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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 104951 to 105000:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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?
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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?
  10. 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!
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. 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!
  17. 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!
  18. Geological Society discuss climate change evidence from the geological record
    There's a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Science) — “Biological diversity in a changing world” out. Open access. One of the articles therein, The future of the oceans past by Jeremy B. C. Jackson closes with this:
    " There is an urgent need for immediate and decisive conservation action. Otherwise, another great mass extinction affecting all ocean ecosystems and comparable to the upheavals of the geological past appears inevitable."
    and
    "The question is whether we can overcome our apathy, ignorance, corruption and greed to act responsibly, or wait for catastrophe to strike."
     Sheesh! What's next, the Past Through Tomorrow? The Yooper
  19. Berényi Péter at 13:29 PM on 10 November 2010
    Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    I see a reality check is in order. Power Density Primer: Understanding the Spatial Dimension of the Unfolding Transition to Renewable Electricity Generation (Part IV – New Renewables Electricity Generation) by Vaclav Smil May 13, 2010
  20. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Nice article in Science Daily on direct current (DC) transmission networks for offshore wind farms here. Nice bit of out-of-the-box thinking reflected in the idea. The Yooper
  21. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Wow BP, cherrypicking at its finest.
  22. Berényi Péter at 12:58 PM on 10 November 2010
    CO2 effect is saturated
    #43 Tom Dayton at 10:58 AM on 10 November, 2010 BP, those graphs you pasted were presented and discussed thoroughly in the comments section of the post Have American Thinker Disproven Global Warming? Not thoroughly enough. Near-global difference spectrum of brightness temperature between 750 cm-1 and 900 cm-1, where the atmospheric window is really transparent (except for the water vapor continuum), is about +2 K. No layer has warmed nearly that much between 1970 and 1996, therefore the upper troposphere must have got more transparent at this IR frequency band, making lower (warmer) layers "visible" to satellites. It means a negative water vapor feedback. Worth mentioning that effective warming (by lowering) of photosphere in this band should have been even greater, because brightness temperatures are calculated for black body equivalent temperatures, while actual emissivity is always lower than that. It is also consistent with balloon radiosonde measured decreasing humidity trends above the 700 mbar level.
  23. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    sorry, I obviously meant *increase* the watts per square meter.
  24. Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
    Re: Karamanski (22) It is a time-honored feature of American politics to repeat a lie so often that it becomes the truth. A feature we now see adopted by the MSM (controlled by their corporate masters). The X-Files featured this prominently back in the '90's with their running theme of plausible deniability. Oh, crap. Mod beat me with a much more literal response. Oh, well. The Yooper
  25. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Oh & BP, its worth noting that that's just the amount of electricity/square meter using very basic photovoltaic technology. If you're looking at *concentrated* photovoltaic power (which uses reflective mirrors to enhance the amount of light hitting the panels), then you could probably reduce the watts/square meter by a further 20% to 40%.
  26. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    I have just read that the International Energy Agency reckon that global coal demand is set to rise by 60% over the next 25 years, with China buring 50% of it in 2035. Not a good indicator of any reduction or levelling off of emissions.
  27. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Ah, spoken like a true Coal Power advocate Berényi Péter-first of all you totally ignored my main point (namely the amount of viable roof-space that could be put to work making solar-power), then dredge up a single, almost 30-year old case to try & dismiss my secondary point. The top-most picture is simply an example of failure to rehabilitate a site, & a poor choice of site to begin with. We're talking true *deserts* here BP, not plains like the one you conveniently have a picture of. A modern photovoltaic array could get around 60W-250W/sq. meter (depending on the conversion efficiency of the cells), which kind of stomps your pathetic argument into the ground-as a 6MW facility in modern terms would use up less than 10 square meters of space (between 2-8 square meters actually). As I said in my previous post, you could then build a 1,200MW PV plant *not* by building a *single* 1.6 square kilometer facility, but by building about 8-10 160 square meter facilities-easy to do with available roof-space!
