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Comments 115301 to 115350:

115301. KR at 00:58 AM on 14 July 2010
        Sea level rise is exaggerated
        daniel - or more, properly for those reading daniel's comments, since he's apparently missed the point: The data referred to comes from two different data sources measuring the same quantity. The first is recent tide gauge data (last 150 years), indicating a sea level rise (SLR) of 2.4 mm/yr. The second data set comes from a fairly sparsely but well distributed sampled set of paleo data, based on core sample species abundance, indicating sea levels at various points over the last 1000 years, with a statistically tight best fit of ~1 +/- 0.2 mm/year. The Donnelly paper (single paper) daniel has been discussing therefore concludes that SLR increased from ~1 to 2.4 mm/year starting ~150 years ago, a conclusion completely in agreement with all other data sets (which daniel does not discuss). Daniels argument appears to be that natural variation could account for the last 150 years of 2.4 mm/year SLR. In other words, the ocean isn't warming (contradicts the data), icecaps aren't melting (contradicts the data), it's variability, not global warming. Any similar 2.4 mm/year rise extending over 100+ years in the past would have greatly offset later paleo data points. It's barely statistically possible (but certainly not the statistically justified hypothesis!) that such a rise could have occurred, if a corresponding <1.0 or even negative SLR trend balanced it out, returning later paleo samples to the ~1 mm/year trend. If there was a situation of high variability, that would have to cycle +/- around the 1.0 mm/year level to still show that on the long term averages. This is exceedingly physically unlikely, however, as sea level is driven by steric expansion and icecap/glacial melt, rather low variability processes. In addition, no records, evidence, or data supports sufficient temperature drops or increased icecap/glaciation in the past 1000 years. Additional data sets for paleo sea level also fall on the ~1.0 mm/year slope, with a total sample spacing much closer than the 11 samples in the Donnelly paper, thus leaving no room for such high variability periods. Claiming extreme variability that is somehow missed in the paleo data for even this single paper under discussion is not justified by the evidence. And opening your view to additional data clearly eliminates such variability in the time period under discussion. Asserting that it somehow snuck in between the data points is simply wishful thinking, not science.
115302. HumanityRules at 00:58 AM on 14 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        muoncounter The asymmetry is there because of the GHG trend. Once this trend is removed from the arctic and antarctic the symmetry looks good. Have a look at the paper if you can get passed the paywall. I'm not exactly why you're picking on UAH for using single trend lines. it seems like SOP for climate science.
115303. chris at 00:58 AM on 14 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Berényi Péter at 00:33 AM on 14 July, 2010 "My point was windfarms render huge areas uninhabitable (much larger than anyhing else). It's a valid one. What else do you need?" Do they Peter? Not if you put them in shallow coastal seas. Not if you put them on windy peat moors. Not if you put them on rough moors suitable only for sheep and goat grazing. None of these really take up much space at all and allow the original land use to be maintained (O.K. perhaps one wouldn't wish to go grouse shooting on a peat moor with wind turbines!). But what's wrong with a wind turbines on a sheep farm - a wind farm where sheep may safely graze ("Schafe können sicher weiden" as JS Bach might have put it if he was considering the delights of wind power). As for...."If you switch technology without improving regulations....", isn't there an obvious answer to that? I hope you're not suggesting we consider installing wind turbines without appropriate regulations for their maintenance and decommissioning. In any case I expect the latter might be a teeny bit more tractable that decommissioning coal plants, let alone nuclear power plants... I wonder whether you're being deliberately obtuse now (piling up fanciful objections!)
115304. Ned at 00:54 AM on 14 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        My point was windfarms render huge areas uninhabitable (much larger than anyhing else). It's a valid one. What else do you need? Stop exaggerating, please. Some windfarms are offshore. Some windfarms are in very sparsely populated regions. Some windfarms are in agricultural areas, where power companies rent space from farmers. In the latter case, normal economic activity (growing crops) generally proceeds more or less uninterrupted around the wind turbines. You tossed out a bunch of anecdotal Youtube videos and a vague implication that somebody in Vinalhaven, Maine is unhappy with wind turbines. I pointed out that one recent poll shows support for wind power in Maine running at about 90%. Who's got the stronger case here? This, however, is a valid point: If you switch technology without improving regulations, in a couple of decades you'll be left with broken windmills dotting the landscape, dropping parts, leaking oil and other chemicals, making it unsafe to even walk among them, not to mention farming. Then you'll have a choice to spend public money on decommissioning or abandon the place and move on. Of course, that applies to every power generating technology. Want to compare the costs (economic and environmental) of decommissioning a wind farm to the costs of a dam, an oil field, or a nuclear power plant?
