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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 102801 to 102850:

  1. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Berényi - Well written post on non-thermal radiation, thank you. Directly inferring temperature from EM spectra only works when the spectra is sufficiently similar to a blackbody curve, whether it has band-gaps or not. Monochromatic and 'cold-light' sources have an inherent energy, but since they are not thermal emitters that doesn't directly correspond to a temperature. However, when you say that "...Earth is a system very far from thermodynamic equilibrium", I would like to point out that as far as we can tell (again from Trenberth 2009, although I'm sure there are slightly different estimates out there) the balance sheet is currently tipped only about 0.9 W/m^2 from dynamic equilibrium. If we can reduce or prevent further GHG emissions, we can reduce that imbalance, and the resulting shift in global temperatures.
  2. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, imagine there are two stars, named Miami and Anchorage. Both are 100,000 light years from our Sun. From hottest to coolest, Miami > Sun > Anchorage. Miami and Anchorage's radiation emission curves overlap, and intersect at a wavelength W, so the two stars emit the same number of photons having wavelength W. Simultaneously 100,000 years ago, Miami emitted a photon named Sally, and Anchorage emitted a photon named Greg. Sally and Greg both have wavelength W. 100,000 years later, Sally and Greg arrive at our Sun. Our Sun is cooler than Miami but hotter than Anchorage. All physicists in the world agree that both Sally and Greg are absorbed by the Sun. The Sun has no way of knowing that Sally's source was hotter than the Sun, and that Greg's source was cooler than the Sun, because Sally and Greg have the same wavelength W. I believe that in stark contrast you have been claiming that the second law of thermodynamics requires the Sun to absorb Sally but not absorb Greg. Here is a simple question for you: What happens to Greg?
  3. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - As I stated before, greenhouse gases reduce cooling of the surface, which has the result of the Earth's surface heating up in order to radiate in balance with the incoming solar energy. The observed backradiation from lower atmosphere GHG's is part of the energy balance, which Trenberth listed in his 2009 paper - it's an energy exchange, part of the balance sheet including incoming solar, outgoing top of atmosphere (which as a point of demarcation is chosen as somewhere above the majority of GHG's), surface IR, back IR, thermals, etc etc. You are obviously familar with EM, heat, energy exchanges, etc. Your description of lapse rates, thermal radiation, etc., seem reasonable, except for your somehow deciding that backradiation doesn't have a role. You have, however, put up repeated strawman and red herring points, such as dying due to lack or H2O in thought experiments, quibbling about monochromatic sources, etc. At this point I consider you to just be objecting for the sake of objecting. If you have actual issues, fine - otherwise I'm leaving this thread.
  4. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    @CBDunkerson Thanks for the graph links - very consistent with article. I was merely thinking about showing rather than just telling about the albedo impacts. Come to think of it, it would be nice to have superimposed plots of ice-mass, ice-extent (area) and reflected energy (albedo) altogether - with separations of supported and unsupported ice even if the numbers had to be interpolated or estimated, just to illustrate all of these distinctions in a single picture.
  5. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Humanity @55, You seem to be trying very hard to make something out of nothing, while at the same time making insinuations about poor science or something nefarious going on. The increase in loss (i.e., slope), over this short time window is indeed there-- but this is part of a longer record showing acceleration in Fig. 2 of Robert's post. I recommend that you redo your analysis, this time using all the data and then finding a model that provides the best fit (linear vs. quadratic). In other words reproduce their results. The answer to your question is the green line in Velicogna's Fig. 2 which you pasted in above. Velicogna's results (accelerated loss of ice)have been confirmed by Chen et al. (2009), Bamber and Riva (2010). Also see work by Rignot et al. (2008)". Again, Fig. 2 in Robert's article provides a nice summary of the bigger picture. Really, the lengths some people will go to to convince themselves that there is not a problem.