  28. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Berényi Péter @ #62: So, what you're saying is that because a solar PV plant built with 30-year-old technology was an inefficient use of space, that any new plant using 3 times more efficient PV cells is necessarily a waste of space? And lets look at that 1000MW coal plant. The power plant itself might only use a couple of km2. But the mine used to power that? If you happen to live in an area where coal mines are all underground, that might only add a few more km2, so maybe 10km2 total. If it's open cut, like the majority of coal mines in this part of the world, then you're talking about a couple of km2 of additional area affected per year. Over a 30-year mine life, the areas can get pretty big (thinking back to one I worked in as a student some 18 years ago, it affected about 50km2 at the time, and had only been in operation for about 5 years - I'd hate to think what it's footprint is now!).
  29. Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
    There have been five major investigations by experts into the climategate frenzy, and none of them found any evidence whatsoever of fraud, or misconduct. Yet the conservative media is still cherishes the nonscandal as if it is the latest news. I find this amusing and laughable. Why won't the conservative media stop? Its so irratating seeing this worn out climategate tantrum persisting. Does anyone have any explanations for this?
    Response: That's six investigations, actually:
    1. February 2010. the Pennsylvania State University released an Inquiry Report that investigated any 'Climategate' emails involving Dr Michael Mann, a Professor of Penn State's Department of Meteorology. They found that "there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data". On "Mike's Nature trick", they concluded "The so-called “trick”1 was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."
    2. March 2010. UK government's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report finding that the criticisms of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) were misplaced and that CRU’s "Professor Jones’s actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community".
    3. April 2010. University of East Anglia set up an international Scientific Assessment Panel, in consultation with the Royal Society and chaired by Professor Ron Oxburgh. The Report of the International Panel assessed the integrity of the research published by the CRU and found "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit".
    4. June 2010. Pennsylvania State University published their Final Investigation Report, determining "there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann".
    5. July 2010. University of East Anglia published the Independent Climate Change Email Review report. They examined the emails to assess whether manipulation or suppression of data occurred and concluded that "The scientists’ rigor and honesty are not in doubt".
    6. September 2010. UK Government responded to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report, chaired by Sir Muir Russell. On the issue of releasing data, they found "In the instance of the CRU, the scientists were not legally allowed to give out the data". On the issue of attempting to corrupt the peer-review process, they found "The evidence that we have seen does not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process. Academics should not be criticised for making informal comments on academic papers".
  30. Berényi Péter at 11:35 AM on 10 November 2010
    Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    #59 Marcus at 09:43 AM on 10 November, 2010 The main point though is that, whether built in deserts, fields or on rooftops, the nature of photovoltaic energy (& wind energy) is that they can harvest energy *without* necessarily disrupting whatever activity might otherwise occur on the site. Indeed. This photovoltaic plant was built on Carrizo plain, California in 1983, abandoned in 1994 and looks like this now. This is the native grassland at Carrizo plain. Or even prettier, sometimes. No disruption at all. The plant occupies 0.72 km2 and it has produced 5.2 MW at its prime (slightly more than 7 W/m2). With this land use efficiency a standard 1000 MW plant would destroy 140 km2, orders of magnitude more than a coal fired plant, open mines included.
  31. CO2 effect is saturated
    The question of the total outgoing longwave amount is addressed by Harries in his responses to John Cook's questions, in the green "Response" box of this comment on the American Thinker post.
  32. CO2 effect is saturated
    BP and Norman, in my previous comment I should have also said to look at Pierre-Normand's followup comment 78 on that other post, in which he corrected a misstatement he made in his comment 72. Also note that a large portion of the many comments on that post (Have American Thinker Disproven Global Warming?) is in response to the American Thinker article's writer suffering a similar misunderstanding that Norman has--that total outgoing longwave radiation must change in lockstep with greenhouse gas levels. See further the comments 80 by me and 81 by Pierre-Normand. The entire set of comments on that post is very enlightening, by folks far more knowledgeable than me, so I suggest that BP and Norman read them all.