115305. Jim Eager at 00:44 AM on 14 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        CoalGeologist, hence the very large number.
115306. daniel at 00:36 AM on 14 July 2010
        Sea level rise is exaggerated
        Peter Hogarth at 02:45 AM on 13 July, 2010 The 1 sigma bounds are irrelevant Peter. I've already commented on this. Do you see the overlay of the tide gauge data on sample 1? That's right, it crosses the uncertainty box at the mean height and date range extreme. That is the most probable height of sample 1 has a date at the 2 sigma extreme in the date range, the least probable according to you. On this one Donnelly sees it my way since his linear fit does this also at samples 11, 10, 5 and 4 not to mention the extra paleo data used to constrain the C14 ranges.
115307. Berényi Péter at 00:33 AM on 14 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        #150 CBDunkerson at 23:40 PM on 13 July, 2010 In short, you are maintaining a belief in the inadequacy of wind power by closing your eyes to information to the contrary My point was windfarms render huge areas uninhabitable (much larger than anyhing else). It's a valid one. What else do you need? The sad image you've painted of an ill-managed coal region is striking. Especially because this, far from being unavoidable, is the consequence of insufficient local regulations. Proper recultivation is possible, but pricy. It should be enforced on coal mining companies. Soot and sulphur can be filtered out, scale as well with most of the radioactive materials in it. If you switch technology without improving regulations, in a couple of decades you'll be left with broken windmills dotting the landscape, dropping parts, leaking oil and other chemicals, making it unsafe to even walk among them, not to mention farming. Then you'll have a choice to spend public money on decommissioning or abandon the place and move on.
115308. muoncounter at 00:30 AM on 14 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        Kudos to John for wading into the fray. #11:""Cherry picking" is different - simply: incomplete information." More than incomplete, this pejorative suggests that one has actively selected only those data that agrees with his/her POV, as in only those cherries that are ripe. Here is one of the graphs posted as a counter-example: The author doesn't appear to notice what happened from the early 80's onwards: approx 4 deg in 30ish years, or a resounding 1.3 deg/decade! Alarming trend, no? But the surface temperature data are suspect, the gravity data are immaterial, the satellite temperatures are cooked. And the Greenlanders farming where their grandfathers couldn't are clearly drinking the vodka they can make from their own crops: " ... pulled 20 tons of potatoes from the earth last summer, and his harvests have been growing larger each year. "It's already staying warm until November now, ..." says Egede. And if this is what faraway scientists call the greenhouse effect, it's certainly a welcome phenomenon ...." Who knows, maybe they'll be planting cherries in Greenland one of these days?
115309. Jeff T at 00:29 AM on 14 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        Wikipedia says that Greenland contains 2,850,000 cubic kilometers of ice. Since one cubic kilometer of ice is nearly 1 gigaton, the current loss rate is 0.05%/year. It doesn't seem like a lot. The acceleration apparent in Figure 2 ought to be a concern, however. @Arkadiusz, I'd like to understand what you are saying, but the abbreviations and hyphenations make it difficult.
        Response: It's not just the acceleration in ice loss that gives us cause for concern. The various lines of evidence that show Greenland is highly sensitive to temperature and expected to contribute significant sea level rise in future decades/centuries are examined in why Greenland's ice loss matters.
115310. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:55 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        "Cherry picking" is different - simply: incomplete information. To post J.C. was full - not "cherry picking" - like now - I am please let me know: whether the whole area of the Greenland ice mass is decreasing? If not, why? Perhaps the close vicinity of the mass of Greenland's glaciers are growing somewhere? Is solely responsible for changing our warming, or as we wanted in 1978 Stone (always quoted when it comes to oceanic transport of energy) - are the most important cyclical changes in Earth's rotation and ocean circulation? I advise you also read "whole" last SG - there is much more "one knows why" the arguments skipped by JC (for example, Greenland ice in 1920 -30 years).
115311. CBDunkerson at 23:54 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        BTW, some less one-sided stories on Vinalhaven can be found here and here. Vastly reduced power bills, no pollution, only a few people complaining, and the company working on noise reduction options for those few. Doesn't really sound so bad.
115312. CoalGeologist at 23:54 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        @Jim Eager #7 Bill Keller, former Managing Editor of the New York Times, observed that a substantial proportion of the [American] public does not look to the [news] media to provide them with a factual accounting of the news, but rather to confirm the beliefs they already hold. WUWT fulfills this function quite well for many of its readership. When you consider some of the things that people choose to believe, the present example is not particularly surprising.
