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Comments 104651 to 104700:

  1. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Now, here's something that's just plain wrong. HumanityRules wrote: So those descriptions from the NASA GISS report "2010-How warm was this summer" should all have explanations of how El Nini is influencing them. Obviously they don't because any description of natural variability would confuse the message. You obviously didn't bother actually reading the GISS report that you cite, because it's absolutely chock-full of discussions of the ENSO cycle and its effects on short-term fluctuations in global temperature. I'm not going to quote any specific sentence from the report, because the whole thing is full of references to El Nino and natural climate variability. Seriously, I'm really bothered by HumanityRules's sneering dismissal of the GISS report. Having actually read the report, I think it's a great model of how to talk about the fact that any given year's spatial-temporal pattern of temperatures and precipitation is the result of interactions between short-term natural variability and the long-term warming trend from AGW. Please, HumanityRules, either read the GISS report if you haven't actually done so, or explain why you think that the more than a dozen references to ENSO in a sixteen-paragraph press release are somehow insufficient.
  2. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    John Bruno writes: Anybody with extra time on their hands want to take on comments 44 and 45 above? - JB Well, I don't really have time on my hands, but I'll take a shot anyway. As quoted at the top of this thread, Art Horn originally wrote: "strong La Nina events drop the Earth’s average temperature around [0.6 C]" and also "The most recent La Nina developed in the spring of 2007, and persisted until the early summer of 2008. The global average temperature fell [0.6 C] in that period of time, equal to all of the warming of the last 100 years!" The first statement is true if you look at short time scales. If you want to look at sub-annual-scale variation in global temperature, then yes, the ENSO cycle can cause global temperatures to fluctuate by 0.6 C for short periods of time. The problem is when you compare that to a different form of variation in climate (e.g., AGW) that occurs over much longer time scales ... as Mr Horn does in the second quote cited above. It's completely inappropriate to compare the short-term variation from ENSO to the long-term variation from AGW ... because over the long term, all the short-term variations will get averaged out. As John Bruno notes in the post at the top of this thread, when you look at the annual data, ENSO only has about an 0.1 C effect on temperatures. If you look at longer scales (e.g., decadal averages) it's negligible. The statement that the temporary, short-term drop in temperatures from La Nina is "equal to all of the warming of the last 100 years" is deeply misleading. The drop in temperature from day to night, or from summer to winter, is far greater than "all the warming of the last 100 years" ... but we recognize that the diurnal cycle and the seasons are short-term, cyclical phenomena, and that the large amplitude of the temperature change will be insignificant when averaged out over long periods. HumanityRules, does this clarify things at all?
  3. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Re: John Bruno. I can't do it now from my cell but will later. Unless someone (like Ned, for example - heh!) beats me to it.
  4. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Anybody with extra time on their hands want to take on comments 44 and 45 above? - JB
  5. Real experts don't know everything
    Re: JMurphy above. Complete agreement. On one hand, it is egregious enough that I would delete it for the reasons stated. However, the other hand is more compelling: we see in one comment the underlying thought process and motivations driving KL. So I say it would be more instructive to others, and serve as a lasting testimonial, if retained. KL and BP have torpedoed what cred they had with their recent comments.
  6. Real experts don't know everything
    Ken Lambert wrote : ...religious belief in alarmist AGW...overwhelming ‘concensus’ was an invention of green driven polemical scientists...media shy colleagues (thousands of IPCC participants)..." Can I just say that this is sad, predictable, incomprehensible, bemusing, snide, cheaply insulting, baiting, etc., etc., conspiracy-theory distraction from the (indeed, any) subject in hand. Is it better to leave it there for all to see what so-called skepticism is all about - and how difficult it is to argue against views that are, in the end, based on political belief, rather than science ? Why are such assertions/beliefs allowed on Skeptical Science ? For balance ? (Don't publish/keep this comment if you think it transgresses the rules but I am fed up of reading the same old nonsense over and over again. It's bad enough on other sites but on this site...?)