  33. CO2 effect is saturated
    BP, those graphs you pasted were presented and discussed thoroughly in the comments section of the post Have American Thinker Disproven Global Warming?". Norman, the answer given to you by Riccardo is expanded in the comments of that other post. I suggest you start with comment 72 by Pierre-Normand, followed by my much less technical analogy in comment 71.
  34. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    The last point is definitely true. Prior to the invention of the Sine-Wave inverter (1982), the average cost of a solar cell was US$26/Watt. At last check (October 2010) they were only $3.59/Watt. Not only that, but average conversion efficiencies have tripled in that same length of time (from around 8% to 24%). By contrast, coal power costs about $1.80 to $2.20 per Watt to install, & conversion efficiencies have been stuck-by physics & engineering constraints-at around 36% for the last 30 years. Yet guess which energy source receives the biggest R&D tax concessions?
  35. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Marcus, good points about some of the benefits of solar PV and wind. Of course they also have their disadvantages - on a cloudy or calm day, 800 MW of solar PV and/or wind isn't 800 MW anymore. That problem is solved by diversifying the power grid, which is why you've got some wind wedges and some solar PV and some solar thermal and some natural gas, etc. etc. The other disadvantage with solar PV is that it's still expensive relative to these other sources. But the price is decreasing as technology advances and the economies of scale take effect.
  36. Berényi Péter at 10:07 AM on 10 November 2010
    CO2 effect is saturated
    Figure 1: Change in spectrum from 1970 to 1996 due to trace gases. 'Brightness temperature' indicates equivalent blackbody temperature (Harries 2001). Well, well, well. Let's see. FIGURE 1. Examples of IRIS and IMG observed and simulated spectra for a three-month average (April–June) over selected regions. a, Observed IRIS and IMG clear sky brightness temperature spectra for the central Pacific (10°N–10°S, 130°W–180°W). b, Top, observed difference spectrum taken from a; middle, simulated central Pacific difference spectrum, displaced by -5 K; bottom, observed difference spectrum for 'near-global' case (60°N–60°S), displaced by –10 K. c, Component of simulated spectrum due to trace-gas changes only. 'Brightness temperature' on the ordinate indicates equivalent blackbody brightness temperature. "Component of simulated spectrum due to trace-gas changes only" is not the same as "Change in spectrum [...] due to trace gases". If you have references, you are expected to omit misquotations. Observed (as opposed to simulated) near-global difference spectrum (Fig. 1. b, bottom) does not show an overall energy imbalance. There is simply more outgoing longwave radiation in the atmospheric window, compensating for somewhat less radiation elsewhere. It is consistent with a slightly decreasing average upper tropospheric IR optical depth at water vapor absorption bands (especially in the water vapor continuum). I would also like to know if measurements were performed in the 400 cm-1 - 1600 cm-1 (6.25 μm - 25 μm) range, why Harries at al. only show the 710 cm-1 - 1400 cm-1 (7.14 μm - 14.08 μm) range? The so called arctic window is below 625 cm-1 (above 16 μm). At these frequencies all absorption/emission is from water vapor, therefore changes in brightness temperature spectrum here should be rather informative.
    Moderator Response: Harries explained that the spectra below 700 were too noisy to include. See the "Response" in the green box of this comment on the post about the American Thinker article.
