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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 106101 to 106150:

  1. CO2 lags temperature
    Mistermack, The information you are looking for is available on this site. I can't post direct links, since this is being tapped out from my phone. Read up on the Milankovitch cycles and climate sensitivity in regards to CO2 as a feedback agent. Currently, CO2 is the forcing agent rather than a feedback. This is why archiesteel's comment was spot on.
  2. CO2 lags temperature
    Further to Tom's remarks, look at the ppm levels in the graph in John's post. We're at ~386ppm today, off that chart, in a new mode. "...it's surely unjustified to claim that the warming that's happening today won't meet the same "barrier" that warming did in the past. " The present warming's not going to meet the same barrier, that barrier's efficacy won't be the same today because we've created a novel situation. "Past is prologue" arguments always face the fundamental problem that we're not living in the past, we're living in the present, us and our effluent.
  3. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    I would suggest that those who haven't seen the discussion on Spencer's site about this take the time (and you'll need a lot of it) to look it up and wade through it. Spencer and a very small number of commenters (as I recall) do a heroic job of convincing the hard core deniers how reality works. It's about as perfect an example as I can imagine of how difficult communication can be.
  4. Are we too stupid?
    There are certainly multiple renewable and non-renewable options. Nuclear options would require fast breeder reactors and/or thorium reactors; both are technically possible, although politically 'hot' due to the radionuclide and fissionable materials availability. They do require cooling water, which is a different resource issue. Solar is entirely possible with current technology (doesn't require nano-machining); it's currently still a bit too pricey to be economic, but that's dropping fairly fast. The big requirements there are (a) reliable wide-area transmission lines, (b) scattered siting to minimize regional cloud issues, and (c) the needs some solar tech have for rare elements. Covering a portion of the Saudi peninsula with panels would power the planet if we could distribute it, without competing for any food. There's some excellent work going on in terms of energy storage, including molten salt, and simple approaches such as pressurized underground reservoirs - pump air into a mine shaft, run turbines off it when needed. Wind power is plentiful, although not as large a supply as solar - it would be a good adjunct to solar systems, sharing some of the same storage/distribution framework needed. Both do require considerable excess capacity to handle low wind/light conditions. Further down the line are orbital solar (gets around clouds and some distribution problems), some interesting approaches such as fusion (not tokamaks, I suspect those will never work), like the Polywell reactor or some of the other geometries. However - all of these require infrastructure development, time to be built, investment to drop the prices to economically feasible levels, and the political will to choose low CO2 technologies over "business as usual".
  5. Stephen Baines at 03:10 AM on 23 October 2010
    Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    JohnD, the effect of solar radiation on evaporation is not "direct." Evaporation (and water vapor content) increases when the surface waters and wet soils warm, when the air warms and when wind allows the air near air/water interfaces to be replaced quickly before it saturates with water vapor. So the effect of temperature is indirect, through it's effect on surface and air temperatures. Since climate models are built on the fact that solar radiation is the primary source of heat energy into the system, variations in solar energy are built into predictions of atmospheric water vapor. They can't be causing the apparent increase in water vapor because there has been no recent increasing trend in solar inputs. In any case the existence of the water vapor feedback is not related to whether sun or GHGs are driving the temperature change. If the sun were causing the current warming, there should still be a water vapor feedback for that warming, just like there is for warming induced by icreases in GHGs. If there were no water vapor feedback, the climate system much more insensitive as a whole than it apparently is. It would be very hard to explain past climate variations, including those that have been caused by changes in solar radiation. As for the ocean discussion, we can quibble about how deep the skin is (I think of it as much thinner than a millimeter) and what consitutes a fraction that is large (13% still seems low to me). But there are several points your graphs bring up. First, whereas on land all the visible light waverlengths would be absorbed/reflected near the surface, visible light penetrates pretty deeply into the water column. That's the point I was trying to make about the difference between the ocean and land. Second, most of the solar radiation absorbed near the ocean surface is in the infrared range. If you were to extend that x-axis out, you'd find that the contribution of downwelling thermal IR to the near surface radiation budget is actually larger than that of downwelling solar IR. That downwelling thermal IR is of course a function of air temperature not solar radiation. Finally, the point of where the radiation is absorbed is moot in the ocean because that heat gets dispersed through the water column pretty quickly, as evidenced by the fact that you don't see strong persistent gradients in temperature near the surface. Sometimes this forum makes me feel like I'm reliving my prelims all over again!