  7. Tarcisio José D at 01:45 AM on 11 November 2010
    Real experts don't know everything
    God post S.L and exelent idea of prof. Oreskes. If we loock to the selfcontrol of planet temperature we don't see anything. Bat I think: Greenhouse effect, the bigger the better if there is enough water in the soil to evaporate. The study of the thermodynamics of the atmosphere shows that a portion of heated air, with an appropriate moisture content (vapor), to ascend into the atmosphere following a moist adiabatic, surpassing the 500-hector-Pascal level, where the greenhouse is divided 50% above and 50% below. There, in argument 25 I post a anima.gif about this.
  8. Real experts don't know everything
    Ken Lambert #16 The last 6 years of upper 700m OHC is flat and deeper 3000m is not much either (0.1W/sq.m according to latest Willis on Argo). Would it be fair to summarize your argument as "it hasn't warmed since 2004, so there's no global warming"? The period is just too short to find any climatological trend. About the Royal Society: of course, it's a document worth reading in full, but as a soundbite I could draw this one: "When only natural climate forcings are put into climate models, the models are incapable of reproducing the size of the observed increase in global-average surface temperatures over the past 50 years. However, when the models include estimates of forcings resulting from human activity, they can reproduce the increase."
  9. Real experts don't know everything
    Ugh, Ken -- I think one of your wheels is stuck. You stake your claim on OHC, period, and then point out that OHC is difficult to measure. Meanwhile, surface temps keep rising, arctic ice is in rapid decline, stratospheric temps are dropping, TOA is dropping, sea level is rising, Antarctic land ice is in decline, global glaciation is in rapid decline . . . and you just called thousands of scientists mindless robots, the same scientists who are trying to bring you the data you cite. You're right about the models, though: Mann and Hansen never tried to refine their models, did they? And there was only one IPCC report, sometime back in the 1990s, I think. Of course, I could be wrong, but, like others, I would never admit it.
  10. Real experts don't know everything
    Nick Palmer #18: "KL says that XBT measurements before 2004 were "fraught with error, poor coverage and probably useless" Seems like he should believe that any ocean measurement is not yet reliable enough to establish reliable trends so he cannot suggest that there is no ocean warming (yet)." Clearly all data which contradicts a viewpoint is false... and all data which supports it is unquestionably true. And anyone who disagrees with such logic is acting based on religious convictions rather than rational thought. Scary scary people.
  11. Real experts don't know everything
    Ken Lambert at #16 "To have warming you need an excess of heat energy entering the biosphere over that leaving." Well we have that - increased IR has been being measured coming down from the sky to Earth and decreased IR has been measured leaving Earth towards space. Even the main sceptic scientists acknowledge that we are warming. If KL can't see it in the oceans why would this be? Perhaps because he is only looking at the top 700 meters for only six years. Nino/Nina/Enso cyclical variations temporarily overwhelm the small but cumulative AGW increases. KL says that XBT measurements before 2004 were "fraught with error, poor coverage and probably useless" Seems like he should believe that any ocean measurement is not yet reliable enough to establish reliable trends so he cannot suggest that there is no ocean warming (yet). If the ocean measuring is not reliable enough yet, then he should ignore it as a source of speculation and instead rely on the aforementioned measured radiative imbalance to jump to his own conclusions. Personally, if my radiative equilibrium is upset by someone wrapping me in a duvet on a hot day, I start to sweat. planets are bigger but the same basic laws apply. Don't "sceptics" notice this effect?
  12. Real experts don't know everything
    @Ken Lambert "The Royal Society has recently laid out the bare facts of 'global warming' and properly categorized the great uncertainties and soberly debunked the alarmists." That isn't the message I took from the Royal Society report, and I would say you are grievously misrepresenting their conclusions (and you won't be the only one): Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
  13. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Sorry, Daniel! :-) Louise, I should add that most of the comments following that WUWT post are, as usual, remarkably confused and misinformed. Anthony Watts is doing a terrible disservice by promoting and encouraging all that nonsense.
