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Comments 23701 to 23750:

23701. nigelj at 14:22 PM on 15 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       One Planet @ 12

       No. Im not saying that. By "balanced" I simply meant that in general terms a workable economic system has to recognise balance between individual rights and the restrictions of the law in general terms, and not let it become skewed too much one way or the other. Its just a philosophical point that society works with a balance of individual and community rights, and extreme libertarian systems dont really work, just as communism doesn't work at the other extreme. I was trying to show that capitalism is perfectly compatible with a degree of government involvement in regulating market behaviour and these things complement each other.

       Certainly in some cases individual behaviour that is damaging must be totally curtailed. Pollution is a case in point.

       As I pointed out market behavious that are potentially damaging should be regulated by the state, or eliminated (depending on the specific behaviour, for example pollution should be eliminated, and punished, driving cars is regulated with road rules).

       Even economists recognise this, even those that lean to the right politically, in the main. Its politicians and lobby groups etc that argue that governments should have strictly limited powers and corporate interests should be paramount and regulation eliminated or reduced to an extremely low level.

       Western society has generally worked with the model I have outlined that balances individual freedom and state involvement, but this has come under threat since the 1980s and swung too far towards an ideology of corporate rights and deregulation etc. This has made mitigating climate change very difficult. People use scaremongering about excessive state powers or laws as an excuse to prolong their polluting behaviour.

23702. chriskoz at 13:45 PM on 15 July 2016
       Will the health dangers of climate change get people to care? The science says: maybe
       

       Humans are selfish beings, they care primarily about their vested interests, and that is universal rule regardless of their political opinion or "intelligence". It affects everyone from FF moguls to ordinary citizens, like farmers whose lives are destroyed by droughts, from politicians to scientista even climate scientists. Climate science denial by FF moguls' vested interest is obvious, no need to elaborate. Farmers do not deny because they know they are affected. But they do care about science not because of species extinction or because of ocean acidification. They do care because their life is ruined. Frame the issue of AGW as such to them and they would likely become deniers, because the required mitigation action means e.g. limitted use of diesel machinery and artificial fertilisers on their cropland. Even among climate scientists, most (if not all) deniers (or more politely "contrarians" in this case) have vested interests in FF, an interest they sometimes try to hide, as in case of Willie Soon.

       Bottom line, to achieve the best "response" or best "understanding", you have to frame the issue specifically to target the vested or at least subjective interest of the news recipient. Examples of recipients and most successful "framing" of AGW in each case:

       - Donald Trump: SLR destroys sea side golf courses, millions of env migrants from Bangladesh will swarm US this century (he has very good understanding of these problems although his action will be to just build walls at infinitum)

       - Koch Bros: the FF empire will crash soon, time to start investing in renewables, or at least diversifying th eprotfolio.

       - US REP  politicians: your electorat will turn away from you, you won't be reelected for the next term, the party is doomed (first signs of it are already happening: the nomination of a farcical person as their presidential candidate)

       - farmers: your crops will be devastated, leaving you pennyless, as said above

       - tourists in AUS: there will be no GBR in couple dosen years

       ...and so on.

23703. One Planet Only Forever at 13:42 PM on 15 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       The record setting string of 12 month averages is indeed significant.

       However, it seems more significant that the 30 year averages have been increasing with every new month of data (each new month has been warmer than the same month 30 years before it), for a very long time.

       In the current NASA/GISTEMP Global Land-Ocean data set the last time a month was cooler than 30 years earlier was January 2011 being 0.05 C cooler than January 1981. Before that it was November 1993 being 0.08 C cooler than November 1963.

       So, based on the NASA/GISTEMP LOTI data set, since November 1993 every month has been warmer than 30 years prior except for one outlier, January 2011.

       The same is probably true of the satellite data (derivations of temperatures above the surface). But those data sets only start in 1978 so there is currently only a short period of 30 year averages (8 years).

