanding is flawed? -
Stephen Leahy at 06:05 AM on 1 March 2011Preference for Mild Curry
@16 Tom, I fear the entire Berkeley effort, even if well-intentioned, will be used as another excuse to delay action until we resolve 'the uncertainty'. Hence funding from Koch who are all about deny & delay. -
RickG at 06:05 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel, Two questions. 1) Does an object have to be at a specific temperature in order to emit energy? 2) Is an object receiving energy selective to receiving energy only from objects warmer than them? -
Riccardo at 05:55 AM on 1 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
Jeff T here's the refereed paper, published February 12th. -
KR at 05:52 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To expand on that - the final temperature the block reaches will be that temperature where 1KW of heat is passing through the wood to the ice. That's when the incoming/outgoing energies balance. The wood (by conduction) will pass some heat to the block, the block (by conduction) will pass a great deal more to the wood, 2nd law duly observed. The final substitution in my example is radiation for conduction.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Added a "be" -
KR at 05:47 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - Dynamic equilibrium, with energy flowing through the system, not static equilibrium; you have the wrong system in your example. Take instead a block of metal, heated on one side with 1KW of power, sitting on the other side on a huge block of ice. It will reach some dynamic equilibrium temperature, say 100 degrees. Now put a piece of wood between the block and the ice. The wood will reach a temperature between that of the block and the ice (and in fact will have an internal gradient), but the block (because of the slowed energy loss to the ice) will reach a temperature considerably above 100 degrees. A cooler object (wood) has warmed the warmer object (block) by reducing the energy lost, as that loss is only via the energy difference at the block/wood interface - much smaller than a direct block/ice interface. It has reduced energy loss by its presence, and hence warmed the block. Now substitute sun->1KW heater, Earth surface->metal block, GHG atmosphere->piece of wood, and space at 3K->huge chunk of ice. -
damorbel at 05:38 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #404 KR you wrote:- "Your claim that 'cooler objects cannot warm warmer objects' ignores that energy contribution, and hence breaks the 1st law - the energy from the cooler object doesn't just vanish. That means your claim is incorrect." So are you saying that, if two equal blocks of metal, No1 at 300K and No2 at 320K were put in thermal contact, No2 would be >320K ? -
KR at 05:34 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Dikran - I attempted to address that particular misconception here with spectra, but was ignored. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:31 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
KR@406 The "he's wrong" post also shows damorbel doesn't understand that the surface is heated directly by the sun, so the "insulation" explanation is perfectly reasonable. -
KR at 05:28 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
My apologies, I first directed damorbel that article in November, if not earlier. -
KR at 05:24 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
MichaelM - I pointed damorbel to that article here, several months ago. His reply? "He's wrong." Hence my comments about intransigence. -
MichaelM at 05:01 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Dr Roy Spencer, contrarian and topic of this recent thread, posted an item on his blog last summer titled "Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still" and I thought it might be useful for both damorbel and KR et al. For damorbel it shows a contrarian showing "well, I’m going to go ahead and say it: THE PRESENCE OF COOLER OBJECTS CAN, AND DO, CAUSE WARMER OBJECTS TO GET EVEN HOTTER (sic)". For KR, and the rest, I thought it might be fun to read, in the comments, Dr Spencer trying to do your 'job' but without any reinforcements.Moderator Response: [DB] Please refrain from using all-caps. Thanks! -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:44 AM on 1 March 2011Meet The Denominator
Les... Obviously, all I can offer you is anecdotal evidence. I have heard from many pro-AGW folks that they also get heavily moderated. And I read comments from skeptics here all day long. Most of us are fairly accustomed to posting on unmoderated sites and have a habit of aggressive commenting. The heavy moderation here requires that we all think before we post. Stick to the science, stick to the topic and keep it civil. If we do that, regardless of our position, our comments won't get deleted. -
dhogaza at 04:44 AM on 1 March 2011Preference for Mild Curry
I would like someone to ask Curry about that 90%/0-10C sensitivity statement, in an arena where she can't dodge the question
We need to hang on to this, and to trot it out whenever she's quoted as believing we should do nothing. 10C globally implies what? 15C over North America and Eurasia? 20C in the Arctic? -
pbjamm at 04:41 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
How about the theme from Benny Hill? It would help point out the craziness of what we are doing to the climate. -
hank at 04:37 AM on 1 March 2011Climate sensitivity is low
Tom, RW1 185 quotes himself. No other source for it. http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bdecrease+%2Btransmittance+"outgoing+surface+power"+"emitted+spectrum"+"absorbed+by+the+atmosphere" -