115313. chris at 23:54 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        Ed Davies at 23:29 PM on 13 July, 2010 Thanks for that Ed. In fact if you look on page 156 of the paper I linked too above (click on "the science indicates" in third paragraph of my post), it discusses the positive contribution to sea level rise from aquifer and ground water depletion and the negative contribution from building dams and impounding water. Over the last several decades these apparently account for around +0.5 mm per year and -0.5 mm.yr-1, respectively, and so the net anthropogenic effect from these is near zero. I expect that the negative contribution from dam buildng has or will start to diminish since much of the potentially dammable rivers have been dammed by now, whereas groundwater depletion may continue apace...
115314. DarkSkywise at 23:53 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        Icarus at 22:43 PM on 13 July, 2010: Well, they don't need ice mass data, since ice mass has nothing to do with anything, not even ice mass itself! According to eyewitnessesses, McIntyre has recently acquired a cow, which had tripped and fallen into the water, causing sea levels to rise. Esiwyks and Krad (2010) do not agree with this, since average single cow volume doesn't match any recent sea or ice volume increase or decrease, although Hennub (2010) couldn't rule out the possibility completely, because the cow was rather large. Golly wiz, them there science guy persons would claim anything these days. :P
115315. Ken Lambert at 23:53 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        M Sweet #103, Chris #105, JMurphy #106 Perhaps I should quote my height as 1.85m +/-1.85m. I could be a midget or a giant. Steric SLR components with measurements where the signal is equal to the noise viz. 0.5 +/-0.5mm etc are as useful as suggestions that a La Nina can cause a 'global' flattening of temperatures and OHC over 4-5 years. 'Global' warming requires external forcing (ie a TOA imbalance) - not redistribution of existing heat stored in the oceans which can feasibly cause regional or possibly hemispheric effects. With little storage capacity in the atmosphere and land, and relatively tiny amounts of heat energy accounted by ice melt, the only feasible store for the energy is the oceans. Measuring OHC is the major issue - not a small part of the 'multiple lines of evidence' so often touted in these blogs. With 1 drifting Argo buoy every 110,000 sq.km we still have a way to go to accurately measure the upper 900m, and Von Schukmann's bumpy 2000m OHC chart was seriously holed below the waterline elsewhere by our good friend BP. As a very prominent climate scientist expressed to me a few months ago: "It's time the oceanographers got their act together".
115316. chris at 23:43 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        To update my post just above, I believe that a scaled down version of the Isle of Lewis wind farm has eventually been approved, after modification to accommodate the environmental and scenic objections. An offshore windfarm in the Minch just to the East of the Isle of Lewis is also going ahead I believe.
115317. CBDunkerson at 23:40 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        BP #145, you do realize that you've basically just conceded my point, right? Rather than facing and responding to the inaccuracy of your statistic on the land area needed for wind power your 'rebuttal' was to introduce a completely unrelated issue on complaints about noise from wind power. In short, you are maintaining a belief in the inadequacy of wind power by closing your eyes to information to the contrary.
115318. KR at 23:34 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Here's another reality check, Berényi. There haven't been complaints in my area regarding noise or ice shedding, but you may have a point there - the population density on those ridgelines is fairly low. However. The only other alternative in my region would be a coal fired power plant. Soot. Acid rain and the damage to the woods. More released radioactive materials than nuclear power (radon alone!). More soot. And the associated strip mining for fuel - I've seen the landscape around my hometown irrevocably change in my lifetime, with new hills of strip tailings appearing, other hills disappearing as the mountain-tops are shredded, and dumped into what were neighboring valleys. The runoff from the tailings, regardless of laws intended to repair the damage, will poison the watershed for thousands of years. It will be hundreds of years at least before there's enough soil on the new terrain to support anything but short weeds. I grew up with our water sometimes turning orange, stinking of rotten eggs, and repeated hikes in property taxes to pay for yet another water system cleaning or upgrade. Or just being told "Don't worry - it can't hurt you. Really..." You know what? I'll take the windmills.
115319. Jim Eager at 23:34 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        How many times does Goddard have to be shown to be just plain wrong by physical reality for the WUWT gang to realise he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about? Probably a very large number.
115320. Ed Davies at 23:29 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        chris at 21:11pm - there's one other source of extra water in the oceans worth mentioning: emptying of underground reservoirs. As I, somewhat unreliably, remember it it's a measurable contribution but not huge.