       It is interesting that although the satellite data sets are now long enough to look at trends of 20 and 30 year averages some of the proponents of satellite data do not do that type of evaluation, and one of them (and all of their faithful followers) has even chosen to change their presentations from a previous practice of showing the full satellite data set since 1978 (with a strange unlabelled curvy line on the graph of monthly data that implied that temperatures were simply oscillating and that prior to 1978 things were warmer), to limiting their evaluations and presentations to the data starting in 1997 (and no more unlabelled curvy lines).

23704. One Planet Only Forever at 12:40 PM on 15 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       nigelj,

       I agree that we substantially agree.

       One minor difference is that my position is that any pursuit that the constantly improved understanding of what is going on would identify as 'damaging' or 'unable to be a lasting part of a better future for all of humanity' is Not an Option.

       You seem to imply that pursuits that can be understood to be damaging or can be understood to only benefit a portion of humanity (especially pursuits that can only provide a benefit for a limited duration), deserve to be allowed as part of the compromise of all interests (the Balance concept).

       I disagree that people wishing to benefit from understandably damaging or unsustainable pursuits deserve to have their desires allowed to a 'balanced' degree. Those activities and pursuits need to be curtailed regardless of popular desire or profitability.

       And, of course, the burning of fossil fuels is understood to be both damaging and unsustainable.

       So, I also disagree regarding how well Western Society has done. The unacceptability of benefiting from burning fossil fuels has been clearly understood by Western Society leaders since the 1980s (and earlier). Western society has failed misearbly due to the popularity of leaders who encourage selfish interests (greed and intolerance) to drum up support.

       And it isn't just the leaders who are to blame. Any already more fortunate person wanting to get more benefit from the burning of fossil fuels deserves to be disappointed, not rewarded. Western Society has significantly failed to do that.

       But Western Society has been great at developing excuses to prolong and expand what is understood to be unacceptable. It has been great at fighting against changes to limit what can be gotten away with rather than working to limit the magnitude and rate of change of the climate.

23705. nigelj at 08:36 AM on 15 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       One Planet @10

       I broadly agree.

       In my view capitalism is generally a good system, and is just decentralised decision making and ownership. Hayek made the argument well enough.

       However capitalism has certain "market failures" that are recognised by economists, especially in environmental areas. Capitalism in its raw form generates some problems. You have essentially listed these in your post.

       The normal resolution of the problems of capitalism is for the state to fill the gap or regulate certain market behaviours to ensure the public good. Unfortuntaly some people are so self centred they resent this.

       Capitalism also has an internal feature that needs to be well understood. While the value of capitalism is in decentralised decision making and competition, the essential dynamic is towards monopolies, until there exists the possibility of something as big and unweildy as "communism"! The only way to stop this is an interventionist state, that stops monopolies forming, or which regulates monopolies. Its in the "enlightened self interest" of the publc to promote this, so there is no contradiction between capitalism and people promoting this, as self interest is a feature of capitalism.

       The point is ultimately it becomes hard to separate the state from capitalism, as they need each other to function. This is the most important thing we have to face.

       Therefore we have an argument that should not be about capitalism "versus" the state or socialism (or whatever) but which should be about how we strike the right balance and what the state should do in various regards and ultimately this has to be based on evidence and logic, not heated emotive arguments.

       Obviously this applies very much to climate change. The state has an inherent right to ensure we dont destroy the planet. Because without the planet capitalism has no future anyway.

       The cultural and ideological balance has possibly tilted too far towards "greed is good" and community values are bad. Any functional group of humans needs a blend of individual rights and community controls over some individual rights. Its a tough one, but I think western society has done ok, and we sometimes fight over absurdities. Obviously we also have to constantly ensure the balance is appropriate, and rules make sense.

23706. sailingfree at 05:48 AM on 15 July 2016
       It's the sun
       

       Can someone point to a rebuttal of Soon, Connolly & Conolly?

       http://globalwarmingsolved.com/data_files/SCC2015_preprint.pdf

       They claim It's the Sun.