  6. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi everyone, NOAA just posted its "Arctic report card for 2009/2010". You can view it (or download it) here Pretty sobering stuff...
  7. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    JMurphy IPCC FAR 1990 P202 Fig 7c.
  8. CO2 lags temperature
    mistermack, the past episodes lacked an ingredient that is present now: the rapid and accelerating injection of greenhouse gases by humans. If those same other factors that operated in the past to cap the warming acted now, they would be overwhelmed by the higher and increasing amounts of GHGs from this new source.
  9. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Chris, Yes, my apologies for not explicitly stating that assumption. The blanket analogy also fails in that it prevents convection, like real greenhouses and unlike the greenhouse effect.
  10. It's the sun
    Ken, Did you take a look at the post I linked? It addressed essentially exactly what you are claiming, that solar forcings have a more long term effect then currently understood. Anyways, Hansen 2005 already "ran the numbers" as you are attempting to do. The net radiation and temperature data produced as a result is consistent with the temperature record and inconsistent with the idea that solar forcing is having any significant effect on recent warming.
  11. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    The domain name "hidethedecline" does smack somehow of presupposition, true enough, Albatross. Regarding inversions, it's sort of comical that I was scratching my head over what actually might produce a cooling signal during certain times of the year in certain regions of the Arctic, while sitting in the fog we always experience during this time of year here where I live. Different kinds of fog...
  12. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi Doug, Thanks for your clarification. I have been thinking about the inversion; I presented just one hypothesis. But there could be other factors--either acting individually, acting in combination to produce the inversion. Someone should look at sounding data from Alert (82.5 N)-- I checked this morning and the University of Wyoming site has upper-air sounding data going back to circa 1977 for Alert. Pity that we do not have long-term in-situ observations from near the pole like they do from Amundson-Scott base....but of course a Arctic counterpart is just not possible. Anyhow, I'm tiring of Frank's conspiracy theories-- sounds like he may have caved to peer-pressure and it is clear from his posts here that he does not grasp the (sometimes counter intuitive) science. For example, the difference between sea ice and land ice, the fact that it is going to be decades before the Antarctic sea ice starts to respond to AGW and that Manabe et al. did an excellent of predicting the current evolution of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice way back in 1992. When the sea ice eventually starts melting out en mass north of 80N during the summer (next 5-10 years, although there were signs of that starting to happen this past summer as shown on Neven's site), this latest little attempted distraction that WUWT dreamed up will be completely irrelevant, just like the vast majority of their other distractions.
  13. Are we too stupid?
    PS Molten Salt is a good way to store energy...as for your "Grey Goo" doomsday scenario, that's just science-fiction. If we are going to delve in that are, orbital solar power would a much cheaper way to generate round-the-clock electricity, and nuclear fusion seems a lot more likely than out-of-control nanites...
  14. Are we too stupid?
    @BP: All the more reasons to invest heavily into renewable energy, as China is doing. "All the other alternative energy sources one by one or all together do not even come close to replace carbon based fuels, just do the math." Really? On what numbers do you base yourself to make this conclusion? Are you taking into account new PV cell technology, which have dramatically reduced cost, leading to a sharp increase in consumer-producers? What about tidal power? Ethanol (perhaps soon to be produced by cyanobacteriae)? I think that all other alternative energy sources combined would greatly reduce our use of precious hydrocarbons (which we need to make plastic, anyway). You seem to claim it's too hard to achieve this, but that is a defeatist attitude. It was once considered too hard - nay, impossible - to go to the moon, but we did. This is just another challenge for humanity, and if you're not ready to lend a hand, at least have the decency to get out of the way.
  15. CO2 lags temperature
    Thanks archiesteel, but you're using your conclusion in your argument there. Why did an obvious violent feedback mechanism suddenly stop, and go into equally violent reverse? Until you can answer that, it's surely unjustified to claim that the warming that's happening today won't meet the same "barrier" that warming did in the past.
