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Riccardo at 22:54 PM on 5 July 2010CO2 is Good for Plants: Another Red Herring in the Climate Change Debate
As expected by many, in this case also there's not just CO2, other limiting factors may come into play. And they may depend on the particular specie under study. A new study published in Nature (Langley et al. 2010, paywalled) shows a CO2 fertilization effect on C3 sedge and C4 grasses only in the first year. Supplying N together with CO2 "strongly promotes the encroachment of C4 plant species that respond less strongly to elevated CO2 concentrations. Overall, we found that the observed shift in the plant community composition ultimately suppresses the CO2-stimulation of plant productivity by the third and fourth years." More generally, one may think that profound changes in the ecosystem might be produced by changing atmospheric (and/or soil) chemical composition. Adding changes in temperature and precipitations it's easy to envisage hard times ahead for the Earth System Models. -
Esop at 22:33 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
#10: The El Nino is of course contributing to the temperatures these days, but it is interesting to see that a mild El Nino is enough to completely eclipse the cooling effect of the deepest solar minimum in more than a century, not just that, but we are setting all time temperature records as well. Quite the opposite of the Maunder minumum like conditions predicted by "skeptics" only 16 months ago. -
greenhousegaseous at 22:17 PM on 5 July 2010Climate cartoon: when positive is a negative
It isn't a matter of being "politically correct", but of trying to improve our collective (so far) dismal track record of explaining climate science to a largely ignorant voting public. My background is econometric modeling as well as engineering, but I would be happy to help develop *any* alternative verbal (or conceptual) constructs that can help reduce the present confusion regarding climate change, and climate change modeling in particular. Those of us with specialized technical backgrounds all too often demand the general public first accept our often arcane terminology before being permitted to share our knowledge. Then we resent the mass media for misrepresenting the science. The cartoon is therefore right to call our attention to one of the most common examples of unintentional modeling obfuscation. We desperately need to clarify all this stuff in a way that helps the voters of the advanced democracies get behind greenhouse gas reduction programs. You can lead a bunch of horses to a drying water hole, but you can't make them think. Greenhouse Gaseous -
skywatcher at 22:02 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
HR @ #6: The point wasn't that the 24.6m sq km was particularly unusual - it wasn't, and was reported as only the 13th lowest [unusual, maybe but not near record-setting]. The point was that this data is utterly in contradiction to what Archibald was pretending it might mean. We've actually got low snowcover, but by some clever cherry-picking, Archibald can pretend it's high. Winter snowcover is on the whole not temperature-driven, while the summer snowmelt is, as mspelto points out above, so concentrating on winter snowcover tells you more about the precipitation events that dumped the snow. Result - they were unusually high. Reason - increased water vapour due to greenhouse warming? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:40 PM on 5 July 2010Arctic Ice Part 2: A Review of Factors Contributing to the Recent Decline in Arctic Ice
Extensive literature, but ... still the classic "cherry picking" ... It would be all right if not for the fact that here indicated, that ... ... AO is the dominant determinant of what happens in the Arctic of ice - of course it is indisputable fact ... Therefore, I recommend two very new product literature (they tell the truth about what winter in Europe, N. America and Asia, but add that the most important influence on the AO has a SUN ...): Future low solar activity periods may cause extremely cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia, Ahlbeck, 2010; (“In this report I analyzed the statistical relation between the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation index (QBO is a measure of the direction and strength of the stratospheric wind in the Tropics), the solar activity, and the Arctic Oscillation index and obtained a statistically significant regression equation.”) ... and comment by the author: “But people who do not believe in the ability of the sun to change the climate significantly (in this case the winter weather south of 65. deg.) should know that the influence of solar activity on the winter temperature is statistically significant, which cannot be shown at all for the carbon dioxide concentration. All runs I did with atm. carbon dioxide concentration as independent variable resulted in elimination of this variable as STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT. [...]" Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity? Lockwood et al., 2010 (one of the co-authors: Solanki). Wider context of the role of the SUN is best seen here: Last nine-thousand years of temperature variability in Northern Europe, Seppä et al., (2009).: “The colder (warmer) anomalies are associated with increased (decreased) humidity over the Northern European mainland, consistent with the modern high correlation between cold (warm) and humid (dry) modes of summer weather in the region. A comparison with the key proxy records reflecting the main forcing factors does not support the hypothesis that solar variability is the cause of the late-Holocene centennial-scale temperature changes. We suggest that the reconstructed anomalies are typical of Northern Europe and their occurrence may be related to the oceanic and atmospheric circulation variability in the North Atlantic–North-European region.” -
Riccardo at 21:36 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
HumanityRules, from the data you can determine if a change is statistically significant or not, there's no such thing as absolute "too much" or "not that much". You can also determine the minimum period of observations (or number of observations) for a given variability to get significant results. A tiny few percent of decrease per year may appear to be small, but in 100 years you're left with a few percent of the initial value. So the problem is how far you're looking. -
neilrieck at 21:17 PM on 5 July 2010Climate cartoon: when positive is a negative
I hope we're not getting too politically correct in our terminology. The phrases "positive feedback" and "negative feedback" were first used by engineers in the 1930's who were developing amplifiers for the national telephone system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback#In_electronics As a rule, negative feedback is good while positive feedback is bad. -
HumanityRules at 21:12 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
Esop Don't start quoting June-June periods somebody might accuse you of cherry-picking. El Nino might go some way to explain things. -
mspelto at 21:10 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
The snow extent misses a more important discussion. There are two parts to the snow season. The winter season when the snowcover expands and the snow melt season when the snowpack is lost. The latter is more temperature dependent the former more storm track dependent. This winter did have quite high snow cover extent. The truly historic aspect has been the melt off which has been highest by far in the last 44 years. We went from the third highest snowcover in the last 44 years in Feb. to the lowest snowcover in 44 years in April and again in May. -
HumanityRules at 21:09 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
"An obvious great Pacific climate shift is not so evident" There is something very significant about the period around the 1970s. It seems to appear as an important feature in many climate data sets. A rather important eaample might be radiative forcing, images often show things really taking off around this time.