  14. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Re: Louise (46) Short answer: he's full of crap. Selling snake oil. 1. Whitehouse cites no specific sources for any of his claims about temps...argument by assertion. 2. He executes a standard display of the Gish Gallop. One could spend days countering the myriad ways of the litany of errors he introduces. Louise, you can trust someone writing a column on a blog who speaks calmly and rationally, but whose point is that everything the experts in the field are saying is wrong, just trust him. Or, you could trust the experts. Who show their data and their work publicly. NASA, NOAA, GISS, etc. It's all there, for the world to see and evaluate. Don't trust the details to blogs - even this one. Go to the source, the experts themselves (whatever the field) for expert opinion. Blogs such as the one you cite exist to tell you what to think. Think for yourself. You already do, that's why you came here with your question. That's the beauty of the Internet generation: we no longer need to take someone's word on anything. We can find out the details and the truths ourselves, if we are inclined. I spent several years digging into the field, reading all of the core literature and studies before making my own mind up on what to belief. I chose verifiable science. And to help others learn for themselves. Aw, crap. Ned beat me to it. Must type faster then me. Anyway, hope this helps, The Yooper
  15. Real experts don't know everything
    The arguments are simple. The issue is global warming. To have warming you need an excess of heat energy entering the biosphere over that leaving. To raise overall temperatures the heat content of the biosphere must increase – tending toward a higher equilibrium. The main place to store this heat is in the oceans. The ocean heat content in fact should show up the integral WRT of most of the radiative imbalance at TOA. The last 6 years of upper 700m OHC is flat and deeper 3000m is not much either (0.1W/sq.m according to latest Willis on Argo). So finding an increase in OHC is critical to the whole theory of TOA heating imbalances – and the theory of AGW. So far OHC content measurment before 2004 by XBT is fraught with error, poor coverage and probably useless. Argo is better – but the 6-7 analyses show OHC in the upper 700m converging on flatness. NO increase in OHC – NO global warming. CO2GHG theory (and all the other estimated forcings) must be neutral for no warming to occur. So in effect what the climate science ‘consensus’ is saying is that when the observation does not match the MODEL – then the MODEL must be right and the observation is not good enough (wrong). This turns the scientific method on its head. The method of observation – model – observation – adjust model – observation – refine model: is turned into – MODEL and go away and find observations which match it. It is clear that a religious belief in alarmist AGW is still blotting out the reality that the overwhelming ‘concensus’ never existed. The concoction of overwhelming ‘concensus’ was an invention of green driven polemical scientists who verballed their media shy colleagues (thousands of IPCC participants) into minimising the great uncertainties of climate science and exaggerating anything which smacked of warming. The Royal Society has recently laid out the bare facts of 'global warming' and properly categorized the great uncertainties and soberly debunked the alarmists.
  16. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Hi, Louise. The post you mention is just a lot of handwaving. There aren't really any facts in the post. His argument is as follows: (1) He claims that temperature has been "flat" for the past 15 years. (2) He then suggests that it would be implausible for natural coolings to have exactly counteracted the supposed anthropogenic warming trend. (3) Therefore, he implies that there's something "suspicious" going on (presumably, that AGW is a hoax). But that argument is wrong from the very start. Temperatures haven't been flat for the past 15 years -- in fact, they've risen faster during this period than they were before. Here's a plot of satellite-measured temperatures from RSS: Note that during the period when Whitehouse claims that temperatures have been "flat", they actually rose at exactly twice the previous rate (0.131 vs 0.065 C/decade). Basically, Whitehouse's post over at WUWT is just spin. There's no substantive content at all, except for a false claim about the global temperature trend. Frankly, as WUWT posts go, that one isn't even especially interesting. Most of the nonsense that Anthony's site propagates is at least much more "creative" than that!
  17. Real experts don't know everything
    The deniers intent is simply to delay by sowing doubt. During that delay, they continue to make profits. This strategy was used for the first time by the tobacco industry to deny the link between ill health and cigarette smoking. Naome Oreskes, therefore, coined the term "Tobacco Strategy" to describe it.
  18. Real experts don't know everything
    DESMOGBLOG is well worth looking at regularly. As it says there : Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet. I also find SourceWatch and ExxonSecrets useful for checking up on groups or individuals. Oops, hope the so-called skeptics don't get too paranoid and start discussing 'black-lists', etc...
  19. Real experts don't know everything
    There's this interesting feature of deniers of being "all around" deniers. The guy that says "it's the sun" never desagrees with those who say "it's not warming". Fred Singer denies global warming (unless it exists and is unstoppable), CFC ozone depletion, as well as DDT and tobacco health risks. A fairly famous meteorologist in Brazil denies AGW, which is caused by ODP or the sun or a vague natural cycle related to deglaciation (it varies), and it's not happening at all because it's just the urban heat island effect. He also denies CFCs as the cause of ozone depletion. That's just a big conspiracy of DuPont, because CFC is too heavy to reach the stratosphere. It's no use arguing that CFC has been actually measured in the stratosphere. And if you talk to them, that's how science works. Denying and dodging the available evidence means "debate".