  6. Renewable Baseload Energy
    174 Alexandre The ZCA 2020 purports to be an achievable plan for zero carbon stationary energy using only renewables for Australia to be implemented by 2020. It is founded on spacial smoothing with biomass backup for the solar thermal part. Most importantly it has cost estimates - which are almost certainly very optimistic and time line which is absurdly optimistic. Nevertheless it is quite substantial and well put together. ZCA 2020 You should also read the critiques: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/ http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/09/09/trainer-zca-2020-critique/
  7. Berényi Péter at 01:48 AM on 1 December 2010
    2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #213 CBDunkerson at 00:13 AM on 1 December, 2010 All sources of radiation have a temperature... otherwise they couldn't be sources of radiation. The theoretical 'no temperature' of 0 Kelvin is defined as the point at which matter emits no radiation Which is an oxymoron. damorbel is obviously talking about radiation sources very far from thermal equilibrium. Such systems do not have a unique well defined temperature, yet they may emit radiation. Otherwise how would you explain laser cooling? (Heat never moves spontaneously from a cold place to a hot one, so in a sense laser light has to be cold indeed to be able to cool down things to several nanokelvins.) LED lamp is another example. Or is the common glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca) hot? For that matter neither has OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation) at TOA (Top of Atmosphere) a well defined blackbody temperature. Partly because Earth is not a blackbody, partly because due to heavy frequency dependence of atmospheric transparency, layers of very different temperature give contributions to OLR. Again, Earth is a system very far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
  8. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #213 CBDunkerson you wrote:- "So... 'sunlight'. Which is the broad spectrum of radiation given off by a thermal source known as the Sun. Yet sunlight travels from the cold of space to the warmer upper atmosphere to the warmer still lower atmosphere." Of itself a vacuum contains no material so it can have no temperature, since temperature is a measure of the heat content of molecules and atoms. Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is produced by the vibration (more accurately the acceleration) of electric charge (electrons and protons), so it always is associated with matter how ever far away that matter happens to be. EM radiation starts and finishes with matter, it moves at the speed of light and it cannot be stored or otherwise conserved like energy. Since EM radiation is produced by matter which in turn has a temperature there is a sort of connection between temperature and radiation. But only a connection. If the connection is to be strong the radiation must at least have a spectrum according to the Planck radiation formula. Just having the spectrum is not sufficient, it must have the right intensity also. If the intensity is weakened, say because a star is at a distance then, even though the spectrum remains the same, the temperature is reduced because the intensity is no longer that given by Planck's formula. Further you wrote:- "The important point is that not all sources of radiation have a temperature." Which is an oxymoron. All sources of radiation have a temperature... otherwise they couldn't be sources of radiation." Lasers, radio and television transmitters, microwave ovens are all sources of radiation that does not conform to the Planck spectrum, so the source is not related to matter having a temperature (be careful, the radiation output of a microwave oven etc. is (more or less) independent of its physical temperature). When this 'non-Planckian' radiation is absorbed (by matter) the temperature of the absorbing matter increases - the stored energy is thermal in character, the matter has a temperature.
  9. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    JMurphy, You, on the other hand, "do seem to be one of those who like to point out" hot temperature records (no matter how significant or relevant), as if they meant anything. And, at the same time, you like to neglect all cold temperature records (because they don't fit in nicely?). The fact is that 2010 has been a very warm year, with many national records beaten, especially during the summer in the northern hemisphere. Wikipedia lists 14 heat records and no cold ones. Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog lists 17 heat records and only one cold (in Guinea). This is unusual, but how much does one year mean? What do you think? Does one year's weather constitute proof of a change in climate, or does it take several continuous years of records? What if 2011 turns out to be one of the coldest years ever? What will the climate experts say then (my guess is that it would become yet another proof of AGW, somehow)? As for the suggestion, "Perhaps this should be discussed over on 'Does cold weather disprove global warming?'" - well, I don't know. I have already been directed to this thread once, from another one that wasn't appropriate enough. Perhaps there are too many threads on this site.
  10. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #206: "GHGs are distributed more or less uniformly up to 80km except for water, by far the dominant GHG, which drops to a low concentration above 15-20km. ... the atmospheric temperature falls steadily with height according to the lapse rate (-6.5K/km), the atmospheric density also falls with height." Multiple sources show CO2 and H2O concentrations vary considerably with altitude. Temperature isn't uniformly decreasing with altitude. Density isn't linear with altitude. #209: "surely these loops do not have a uniform temperature all the way round?" Who suggested that they did? You said 'convection won't work downwards'; most people associate 'convection' with some sort of circulation - including the return trip down. There's no subduction of lithospheric plates without it. "I suggest you put some indication of the temperature distribution on your diagram," The 'heat input' on the bottom and 'fluid cools' at the top would be enough for Wikipedia-level readers to get the point. Apparently you require additional notation? "Isn't it the GHGs that are supposed to cause the GH effect?" Duh; but without solar heat input, there's no surface IR radiation for GHGs to absorb. Deflecting the discussion with these irrelevancies was just tedious some hundred comments ago; now it's pointless clutter, but I suspect that's your actual goal here.