115321. chris at 23:29 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Berényi Péter at 22:26 PM on 13 July, 2010 That's not terribly logical Peter (a bit like your "Homeopathy" journal example in a post above where you hunt out bad examples with which to attempt to flay entire fields). There's no question that energy production has unintended and sometimes highly damaging consequences. Your examples might be considered rather trivial in relation to the rather regular massive outpourings of crude oil from broken pipes and foundering tankers, the (thankfully rare) example of nuclear reactor failure and release of radioactive "clouds" and the 1000's of deaths from coal mining accidents worldwide each year. Most of the annoyances in your You-Tubish examples could be alleviated by a little more sympathetic consideration of wind turbine siting. Here in the UK we have abundant possibilites for very largescale siting of wind turbines in the shallow seas around the coasts. Otherwise the few wind turbines in my immediate locale are sited in an industrial complex by the sea where "shadow flicker" and noise are of little consequence. The worlds largest wind farm to have been located on the Isle of Lewis off the Scottish West Coast was welcomed by many that wished to see a surge economic regenration and opposed by many for environmental reasons. The latter won the day. There will always be these tensions between economic and personal/environmental sides, and these tensions (so long as they are fairly and honestly pursued) will tend to benefit everyone; i.e. they will tend to promote sympathetic siting of wind turbines. Berényi Péter at 22:59 PM on 13 July, 2010 your response to CBDunkerson is illogical too Peter. What some of the residents of Vinalhaven Maine think about their wind turbines doesn't negate CBDunkerson's point about your misuse of the numbers that he pointed out. And if the wind turbines of Vinalhaven Maine turn out to be unwelcome then that's surely another argument to make a more sympathetic assessment of turbine siting. On the other hand many of the Vinalhaven residents seem to be very happy with their turbines and apparently the local people played a strong part in getting the project moving forward.
115322. Berényi Péter at 23:28 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        #101 Ned at 23:04 PM on 12 July, 2010 In any case, it is completely wrong to suggest either that the GHCN data are "tampered with" or that the difference in adjustments between USHCN and GHCN is "not documented" (his emphasis) Is it? Documentation: v2.temperature.readme The versions of these data sets that have data which we adjusted to account for various non-climatic inhomogeneities are: v2.mean.adj v2.max.adj v2.min.adj
115323. robert way at 23:27 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        I think an upcoming post on glaciology should help with some of this stuff.
115324. Ned at 23:25 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        I don't know what people's anecdotal opinions are in Vinalhaven. However, I have friends and relatives in Maine and there is no shortage of support for wind power in the state, though many people may have perfectly understandable reservations about siting turbines in environmentally sensitive areas. From the Natural Resources Council of Maine: A recent poll conducted by Portland-based Critical Insights shows that 90% of Maine people support the development of wind power as a source of electricity. Nearly nine in ten Mainers agree that wind power can improve energy security and reduce Maine’s dependence on fossil fuels, and eight in ten agree that wind power will produce jobs and other forms of economic benefits. [...] The level of support for wind power in Maine appears to have increased as Maine has become a leader in New England in wind power generation. [...] The poll also reveals that 77% of Maine people want Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to support federal climate and clean energy legislation. Only 13% believe that Maine’s two senators should vote against the legislation, and 10% remain undecided. A clear majority in every demographic subgroup supports passage of legislation “aimed at both reducing the threat of climate change and promoting clean energy development,” with 57% of Republicans in support. “The message from this poll is clear: Mainers in every region of the state, young and old, of all income levels and political affiliations want Senator Snowe and Senator Collins to vote ‘yes’ on legislation to address climate change and promote clean energy, including wind power,” said Didisheim.
115325. Berényi Péter at 22:59 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        #140 CBDunkerson at 21:31 PM on 13 July, 2010 Resorting to the citation of blatantly false/misleading statistics does not help your case. Rather it shows that you are pursuing a belief which can only be sustained via dishonesty. You know what? Pay a visit to Vinalhaven, Maine, call up a townhall meeting and tell those people they are pursuing a belief which can only be sustained via dishonesty. See what you get.
115326. CBDunkerson at 22:50 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        Doesn't it ever bother 'skeptics' to discover that the 'leading lights' of their movement are lying to them? I mean, you'd think that would be a clue.
115327. Icarus at 22:43 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        I submit that WUWT didn't mention actual ice mass data because it didn't give them the right answer.
115328. muoncounter at 22:40 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        #7 should have read

        As for " ", why isn't that an HTML tag?

        but apparently the text interpreter thought it is!