  20. Real experts don't know everything
    People have all kinds of reasons for denying reality. For instance. I remember reading a writeup on John Christy which described him telling a group of Sunday school kids that 'crazy environmentalists are trying to destroy the economy because they do not believe that God provides'. It was horrifying... indoctrinating children with this nonsense as part of religious instruction. How can people do this? I think the terrible truth is that many of them BELIEVE the insanity they spout. Separation of church and state is long gone... and what they don't seem to have ever realized was that it was meant to protect religion from political corruption as much as it was to protect politics from religion. We need only look at the Taliban, Branch Davidians, Jim Jones, and hundreds of other examples to see the havoc than can be brought about when religion is employed as a tool to control people rather than a philosophy to uplift them.
  21. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 23:27 PM on 10 November 2010
    Real experts don't know everything
    JMurphy
    More importantly, though : how are they allowed to get away with it every time ?
    I think this is what baffles me most. 'Merchants of Doubt' has done a great job of exposing it all but maybe we need something a bit more concise. The internet should be a great platform for this.
  22. littlerobbergirl at 23:25 PM on 10 November 2010
    Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Hi Dana, keep up the good work. Here's another take on the 'wedge' system, developed by the Centre for Alternative Technology (C.A.T.) for the U.K. specifically; Zero Carbon Britain 2030
  23. Real experts don't know everything
    I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of that tiny band of politically-motivated scientists, especially over their actions to prevent measures tackling smoking, second-hand smoking, etc. How are they able to sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror each morning ? How can they justify their actions to themselves morally ? More importantly, though : how are they allowed to get away with it every time ?
  24. CO2 effect is saturated
    #40 KR "Norman, detrending the data without saying you're doing it is rather deceptive (the real data is there, but at least one level deeper, and the detrended graphs are not labeled clearly as such)." Not sure which page in Climate4you you looked at. You must have done a very quick look to make the conclusion it is a a "junk" site. He does label his graphs as detrended and he explains the purpose (sometimes it pay to take time to read what the analysis is about). The claim was made that the warming from 1981 to present was unique. The warming slope from 1908 to 1940 is very similar to the present one. Have another look and see what the person is attempting with his analysis.
  25. Real experts don't know everything
    FYI, here's a video of a lecture that I saw Dr. Oreskes present at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography about three years ago: http://ucsd.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=13459 The same nefarious cast of characters who tried to undermine the science linking smoking with lung cancer are pulling the same sleazy stunts regarding the science linking fossil-fuel use and global warming.
  26. Real experts don't know everything
    RSVP #4 "Yes, but it's the patient that makes the choice, and bears the responsibility of the decision. It would be intereting to know when climate scientists realized they know what's good for you, and what you need." The problem with this solipsistic view is that the consequences do not only affect the individual "patient". If sufficient "patients", deciding what they think is good for them, ignore the dentists they will bear the responsibility not only for what happens to them (which would be fair) but for what happens to everybody else in the world, and the plants and animals and everything else that makes up the eco-systems that support us - which would be less than fair. Some would call the ignorant, but arrogant with it, selfish view monstrously stupid. It is certainly irresponsible.
  27. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Berényi Péter your photos highlight some of my concerns about solar farms that use currently inefficient technology. I am quite concerned about the impact on the biodiversity in the areas that are suitable for them. People forget that scrub land, desserts etc. are actually rich in life that has adapted to those conditions and you only see it when there is rain or flooding. It only appears for a few weeks or months. I think wind farms have a smaller impact although probably are not suitable for desserts etc. There are a lot of interesting ideas around. I was interested recently in the idea of harvesting the heat stored under cities and towns, that causes the urban heat island effect: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/44135 We should exploit resources that are caused by our own existing developments, before exploiting the natural landscape more.