I don't see any harm in investigating other possible phenomenon that may explain this notable period. I agree though his terminology may be mis-leading.
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Esop at 21:00 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
We just completed the warmest 12 month running period on record. Not a good time to claim that the world is cooling. Even Svensmark is keeping quiet about his sunspot theory these days. Highest global average temperature on record during the lowest solar activity in more than a century was the death blow to the theory that the solar cycle is the main driver of global average temperature. -
Baa Humbug at 20:56 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
personally I believe those who are presenting the next report will be a little more careful in "translating" what a given paper concludes. I believe it's a good thing if the presenters know their words will be scrutinized by (literally) thousands of people. Less chance for "hype" don't you think? Did you find any benefits JMurphy? or is that a silly question? p.s. I'll bge away from my computer for a few hours. Apologies if I don't respond straight away. -
HumanityRules at 20:47 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
Thanks, a link to the report you quote might be useful. It strikes me 24.6msqkm is >98% of the average (if the anomly that year was 0.4). That doesn't seem like a great disaster and it seems fair to suggest it could well be little more than natural noise. It would be hard to believe that 2% variation is much outside the error margins of the methodology. In my field of work I wouldn't get too excited by a 2% drop in anything and I don't have to work with anything as chaotic as the planets climate. Dappledwater at 19:18 PM on 5 July, 2010 "What does Archibald think is causing the worlds ice sheets and glaciers to melt?." AMO maybe. -
JMurphy at 20:38 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
Baa Humbug wrote : And the hours "wasted" are mine to waste, but you get the benefit of anything positive that may come out of it. Not something to complain about I would have thought. And what are the real benefits that you believe have come out of your work ? -
sleepership at 20:26 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
Dappledwater all the denial crowd says there is no melting in the Arctic and Greenland- they also say we are not warming, but cooling- they are given so much attention because we have a Media- that 'believes' a small group of people with bogus information needs to be heard- while the other 97% of scientists who have robust science needs to questioned and investigated for large 'errors' they have committed. The media Titans in the USA need advertising dollars- so they print junk from the Denialists--they may lose their anti science sponsors- their revenues may be reduced-its all about money-not the truth. -
Baa Humbug at 20:24 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
JMurphy at 19:31 PM on 5 July, 2010 "How long before they gather the torch-bearing mobs ?" Awww don't be such a drama queen. I give you my word I won't bear any torches nor will I hang out with mobs. OK? -
Baa Humbug at 20:21 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
JMurphy at 19:48 PM on 5 July, 2010 wrote.. "Come off it - you cannot be serious ? They would have highlighted (and it would have been passed onto and through every blog in the denialosphere) ANY true scientific statement which hadn't been properly sourced". I am serious. They (meaning me as I was one of the auditors)were not given such a brief. Please do read the section titled "Quality Assurance". http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/quality-assurance.php You also said.. "And to be fair about Pachauri's quotes, he usually talks about the conclusions, the science and the assessments being based on peer-reviewed science, and that is obviously correct". I refer you to my comment at #56 where I said... "The audit did not comment on the science nor did it comment on whether certain references should be included, or not, from the AR4". You conclude with... "You can be certain that it will be even more rigorous than the last one and many of you can waste many hours checking the fine detail for any human error". I would have thought it was a good thing to check such an important document for errors. We would want the errors, (if any) corrected wouldn't we JMurphy? And the hours "wasted" are mine to waste, but you get the benefit of anything positive that may come out of it. Not something to complain about I would have thought. -
JMurphy at 19:48 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
Baa Humbug wrote : For those who are interested in finding out how many references SHOULD HAVE BEEN peer reviewed but were not, bulk of the work has been done, download the Audit reports and go through the 5,587 non-peer reviewed references listed and find out for yourself. maybe you'll find 90% of the list DIDN'T need to be peer reviewed, that would leave 560 non-peer reviewed references. Whether that's too high or not is subjective and would probably make a good blog post one day. Come off it - you cannot be serious ? They would have highlighted (and it would have been passed onto and through every blog in the denialosphere) ANY true scientific statement which hadn't been properly sourced. The fact that certain people are obssessing about the Amazon one, shows how meagre the crumbs are from this so-called audit. And to be fair about Pachauri's quotes, he usually talks about the conclusions, the science and the assessments being based on peer-reviewed science, and that is obviously correct. Just because there are other sources used doesn't get away from that basic fact. Generally, though, why can't so-called skeptics move on and see what the next report says. You can be certain that it will be even more rigorous than the last one and many of you can waste many hours checking the fine detail for any human error. -