  11. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    I wonder if anybody would like to comment on Velicogna 2009? It seems particularly important given that it is one of the most recent and the largest Antarctic estimates in Fig2? I think Robert is picking some of the numbers in his final paragrqaph from it as well. I wonder if anybody could explain the reasoning behind the way she divides up the data? Here is the Antarctic data graph from the original paper. The data runs from 2002-2009. This is how she describes the early and later rates of ice mass loss in the abstract. “In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of 26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009.” Can anybody give me a logic reason why you would separate the time period the way she did i.e. 2002-2006 and 2006-2009? Especially when the Greenland data for the same period is separated to derive rates for 2002-2003 and 2007-2009. I think I have an explanation. Look at Velicogna fig2 above. Notice the slow down around 2006, you can see it best in the smoothed data (red x's)? You can actually play around with the GRACE data here. I downloaded the data and had a look at the trends and annual changes. In fact if you look at the estimates for ice mass loss on an annual basis then the early years (2003-2005) don’t look so different to the later years (2007-2009). The only way you can generate such large differences in the rate of ice mass loss in Antarctica is by estimating the trends around the year 2006. Below is the annualised data I generated from GRACE for Antarctica from the POET website (link above). The annualised data is simpler than Velicogna, but you can still see the slow down (actually reverse) in 2006. The units are in sea level equivalents (cm) anomalies and GIA and corrections aren’t removed but this doesn’t matter as it’s the trends that are important and as Velicogna says most corrections are the same throughout the time series. The only varying correction is for atmospherics and this is very small. Have a play with the data yourself and let me know whether it's the 2006 data only that is giving such large differences in Velicogna's early and late ice mass loss rates.
  12. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    fydijkstra wrote : "So, the increase of Antarctic sea ice is also antropogenic? This looks like immunization of the AGW-theory. It does not matter which new evidence is found, it always supports the theory. When a theory reaches this stage, there is no need for further research. The billions of dollars can better be used to build dikes in Pakistan." Sounds very similar to creationist views of evolution : So they accept quill knobs as being evidence of feathers when it fits with their evolutionary paradigm, but they reject such reasoning when it overturns their theories. Inconsistent Reasoning Governs Evolutionary Interpretations of Feathered Dinosaurs
  13. Renewable Baseload Energy
    swieder #161 That Kombikraftwerk link is very interesting. Combining different renewable sources seems to smooth the output enough to have a reliable baseload source. The smoothing effect of a continental-wide grid of windmills would be achieved by a country-wide grid of different renewables.
  14. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Re: Swieder@161 Thanks, I didn't know about that ISET project.
  15. Renewable Baseload Energy
    RSVP: "Its funny how the economic limitations imposed by fossil fuel seem acceptable, whereas those by renewables are not even possible to discuss." Answer: Carbon Emissions.
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel could you please point me where Trenbrth said such thing? I couldn't find it.
  17. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel wrote: "What is call 'thermal radiation' is radiation from a thermal source, glowing metal, hot carbon are typical, they give out radiation with a broad spectrum first described by G Kirchhoff as 'blackbody radiation'." So... 'sunlight'. Which is the broad spectrum of radiation given off by a thermal source known as the Sun. Yet sunlight travels from the cold of space to the warmer upper atmosphere to the warmer still lower atmosphere. damorbel wrote: "The important point is that not all sources of radiation have a temperature." Which is an oxymoron. All sources of radiation have a temperature... otherwise they couldn't be sources of radiation. The theoretical 'no temperature' of 0 Kelvin is defined as the point at which matter emits no radiation.
  18. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #210 Riccardo You wrote:- "Trenberth does not say anything even near "collection at TOA"; it's just your (wrong) interpretation of Trenberth's schematic diagram." It is an expression used all over the place in climatology, Trenberth has it here If it is any comfort to you it is a meaningless concept not least because the TOA is completely undefined, temperature? pressure? altitude? All are unidentified.