        Response: Browsers turn anything with the < > format into HTML tags and they don't appear. The only way around it is to use < instead of <. I did that for your comment so the CYNICISM tags now appear
115329. muoncounter at 22:32 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        #6, CBD: "a massive block which endured year after year and served as a 'plug' forcing most of the younger / thinner ice to remain in the arctic basin each year. Warming got severe enough to break up the plug" Non-geologists don't seem to realize that ice events are discontinuous. Ice dams form and hold ice or water back until a semi-catastrophic break occurs. The regime after that break may be totally different from what it was beforehand. Yet another reason why a single 'trend' isn't just misleading, its incorrect.
115330. Berényi Péter at 22:26 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        #137 KR at 15:27 PM on 13 July, 2010 There's a row of 1.4 MW windmills just outside my home town. No noise issue, and even in the US snow belt (several 1 meter snowfalls per year over the last couple years) they don't ice up and throw chunks. And if I'm not on a ladder sticking my head in the blades, the speed of the blade tips is completely irrelevant OK, let's go for a reality check. Wind Turbine noise at 1600 feet Wind Turbine Ice Throw Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker and Noise, Byron Wisconsin Windmill/turbine going wild and finally break Wind turbines and health problems Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker Impact Lawsuit over wind turbine noise Does an industrial scale wind turbine sound like a refrigerator to you? Wind Turbine Fire Danish wind turbine explosion slowed down Voices of Vinalhaven Part 1: wind turbine noise Voices of Vinalhaven Part 2: wind turbine noise I understand you would not like your property value to go down. In case you live more than 2 km away from the windfarm, you may be safe. But that's what I am talking about. This thing overconsumes valuable land area.
115331. muoncounter at 22:23 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        #1: "a big physical shift occurred in Arctic Ocean sea ice right at that time (1989), with a large "flush" of old thick ice" Exactly the type of thing I was looking for! Thanks. #2, #3: I don't like removing months here and there. Rather, the ninos/ninas appear as short term events, which (IMO) need to get filtered out to see long term behavior. One thing I did, but did not include here, is a graph of the global data with the straight line trend subtracted out. There is a very distinctive sawtooth pattern with a 4-6 year period and that annoying spike in '98. But these are removed by the curve fit, which is not unlike a moving average. #4: See the last graph. Tweaked or not, UAH and GISS show the same overall pattern for the last 30 years. Or is that what you mean by 'tweaked'? #5: I looked at UAH's South polar record; it's basically flat (with even a slight downward look). Nowhere else but in the Arctic does one see such numbers as the Official Trend (0.47) or the Alarming Trend (0.9). HR, the Antarctic down/Arctic up is highly asymmetric. Must be more to it than a 180 phase shift. Are you suggesting some sort of heat flow from south pole to north pole, which seems anti-thermodynamic? As for <CYNICISM></CYNICISM> (why isn't that an HTML tag?), sure. It seems to be a human tendency to see lines in everything, even when they may or not be there. I once had to explain to an oil company executive why straight lines on a map were not really straight over long distances because, err, the earth isn't flat. Have you ever shown anyone a 'right triangle' on a globe, consisting of 2 longitudes and a latitude? Easy picture to draw, but what about those 2 90 degree angles? But the UAH data are posted by a science group at a university; why can't they assume their audience is college educated and can handle the mathematical equivalent of 'big words'? By providing a single 'trend', are they not creating a false impression? Especially among the "Details? We don't need any stinking details!" crowd.
115332. CBDunkerson at 21:57 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        In reference to Andy Revkin's point about ice export circa 1990... in short, a 'tipping point' was passed. The large block of decades old ice along the northern edge of the Canadian archipelago and Greenland broke up and started to drift out of the arctic. Prior to that this had been a massive block which endured year after year and served as a 'plug' forcing most of the younger / thinner ice to remain in the arctic basin each year. Warming got severe enough to break up the plug and now we're seeing accelerated ice loss. Even without further warming we'd see the arctic continue to decline because that solid plug is gone and won't come back until temperatures drop below where they were circa 1990 and stay there.
115333. Ned at 21:56 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Zeph writes: However, with these posts (109 & 118) you [BP] strayed into territory where I have more knowledge, and your lack of objectivity becomes glaringly apparent to me. This causes me to give less weight to your pronoucements where you (appear to believe you) have more expertise than I have, like OHC. For what it's worth, BP's comments in this thread about the GHCN surface station data and the surface temperature record were similarly wrongheaded.
115334. Ned at 21:48 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        CBDunkerson's point here is a really good one. I don't know how things work elsewhere, but in the US Upper Midwest wind turbines generally are built on private farmland, with the power company "renting" the space for the turbine's footprint. It's a good deal for everybody -- almost all the land is still farmed; the payments from the power company provide an additional source of income; and (IMHO) the turbines themselves add some interest to what's otherwise a fairly ... dull ... landscape. If BP's figure of 2.9 W/m2 is for all the land area within the vicinity of the wind farm, then yes, that's extremely misleading, since other economic activities continue within that same area.