  16. Klaus Flemløse at 02:50 AM on 23 October 2010
    DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi, I should like to do a reconcilation of the DMI data and the data Frank Lanser has produced from reading the graphs from DMI. The next step is to understand the DMI process behind the the data. I amlooking forward links to the data. Regards Klaus Flemløse
  17. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Right you are, Chris. Thanks! Amazing that people actually -read- these comments, heh!
  18. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Another source of confusion ist "heat" and "radiation". The Second Law of Thermodynamics states, that HEAT can't go from a colder atmosphere to a warmer earth. But of course RADIATION is still possible. Heat is the net flow of radiations. You think, that's clear? Then listen zu extreme-sceptics ;-)
  19. Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    johnd said:"On the point of confusion, a forcing is a mechanism that can exert change. It does not cease being a forcing agent because at some point in time it has a value of zero." This is so vague (confused) as to not even be wrong. Forcing in climate is something that changes the level of radiation energy on average. That is why they are expressed in Watts per square meter. Something vague like "change" could be the difference between day and night, windy or not windy, as you specifically mention as being important. That is just weather, so your point is irrelevant without any consideration of whether these important factors change on average, which would be climate changes. This article is only about climate observations (total amount of water in the air, which influences radiation at the surface), not an explanation of the basics of evaporation as a weather phenomenon. Until you realize climate changes are changes in average weather, not changes in weather, you will remain confused.
  20. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Oh, Doug, I think you mean ease of output is _decreasing_ slightly.
  21. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Bibiovermis (01:44 AM on 23 October, 2010), Umm, no. Not unless the energy source is giving off radiation that is more transparent to the blanket than it is to the dummy. I use the term energy source because it is more generic; I suppose 'heat source' might refer to an object emitting energy primarily in the infrared spectrum, but microwave through, IR, visible, UV, and beyond, is all electromagnetic energy.
  22. Berényi Péter at 02:44 AM on 23 October 2010
    Are we too stupid?
    #128 CBDunkerson at 21:35 PM on 22 October, 2010 it is NOT as you claim the ONLY viable technology... nor indeed the best Hydro power is great when suitable sites are available, but in that respect we are close to saturation. All the other alternative energy sources one by one or all together do not even come close to replace carbon based fuels, just do the math. Solar may be an exception as it is already proven as long term supplier of the biosphere, but in its present form it can't be anything but marginal. To change that one would need advanced molecular nanotechnology, the very type of gadgets life is built on (but a bit more durable, perhaps). This technology is not ready yet, it's even difficult to put a definite timeframe on its development. With solar you need storage, preferably a distributed one, with high energy density, reasonable efficiency and low environmental impact. It can hardly be anything else but an energy rich, non-toxic and not flammable chemical (like sugar). With molecular precision (also applied in chlorplasts and mithocondria for some time) self replicating desktop manufacturing systems can build micron sized solar units to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen using light, storage units of the same size and fuel cells using sugar and producing electricity on demand along with CO2 and water. A dense 2D matrix of these gadgets can supply roughly 109 J/m2 each year, either as electricity or a chemical fuel to be taken away. Present consumption could be covered using just about half a million km2 (0.3% of land surface). However, we can't go much above this level before this kind of energy supply starts to compete with plants for sunlight. There is one caveat. The technology needed to implement such a system is far more dangerous than nukes, if abused. Other than that and the fact we do not have it yet, it's marvelous.
  23. CO2 lags temperature
    @mistermack: "If temperatures stopped rising, and dropped steeply many times in the past, why should I believe that they can go higher now? You had rapidly rising CO2 in the past, but the temp. rise was unable to continue, and quickly dropped back. Why?" CO2 levels are higher now (by more than 35%) than at any time in the last 600,000 years. The last time they were this high (with similar solar output), temperatures were almost 5C warmer, IIRC. So, in fact, temps *can* go higher if CO2 levels are pushed higher. That's the essence of AGW theory.
  24. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Oh, and I would still like the data you used to generate your graph. Why have you not provided it yet?