  19. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    argus. These October maps give a good indication of the (im)balance between hot and cold temperatures. It's fairly certain that the large blue dots include some all-time record low temps, but they are far outnumbered by the large red dots in many more places. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201010.gif
  20. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    Argus wrote : "Am I "some"? - I know nothing about Germany in May - it just slipped into a comment because I quoted an article about an all-time low in an Antarctic station. I also, in an earlier comment, quoted recent all-time lows in Wales and N. Ireland for November - coldest "since records began"." You do seem to be one of those who like to point out cold temperature records (no matter how significant or relevant), as if they meant anything. What do you think they mean ? Perhaps this should be discussed over on Does cold weather disprove global warming? Have you read that thread ? If so, what point do you believe you are trying to make by highlighting scarce cold records from individual locations ? How about this thread ?
  21. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Paul, I'm not aware of any graphs showing the albedo shifts due to changing sea ice area. However, graphs of sea ice area itself gives part of the picture; Arctic Antarctic Global If you look at the 'zero line' on the anomalies you will see that further back in time the Arctic and global anomalies were predominately above the line... while closer to the present they are predominately below the line (seldom going above it). In short, the ice area in the Arctic and globally has decreased. The Antarctic shows anomalies frequently on both sides of the line throughout, but has a noticeable uptick in recent years... but not sufficient to offset the decrease in Arctic ice area and not as significant for energy absorption due to the winter season it is happening in.
  22. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #208 CBDunkerson You wrote:- "So... you are arguing that electromagnetic radiation in the range we designate as 'infrared' (or 'thermal' energy) behave differently than all other forms of electromagnetic radiation?" What is call 'thermal radiation' is radiation from a thermal source, glowing metal, hot carbon are typical, they give out radiation with a broad spectrum first described by G Kirchhoff as 'blackbody radiation'. The important factor is that the emission is proportional to temperature, the implication is that any substantial body must have the same temperature throughout, that is what is meant by equilibrium. The importance of uniform temperature comes from the fact that, if the temperature is not uniform, the parts with different temperature will emit different amounts of radiation. Also heat will possibly flow by conduction etc. bteween the parts with different temperatures. Ultimately, how can you say a body, whose parts are at different temperatures, has 'one' temperature? But radiation comes in all sorts and sizes from DC(?) to beyond blue light I have heard. Thermal radiation has a characteristic Planckian spectrum that comes from a black body and it is related to the temperature of this 'black body' (yes I know it isn't black if it's radiating!) Radiation from other sources such as lasers, microwave ovens and radio and television transmitters is largely monochromatic they have only one frequency. All these forms of radiation get converted to heat when absorbed; this heat tends to raise the temperature of the irradiated object. This heat tends to be dissipated in the surroundings by any process you care to mention, radiation; convection; conduction etc. or even into chemical energy e.g. plant growth. The important point is that not all sources of radiation have a temperature.
  23. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel #206 Trenberth does not say anything even near "collection at TOA"; it's just your (wrong) interpretation of Trenberth's schematic diagram.
  24. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Re: Albatross (49) Actually I thought the whole comment was rhetorical. The part I responded to was something that continually bothers me about "skeptics": the continual nay-saying, unfettered by the need to be constrained by the physical world. The Yooper
  25. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #205 muoncounter You wrote:- "all just stopped because damorbel says 'it won't work downwards'." And you inserted a nice diagram showing convection by a fluid between two surfaces, the warmer one being underneath, you can see how it works by the arrows on the convective flow loops. But muoncounter, surely these loops do not have a uniform temperature all the way round? According to me the left hand part of the loop (the 'upward' part) will be warmer than the righthand (the descending) part. I really don't get what you are on about. I suggest you put some indication of the temperature distribution on your diagram, that should help to clarify what is happening energywise. It is an interesting fact that convection can take place with very small temperature differences. Have you ever come accross a heat pipe? Heat pipes have fluid inside them that transfers heat by evaporation and condensation; they are very effective, my computer has one for cooling the video driver chip(s?) You must look at Earth as a sort of giant three dimensional heat pipe that transfers heat from the tropics to the poles and the upper atmosphere by processes rather similar to those in a a heat pipe.