  28. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Can somebody with a better understanding of the facts that me please respond to this? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/09/david-whitehouse-the-climate-coincidence-why-is-the-temperature-unchanging/#more-27622 ? I know it's been written by a chap from a think tank with a particular view but he does seem to be writing from a perspective of knowledge. Is he right, wrong or spinning the facts?
  29. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    RSVP@77 The solar panel would cause a delay in warming via conduction or emission. eg. if it was hundred percent efficient, eventually the energy would be converted to heat or work by the device(s) it was connected to. But this energy would escape, as it does in the natural world. In theory renewables are the only non-warming (over time) energy source. It has been pointed out that if you added a very large number of nuclear and geothermal power stations and operated them 24/7, you would eventually warm the planet by a few degrees. But it would require an enormous expansion of nuclear energy.
  30. Real experts don't know everything
    Arkadiusz #6 Would you care to justify that assertion? It seems to me that when the (generally low quality) climate sceptic scientific papers come out, they're generally in journals with poor governance, and/or based on research funded by the fossil fuel companies, or their associates. Would you care to demonstrate how that impression is wrong?
  31. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    31.Alexandre "Gosh, will these guys draw the "it's cooling" argument at every La Nina? Even in the middle of a record-braking 2010?" Erm Alexandre heres the ENSO index for the past 5 years. and here's the mean monthly global temperature. It looks like La Nina do introduce short term period of cooling it seems wrong to suggest otherwise. Did you read Art's article? It seems like a fair description of La Nina. In the bit were he strays into global warming territory what he actually says is there has been no nett warming or cooling since 1999, you are mis-representing him. I guess it makes your eye rolling dismissal of him much easier that way.
  32. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:19 PM on 10 November 2010
    Real experts don't know everything
    “smoking” and now also phthalates - here actually of the scientific work - denying the harmfulness - is financed in 99% (or maybe even 100%) by the tobacco and phthalates manufacturers - “think tanks”. If the number of climate scientists have only "scientific" reasons to be skeptical, is much greater. Conclusion: The comparison of skeptics such as the dangers of smoking and the climate skeptics is: extremely unfair and inappropriate from the standpoint of scientific methodology.
  33. Skeptical Science moving into solutions
    Let me try and frame the problem humanity faces and that needs to be addressed. 1. Is the Science of AGW solid? Obviously it is, although our understanding of what the magnitude of the change will be relative to the forcing is still somewhat unclear. 2. Is the Science well accepted? Among the scientific world yes. Among small parts of the community such as our corner of the Blogosphere, yes. Among much of the broader community? Significantly yes although this varies hugely from country to country. But this acceptance is substantially based on trust rather than knowledge. And among significant percentages in some countries no, based on lack of understanding, mendaciousness, or simple classical psychological denial. 3. Is the Severity well understood; how big an impact will a temp rise of X have? How many people will die as a result? Among the scientific world substantially yes although not totally. Among small parts of the community such as our corner of the Blogosphere, ditto. Among much of the broader community? significantly NOT. That change is happening may be accepted. But a visceral grasp of how serious this is doesn't seem to be common. Something to be worried about rather than utterly terrified by. And among the the deniers of the change, claims of its severity are 'Alarmist' twaddle. 4. Is the Urgency of the required action well understood? Among the scientific world substantially yes although not totally. Among small parts of the community such as our corner of the Blogosphere, ditto. Among much of the broader community? significantly NOT. That change is happening may be accepted. But why we need to act now when the change is so far away doesn't seem to be commonly understood. We can deal with it in good time. So: 'we need policies to deal with Climate Change' rather than 'For God sake, Somebody hit the Big Red Button' And among the the deniers of the change, claims of its urgency are 'Alarmist' twaddle heaped on twaddle. 5. Do we have the answers to solve the problem now? Yes, just barely. But the impacts would be huge. I know Dana's post is about the multiple wedges and a more conventional analysis of economic impacts. But I am not convinced that we are yet grappling with how the multiple technical, economic, environmental and follow on social challenges we face intersect and compound each other: How does ocean acidification intersect with seafood stock depletion due to over-fishing? How do raw materials limitations impact on the viability of renewable technologies - lithium, indium for example? If we phase out Coal use rapidly and replace it with renewables, not only do we need to shut down coal power plants before the end of their economic life - a huge capital loss to the world, but we also need to write off the capital value of the 3/4 of the worlds coal reserves that we can't afford to mine - an even bigger hit to the World's Balance Sheet. How do rising population, the Hydrological Crisis and the precipitation impacts of AGW intersect to impact on food security? What wars and social collapses could be triggered by this? If the rise of affluence continues in China, India etc (and if we have the right to it, so do they), how do we handle the ever growing demands on the Earths resources. 