  25. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    @FLansner: "I should retract... a comment?? (that was a new one...!)" You don't have to retract anything, but it's hard not to make a link between your opinion that overall temperatures are going down (i.e. what's implied in the comment) with the subject of the article (i.e. Arctic cooling during melt season). The second does not in any way validate the first. "To me this is a general comment, and yes my impression is, that too much of the alarmist foundation is based on pseodu-science and pseudo data." You're welcome to your own opinion. You are not welcome to your own facts. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate over the past decades. Those are the facts. "In this context I have shown you GISS pseudo data by projecting temperature from land over sea and ice. Its grotesk." The word is spelled "grotesque", and the GISS data is not "pseudo data," it's different data. It shows a warming Arctic overall, *just* like the DMI data. That's probably why the DMI itself agrees the Arctic has been warming considerably. "We have seen how UHI has been "measured" from London and suburbs. Grotesk." Off-topic. Take it to the UHI thread, where people will be happy to show you why you're wrong. "And when these drops of weak science just keep coming in thousands, then one day even I got sceptic. I was believing "Alarmist" until around jan 2008." There's nothing alarmist about learning real science. I suggest you become skeptical about your own skepticism and actually read the articles on this site. They represent the *real* science about Climate Change, unlike the tripe you'll find on WUWT and (sorry) your own blog. "I think i was overwhelmed by the low Arctic ice extend sep 2007. And i just trusted in the "consensus". But then i found out that in the same period the Antarctic ice extend anomaly (around 2007-8) not only set a max record of around +2 mio sq km, but this record war almost TWICE the anomaly ever measured since 1979." What are you talking about? Sea ice extent is still on a decreasing trend, and sea ice volume is "diving", to use a term you favor. See Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal? for more info.
  26. CO2 lags temperature
    The core graphs prompt one question. The temp. rise out of the coldest part of the ice-age is so sudden and so steep, a dramatic feedback mech. must be happening. But it reaches a point, roughly where we are now, when it stops, suddenly and dramatically, and never went any higher, but drops back equally steeply. If temperatures stopped rising, and dropped steeply many times in the past, why should I believe that they can go higher now? You had rapidly rising CO2 in the past, but the temp. rise was unable to continue, and quickly dropped back. Why?
  27. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    @RSVP: "My words were, "as seen from a map" to depict the perspective as in "top view". You need to improve your basic reading skills." My reading skills are fine. *You* need to provide evidence that supports your claims. KR said it best, and there's really no point in going any further on this matter: "I expect that AHF reduce the imbalance by, say, 1%, but I don't think that will even show in the noise. "
  28. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    @protestant: "The problem with positive feedbacks is that it would lead in to unending loop of warming." This is false, as explained in this article: Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
  29. It's the sun
    @KL: "Your failure to understand might not be within my power to explain archiesteel." Oh, I *understand* what you're saying (with a measured IQ of 150, I should be able to understand basic math and science even though my training in those areas stopped after high school). I just don't get what you're driving at. I'm sure it has something to do with trying to disprove AGW, but your argument is so buried in obfuscating jargon it's hard to tell anymore. Please come down your high horse and state your argument clearly, or we'll be forced to conclude all you're doing is trying to muddy the waters. Here, I'll help you, since that task seems above your abilities: Do you think the sun is responsible for the current warming trend?
  30. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    #97: "a strong historic correlation between cosmic rays and tropical monsoon, glacier retreat and temperatures." What correlation is this? Provide some evidence, rather than just a claim. We've gone through this in detail here. No such correlation stands up to scrutiny. "the sun has an ability to control the coulds so that more TSI will be let in. This theory is also being tested on the CLOUD project in CERN." No, CLOUD is testing the effect of cosmic ray flux on cloud formation; that doesn't measure TSI in any way.
  31. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Probably so obvious I'm foolish to say it, but I think where a lot of folks go off the rails on this has to do w/the conversion of wavelength of energy in versus energy out. We're looking at a situation where the ease of input is staying relatively the same versus the ease of output, which is increasing slightly. It stands to reason that Earth will have to become slightly warmer to account for this. Easy unless, that is, some folks go to a lot of trouble to confuse the issue. Just a few more hours of science education in middle school and we'd be able to skip this entire impediment.