  26. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel wrote: "Microwaves are not 'thermal' like a grill" So... you are arguing that electromagnetic radiation in the range we designate as 'infrared' (or 'thermal' energy) behave differently than all other forms of electromagnetic radiation? While ridiculous on its face... that doesn't pass the everyday reality test either. Most remote controls use infrared signals. By your logic they would not function if the receiver, or any space leading up to it, were even a fraction of a degree warmer than the transmitter. Many pieces of electronic equipment get quite warm when they have been running for a while... yet the receivers in them still pick up infrared signals from the cooler remote. Also: "Oh alright then, not 0K, lets put 0.00000000001K." Close. Multiply that by ten and you've got the lowest temperature ever observed. However, you are missing the point. Your claim that objects at 0K emit no radiation is meaningless because there AREN'T any objects at 0K.
  27. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    I think that a physicist doesn't put his own trust in a theory; he has to show it is a true theory.
  28. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #204 scaddenp You wrote:- "If you thought greenhouse effect was energy transfer from atmosphere to surface by conduction, then that WOULD be violation of second law." Yes, but no need for emphasis! And:- " However, this is not what is happening as people repeatedly tell you." Tell me? Don't I know it! then you write :- "No incoming radiation, no GHG effect. You cant take the sun out of it." What does that mean? Isn't it the GHGs that are supposed to cause the GH effect? h-j-m has been arguing successfully that the atmosphere is heated directly by GHGs absorbing energy directly from the Sun's radiation, Trenberth's diagram shows it, who is disputing it? The whole planet is heated by the Sun's radiation and very little else, if you have a problem with this could you expand on it? Heat transfer by radiation can only be from a hot body (gas etc.) to a cooler, no different from conduction diffusion or convection.
  29. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    For those wishing to understand the uncertainty involved in this sort of work should have a look at this link. It's from an EU funded collaborative effert to constrain GIA estimates. The example they use is quite eye-openning. "For example, a published total mass trend for Antarctica from GRACE is 39±14 km3/yr but with an estimated GIA contribution of 192±79 km3/yr." To me this says GIA uncertainty can be larger than estimates of ice loss.
  30. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Some good background reading The Case for Baseload - An Engineer's Perspective .
  31. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    JMurphy: "Why do some not seem to see the difference between a cold record which goes back maybe two or three decades (at most, normally - since 1991 in this German case), and warm records that are the warmest or second warmest in records going back 130 years ?" Am I "some"? - I know nothing about Germany in May - it just slipped into a comment because I quoted an article about an all-time low in an Antarctic station. I also, in an earlier comment, quoted recent all-time lows in Wales and N. Ireland for November - coldest "since records began". In Stockholm the weekend offered the coldest temperatures since 1965 (for November), and it is expected (according to today's newspapers) that records from either 1904 (-17) or 1884 (-18) will be beaten this week. But it's all due to NAO-, so I guess it doesn't count at all.
  32. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #198 KR The case for warming due to back radiation has not been made. GHGs are distributed more or less uniformly up to 80km except for water, by far the dominant GHG, which drops to a low concentration above 15-20km. The relevant point about GHG emission is that it takes place throughout the atmosphere, it is highest where the gas density is highest and, most important, because the temperature at any given location does not change quickly, to a first approximation, GHGs are absorbing (locally) just as much IR as they emit. They do not collect radiation together somehow 'at the top of the atmosphere' (TOA) and send it down (or up) as in Trenberth's 'Radiation Balance' diagram. If that 'collecting at TOA' according to Trenberth were possible there might be a better case for surface warming but you are still stuck with the problem that the TOA is extremely cold and can only take heat from the surface, not send heat down to the surface. Notice that I wrote 'not send down heat to the surface', not 'not send radiation down to the surface'. Radiation is not heat, heating (or cooling) arises only when there is an imbalance between absorbed and emitted radiation. In the troposphere radiation is emitted and absorbed primarily in a balanced way, with height being the only exception. The importance of this exception means that heat transfer due to radiation goes only in one direction only, out into deep space. There are two reasons for this, the atmospheric temperature falls steadily with height according to the lapse rate (-6.5K/km), the atmospheric density also falls with height. Thus the lapse rate defines the direction of heat tansfer and the density variation also ensures that there is always less radiation 'downwards' rather than 'upwards' for the simple reason that the amount of radiating gas reduces with height due to the drop in density with height.