JMurphy at 19:31 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
Willis Eschenbach wrote : How does invalidating two references, neither of which I cited, change that? Leaving aside the dubious origin of your 'cites', as I have already cited above : "Citizen Audit failed to classify book chapters that are actually peer reviewed papers as "peer reviewed". They also fail to place IPCC self-citations, which are peer reviewed, into the peer reviewed category. The IPCC self-cites are some of the most expert reviewed literature ever." And as I already acknowledged that you hadn't used those actual references, reference to them was to show how untrustworthy that whole audit is. And that is just on a cursory glance : who knows what else will be found after a detailed proper audit ? But who has the time and energy to spend on deflating all these skeptical bubbles ? You did however copy and paste the COPA COGECA, 2003a reference - Why would you expect that to be peer-reviewed ? (The same goes for COPA COGECA 2003b.) As for your statement "Unfortunately, science requires more than heartfelt belief ...", that explains why the so-called skeptics have to rely on faith and hope for their beliefs. They way they obssess about certain matters and automatically disbelieve any scientist they don't want to believe (except their lone, and lonely, gurus, of course), is a definite act of faith and belief. How long before they gather the torch-bearing mobs ? -
Baa Humbug at 19:26 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
JMurphy at 02:58 AM on 5 July, 2010 Before anyone declares "errors" in the Citizens Audit report, they need to understand what the audit was all about. How else would one know if something is an error or not? The following is from the Audit Results website ... http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/quality-assurance.php "The IPCC chairman has declared that non-peer-reviewed research sources belong in the dustbin (see the last lines of this newspaper article) but this project does not necessarily take that position. Its primary goal was to determine whether the chairman's claim (frequently repeated by journalists) that this report is based only and solely on peer-reviewed literature is accurate". The audit did not comment on the science nor did it comment on whether certain references should be included, or not, from the AR4. All the audit did was to list in detail what is/isn't a peer reviewed reference. Most certainly, many references in the AR4 did not need to be nor could be expected to be peer reviewed. Population statistics is a good example. For those who are interested in finding out how many references SHOULD HAVE BEEN peer reviewed but were not, bulk of the work has been done, download the Audit reports and go through the 5,587 non-peer reviewed references listed and find out for yourself. maybe you'll find 90% of the list DIDN'T need to be peer reviewed, that would leave 560 non-peer reviewed references. Whether that's too high or not is subjective and would probably make a good blog post one day. maybe JMurphy is up to the task? -
Rob Painting at 19:18 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
What does Archibald think is causing the worlds ice sheets and glaciers to melt?. -
skywatcher at 19:13 PM on 5 July 2010Arctic Ice Part 2: A Review of Factors Contributing to the Recent Decline in Arctic Ice
This is a superb resource for recent research on Arctic sea ice. I'm going to bookmark it and use it myself as a paper source! Many, many thanks Peter. -
daniel at 18:49 PM on 5 July 2010Sea level rise is exaggerated
doug_bostrom at 06:42 AM on 4 July, 2010 There is only one Daniel KR at 02:08 AM on 4 July, 2010 "Sorry about the mis-reference to temperature, instead of sea level - proof that I sometimes don't proof-read enough!" Yes, but it's not just you that's doing it both Doug and Peter have also skimmed over what I've said and quickly responded with fervour without actually understanding my point. I would like to highlight the fact that these issues are highly emotive and the fears people have from your side of the argument are clouding your judgment. This is occurring both on this and other points of the debate and is clearly evidenced by all of your comments during this discussion. "The least justified fit is a line that avoids your data points. " Have I proposed such a fit? I have proposed short term fits within the error estimates of the data points. "Given the noise in that simple reconstruction, it's reasonable to time-average data points, especially for the recent (dense, somewhat noisy) data points.” I agree but I don’t see the relevance, you cant compare that recent, directly measured, high resolution, short term to the uncertain, low resolution, long term data set like that. “Note that the core samples have some implicit time averaging - it takes time for vegetation to grow, and the sample investigated is not going to be a 2D core slice; the thickness of it (and is the sediment flat there?) will introduce some time averaging. I didn't see that explicitly stated in the paper, but that's a known element for core analysis - you don't tend to see day-to-day changes in them!" I can't say I follow you here. My understanding is that the time uncertainties are from the C14 analysis. The researchers can only obtain a date range (from a non-Gaussian probability function) using this method. It doesn't give you a range on the order of days or months but years. "Either way - the reconstruction best justified from the evidence in this experiment should pass through or very close to each of the data points