  37. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    The Art of cramming loads of skeptic nonsense into a concise paragraph can be seen in his letter to Senator Lieberman: "The science shows that there has been no warming for ten years. All data show this. We are in the eighth year of cooling, however carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. There has been no correlation between the two for ten years nor was there any correlation with temperature from the mid 1940's to the late 1970's when the global temperature data show decades of cooling. " Horn then goes on... "Climate modelers are not forecasters. They have no real world experience in makeing predictions. They have never known what it is like to fail because their predictions won't verify for 50 to 100 years. If there is no fear of failure there is not limit to what you will forecast. Computer models have many flaws that even the modelers will admit but they also create and maintain careers and funding. A climate model can be tweaked to give you the result you want or need." In another post, he talks about his program for high school students that he's trying to sell. "The program I have for high school students is called "Understanding Global Warming" This hour long powerpoint show gives the students a look at the science of this issue. Newpapers, magazine, television shows, news programs and movies have their own point of view of global warming with the intent of increasing their audience. My program cuts to the heart of the matter with real world data and observations. Powerful forces of nature have controlled the climate in the past and are continuing to do so today. Computer models are the only evidence that humans affect the climate and computer models are not evidence. I will demostrate clearly with vivid graphics how computer model foreasts are not able to predict the climate 50 to 100 years in the future. In fact they can't even "predict" the climate of the past. The warming of the climate is nothing new nor is the current warming unusual or unprecedented. In fact the earth has been warming for some 300 years since we began coming out of the "Little Ice Age" that dominated the earth from about 1400 to 1850. The melting of glaciers is used by some to say "See the glaciers are melting and we are doing it!" but the melting of glaciers is nothing new, they have been melting and at time advancing for 250 years. Long term changes in solar activity have a strong relationship to global temperature and in this program you will come to understand this. All five data centers that track global temperature show no global warming for 12 years. The earth is now in it's eighth year of global cooling. Changes in the sun and the oceans are causing this. Today's students will soon be tomorrow 's voters and they will need to know the science, not the politics of this major issue to make educated choices. My program will give them that. Please feel free to email me for availibility and cost." http://arthorn.theartofweather.com/ The line that begins "Today's students will soon be tomorrow's voters" is especially amusing.
  38. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Its unfortunate that, even here, I seem to be running into much the same narrow thinking about solutions as what I do on sites like The Australian. For example, RSVP talks about crop-land that could be displaced by solar panels. For starters, he doesn't seem aware of just how much land is displaced by the average coal mine-& how this demand for land is already placing pressure on food security here in Australia. Not only is there the direct land displacement by the mine, though, but coal dust & coal slurry can damage even more of the land outside of the mine site. By contrast, how much roof-space (commercial & residential) do you think there is in-say-Australia? How much of that space would you need for just 3KW of generating capacity? At the moment all this roof-space is primarily wasted space, when it could instead be converted into one giant, but highly decentralized, solar power station. The main point though is that, whether built in deserts, fields or on rooftops, the nature of photovoltaic energy (& wind energy) is that they can harvest energy *without* necessarily disrupting whatever activity might otherwise occur on the site. That is thanks to the *modular* nature of the power supply-something that both coal & nuclear lack. Another benefit of modular power supply, though, is that you can scale it up to meet demand-or scale it back if you realize demand won't be met. For instance, if you build a 1,200MW coal power station, then you're committed to that-even if demand only ends up being 800MW. Also, you don't get *any* of that power until the power station is completed. If, in the future, demand exceeds that 1,200MW of supply, then you have to build a *whole new power station* to meet demand-or else import electricity from elsewhere at a higher price. If that power station were made up of photovoltaics though, you could stop building your power station at 800MW-& still have a fully operational power station. Also, as long as the transmission infrastructure is already in place, then you get power even before the power station is fully built. Lastly, if demand one day routinely exceeds supply by 10% or 20%, then you just throw in 80MW to 160MW of more solar panels!
  39. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    clonmac. The biggest issue I have with "official" fuel efficiency ratings it that it *assumes* open highway travel only. How many people actually use their cars primarily for this purpose though? In peak hour traffic, cars usually consume 20% more petrol than what their official fuel efficiency claims. So if a car is officially rated as 8L/100km, then in peak hour traffic its more like 9.6L/100km (or often as high as 10L/100km). Yet it never ceases to amaze me how many otherwise *intelligent* people will die in a ditch to defend their RIGHT to let the Oil Companies pick their pockets with impunity. Even suggesting that they might consider car-pooling or-heaven forbid-public transport gets you dark looks & mutterings of "Communist". Hilarious :)!