115335. Ned at 21:42 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        I see lots of people in this thread arguing for wind, solar, nuclear, or whatever. Not many people arguing in favor of coal, at least. Could I make a modest suggestion? We don't actually need to decide a priori that the electrical grid of 2050 will be powered by x% wind, y% solar, z% hydro, nuclear, geothermal, tidal power, biomass, etc. That's really not an efficient way to proceed. If we implemented a substantial (and increasing) price for fossil carbon-based energy -- a carbon tax, cap-and-trade, whatever -- the market will then decide what mix of power sources is most cost effective in a given region. Such a pricing system can be made revenue-neutral (e.g., refunding all proceeds from a carbon tax on a per-capita basis -- in which case the average cost of energy usage doesn't change, but there's an incentive to move from fossil-fuel-based to non-fossil energy sources). It's pretty easy to imagine that in 2050 we might have a lot more solar in the US southwest and Australia, wind in northern Europe and the US/Canadian Great Plains, tidal power in Maine and the Maritimes, etc., with nuclear and (limited) fossil fuels filling in the gaps. By 2100 there are lots of different possible scenarios ranging from space-based solar to nuclear fusion to ... something else. But the point is that we don't have to have the answers worked out in 2010. Of course, there are also issues of path dependence and inertia. Actions we take today will influence the future mix of energy sources, transportation methods, etc. While a pricing penalty for carbon-based energy will benefit all the non-carbon alternatives, it's probably worth continuing to invest substantially more in research on all the major alternatives, so the market can have better information in advance on their likely future costs and capacities.
115336. CBDunkerson at 21:31 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        BP #118 & #132, I'm sorry but the 2.9 w/m^2 figure you are quoting for wind power generation is just STUNNINGLY incorrect. You presumably READ the report you are pulling it from and thus know that they differentiate between the total land area a wind farm is spread over and the total land area actually USED by the wind farm and thus unavailable for other purposes (most of which turns out to be access roads). The figures cited in the report conclusion are; 34 +/- 22 hectares per megawatt land SPREAD OVER 1 +/- 0.7 hectares per megawatt land USED Converting the average values there to the units you cited (which appear nowhere in the report) yields; 340000 m^2 per 1,000,000 w = 2.9 w/m^2 based on land SPREAD OVER 10000 m^2 per 1,000,000 w = 100 w/m^2 based on land USED This is presumably how you got the 2.9 w/m^2 figure... based on the area a wind farm is spread over rather than the area it actually USES. That's just totally unreasonable since every US wind farm I've ever seen is also used for crops and/or livestock. Indeed, many of the access roads built for wind farms later turn in to regular transportation routes... decreasing their REAL 'footprint' to just the area taken up by the base of each turbine. Then of course you are also completely ignoring offshore wind... which uses up no 'land' at all. Resorting to the citation of blatantly false/misleading statistics does not help your case. Rather it shows that you are pursuing a belief which can only be sustained via dishonesty.
115337. chris at 21:11 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        The problems that efforts to deny real world observation lead to is shown by the relationships between polar and mountain glacier land ice melt and sea level rise. Despite a short period (2006-2008ish) when sea level rise slowed down a bit probably due to a la Nina event, the rate of increase has "recovered" and the current sea level is pretty much smack on its long term trend rising by somewhere upwards of 3 mm.yr-1. That sea level rise must have come from somewhere. Elsewhere on these boards strenuous efforts are being made to insinuate that the thermosteric (water volume expansion due to enhanced heat absorption) contribution to sea level rise is negligible since 2003. If there is no Greenland contribution to sea level rise and no thermosteric contribution then what is causing the sea levels to rise!? Are we therefore getting 3 mm.yr-1 from mountain glaciers and Antarctic melt? The evidence simply doesn't support such a conclusion. More likely the sea level rise is a combination of Greenland and Antarctic melt contributions, mountain glacier melt contributions and thermosteric (enhanced ocean heat absorption) much as the science indicates. The real world does make sense and our interpretations should reflect that!
115338. mspelto at 20:34 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        It is particularly good timing, with the Jakobshavn Glacier losing a a substantial chunk in a major calving event July 6-7. This is also a summer where the melt season has gotten off to a fast start on the ice sheet.
115339. pikaia at 20:31 PM on 13 July 2010
        Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
        It would be helpful to know what the TOTAL mass of the Greenland ice sheet is, to put it into perspective.