or averages. The data "anchors" the reconstruction there, and any large deviation from the trend (excursion) would have to either (a) show as a shifted data point, or (b) occur between data points - and vanish again before the next one. " I'm sorry but you are not addressing the long term / short term issue. I will say again that I agree with the proposed long term linear trend and the data allows for short term deviations not too far from the data points that would undermine Donnelly’s conclusions. "However, there is in this experiment actual evidence against offsets from the reconstructed sea level trend around the data points themselves." Explain. Peter Hogarth at 03:42 AM on 4 July, 2010 "If there were short term variations of the magnitude which you suggest between the sparse points then the probability of all of these randomly sampled points fitting any smooth long term curve is small." Maybe you are finally understanding my point. You're right that on the short term scale the probability of the long term trend is small, thankyou. :) "Any extra points we find which also fit the curve increases the probability that the curve is a good model, and constrains other probable models to those with low amplitude variations." There aren't any more data points provided and if more data points showed that there was a low amplitude variation from the linear trend then the recent uptrend would look less alarming, more precedented or natural and much less anthropogenic or induced by CO2. "With respect, if this is lost on you, then I understand why you keep re-iterating your point, and you should address this." It's not lost on me Peter, as far as I can see you are trying to use wordy rebuttals that don't amount to much. There is not enough resolution to determine that thre is a long term linear trend that barely deviates on the short term. More importantly as long as there are large enough uncertainty levels the recent uptrend will never be shown to be unusual. If you reconstruct the data Peter from table 1., just use the absolute centres of the boxes, you will see that using sample 1 (dated ~1975) along with the other data points the trend stays much the same (possibly even lowers a little) and so the entire trend over the last 700 years is still ~1mm/yr at Barn Island. I hope that addresses your “undersampling” or “Unlikely wild deviations” tack. The instrumental record is showing us that the Donnely reconstruction may in fact be an undersampling of a natural higher amplitude trend. "I am arguing that Donnelly is presenting work that is specialist." Ad hominem "His data is site specific and is intended to add a small piece to the unfolding picture which is science, rather than act as first line defence against "climate skepticism" Undoing the poor science of climatology is the first line of attack when it comes to this debate. Their methods may be scientific in nature but their conclusions seem to be biased, driven by an unfounded fear of gloom and doom. "That you accept that drivers of sea level should be accounted for is a good step, yet you still do not appear to modify your suggestion of "likely" high sea level variations in light of this. This is not scientific" It has not been shown from this data that the uptrend is un-natural and therefore it is not necessarily anthropogenic. To claim otherwise is unscientific. -
dansat at 18:24 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
I love cherries, they are so tasty when freshly picked. -
John Chapman at 18:15 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
Point taken. I should have said there is no persuasive evidence that the world is cooling which was the message. -
tobyjoyce at 17:49 PM on 5 July 2010Archibald’s take on world temperatures
Philosophically, if you make a positive claim (e.g. "the earth is warming"), then you must produce empricial evidence for the claim. To rebutt such a claim (e.g. "the earth is not warming"), you must induce reasonable doubt by using the original evidence and/ or new evidence previously not considered. So I think a better response to Archibald is to say "The evidence for global warming has not been rebutted by his data" Massimo Piglucci has a good post on the "burden of prook" here: Burden of Proof -
Riccardo at 17:02 PM on 5 July 2010Arctic Ice Part 2: A Review of Factors Contributing to the Recent Decline in Arctic Ice
Peter, terrific work, it will take months to digest. Thank you for sharing it with us. -
Willis Eschenbach at 16:43 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
JMurphy at 00:06 AM on 5 July, 2010Returning to the so-called 'citizens audit' of the IPCC, it would appear that they have mis-classified another reference.
Whoa, two errors? JMurphy, there are definitely questions about some of the classifications in the audit of the IPCC report. And yes, some of them are clearly in error. However, this does not invalidate what I cited. I've given you dozens and dozens of non peer-reviewed citations to things like newspaper and magazine articles and WWF and Greenpeace articles. How does invalidating two references, neither of which I cited, change that? -
Willis Eschenbach at 16:32 PM on 5 July 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
doug_bostrom at 17:06 PM on 4 July, 2010Ho-hum, Willis has gone off down the Amazon rabbit hole yet again. I suppose it would best to get Nepstad's entire statement out here so Willis can deal with it in detail.
Thanks, Doug. I'll do that very thing. Nowhere in your Nepstad quote does he show that the IPCC claim is in the peer reviewed literature. He says that:Our 1999 article (Nepstad et al. 1999) estimated that 630,000 km2 of forests were severely drought stressed in 1998, as Rowell and Moore correctly state, but this forest area is only 15% of the total area of forest in the Brazilian Amazon.