  32. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Putting a blanket on a tailor's dummy will cause it to heat up more than its surroundings when there is a nearby heat source.
  33. It's the sun
    archiesteel #712 "Even after all these messages I still don't get what you're driving at. Talk about a colossal waste of time... " Your failure to understand might not be within my power to explain archiesteel.
  34. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    I don't know if this gets beyond a "basic" version, but when you are talking about heat exchange by radiation, the 2nd law really states that there can be no spontaneous NET flow of heat from a cold place to a hot. The cold air in the atmosphere helps keep us warm because it emits infrared radiation back to ground. It's less than what the ground radiates up, but more than would be radiated down from space alone. The blanket analogy is really that you have a heat flow: warm body -> colder blanket -> cold room On earth you have a heat flow: warm surface -> colder air -> really cold space
  35. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP, The connection you are attempting to portray with your lake analogy is just as flawed as the train & orange grove analogies were. More water in means more out. Increasing the input will only cause a level rise if the output is restricted.
  36. It's the sun
    e #711 I covered this point about areas under curves viz: KL : "This only represents the available positive (warming) forcings. The main negative forcings are cloud and aerosol albedo, and S-B radiative cooling. I shall run some numbers on these and try for a net forcing since say AD1750 in 50 year tranches." There will be a S-B negative curve and cloud albdo and aerosol negative curves - with the sum of all being the net energy added or lost to the Earth system. According to Hansen the thermal lag of the system is about 25 - 50 years, so we should see a temperature response which follows the net energy balance - lagging by some similar time period. Certainly if you take decadal sections of the post AD1850 temperature curves there are flat periods or slightly cooling periods - just like the one we have had for the last 10 years. This is consistent with the net area of Total forcing curves shown here : http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/GISS_forcings.gif PROVIDED you add the correct Solar forcing of about +0.1 - 0.2/sq.m on the positive side which has been wrongly set to zero in this Total forcing chart. ie: The period 1850 - 1915 should be cooling because all the area under the Total Forcing chart is negative -but the temperature record shows flat (or very slight cooling) which indicates that positive Solar forcing at was offsetting the negative area.
  37. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Would it be too complicated for this bit to say that the person in the "blanket analogy" also gets warmed because the blanket is like a one way valve. Light and short wave radiation passes through and warms ones skin but the blanket acts to slow down the re-radiation of long wave heat - put another blanket on and it slows down even more
  38. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Sorry FLansner, I won't be increasing the traffic to your site. Please provide the original sources for your claims and state what you think they are claiming - or hiding/not claiming, according to you.
  39. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    craig, please provide some examples not involving Wiki, if you wish. I don't mind where they come from, as long as they are from the original sources and mainstream, i.e. not filtered via other websites/blogs.
  40. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP >You are obviously saying that more energy is escaping due to waste heat, while less energy is escaping due to GHGs. e > Nope, that's not at all what KR was saying, you are just misunderstanding the definition of the terms. Decreasing the emissive spectra of the earth does not mean less energy escaping to space. Actually, decreasing the emission spectra of the Earth will decrease the amount of energy escaping to space at that temperature, until conditions change. Given the time constants for ocean warming and the like, it will take ~40-50 years for the temperatures to increase (with energy accumulating on Earth) to finally reach a new equilibrium, where integrated thermal emission once again equals integrated solar input. Of course, if GHG forcings continue to change, the climate will follow along, short term feedbacks (water vapor, clouds) first, longer term changes (ground cover, ice, ocean temps) lagging behind.