robert way at 04:35 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Hey all, Thank you for the kind words. I agree with the ending being slightly anti-climatic and I was trying to fix that. I'm only learning how to do some of these things so hopefully as I progress I will be able to fix some of these issues. O Fortuna would be interesting certainly :P -
hank at 04:30 AM on 1 March 2011A Swift Kick in the Ice
For S. Dobbs: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=arctic+amplification -
KR at 04:24 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - The issue with the 1st law of thermodynamics and your formulation is that you are ignoring the energy contribution of cooler objects (such as the atmosphere) to warmer objects (the surface), which increases the total energy in the surface and requires a higher temperature to radiate that energy away. Note that as long as the summed energy goes from warmer to cooler, which is true here, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is intact as well. Your claim that 'cooler objects cannot warm warmer objects' ignores that energy contribution, and hence breaks the 1st law - the energy from the cooler object doesn't just vanish. That means your claim is incorrect. My last comment is upon your intransigent position - you have received a great deal of input on this issue over the last 400 comments here and (looking around a bit) from numerous others over several years. Yet you still seem to think the radiative greenhouse effect violates physics. -
les at 04:20 AM on 1 March 2011Meet The Denominator
776 Rob Honeycutt: "Consider the moderation here at SkS to be a form of on-the-fly peer review." Yes, but do we have the numbers of how many deleted post where AGW alarmist and how many where AGW anti-alarmist; obviously counting ones which where just off topic as anti-alarmist, and objective and subjective ad-homonym attacks as alarmist? If we don't; what are they trying to hide?!?! -
michael sweet at 04:15 AM on 1 March 2011Australia's departing Chief Scientist on climate change
Ken, In the USA deniers often make the argument that if we are the only ones who take action it will make no difference. This despite the fact that the USA has taken no action to reduce carbon emissions while some Europpean countries have taken actions. Spain generated 16% of its electricity in 2010 by wind, that would be 13 of your Ozzie units. Why are you claiming it cannot be done without "shutting down all of our coal mines"? It has been done without hurting the economy. As fossil fuel prices escalate the Spainish look better all the time. It is clear from your numbers that only by engaging all the countries in the world can this problem be truly addressed. If we want the Chinese to take action the developed countries have to lead the way. Your argument that we should wait for the Chinese to lead is simply a call for inaction. The Chinese make the same argument and say the developed countries should lead. Once the developed countries show how economies can function with less carbon the developing countries will follow. We can start with efficiency improvements and then add wind and solar electricity. We will see what the next steps are after we have started. -
dana1981 at 04:09 AM on 1 March 2011Preference for Mild Curry
Lou #24 - I got the distinct impression that Curry's comments with regards to climate sensitivity were no more than her "gut feeling". She provided no support for the statement, and as others have noted, it's a scientifically and statistically indefensible position. It seems to me that a lot of the things Curry writes on her blog, including with regards to 'hide the decline', are based on little more than her 'gut feeling'. It only took me about a half hour of looking through the TAR and AR4 to see that her accusations had almost no merit. -
muoncounter at 04:04 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Robert - that's terrific! Second Alb's suggestion of freezing the last frame. Do you take requests? Carbontracker set to the standard for scary music: O Fortuna! -
Peter Bellin at 03:56 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Thanks for doing this; I think it will perk the students up when this is shown in class, or embedded in a course page. -
Jeff T at 03:41 AM on 1 March 2011Various estimates of Greenland ice loss
There are multiple aspects of this post that confuse me. The mass in Figure 1 (Schrama's Figure 2) appears linear in time, with a superimposed annual oscillation. The figure doesn't seem consistent with a mean rate of -252 Gt/yr and an acceleration of -22 Gt/yr^2. If I'm wrong, a segment of a parabola with that slope and curvature ought to fit the data well. I read the paper and the figure doesn't seem to match the text or the tabular data. Please ask Schrama to comment. Rignot 2011 is a pre-print. Shouldn't it be refereed before its results are used here? I think Figure 3 is the mass change rate and the units ought to be Gt/yr. Note that a negative mass loss would be a mass gain. -
Albatross at 03:33 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Robert-- fantastic work! Is there any way to freeze that last images for a few seconds? Just to let the message really sink in? i found it cutting away immediately also a little anti-climatic. wish I had the skills to do this kind of stuff. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:22 AM on 1 March 2011Meet The Denominator