That was the only paper cited by Rowell and Moore as their reference for the claim. But that's not what the IPCC claim said. And Nepstad accepts that. He says:The IPCC statement on the Amazon is correct, but the citations listed in the Rowell and Moore report were incomplete.
OK, we see he thinks the IPCC statement is correct, and he admits that citing his 1999 paper didn't support the claim ... but he neglects to give us a peer-reviewed citation showing that it is correct. I understand that he believes it, Doug, but belief is not what we're looking for. We're looking for peer reviewed studies, not simple credence. The WWF later said the claim was from an earlier IPAM document. This also turned out to be untrue. So that couldn't be the citation that would complete the citations listed in the Rowell and Moore report. So if the citations in the Rowell and Moore are "incomplete" as Nepstad said, and the IPAM document doesn't "complete" them, what citation should have been made to "complete" the Rowell and Moore paper? Nepstad would have us believe that to complete their citations, they should have cited the 2004 Nepstad et al. paper. In their 2004 paper, Nepstad said that "half of the forest area of the Amazon Basin had either fallen below, or was very close to, the critical level of soil moisture below which trees begin to die in 1998." But that's not the claim made by the IPCC either. All that the Nepstad 2004 paper shows is that there was a big drought in the Amazon, and that the Amazon did not experience either the "drastic reaction" or the "climate shift" that the IPCC warns of. So that doesn't support the Rowell and Moore/IPCC claim either. In fact, Nepstad 2004 tends to show that the Amazon is more stable than they claimed, rather than show it is very sensitive as they would like us to think. Finally, is Nepstad 2004 the citation that Rowell and Moore should have listed to "complete" their citations? That's not even theoretically possible. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why ... So all Nepstad has done is agree that the citations to Rowell and Moore are incomplete. He has not given us a single reference to complete them by showing where their 40% claim, or their danger of an impending climate shift claim, is valid. As I said, even George Monbiot has given up on your claim, Doug, saying:It is also true that nowhere in the peer-reviewed literature is there a specific statement that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation".
And contrary to your claim, Nepstad has not given us such a citation in the quote you reproduce above. Monbiot knows about Nepstad's quote, and he couldn't find the answer in Nepstad's quote. Or outside his quote. I can't find one either. And neither, apparently, can you ... you just keep recycling Nepstad's heartfelt statement that he believes it is true. Look, I know that Nepstad believes it, that's obvious. Unfortunately, science requires more than heartfelt belief ... -
Peter Hogarth at 16:07 PM on 5 July 2010Arctic Ice Part 2: A Review of Factors Contributing to the Recent Decline in Arctic Ice
Kooiti Masuda at 13:51 PM on 5 July, 2010 Yes, sorry, this is Ogi 2010a -
Marcus at 15:07 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Another point Eric. Just because you increase the unit cost of energy/fuel (in cents/kw-h or cents per Kj or dollars per liter) does not mean that you'll be increasing the total cost of energy/fuel for the consumer. I pay roughly 3c/kw-h more for my electricity than if I got 100% fossil fuel, but my total energy bill (gas & electricity) is still $400/year less due to implementation of good demand management (like gas heaters & hot water, energy efficient lights, only have a single set of lights on at any given time). For comparison, my electricity bill rose by around 7c/kw-h between 1996 & 2003 (before I switched to 50% green power) simply because my energy company wanted to increase its profits. I do find it odd that people are prepared to accept above inflation increases in their conventional per unit electricity costs, but ask them to pay extra for renewable energy & they kick up a stink. I find that most odd behaviour. -
Marcus at 14:26 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Eric, once again I'm forced to debunk a claim you've made. Here are some interesting comparisons of several major nations-in terms of their current CO2 output & industry composition of GDP-as of 2009. Take a look at United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom, India & China. United States has a CO2 intensity of 0.4kg CO2/$ of GDP, per capita emissions of 20t CO2/person & an industrial sector that makes up about 20% of the entire economy. By contrast, Germany has an industrial sector that makes up 27% of its economy, generates 0.27kg of CO2/$ of GDP & has per capita emissions of 10t CO2/person. The United Kingdom has an industrial sector that comprises 24% of its economy, a CO2 intensity of 0.26kg CO2/$ GDP & only about 9t CO2/person. France also has a relatively small industrial sector, comprising 20% of its economy, but has a CO2 intensity of 0.17kg CO2/$ GDP & per capita emissions of 6t/person. India & China both have a relatively large industrial sector compared to the 1st World economies I mentioned-28% of the economy-but China's CO2 intensity is *equal* to the US (at 0.4kg CO2/$ GDP) & significantly lower per capita emissions (2.7t CO2/person). India's CO2 intensity is 0.29kg CO2/$ GDP & per capita emissions of 1t CO2/person. So you see, de-industrialization alone cannot explain the emission reductions achieved by Germany (&, also, the roughly 20t/annum reductions achieved by the United Kingdom)-given that both the UK & Germany retain a higher level of industry, but maintain a less CO2 intensive economy & significantly lower per capita CO2 emissions. -