  33. Renewable Baseload Energy
    RSVP wrote : "Its funny how the economic limitations imposed by fossil fuel seem acceptable, whereas those by renewables are not even possible to discuss." Yes, hilarious, especially after 170 posts of discussion, and counting...
  34. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Its funny how the economic limitations imposed by fossil fuel seem acceptable, whereas those by renewables are not even possible to discuss. When gas was being rationed in the seventies, people got up in lines at 4 in the morning... etc.
  35. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Estimates of external costs of electricity generation by fuel source are given here EU External Costs for Electricity and Transport The nuclear costs in the study I referenced above include cost of waste management/disposal and cost of decommissioning.
  36. Renewable Baseload Energy
    I think there are many more externalized cost by using fossile energy production then "just" CO2 cost. Since decades, environmental impact by pollution of air, oceans&rivers and other causes high cost attributed to human health care. The cost are buried on each individual as well as on the society/nation (by overcoming environmental damages - see latest popular example in the gulf). All these cost plus subsidies/grants in favor of these energy technologies are not considered in the $/kWh bill you get. My opinion is that even without climate change, the true cost of renewable are competitive. I dont want to picture the cost of fossile energy artifically high to "get" renewable cost-effective - i truly beieve all cost should be considered and in that case they are cost-effective. Energy prices by fossile and nuclear today simply do not reflect the true value of electricity.
  37. Renewable Baseload Energy
    One cost that gets overlooked is the cost of water. All of the coal powered station that I know of get a very sweet deal on water. If all "burn-stuff" power generators had to pay the real cost for the water they use, the relative costs would be a lot more realistic. (And perhaps the miners should pay, and pay fully, for the water they divert, appropriate or pollute.) For power stations, some kind of weighted average of industrial, agricultural and domestic prices should be used in combination with a valuation of environmental and fisheries benefits foregone. This of course applies equally to nuclear as it does to coal and other more obvious burning. My belief, without having any reports or other backup, is that manufacturers of renewable power equipment pay standard industrial prices for any water they use in their processes. This is yet another invisible subsidy in the comparative costs exercise. Seeing as both the mining and generation processes for fuel based power either exclude water costs entirely or benefit from no, or insufficient, accountability for the water abused, misused or wasted in acquiring and burning the raw materials.
  38. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Eric #158 - they actually check it monthly, but only pay out annually. I used to have a smart meter, but the utility installed a two-way meter which isn't smart when the solar panels went in. I was a bit disappointed by that. Kevin #162 - aside from the fact that several of these renewable baseload technologies are fairly economically competitive already (and their costs are falling), as a couple other comments have noted, you also have to take into account the costs of the climate change which they are preventing (and other air pollution associated with burning fossil fuels). And a good point from swieder #161 on basically creating baseload capacity by diversifying the grid with various renewable sources.
  39. Renewable Baseload Energy
    KR, No disputing the climate costs of coal and gas. The problem is nobody is really prepared to pay them. Conventional wisdom suggests that nothing much is about to come out of Cancun, and it's probably right. It seems improbable that the US is likely to price carbon any time soon. In this context, it is imperative that low CO2 technologies be as price competitive as possible if anything is to be achieved in practical terms. When it comes to baseload the only technologies that look to be fit for purpose over the next ten years are CCS, solar thermal and nuclear. That's it. Enhanced geothermal sounds great, but there is little realistic prospect of commercial deployment for at least a decade - perhaps quite a bit longer. Barry Brook summaries the findings of a meta-study of the costs of viable base-load technologies here The arithmetic adds up to nuclear The peer reviewed paper is paywalled, but you can get a PDF by emailing Barry. No doubt there will be a mix of generating technologies which is fine, but anti-nuclear greens are going to have to change their position or there will be no chance whatsoever of averting dangerous climate change. Perhaps I might rephrase that as anti nuclear greens will find themselves marginalized sometime over the next decade if, as is most likely, renewables prove to be too expensive. It is interesting to consider this news Mumbai: The world's largest nuclear park has got the go ahead and the quote from the Indian Environment minister: "India has a population of 1.2 billion. It is the height of foolish romance that India can meet its energy needs from solar and bioenergy". Also consider that this will be nearly 10GWe capacity and occupying 990 hectares. To do something similar with solar thermal you would be looking at something like 1000 sq kms. Energy density counts.