6. Do we know how to change the worlds economic systems to handle the changes required if the impact of these changes would otherwise be unrealistic? Not solving this threat isn't a viable strategy, so how do the worlds systems need to change to make the solution possible. Currently the line is that we can decarbonise, become 'sort of' sustainable and then it can still be business as usual. Is that valid? Or do we need to ask whether far more profound changes will be needed. How do we bring them about. What has to change in how our world works to make this possible? Are countries still the appropriate entities for encapsulating our actions? Can Capitalism survive in a world of zero growth, and if not, what replaces it. Countries like America appeared during the first Age of Revolutions. The 20th Century was the Second Age of Revolutions - all sorts of ism's. And pretty much all of them failed. So what is the next option if Capitalism has reached it's Use By Date because we can't afford growth anymore. 7. And if we need to make society wide changes, how do we get there from here? How do we bring everyone with us without triggering peoples self-preservation instincts to fight against it? 8. And what are the Psychological, Sociological and Anthropological dimensions of all this? Items 1 to 4 above cover the sort of Denialist psychological landscape we are already familiar with. But 5 & 6 take us into areas that are almost Taboo. For each one of us, what is the threshold over which we cannot cross, where it becomes too hard to contemplate. AGW is a danger, but surely not 'The End Of Civilisation'. Effectively are we all not Denialists? Each of us can only go so far before it becomes to overwhelming; just some of us can go further than others. The psychological dimension of why individuals, communities, nations, an entire species are not adequately able to respond to such a vast and terrible threat needs to be looked at very, very hard. Obviously, the scope of what I have outlined above is vast. I don't think John has enough hours in the day, even with his growing army of helpers to encompass this. So what subject areas will give us the most 'bang for our buck', will contribute the most to driving 'the change' relative the effort we can put in. Personally I would plum for pushing 3 & 4 because we are already pushing on 2 - that is the whole point of John's site. Then 7 & 8. Because that addresses the question of how to achieve 5 & 6. Do we need to be opening discussions about Fear, Denial, Existential questions. Why we might retreat into our private worlds and lives rather than confront things that are too big or too disturbing. The Technology of 'The Change' might be interesting. The psychology of 'The Change' is Life & Death. Because everything else flows from it.
  34. Real experts don't know everything
    Yes, that's a good point. I would be suspicious of anyone who claimed to have across-the-board expertise in climate change studies. The field is too complex, the flood of new publications too copious. Everybody has to rely on a range of other experts. And if somebody lets the side down by sneaking through dodgy work in a key field we all suffer.
  35. Real experts don't know everything
    "...we must trust our dentist to decide how to fill our teeth,.." Yes, but it's the patient that makes the choice, and bears the responsibility of the decision. It would be intereting to know when climate scientists realized they know what's good for you, and what you need.
  36. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    6.John Bruno John i think your being silly in the first paragraph, I'm not sure what point you're making with it other than sarcasm. Fig 3 still remains an extraordinarily poor choice when trying to look at the variation in global temp introduced by ENSO. I'm not really interested in peaks and troughs and cycle averages it's much simpler than that. Global mean temp is the favoured metric in climate science, I'm interested in what sort of variability the ENSO sytem introduces into that metric, It seems fair to say that if we take 1998 as an example ENSO can introduce upto 0.7oC change to the global mean surface temp in a very short time period, that seems like a fairly solid fact, I don't really understand your objection to it. I don't get your cherry pickings suggestion, other than to think it's just a knee jerk response from an alarmist who thinks he's trying to put down a denier. Maybe you should write to CRU and NASA GISS to let them know their mean monthly global temperature records are not acceptable. I'm happy to agree with you for now that ENSO doesn't have any affect on long term trends but it does impact in the short term in a big way (potentially as big as whatever is driving the longer term trend). So any short term descriptions of the global temp need to be seen in this light. So those descriptions from the NASA GISS report "2010-How warm was this summer" should all have explanations of how El Nini is influencing them. Obviously they don't because any description of natural variability would confuse the message. Whether 2010 turns out to be the hottest year on record is now largely going to depend on whether the present La Nina will start impacting on global temp enough before the end of the year. The fact that 2010 is is in line for hottest year ever is in part due to the lingering effect of the most recent El Nino.