Kooiti Masuda at 13:59 PM on 5 July 2010Climate cartoon: when positive is a negative
Donella Meadows's "Thinking in Systems", posthumusly published in 2008 from Chelsea Green (USA) and Earthscan (UK), avoids the terms "positive" and "negative" with respect to feedbacks, and uses "reinforcing" and "balancing" instead. In my opinion, "balancing" may also be misleading, and "attenuating" or "stabilizing" seem better. I still usually use "positive" and "negative", though. -
Kooiti Masuda at 13:51 PM on 5 July 2010Arctic Ice Part 2: A Review of Factors Contributing to the Recent Decline in Arctic Ice
Minor note on one of the references: "Ogi 2010a" and "Ogi 2010b" is the same paper, and the published version is available as the URL listed as "Ogi 2010b" minus "-pip". -
Eric (skeptic) at 13:27 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
I have always been a conservationist. My heating is about 90% renewable wood in an EPA-certified stove. My hot water is still grid-electric. I plant more trees than I cut and that are cut to provide my wood. I have about 250 watts of solar panels (no subsidies of any sort) with batteries to match for some lighting and most electronics. Just looked at my last bill, 2608 kwh over the last 12 months, so I am just a bit above you for electric use. My footprint is made higher due to living 75 miles from work, but most days I grab a bus which is 12 miles from my house. Most Germans would probably be aghast at that kind of commute. -
Eric (skeptic) at 13:09 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Marcus, your reunification argument is plausible if we, for example, in effect "reunified" economically with China. Ignoring population, our GDP to carbon ration compares very favorably with theirs. Reunification in Germany shut down inefficient state-run industries and the same should be done in China. The problem is that China has its own industrial policy that encourages a large amount of seriously polluting industry in exchange for rapid economic growth. In effect we have exported our pollution. By making energy more expensive here in the U.S. that problem is likely to get worse. -
Marcus at 12:52 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
I'd also like to point out that Michael Sweet is dead right. I signficantly reduced my CO2 footprint-first by cutting my daily electricity consumption from 12kw-h/day to 6kw-h/day, then by switching to a 50% renewable energy scheme. My total annual savings are somewhere on the order of $400 per annum & my CO2 footprint has been cut from around 4t/annum to around 1t/annum. Now I'm saving money & reducing my contribution to both CO2 emissions & general pollution-so does it *really* matter that the guy next door might be using 16kw-h/day to 20kw-h/day? Does that make my contribution any less significant-to either the overall environment or to myself personally? No, of course not. From everything I've read, Germans feel exactly the same way. -
Marcus at 12:45 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Eric, what you've posted is really more of a matter of opinion that scientific fact. I'm well aware of the fact that Re-unification with East Germany had a role to play in Germany's emissions, but remember that they also took on an added & highly significant economic burden when West Germany reunified with East Germany. Yet in *spite* of these difficulties, Germany has continued to significantly increase its economic output whilst cutting the CO2 emissions (& general pollution levels) of both the Western & Eastern portions of Germany. So, if anything, the reunification adds greater weight to my argument that even more prosperous nations-like the US-which *haven't* been burdened with the dead-weight of a soviet style economy-should be more able to reduce their CO2 emissions without economic damage or-at the very least-*stabilize* their emissions (US emissions were-as of 2007-1Gt/annum higher than they were in 1990). -
Eric (skeptic) at 12:22 PM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Marcus, you are not wrong about fossil fuel reduction in general especially about things like the drop in incidental pollution which is a good thing. But here's a paper abstract describing how reunification had a significant impact on GHG reductions. They seem to attribute 1/2 or a bit less of the reductions to reunification, 1/2 or more to policy changes. http://en.scientificcommons.org/20336706 -
LukeW at 12:04 PM on 5 July 2010CO2 is Good for Plants: Another Red Herring in the Climate Change Debate
JohnD - on the contrary - this is about woodland thickening more than shrub encroachment. Indeed the phenomenon is more likely to occur with heavier grazing and suppression of fire. Fire kills the natural woody shrubs or tree seedlings and keeps the savanna woodlands open. Heavy grazing removes grass fuel. Although many crop plants are C3s these areas are not suited as crop lands or plantation forestry. Rainfall to sporadic to semi-arid. They do however host large herds of domestic stock (Australia) or native herbivores (e.g. African plains). -
Marcus at 11:36 AM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