  40. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Agnostic @ 43 - The article deals with a complex issue in an over-simplified way There is only so much information one can put in a "basic" rebuttal before it ceases being a basic rebuttal. Considering the target audience are newcomers to climate science, a pretty good introduction IMO.
  41. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Reluctant skeptic @47, "...Antarctic sea ice is increasing and we can find ways to explain it away, but was that what the models predicted prospectively?" I'm not sure I understand the question, maybe it was rhetorical. Model runs by Manabe et al. (1992) did in fact predict that there would be very little change in the Antarctic sea ice, at least initially. I do not know why the other question that Daniel addressed even warrants answering. The robustness of the Antarctic sea ice in the face of warming is not indefinite. How the Antarctic responds to further warming also depends, in part on the recovery of Antarctic ozone. So lots of uncertainty there-- I do not believe that scientists are finding ways to "explain it away". Turner and Overland (2009) provide an excellent overview of the complexities of Antarctic sea ice. This SCAR report by Turner et al. (2009) is also highly recommended. But we do know this, in those areas where the sea ice or ice shelves buttressing the glaciers has been lost, the glaciers have accelerated (e.g., Larsen B ice shelf). We also know that as sea levels rise grounding lines will move farther inland, making ice sheets and glaciers more unstable(e.g., recent events under the Pine Island glacier), especially as the oceans continue to warm. The sea ice surrounding Antarctica is important for regulating the rate of loss of ice from the WAIS and EAIS, but it is not the only player. For example, but warming oceans are also playing a role on destabilizing glaciers and ice sheets. My suggestion is to focus on these factors rather than entertaining thoughts about the onset in coming decades of decline in Antarctic sea ice might mean in terms of the theory of AGW. I also happened to notice that the Larsen C has been exposed to open water (i.e., wave action etc.) for several weeks now...
  42. There is no consensus
    #274 - Claims of settled science and scientific consensus have been around since at least 1989 - here's a reference from the NYTimes. But NOW, there REALLY IS a consensus. I see. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEED61E3CF937A25750C0A96F948260
    Moderator Response: Please refrain from using all caps. Use italics or, if really necessary, bold.
  43. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Re: reluctant skeptic (47)
    "The question I need answered is, 'If Antarctic sea ice was decreasing, would that be evidence against global warming?' "
     What if it was? Do you really think it would matter? There has been amassed nearly two centuries of studies and evidence, along with the same physics that underlie refrigerators, microwave ovens, the internet, televisions, automobiles, heat pumps, convection ovens, pharmaceutical products, textiles, etc, that all makes climate science the robust discipline it is. This is not to say that uncertainty does not exist; existing uncertainties lie more in the area of rates of change and to a lesser extent, cloud effects (but that window is closing fast). So let's say Antarctic sea ice is decreasing and that it is evidence against global warming. It would be the equivalent of finding 2 identical snowflakes in a single snowstorm: an oddity, but certainly not something sufficient to say that there was no snow... To maintain that it actually could undermine AGW, by itself, would be the equivalent of saying that all of the technology I cited earlier runs on pixie dust, not on fundamental underlying physical principles. Would you believe that? The Yooper
  44. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    Re: muoncounter (86) Thanks, I guess, for the Elliott study. Been a bad week for climate news (lotsa news, all bad [prognosis: grim]).
    "Emissions driven by upcoming seafloor temperature rise, however, may be unprecedented in scale."
     Unprecedented? Nay, not unprecedented.
    "Multibeam swath bathymetry data from the southwest margin of the Chatham Rise, New Zealand, show gas release features over a region of at least 20,000 km2. Gas escape features, interpreted to be caused by gas hydrate dissociation, include an estimated a) 10 features, 8–11 km in diameter and b) 1,000 features, 1–5 km in diameter, both at 800–1,100 m water depth. An estimated 10,000 features, ∼150 m in diameter, are observed at 500–700 m water depth. If the methane from a single event at one 8–11 km scale pockmark reached the atmosphere, it would be equivalent to ∼3% of the current annual global methane released from natural sources into the atmosphere. If similar features formed globally, then the cumulative release may have significantly increased the global methane supply into the ocean and atmosphere at the peak of glaciations and potentially contributed to the rapid transition to warmer post‐glacial conditions (e.g. clathrate‐gun hypothesis [Kennett et al., 2003])."