  41. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP - I'm responding because you apparently, in this posting, did not understand what I said about two alternative theories for global warming. Sections (1) and (2) of that post indicate distinct alternatives for the major cause of warming - AHF or GHG's. (1) If AHF dominates, top of atmosphere radiative imbalance will become positive (more energy leaving than arriving from the sun, some fraction of the energy added at the surface), with that amount increasing as the Earth approaches equilibrium, ending up at solar input + AHF and a warmer Earth. (2) If GHG's dominate (and the 2 orders of magnitude difference in energy involved should point that direction), TOA imbalance will be quite negative due to the GHG spectral reduction, with that imbalance decreasing as the Earth warms and approaches equilibrium. At equilibrium, the TOA imbalance should be zero, with outgoing radiation again equaling solar input (albeit with a somewhat different emission spectra). What's the actual situation? Well, read Harries 2001 on Is the CO2 effect saturated; also Griggs 2004 and Chen 2007. The TOA imbalance is negative. This is scenario (2), and this means that GHG's dominate warming. I expect that AHF reduce the imbalance by, say, 1%, but I don't think that will even show in the noise. It's not waste heat, RSVP. You seem to have come to a conclusion you're happy with, and continue making poor analogies and quite frankly making up non-physical effects (not cherry picking - there isn't enough evidence for your view to pick) to support that. You've long since left the realm of scientific discussion.
  42. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    craig wrote : "As a sceptic, I believe that the mainstream science, up until recently. considered the MWP to be warmer than today and global." Perhaps you could give some examples of the "mainstream science" which "until recently" considered any of that as being true ?
  43. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP, You still have not explained how AHF radiates just like SHF and yet accumulates. Yes, you are using logic. However, you aren't using it to arrive at your conclusion. You start at a conclusion and deduce a path that will arrive there, disregarding any basic extant knowledge on the matter.
  44. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Cracking closing line Tony - nice work all round.
  45. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP #272: "Hard to diagram isnt it?" Not at all. Heat goes up. Heat disperses. Heat leaves the atmosphere. I've seen dozens of diagrams of this... all those radiation balance diagrams on this site for instance. "If you think being wrong about this detail is sufficient to discount my theory or me, that is the ad hominem approach" Discounting your theory because the details of it are wrong is an ad hominem approach? Fascinating. "Now some sanity (as you say)... Urban heat doesnt rise." We have different definitions of sanity. Heat rises. Urban heat. Rural heat. Waste heat. Solar heat. Magma in the Earth's core which is hotter than the surrounding magma. You name it. Any portion of a fluid substance which becomes heated rises above the surrounding matter. This is a fundamental property of convection. Something which you go on about quite a bit, but apparently know nothing about. "Air that has been warmed by convection rises." That statement is an oxymoron. Convection causes air warmed by other sources (e.g. 'urban heat', 'sunlight', et cetera) to rise and COOL.
  46. Are we too stupid?
    BP #127: "Unfortunately the very same people promoting fast decarbonization tend to reject the only technologically mature solution, fast breeder reactors." In my experience 'radiation fear' and NIMBYism are widespread, rather than being limited to people in favor of decarbonization. There is some dispute whether nuclear fission could provide us with electrical power for "the projected lifetime of Earth" or 'merely' several thousand years, but either way I agree it is a viable technology. However, it is NOT as you claim the ONLY viable technology... nor indeed the best. While problems with radioactive waste disposal (which would still be an issue with fast breeder reactors, just reduced) and possible 'meltdown' scenarios can be managed to remove most of the risk... there is also the issue of nuclear proliferation. If the whole world ran on fast breeder reactors then the whole world would have nuclear detonation capability. To me that's a rather daunting proposition... to the point that I'd actually prefer the use of 'once through' reactors to burn up uranium supplies quickly. That would make a great 'interim solution' while decarbonizing. You had previously dismissed renewables because of 'land use' issues, which is fairly obviously nonsense. Even setting aside possible future developments like space based solar and high altitude wind, more than enough power can be generated by 'dual purposing' land. The difference in food yield between a large cornfield and a large cornfield with wind turbines in it is minimal. The difference in parking capacity between a parking lot and a parking lot with solar panels shading all the parking spaces is zero. If we took full advantage of that kind of dual purposing in every viable location we'd have far more electrical power than we need. There are also of course off-shore wind farms, tidal power, geothermal (do alot of people live on top of active volcanoes?), ocean heat flux, traditional hydropower, et cetera. More than enough fully developed modern renewable power options. One 'future technology' that would be a real game changer is the 'solar road' concept. Basically, instead of driving on standard asphalt you drive on a solar power generating surface. The surface area of the world's roadways and other 'blacktop' surfaces is many many times greater than would be needed to cover world power needs even at low efficiencies which might be needed for a viable driving surface. Nifty things about this would be that it takes the whole battery problem out of electric cars... you could get a continual charge directly from the road itself via induction charging. The roads would also serve as a super grid providing electrical power everywhere there are roads AND localized generation worldwide - reducing transmission losses. Potentially heating elements could be incorporated to clear snow and ice in winter. Et cetera. Isn't production ready, but people are working on it and nothing about the concept seems at all implausible. Possibly just that we wouldn't bother building out EVERY road that way when a fraction of them would provide sufficient power.