So Eric (Denialist) you've finally nailed your colours to the mast. You admit that the fossil fuel industry receives significant government support-but you're perfectly OK with that. A subsidy is a subsidy, whether it is a tax concession or a direct payment-it still amounts to money out of the tax-payers pocket. Here in Australia, both kinds of subsidies apply for the fossil fuel industry. All kinds of tax concessions (like the R&D concession), covering the cost of fly-ash waste disposal, paying for the construction of infrastructure, free water & the fact that every single coal-fired power station in Australia was built using tax-payers dollars. Yet still the industry receives generous support whilst renewables have to get by on the smell of an oily rag. I know that, in Germany, the coal industry also still receives direct cash hand-outs from the government, though the Government is trying to phase this out. Given this, though, I'm still left wondering how a mature industry can boast about its low-cost electricity whilst still claiming significant levels of government support-without even a whimper of protest-yet suggest that the wind, solar or geothermal industry gets even a modest leg-up towards being cost-competitive, & the howls of indignant outrage start immediately. That simply suggests a desire to retain monopolistic control over our electricity supply-which is a wholly political issue. Also, at the end of the day Eric, your entire argument has been one straw man after another. The cuts to CO2 made in Germany actually began as far as 1991, with emissions falling from 961Mt per annum to 899Mt per annum over that time period-6 years before the Kyoto protocol. The 175Mt/annum cuts in CO2 made between 1991 & 2007 represent an almost 20% emission reduction compared to 1990 levels-far greater than anything even several large volcanoes could produce-even if you had 5 30Gt of CO2 volcanoes per year for the next 20 years. These emissions cuts were achieved at a time of *significant* expansion in Germany's GDP-which suggests a combination of a less energy-intensive economy (greater energy efficiency/less kw-h per $ of GDP) & a less CO2-intensive economy (more kw-h from low or zero carbon sources). Now if Germany can achieve such a goal, then why do the denialists constantly citing "economic ruination" as an excuse for *not* cutting CO2 emissions? Either way, Germany is saving money on its electricity costs as a result of its less energy intensive economy-which is good for bottom line-& less power derived from coal also means less mercury, radon, Sulfur Dioxide, particulate emissions & fly-ash waste getting into the environment. So for Germany, cutting CO2 emissions has been a win-win-win scenario (i.e. a political win, an economic win & a broad environmental win). Still, I'm sure you & John D can discuss how "wrong" I am at the next Watts or Jo Nova meeting. -
kdkd at 11:08 AM on 5 July 2010Astronomical cycles
Ken #126, Chris #128 Ken's latest response uses the following techniques favoured by the so-called sceptics in order to misrepresent the state of the science:- Invalid usage of statistical methods for extrapolation
- Claims that short duration time series in noisy systems can provide meaningful results
- Cherry picking statistical techniques based on an impressionistic view of the data, and based on the preconceptions that the data should support the so-called sceptical agenda
- Asking questions devised to cultivate an air of unjustified uncertainty (to provide the appearance of supporting the so called sceptic agenda) by cramming mostly unrelated concepts together
- Selective ignoring of the available scientific evidence without any attempt to demonstrate the statistical validity of the argument
- Trying to support the so-called sceptic argument by appealing to a cherry picked, and inappropriately short time duration
- And finally, continually recycling the same material despite constantly having the invalidity of the argument pointed out
-
Marcus at 11:02 AM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Yeah, well done John D, you know how to copy & paste a couple of numbers from a presentation-"Monkey See, Monkey Do"-that's a far cry from being able to properly read & CRITICALLY ANALYZE a paper/presentation. It most certainly DOES NOT PROVE that you're "industry savvy". As someone who *did* read the presentation & *did* critically analyze, I still come up with the same few issues: (1) To the best of my knowledge, the results you cite were only for the best conditions (TOS1 & irrigated). (2) In spite of the decline in protein, the demand for nitrogen increased 23%-greater than the total increase in yield (+22%)-thus highlighting the critical, limiting role of nitrogen in increasing biomass. (3) That the results you cite were for only 2 out of 8 wheat varieties. The other varieties did not produce a statistically significant change in yields (yet still had a similar decline in protein content). (4) That they were already seeing evidence of acclimation after only 3 years. Therefore it's difficult to extrapolate the results you cite into any kind of long-term trend. Of course, as I was *critically* analyzing the results of this study, I had a few issues with their presentation-namely: (1) they tell us that the results for TOS2 were lower than the +22% for TOS1, but not by how much (that is vital information that any decent reviewer would insist upon). (2) They tell us that nitrogen uptake increased by +23%, but they didn't say whether or not they needed to supplement these crop with additional nitrogen-that's vital info for a farmer. Additionally, they didn't say whether or not an addition of +23% nitrogen to the aCO2 crop might have produced similar yield increases. (3) The thing you seem to fail to understand, John D, is that there results in t/Ha are an *extrapolation*-from an average of several small plots. As such, I have to ask-"where are the standard deviations"? If you're averaging the results of several plots, then you'd expect to see deviations around the average. How large were the deviations? If they were 20% or 30%, then the results cited are utterly meaningless. Even a 10% variation around the average would give extrapolated ranges of between 2.41t/Ha to 2.95t/Ha for aCO2 & 2.9t/Ha to 3.5t/Ha for the eCO2-which is really borderline in terms of statistical significance-especially for a 3 year trial. (4) Regardless of the lack of