        Response: This is examined in why Greenland's ice loss matters.
115340. HumanityRules at 20:15 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        Petr Chylek recently published on the seesaw effect on the poles temp caused by the AMO. He detrends the arctic and antarctic temp records and shows these are in an anti-phase. He then compares these detrend temp records with the AMO index and shows arctic detrended temp is correlated with the AMO (antarctic anti-correlated). In it he suggests that two thirds of the recent arctic warming is due to this shift in the climate patterns of the earth. Maybe one third GHG. Specific to your 3 questions 1) 1970-1980 represent the point when the AMO index was at it's lowest and just beginning to rise. 2) 1990 is the point at which the detrend arctic and antarctic temp records cross which suggests a point when the extra warming from shift in climate regimes rather than increases in GHG really kicked in. Post 1990 warming is the sum of GHG and AMO effects. 3) [cynicism on] straight lines allow for simple singular explanations for trends. Complicated trends demand complicated explanations [cynicism off]
115341. Berényi Péter at 20:05 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        #136 scaddenp at 14:25 PM on 13 July, 2010 MacKay's estimate was for 125kWh/p/d. Beats me how US manages to use 250kWh/p/d - we use 91 No. In 2004 US primary energy comsumption (achievement at primary energy carriers stressed on the average) was 10,460 Watts/head. If you do the math that comes out as 251.04 kWh/p/d. In Europe it was 105.768 kWh/p/d (Hungary 82.3 kWh/p/d), China 24.84 kWh/p/d and 16.248 kWh/p/d in India. World average was 52.8 kWh/p/d. Think globally, act locally.
115342. Esop at 18:53 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        Don't forget that the UAH dataset has been tweaked multiple times over the past months, in addition to other changes specifically for the channel 5 data. This brought the anomalies down. This was done right at the time that new records were set, probably a coincidence.
115343. Peter Hogarth at 18:12 PM on 13 July 2010
        IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
        Zeph at 15:57 PM on 13 July, 2010 Thank you for this viewpoint. It is welcome and I think from wide experience it also more broadly reflects the viewpoint of many scientists who normally stay clear of proactive public debate.
115344. Bern at 17:41 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        That's an interesting idea, jyyh. I wonder what a chart of temperature anomalies would look like with all El Nino / La Nina periods removed? (apart from somewhat incomplete!) Other than that, this is an interesting post, muoncounter - thanks, it provides another perspective on trends.
115345. JMurphy at 17:31 PM on 13 July 2010
        IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
        Zeph, well written and well put. I think I agree with you 100%. Well, except for the probable deletion part... Hope to see more from you in future.
115346. Zeph at 15:57 PM on 13 July 2010
        IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
        When things get this polarized, it appears to an outsider like me that almost everybody is busy trying to be "right", as in win points. I can certainly understand that, being human myself. Willis appears to need to hear confirmation that there was no peer reviewed publication to be cited for the 40% quote - acknowledgment of a mistake in citation even if it doesn't affect the actual facts or outcome. That's his strong point. He would appear to not care much whether the science was correct or not, just whether a mistake was made and he can force his opponents to admit that. JMurphy seems to want to focus instead on whether the science was probably correct, which is his strong point. He doesn't care as much whether a mistake was made in the published event - admitting a mistake might be embarassing or give ammunition to the critics, and the actual truth is more important than the citation formality anyway (this is what I'm reading into it). For some of us, the real point is more about whether the IPCC's case was very strong, rather than whether it was flawless. So maybe this was another error, and maybe there's too much "circling the wagons" defensiveness - if so, that's regretable, but still a sideshow to the main issues. I see no evidence that the IPCC's conclusions are overall in question because the chairman spoke too enthusiastically to the press. For those of us concerned about balancing the planet and the economy, trying to make this or that person right or wrong in what they said when is not very interesting. Trying to discredit the report based on what the chairman said to the press about only peer reviewed science is not terribly relevant - it's more about scoring points than arriving at the truth. Hey, maybe he spoke too incautiously to the press and deserves a bad PR report card or something - that's still a side show, not a challenge to the science. Many people on both sides think this is a critical make or break decision for mankind - fearing potentially enormous environmental or economic consequences from a wrong decision. In that circumstance, I'd like to see our first priority being to find the most fundamental truths, not win contests. I picture us on an old sailing ship with most of the ship's carpenters saying there is some dry rot that could cause big problems - other folks say there's no big problem and we don't need to beach the ship to fix it at great financial cost. That's an important question in which all of us have a great deal invested. One of the carpenters says this was the best built ship in the navy - and some people want to attack or support him in this assertion. If the perfection of