     Aah, the wonders of Labatt's Blue. Palate has since shifted to first Blue Moon now to Oberon (all hail)... Between my science instructors and my history instructors (Oktoberfest was indeed a month-long affair to remember), it's a wonder that: 1. I learned anything 2. I still have a liver left Hmm, this topic brings to mind the scene in On The Beach (Gregory Peck 1959 version), where Fred Astaire says this line:
    “We’re all doomed, you know. The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. Doomed by the air we’re about to breathe.”
     Of course, he was talking about radiation then, while'st we discuss the maudlin details of CO2 and CH4... How fitting that a movie line from over 50 years ago should serve as a lasting memorial for our race, should we not act on what we now know? The Yooper
  45. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Kevin - When considering costs we should include the cost of continuing CO2 increases. Coal with CCS is pretty unproven, and there's considerable reason to believe that there are risks of sequestered CO2 getting out of the subterranean storage. Natural gas is still a CO2 producer. Nuclear can help, but there are considerable risks and political issues. Renewables can supply baseline power, and reduce the societal cost of continuing temperature increases. Coal and natural gas get really expensive when you factor in climate change.
  46. Renewable Baseload Energy
    The point of this post, that renewables can provide base load energy, is true. However, it is NOT accurate to claim that renewables can provide economically competitive base load energy. There have been any number of studies done by MIT, EPRI and even the modeling done by EPA, which look at the technology pathways by which the electric sector would decarbonize with a CO2 price. Yes, there is a lot of renewables build. Yes, there is a lot of energy efficiency. But there is also a lot of nuclear and coal with CCS and natural gas. The models line up the techs from least cost to highest costs -- there is a supply curve for each. They then select the least cost option until it runs into the higher part of the supply curve, then goes to the next most costly and so on. It is misleading to simply say "renewables can supply all the energy we need" w/out including the caveat "but it will cost a lot more than if we were to allow other low CO2 emitting techs to deploy."
  47. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    I am not nearly as sophisticated in my knowledge of glaciers and climate as most of the other posters but have a decent basic science background. The question I need answered is, " If Antarctic sea ice was decreasing, would that be evidence against global warming? " Antarctic sea ice is increasing and we can find ways to explain it away, but was that what the models predicted prospectively?
  48. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    #85: "the volume of Lake Erie (not that anyone would want to picture that raining down on them)" If methane keeps bubbling up as Arctic temperatures rise, it might start to look and smell like Lake Erie. Elliott 2010: Massive quantities of the greenhouse gas methane are stored beneath the Arctic continental shelf as clathrate hydrates, and the global warming signal is now reaching them. Over contemporary natural seeps, microbial activity tends to oxidize the molecule rapidly. Emissions driven by upcoming seafloor temperature rise, however, may be unprecedented in scale. Flux zones of dimension tens of kilometers are already under observation. Undersea landslides many times this size have been associated with catastrophic hydrate decomposition in the past. Yooper: My geology instruction centered around juggling rockhammers and consuming significant quantities of Labatt's Blue. Twenty-five years in the awl bidness later, I still can't juggle.
  49. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    Re: adelady (83) "Lake Superiors" (outside my window as I type this) is a really useful comparative metric. I had once heard that the volume of water added to the atmosphere due to GW (4% increase) was equivalent to the volume of Lake Superior. When I did the math, I found that Lake Superior by itself roughly equaled the mass of the water in the entire atmospheric column. Wasn't a wasted exercise, though. I did find that the increase in water in the air was equivalent to the volume of Lake Erie (not that anyone would want to picture that raining down on them). If someone runs the numbers to get an ice volume equivalent for Lake Superior, I'd be interested in finding it out. The Yooper
  50. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    @80 argus Your expectations may be a bit unrealistic. My naive expectation would be that the best we could expect would be a reduction at much the same rate as the increase. But have a look at Tom Wigley's version for zero emissions by 2050. http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/11/24/effect-zero-co2-2050/

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