SD's, extrapolations of small trial plots to t/Ha are only useful as a speculative exercise. Until they're able to move such a trial to a large scale system (probably in a contained environment that also properly simulates consistently warmer temperatures & constrained water & nitrogen) then the results are intriguing, but not by any means definitive. Yet you would have us believe that this is the final word on the extremely simplistic "CO2 is plant food" argument. The lead investigator of this trial was at least decent enough to be circumspect about these results, yet you take the results entirely at their face value-a common failing of so-called "skeptics". Now, unless you've actually got some way of *properly* answering those questions I've put to you previously (& no, this FACE trial doesn't properly answer them-for the reasons I've just given) then I suggest that you stop trying to sell us Denialist Propaganda-& that you stop trying to cast aspersions on my qualifications. -
johnd at 09:44 AM on 5 July 2010CO2 is Good for Plants: Another Red Herring in the Climate Change Debate
LukeW at 22:47 PM, as well as the C3 woodies you mention, the following major grain crops also have some C3 species. Wheat (C3) Corn (Maize) (C4) Rice (C3) Barley (C3) Sorghum (C4) Oats (C3) Millet (C3 & C4; different species) Rye (C3) Triticale (wheat & rye hybrid; C3) The problem of encroachment onto grasslands will only occur if the grassland is not being grazed at all, or very lightly. It is almost impossible to establish any sort of plantation without excluding all forms of livestock. If encroachment onto grassland occurs, it indicates that the grassland is not being utilised. As is often said, it is not waste country, only country wasted. -
johnd at 09:17 AM on 5 July 2010CO2 is Good for Plants: Another Red Herring in the Climate Change Debate
johnd at 09:09 AM on 5 July, 2010 I posted this reply to JMurphy at 06:39 AM on the "An account of the Watts event in Perth". It refers to a matter discussed earlier on this thread, so perhaps should be responded to here. "The bottom line for grain yield in the FACE trial in question was this:- (1) 2.68t/ha @13.8% protein. (2) 3.23t/ha @13.25% protein. You tell me which result produces the highest overall nutritional value, and then explain whether that is a positive outcome or not" -
johnd at 09:09 AM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
JMurphy at 06:39 AM, I have posted this response also at the thread referred to, so feel free to respond either here or continue on the other thread. The bottom line for grain yield in the FACE trial in question was this:- (1) 2.68t/ha @13.8% protein. (2) 3.23t/ha @13.25% protein. You tell me which result produces the highest overall nutritional value, and then explain whether that is a positive outcome or not. -
Eric (skeptic) at 08:15 AM on 5 July 2010An account of the Watts event in Perth
Marcus, my volcano argument had some bad numbers, so it was wrong. My new argument using your reference is that the volcano pumped out about the same per day (150-300kt) as Germany's cuts per day (600mt / 11 years / 365 days). When the volcano stopped, Germany's cuts started to matter again. The reduction in air travel was economically harmful so not a worthwhile source of CO2 cuts. Your fossil fuel subsidies probably don't include leases, fuel taxes and other payments to the government. Most subsidies I have read about were tax credits not grants. michael sweet, that is partly true, I have strong political arguments against the proposed solutions that have been presented by others many time so there's no need to go into them. I have also separately concluded there is no "warming problem" (which I obviously need to address on other threads). But also I have not seen a convincing case that the minuscule (ok Marcus, small) cuts made by Germany scale within Germany and the rest of the world. Rather than gum up this thread even more, perhaps someone can post a strawman "denialist talking point" about the infeasibility of alternatives, then papers that study that question. My quick search shows me there are a lot, but many of them seem quite myopic to me. -
DarkSkywise at 07:40 AM on 5 July 2010What happened to greenhouse warming during mid-century cooling?
Roy Latham at 02:59 AM on 5 July, 2010: "Crisis advocates argue that nothing is going on of significance except CO2." Okay, name three then. Just thee "crisis advocates" claiming CO2 is the only significant factor. ("Name three" slightly stolen from blogger Dave Hitt, but I'm sure he doesn't mind.) -
JMurphy at 06:58 AM on 5 July 2010What happened to greenhouse warming during mid-century cooling?
Roy Latham wrote : "The models predicting climate crisis do not model volcano effects" Peter Hogarth replied : "I have certainly read about climate modeling which accounts for volcanic aerosol emissions. I'm sure someone will provide references? I'll reserve judgement till then." What about James Hanson himself : The congressional testimony in 1988 (13) included a graph (Fig.2) of simulated global temperature for three scenarios (A, B, and C) and maps of simulated temperature change for scenario B. The three scenarios were used to bracket likely possibilities. Real-world GHG climate forcing (17) so far has followed a course closest to scenario B. The real world even had one large volcanic eruption in the 1990s, Mount Pinatubo in 1991, whereas scenario B placed a volcano in 1995. Global temperature change (2006) Original paper here. -
jyyh at 06:57 AM on 5 July 2010What happened to greenhouse warming during mid-century cooling?
Might some of the heat have possibly went into thinning the sea ice? Since the measurements are very sparse prior 1960s there's no knowing how thick it originally was.
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