Andrew... I didn't see any of your comments that were deleted but I have to say that I understand the heavy handed moderation. The climate issue is very politically charged and prone to easily go off topic. There have been a great many times when my own comments have been deleted on other threads, so you're not alone. When this happens I usually have to take a step back and figure out why I've crossed the line and how I can try to steer my comments toward the science at hand. Consider the moderation here at SkS to be a form of on-the-fly peer review. -
muoncounter at 03:20 AM on 1 March 2011Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project
#122: "there is more money to be made on the AGW side than the opposition. So, when one claims that there are riches to be made against AGW, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve entered the Twilight Zone" Then why are so many corporate lobbies painting any financial controls on fossil fuel emissions as a 'carbon tax'? Why is there so much resistance to EPA regulation of CO2? Because corporate profits are at stake -- those are the riches that Koch Bros et al want to protect. Don't fantasize that these lobbies are concerned for middle class jobs - that would truly be living in the Zone. Which was a great show, by the way. #125: "Big Oil must actually spend money to make money. When the gov't gives away Billions of dollars" There's the core of NQA's argument: Big Oil profits are the fruit of honest labor; Big Science is living off the public trough. For that to be a legitimate equivalence, we'd have to include Big Military and the contractors whose sole income is government handouts. But that would be even further off-topic. -
funglestrumpet at 03:19 AM on 1 March 2011Prudent Risk
I appologise if this comment is off topic, but I think it is related. I have just been exploring ‘peak oil’ and it occurs to me that coping with it should be included in the benefits of tackling Climate Change. Clearly, if we as a species are going to have to wean ourselves off our oil dependency,’ business as usual is not an option. Reducing CO2 production will naturally result from a reduction in oil consumption. Therefore, we should draw people’s attention to the fact that tackling Climate Change will also have significant benefits in tackling Peak Oil. For any not familiar with the topic of Peak Oil (and even those that are), I can recommend 'Oil, Smoke and Mirrors' on YouTube (make sure you watch the interviews that follow the film), and 'The Crash Course' at ChrisMartenson.com (it is much better to watch all 20 sections rather than just the short introduction) - o.k., I know I should get a life! -
Lou Grinzo at 03:10 AM on 1 March 2011Preference for Mild Curry
I would like someone to ask Curry about that 90%/0-10C sensitivity statement, in an arena where she can't dodge the question. Specifically: What is it based on? What is her assessment of how that remaining 10% of probability is distributed -- is any of it below 0? Is it all above 10C? Unless she has an excellent source for this claim, which seems highly unlikely, given how quickly it would have come to light or even be widely known beforehand, how does she view the professional ethics of a climate scientist making such a statement in public? And how would she react if, say, Mann or Schmidt or Trenberth or Hansen did something similar? -
Daniel Bailey at 03:04 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Impressive, Robert! You've taken my favorite climate animation graphic and have improved upon it by adding the dimension of sound to those of color and motion. Inspiring effort! @ Dennis (7) As an FYI (in case some want an exact number), the maximum CO2 levels in the ice core data is 298.7 PPM, IIRC. The Yooper -
les at 02:47 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
397 damorbel: "Would you like to reccommend some passage?" I'm not sure I understand the question nor, indeed, that I need to. Just though some people (clearly you are not excluded) might like some sources for clearing up some of these basic ideas - let alone the more complex ones! Looks like a good list of texts and comments on that. Hoping some knowledge flows in and some errors flow out :) 401 KR - see 367! -
damorbel at 02:34 AM on 1 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #401 KR you wrote:- "My post on basic energy exchanges just demonstrated the principle of energy conservation, which your interpretation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics breaks." 1st Law of thermodynamics "Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms." 2nd Law of themodynamics The second law states that spontaneous natural processes increase entropy overall, or in another formulation that heat can spontaneously flow only from a higher-temperature region to a lower-temperature region, but not the other way around. In this case I agree with the Wiki article (apart from 'heat flowing') on 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. PS you have noticed that I contribute to Wiki. But please be aware I personally am not the subject of this thread and I regard such comments as a waste of time and effort. -
Dennis at 02:33 AM on 1 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
What's particularly good about this video is it clearly demonstrates not only how CO2 has been rising since pre-industrial times, but that the current level is unprecedented. None of the measurements going back 600,000 years exceed 300ppm. But we are now close to 400ppm. How do deniers explain that?
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