that carpenter's personal judgment was all we had to go on, that would be relevant, but there are measurements and soundings being taken. So the report itself acknowledges & justifies using "grey literature", and even some critics think that's reasonable. But the chairman has told the press it's all peer reviewed and it isn't. If your job is to do his annual review, then this is relevant - maybe his PR skills are not up to par - he exaggerated or appeared to. But if you want to know what's happening, this really isn't the main question to focus on. I want to know whether the IPCC is basically sound or not, not whether anybody ever got defensive or made relatively minor errors. Again, as an outsider, there seems to be a huge bias being asserted by the critics - the IPCC and its supporters must prove their case to an extremely high standard and even a few errors out of 3000 pages are a big deal. The critics are not held to the same standards. This seems to presuppose that "the course we are on" needs no justification, only course changes do, and no course change can be made while there is some dissent. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, and there was need of a comprehensive and bullet-proof EIR before more gigatons of carbon were emitted. Imagine if it took a more solid scientific consensus than we have today, but in in the other direction, before continuing to emit CO2 was allowed. Imagine if the EIR supporting "no AGW to worry about" could be discredited on even a fraction of a percent of errors which didn't affect the conclusions, or a small number of dissenting scientists? That would not be reasonable either. For deciding what's probably happening and making adjustments, we need a more balanced standard of proof. Reading blogs on both sides has convinced me that the preponderance of the evidence supports AGW and that it's only by creating highly assymetric burdens of proof that any policy debate continues. That doesn't mean I think AGW is proven, only that if both sides are evaluated on an even footing, the critics are trying to poke some holes in a remarkable intellectual edifice (albeit one with some holes) while unable to build anything even remotely as impressive themselves. They have no alternative which they can agree upon, which would "prove" that there's no problem. That is, I don't see critics creating and supporting against criticism any GCMs which fit the data better without CO2 or with a low sensitivity. I don't see anything similar in scope and accuracy to the IPCC positing a coherent alternative around which to build a scientific consensus (I see lots of incompatible anti-AGW threads: solar, GCR, it ain't happening, etc). And a lot of sniping. Which doesn't seem to bring out the best in AGW supporters, who do seem to get defensive and sometime change the subject when a critic gets the upper hand on an argument. I can see evidence of that - but WHO CARES? So they are human and can be baited until they react defensively. THAT'S NOT THE SCIENCE and AGW doesn't rest on the unbaitability of its proponents. Sigh. This will probably be deleted, it's not really about the science of course, but about how it gets discussed. A bunch of frustration after many hours reading "both sides" just came out. If a person or two reads it before it gets deleted, thanks for listening.
115347. shawnhet at 15:39 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Frankly, it seems like the whole wind power issue is a side show. IMO, by the time we could build a working wind-based electrical system, it would already be obsolete. Solar, however, is a *much* better bet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power Cheers, :)
115348. KR at 15:27 PM on 13 July 2010
        Hotties vs Frosties?
        Berényi - But would you tolerate huge windmills in your neighborhood? Already have them. There's a row of 1.4 MW windmills just outside my home town. No noise issue, and even in the US snow belt (several 1 meter snowfalls per year over the last couple years) they don't ice up and throw chunks. And if I'm not on a ladder sticking my head in the blades, the speed of the blade tips is completely irrelevant. Your prejudices are showing. I much prefer the windmills to a coal fired power plant (most likely in my region), or even a natural gas power plant. As to my previous post, the 734 GW figure was for average continuous power, which includes varying wind conditions. If the spread of wind power sites exceeds a local low/high pressure zone, you will ALWAYS have wind on some portion of the grid. That makes interconnections/power sharing important, but those issues are easy to deal with.
115349. jyyh at 15:04 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        heh, i might practise some intellectual dishonesty in my next (hobbyist) analysis and discount 1998, for it was clearly some 1/50 event considering El Nino. What it did show was that anomalous El Ninos may be stronger than anomalous La Ninas, the strongest of which should be also discounted from it ;-). One might get a clearer picture of the trend this way, analysing only ENSO neutral months. I've no doubt this has already been done but never published, as true scientists like to check their findings in more than one way.
115350. Andy Revkin at 14:33 PM on 13 July 2010
        What's in a trend?
        One thing to note about that ice transition you stress in 1990 is that a big physical shift occurred in Arctic Ocean sea ice right at that time (1989), with a large "flush" of old thick ice, as explained in some detail here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/new-light-shed-on-north-pole-ice-trends/ As was the case in 2007, ice up there can change as much through motion as melting, Arctic scientists tell me.

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