  37. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Marcus #59 Your point is well taken about using roof space, its decentralized modular nature, and how roof space is not normally available to agriculture, however in 73 you do a 180 and "certainly do detract from your original point". And aside from your point, compare the radiative qualities of a black body (black shale roofing, or even tar paper) to a solar panel. The solar panel is "sequestering" heat all day. Using photovoltaics to create electricity surely reduces CO2 (which isnt bad), but its not so clear overall that they make the Earth cooler. The most efficient solar panel would be one that when you touched it midday, it would be nice and cool. A hot roof on the other hand is actually radiating heat into space.
  38. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    dana1981: Wow BP, cherrypicking at its finest. Truly. And why do I have this suspicion that his worries about land use in the desert West would evaporate if we were talking about an ideologically acceptable power source like coal, oil or nuclear?
  39. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Speaking of air-conditioning, has anyone heard anything recently about that solar-thermal-powered air-conditioning system being developed by ANU? Most recent stuff I can find is the press release from February last year. Stuff like this has the potential to make a *massive* dent in electricity usage, particularly in Australia.
  40. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    As for distributed solar generation, I see a big future for some of the newer technology incorporating solar function into roof materials. May not be affordable or sensible initially for domestic applications, but when you look at all the schools, stadiums and churches with large roof areas and only intermittent use for their own purposes, there's a large potential. Especially when you consider Australia and other hot places' need for cooking and air conditioning at exactly the times schools are using nil or little power. Between 4 & 8 pm in summer on workdays, all weekends, as well as school holidays, there's a big source with no additional land use involved at all. Add in solar thermal and some geothermal for baseload and a bit of wind for cold and cloudy weather, looks good. And can we please take into account the enormous demands on the water supply for all power plants that burn stuff. Water is used for both mining the fuel and for operating the plants. In a world of more droughts, or at least more unreliable water supplies, this has to be a big consideration.
  41. Real experts don't know everything
    HR, the Currys, etc fit uncomfortably between the industry driven or ideologically driven organisations and mainstream science. Different things drive different individuals and none of us knows any of these people well enough to accurately assess them. But for the rest of us, bodies that set up organisations with misleading names really are 'shadowy'. Many of them are truly Orwellian in the doublespeak involved when using words like 'ecological' or 'environmental'. And remember, this talk is promoting Oreskes' presentation, so the tone suggesting that there are organisations set up for the express purpose of misleading people is appropriate. It correctly conveys what Oreskes will be talking about - so it's honest. No-one going to hear Oreskes will be surprised by what she says if their decision to attend is based on this promotion.
  42. Real experts don't know everything
    This seems horribly off the mark. Just deal with the idea/argument. Why concern yourself with labelling the individual making the comment? Either the idea has some validity or not. What you seem to be suggesting is closing down the scope of the debate to those officially sanctioned. Call me suspicious but I'm only really suspicious of people who suggest whom I should and shouldn't be suspicious of. Shadowy "think tanks"???? Isn't it the job of a think tanks to be out in the open, putting forward their ideas and agendas in as public a way as possible. Isn't that what they do? Their ideas might be unpleasant to some of us but shadowy? This sounds like the worst sort of cold war paranoia from a second rate thriller. I thought we were passed this sort of nonsense. My suggestion is read as much as you can, from both sides of the debate, as much science as you can and keep doing this to shape and inform your position. It's not so difficult for people to work out who has good ideas and who are off the scale. Personnally I think there's lots to be learnt from both sides of the debate no matter what your own personal position is. I recommend you don't listen to people who want to simply close down the debate. Where do Judith Curry, the Pielkes, Lindzen etc fit into your shadowy world?