  40. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Re: Jevons paradox I've been following this thread with great interest, as it finally begins to address the next needed step: taking action on what we know about global warming. Since I have little expertise in most of what's been covered in this thread thus far, I've been content to lurk. What The Ville & CBD have identified, Jevons paradox, touches upon the heart of AGW: the need to educate people about the dangers of the CO2 derived from the burning of fossil fuels so that they will want to leave the stuff in the ground. Without that same educational process, Jevons paradox will kick in and reduce the effectivity of the changes applied to each wedge. In short, people will adapt to the wedge in unanticipated ways, negating some of the intended benefit of the wedge. Like the unlamented turn towards pro-nuclear power on a recent thread by some individuals, without the education to make the need to allow the wedge to come to complete fruition, or the need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, the result will be less than the intent. People are people, after all. And being people, they are resistant to both change and to education. And will fight both kicking and screaming. Like a child going to the dentist, even if for their own good, they will resist. The Yooper
  41. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    To say that wedge one is useless simply because of Jevon's principle is obsurd. Also, comparing older technologies to newer technologies and saying that the samething will happen is crazy (Steam engines vs cars). If you do the math on fuel efficiency, you will see why Jevon's principle doesn't completely apply to automotive technology and fuel consumption. Fuel efficiency in cars is not linear. The more efficient a car gets in fuel efficiency is not 1:1 with how much gas is consumed. The math shows you that. When they talk about the average fuel economy of a fleet of cars, it is exactly that...the "average" fuel economy taking into account that some of the cars have a fuel economy of 20 MPG and some of them might get 40 MPG. Now here is why you can't take the "average" fleet fuel economy number at face value. For one, the MPG number doesn't necessarily mean that the "gallons" is referring to gallons of gasoline. But, let's assume that we're talking strictly gasoline. Let's take two sets of two cars each (these are our fleets). The first set consists of a car that receives only 10 MPG and another that receives 100 MPG. Together they average out to 60 MPG. But if both cars were to travel 100 miles, they would together consume about 6 gallons of gasoline. Now let's look at another fleet that consists of two cars that both average 60 MPG. The average MPG of both these cars is obviously 60 MPG, but if you look at the amount of gasoline consumed if both these cars traveled 100 miles, we'd see that it comes out to be almost HALF of what the first fleets uses. What this means is that even though wedge one would propose levels increased to 60 MPG (up from 30 MPG), the amount of gasoline consumed (and therefore burned releasing GHG) is going to be much more than just double! The reason for this is because of the fact that by the date 2054, there will be much less cars on the road that only get 10, 20 or even 30 MPG. There is a very sharpe upcurve to the graph of fuel consumption that shows that as a car becomes increasingly fuel efficient, there is a much sharper decrease in actual fuel consumed. That doesn't even take into account that much of today's technology in fuel efficient cars allows for almost no fuel consumption if the commuter only travels a few miles a day (ie, plug-in hybrids). Wedge 1 doesn't concern itself with the number of commuters who will decide to drive a car when traveling for the holidays that would've otherwise said "no" if fuel costs were too high. Wedge 1 concerns itself with the average commuter. That is where the greastest savings in fuel consumption will come from. And it is from those commuters that we'll see the greatest decrease of fuel consumption if fuel efficiency in cars increases from 30 MPG to 60 MPG. The less we see vehicles that get 10-20 MPG on the road, the greater the savings in fuel comsumption are.
  42. CO2 effect is saturated
    Re: Climate4you I also went to a ring of sites linking to it (there are dozens) - all very similar, some with even more polish. Some of the data manipulation gets sophisticated - to the point that (coupled with the quality graphics) the "errors" become intentional (the knowledge needed to pull off what they're trying to do makes it obvious they should know better). That's why I called it a bait-pile (deer season in 6 days colors my thinking process a bit). The Yooper
  43. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    One of the problems with the satellite measurements is that the raw channels are actually pretty wide with respect to the altitudes they sample. So a "lower troposphere" channel may well sample everything from near the ground to the mid-upper troposphere (peaked in the lower troposphere). The upper troposphere is cooling (also a prediction of AGW) so a little of that in the sample really disguises any LT amplification. Getting a narrower altitude sample involves synthetic analysis (adding and subtracting channels) which of course is dependent on certain assumptions, etc. On balance, the observations are reasonably consistent with the modeled amplification factors, but it's not absolutely nailed down either. Whatever minor corrections may or may not occur from further observation, climate sensitivity will still be roundabout 3.