  47. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    #80 @ Ned: Provide us evidence, that clouds are only a feedback. Please, explain an oscillating climate with positive feedbacks with TSI and CO2 as driving components. How can temperatures fall on any occasion? Only if TSI dominates over CO2? How is this possible on either scenarios, either positive or negative feedbacks? The problem with positive feedbacks is that it would lead in to unending loop of warming. Since CO2 concentration in the atmosphere used to be controlled by sea surface temperatures. If CO2 is also driving the temperatures it would definitely need a forcing on a larger scale to turn it into cooling. The problem with negative feedbacks would be the overall variation, since they would also compensate any warming effect but also compensate any cooling effect. And here comes my thought: the feedbacks on sun variations are actually positive, since the sun has an ability to control the coulds so that more TSI will be let in. This theory is also being tested on the CLOUD project in CERN. But feedbacks to any radiative forcing would be negative, while increasing humidity thus increasing clouds. Unfortunately we dont have the data to prove either case from the history. We just dont. Therefore we cant understan the present either. Only thing we have, is a strong historic correlation between cosmic rays and tropical monsoon, glacier retreat and temperatures. This suggest, there very well might be an effect, thus the feedbacks being "measured" from the radiative budget are being biased being positive when actually the change is natural while negative feedback is occuring (R. Spencers cause vs effect problem).
    Moderator Response: You'll need to use the search box at upper left to find an appropriate thread for discussing forcing, which is not the topic of this thread.
  48. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Dana: "This post sums up perhaps one of the worst skeptic contradictions. They love to say the MWP was hot, and they love to say the climate isn't sensitive. You can't have it both ways." I don't think that makes sense. As a sceptic, I believe that the mainstream science, up until recently. considered the MWP to be warmer than today and global. On the point of sensitivity, I thought everyone more or less agreed than climate sensitivity is around 1 to 1.5 C, without feedbacks. The real question (and unknown) is the magnitude and direction of the feedback.
  49. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    To CBDunkerson The lake analogy has to do with your remark about heat, "magically hanging around in the climate system for decades." If you cant make the connection here, there is no point in going on.
  50. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    It is arrogant to claim, that we know the climate forcins since 1000 years. It is actually very arrogant. You simply dont have the required data to sort it out. Surely, to some extent, we know the TSI and CO2 forcings on the past, with at least some accuracy. But we have no information at all, about the decaedal and even possibly centennial cycles on ocean dynamis, for example. If climate modelers cant explain MWP they are definitely also unable to explain the modern maximum. Only thing they can explain with the models is a hockey stick with a flat handle. It is absolutely impossible to replicate an oscillating climate with CO2 as a driving component - as we know fisrst rise the temperatures and then CO2 - it has been definitely a secondary factor, since the unknown forcings X could turn the events in to global cooling, even when CO2 ppm was at the highest. You just cant understand the future before understanding the history. And history is something that is definitely not well understoond. And for those people who praise the (in)famous Hockey Stick and its blade I suggest you open McShane & Wyner pg. 3 and read what they write about adding thermometer temps on proxy records. The overall variation in proxies is necessarily a lot smoother, and placing thermometers on top of the proxy reconstructions it gives an illusion that the proxies are more accurate than they really are. So please. Treat proxy data as proxy data and thermometer as thermometer data. They are not comparable and in common statistics it is not allowed to combine differently measuret datasets together.

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