  43. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    A couple of other real-world projects that show how off-beam Beranyi & his "source" actually are. The Sarnia Solar Farm in Ontario, Canada (hardly the sunniest part of the world), has 80MW of peak capacity & covers an area of around 900,000 square meters-or about 80 Watts/square meter. Nellis Airforce Base-14MW facility occupying a total of roughly 500,000 square meters-or about 30 Watts/square meter. Both of the above examples used technologies from earlier this decade (& probably not even the best available), yet we're seeing that even the very *worst* energy densities are 4 times greater than the 25+ year-old project BP uses to try & dismiss solar energy out of hand. Certainly these examples don't detract from my original points, which were: (1) the modular nature of photovoltaics means you don't need to build it as a single, large power station-but instead distribute it over a wide geographic area-to reduce its footprint; (2) that even if you *were* t build it as a single, large power station-photovoltaics have a smaller footprint than a coal or nuclear power station *if* you consider the footprint of the associated mine (& even more-so if you also account for the land area needed to dump associated waste); (3) If built as a single, large power station, photovoltaics work best when sited in areas that are otherwise devoid of economic value (like desert). Recent events in Northern NSW proves this is *not* the case for coal!
  44. Real experts don't know everything
    Of all the trades to use to make the desired point, plumbers would have to the worst choice. Plumbers are notorious for exploiting the ignorance and gullibility of those who find the whole plumbing thing "yucky". Then again, maybe they do illustrate the point precisely.
  45. Pete Dunkelberg at 15:59 PM on 10 November 2010
    Ice-Free Arctic
    Arkadiusz Semczyszak @ 48: “Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today ... " D'oh! Why didn't I think of that? Changes in the distant past, whether local or global, were not caused by a plague of monkeys burning carbon. ;) muoncounter @ 51: Arkadi already mentioned that changes in the past had different causes, although we can still say that ice melts, and melted in the past due to sufficient energy in its environment to supply the heat of fusion. This is where ocean currents among other things come in.
  46. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Berényi - Your source seems a bit biased. Here's a few posting titles: - Post-Election, Post-Cap-and-Trade: Obama Clings to an Anti-CO2 Agenda - Wind Energy is Ancient (the infant industry argument for subsidies does not apply) - EPA’s Regs for Rigs – Fuel Economy Fetish Goes Diesel - Real Clean Coal: Japan’s Unit #2 Isogo Plant - “The Future of Economic Freedom” (A corporate call to principled action) - Halloween Hangover: Ehrlich, Holdren, Hansen Unretracted - Peeling Away the Onion of Denmark Wind (Part IV – CO2 Emissions) - Dear Peak Oilers: Please Consider Erich Zimmermann’s ‘Functional Theory’ of Mineral Resources - Solar Cheaper than Grid Nuclear? Think Again! - The All-Electric Car: Think 132-Year Payback (DOE’s Sandalow shows us what not to do) - ... Certainly not peer-reviewed material. And in fact I can see the axes being ground there.
  47. Ice-Free Arctic
    Re: Artful Dodger Thanks for the links, I'll check them out tomorrow afternoon when I have more time. Your ice expertise would be of great value here, if present more regularly. A possibility? Guest posts available... ( - AD runs away, screaming "No, my Precious! We mustn't writes us a guest post, Nooooo..." - ) The Yooper
  48. Ice-Free Arctic
    Hi, Daniel #47 (Go Spartans!) To followup with more ICESAT results, a NASA analysis of satellite data has quantified the amount of multiyear sea ice lost through melt from the Beaufort Sea (~30%) vs Advection through Fram Strait (~50%). See also this write-up on ClickGreen.org
  49. Skeptical Science moving into solutions
    John, Please accept my congratulations on your new venture. If you stick with your current style it should work well. From our private correspondence you know that camels often support solutions that you favor but for reasons that differ from yours. Good luck!
  50. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Ah, more cherry-picking at its finest Berenyi. A free-market Web-site. Kind of like those climate change denialist sites you're so fond of, hey Beranyi? When you can find data from a *neutral* source-not one pushing a pro-fossil fuel agenda down our throats-then I might take you seriously. Until then, I think you're the only one needing a reality check. An average, 1KW solar panel (of only about 10%-12% efficiency) is only 8 square meters in size-which amounts to around 125W/square meter. Of course there are already models on the market which exceed 25% efficiency, & there are models coming out of the lab that surpass 40% conversion efficiency. Go do some *proper* research Beranyi!

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