23707. sailingfree at 05:40 AM on 15 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       A7: ops, that's Soon, Connolly & Connolly.   They claim the warming tracts the Sun.

23708. sailingfree at 05:34 AM on 15 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       Related: Can someone point me to a rebuttal of Soon, Oconnel& Oconnel,

       http://globalwarmingsolved.com/data_files/SCC2015_preprint.pdf

       Thanks

23709. One Planet Only Forever at 00:43 AM on 15 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       nigelj@8,
       A proper and thorough comparison (competition) of the efficiency and impacts of truly sustainable energy systems would probably result in very limited use of biofuels. And truly sustainable means energy systems that future generations of humanity will be able to be benefit from until this amazing planet would naturally become uninhabitable due to the changes of the Sun, which would exclude more than just fossil fuel burning.

       It is obvious that significantly reduced resource consumption and impacts by the “choices” of the most fortunate is the primary change that is required, the quicker the better (even if that change is contrary to the desires of those who have developed perceptions of wealth, power and prosperity that cannot be justified when evaluated based on the best understanding of what is required to advance humanity to a lasting better future for all).

       Clearly, the current socio/economic/political systems fail to perform that type of evaluation (competition), primarily because of the ability of deliberate misleading marketing to influence significant numbers of people into desiring personal interests that can be understood to be detrimental to others, particularly to the detriment of future generations. The 1987 UN Report "Our Common Future", particularly highlights the damaging development results of the lack of power of future generations to limit the behaviour of their predecessors.

       To be clear, the Free Market or Capitalism or Communism are not the problem. The problem is the ability of people to get away with pursuits that can be understood to not be part of the advancement of humanity to a lasting better future for a robust diversity of life on this planet.

23710. FrankShann at 16:18 PM on 14 July 2016
       Models are unreliable
       

       By far the most common global warming skeptic argument on the Skeptical Science iPhone app is the contention that the models are unreliable (www.skepticalscience.com/iphone_results.php).

       It would be helpful to prominently display one or more graphs of predicitons made in advance by the models (not hindcasts) with superimposed subsequent actual changes in temperature. 

       On the Skeptical Science "Most Used Climate Myths" graphic, would it be helpful to rank the myths in the same order as the iPhone app results?

23711. Paraquat at 12:28 PM on 14 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Good comments and responses on this thread...I'm always glad to see that. I've got a lot more things to say, but today I have to cut it short because of a lot of volunteer work. I think I mentioned once before that I live in Taiwan (if I didn't, I may be confusing what I said on this blog with another blog). Anyway, last weekend we got hit by Super-Typhoon Nepartak, lots of damage in my town (Taitung, the worst hit in Taiwan). Go to Google images and type "Typhoon Nepartak Taitung" and you'll see what we're dealing with right now.

       The interesting question is whether or not Typhoon Nepartak was enhanced by AGW? And are we going to be seeing even worse typhoons in the future thanks to AGW? I'll leave that as my thought for the day. Now, time for me to gas up the chainsaw - lots of downed trees to remove from my niece's school.

       cheers,

       Paraquat

23712. nigelj at 09:58 AM on 14 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       paraquat @ 1 and 4.

       Personally I'm not much  of a fan of biofuels, because of the obvious criticisms levelled against them, which I have no need to repeat here. If we are going to combat climate change, this really needs a profound change to electric vehicles. In my view biofuels only have some merit for air travel, as this is something very hard to electrify.

       However you make the point that you are not a "climate denier" then go on to say you are critical of all green technologies. This leaves me wondering.

       Exactly what is it you propose to tackle climate change?

23713. One Planet Only Forever at 07:58 AM on 14 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Hi there Paraquat,

       I did not miss EROEI. And I intentionally separated my comments.