  44. CO2 effect is saturated
    Yooper - Thanks for the Climate4you evaluation! I had taken a quick look at it, saw that all the temp records appeared to not show 20th century temperature increases, but hadn't had time to dig far enough to find out why. Apparently the creator of the site is attempting to compare the various records GISS, UAH, RSS, etc.) against each other - apples/oranges, really, especially surface vs. satellite. 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). I would rate Climate4you as a junk site as well.
  45. CO2 effect is saturated
    The problem posed by Norman has nothing to do with the saturation of CO2, any comparison with fig. 1 here makes no sense. The OLR is a balance between the increasing blackbody emission from the earth surface (some 250 W/m2 with a variability of some tens of W/m2) and anything that can block it, including CO2 absorption (of the order of 1 W/m2 over the full period of the figure). The former depends on temperature. Anything else being equal, if for some reason temperature does not rise fast enough the OLR decreases (of a fraction of a W/m2), and viceversa. If you add ENSO, clouds, GHG and all other sources of variability, it's a mess. Trying to draw any conclusions eyeballing a graph like the one shown by Norman is meaningless.
  46. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Bern @ #31Phila @ #28: It already *has* happened - if you consider the lack of regulation of the finance sector and the resulting economic chaos of the last few years... My implicit point exactly and explicitly. The only people who've managed to "wreck the economy" are the kneejerk anti-regulation types. Which suggests that it might be time to start listening to people with a better track record, or failing that, a more plausible set of basic assumptions.
  47. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Why would there be no mention of biocharcoal technology? Combined with tree planting this technology can sequester as much CO2 as is required to stabilize climates and restore once fertile soils, as well. Another wedge. http://www.biochar-international.org/
  48. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    The Ville @52 That makes sense, as it opens to the idea of finding rather niche solutions that make sense locally, while having benefits globally, in the same way that so many locally "good" things may have a globally "bad" effect. When considering a global issue, you are concerned with an overall average. Since the task is to affect the average, you can end up with solutions that make little sense to the local condition. The prescriptions in the article in no way differentiate between regional needs. Some things may be universal, while other make no sense at all. A simple example would be not using wood to heat a home that is isolated in the middle of a forest or orchard, especially where the amount of heat needed is equal to the rate of local growth and or normal pruning, etc.
  49. CO2 effect is saturated
    Norman, the only way energy leaves the earth is radiation, mostly LW. What it should do is match incoming energy at TOA (first law). If it doesnt, (it doesnt), then planet is accumulating heat but you dont expect to see a trend. The surface heats because of increased GHG effectively impede the efficiency with which the surface can radiate (LW is radiated back onto the surface). You would expect TOA outgoing LW to increase only if the cause of warming was more incoming energy from the sun.
  50. Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
    Ned, Thanks for the info. I'll have to look at the RSS data. I actually think that part of the problem is that I misinterpreted the 1.2. My factor of 1.54 (or 1.55) is used to convert the LT temp into a corresponding surface temp, e.g. Ts = (1.54 * Tlt) - 134.16 for 30 day smoothing, and it does so with a fairly high correlation. But the two numbers aren't the same thing. My 1.54 factor converts a tropospheric temperature to a near surface temperature. The 1.2 (in the other direction) converts a tropospheric anomaly to a near surface anomaly, a completely different animal. The flaw lies in my misunderstanding, and my erroneous assumption that if LT temp (over a short timespan, only 2002 to 2010, or 8 years, for with UAH data was available) closely ties to surface temps, then the anomaly would as well, and to the same degree, but that assumption is clearly false, and unwarranted.

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