       The Need is: The termination of the creation of new/excess CO2 from burning fossil fuels (including natural gas). A reduction of burning of fossil fuels is not a solution. Therefore, EROEI is really only relevant for comparing energy systems that do not in any way involve the burning of fossil fuels. The least efficient system that does not add carbon to the recycling environment of this planet would be superior to any other system that involves any burning of fossil fuels. But the current fatally flawed socio-economic systems (including communism) fail to evaluate and promote things that way.

       Carbon sequestration methods matched to the burning of fossil fuels to theoretically fully neutralize the added/excess CO2 are also not a solution. There are serious questions about the certainty that the sequestered CO2 is truly permanently locked out of the recycling environment.

       Also, all indications are that carbon sequestration will be required in addition to, and for a period of time after, the termination of fossil fuel burning (admittedly only required by people who care about advancing humanity to a lasting better future - but that is the socio/political/economic aspect of the issue).

       Since it is essential that humanity advance to a lasting better future for all (that is the only viable future for humanity), any evaluation for comparison of preferred ways to do things must be restricted to only those things that are certain to be part of a lasting better future for all of humanity on this, or any other, amazing planet. So it should be clear what needs to change quickly, and it isn't the climate.

23714. DSL at 00:12 AM on 14 July 2016
       Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
       

       jmcookie, you'll agree, of course, that assessing all evidence is essential to the process of being truly skeptical.  Here (from NASA scientists): http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2013/2013_Lacis_la06400p.pdf

       FYI: NASA scientists discuss their work publicly quite often.  Look around a bit on the GISS website--all sorts of outreach, communication, and transparency.

       Compare the professionalism of NASA's scientists and programs with that of Spencer and Christy (who told Congress in 2013 that no warming had occurred in 15 years, contradicting his own data and laughably contradicting the trend in atmosphere+ocean heat content).
       
       Your choice, though. While it's only human to root for the underdog, the underdog overwhelmingly has a losing record. Those moments when the underdog actually wins are spectacular and memorable. In this case, the underdogs are not actually working together on the science. The "skeptics" have various alternative theories that are neither comprehensive nor cohesive.  Arrayed against the underdogs is a collection of evidence built over 150 years and through hundreds of thousands of tests, both experimental and applied.  The underdogs in this case, like so many others, are slowly being ground beneath the clinking treads of scientific understanding. Join them, if you will. Or start asking questions, engaging the ideas, and considering the evidence as objectively as you can.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] The statement "I found that NASA is a executive government agency and the climate scientists are told to NOT discuss their views publicly (so we actually don't know how many NASA scientists are skeptics)." would seem to imply that jmcookie think there is a govm't directive to promote AGW, silencing any opposition. This nefarious operation must also extend to climate research in every other country in world. Frankly, I think jmcookie would be more at home with the conspiracy theorists at WUWT rather than here.

23715. Ger at 00:07 AM on 14 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       "This option assumes a massive scale-up of negative emissions technologies, which remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it on land, underground or in the oceans."

       Most viable CO2 techniques take the CO2 out of burnable gas and store it. pump it to secondary users (for use in greenhouses: riping tomatoes takes lot of CO2). Taking out of the air is a methodology best left to trees to do and a well proven technology.  

       CO2 can be converted through CH4 and CH3OH (methanol) through the Sabatier reaction (Power to Gas storage method). Also a well known reaction. Both Methane and methanol are in use as feedstock for plastics. If the source is non-fossil, plastics serve as a very long storage option of carbon. 

23716. Ger at 23:47 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       @paraquat #4: Most EROEI are determined via a lifecycle analysis LCA, taking into account all emissions during the production. If one wants governement support this EROEI should be estimated with a LCA and must be positive. 

       For solid wood fuels the carbon footprint for pellets produced in a Vietnam from a mix of (all FSC approved, sustainable sources) sawdust, wood working residues and energy crop (actually materials used for paper&pulp but with the lower demand for paper now available for other uses), dried with fuels like bark, electricity generated from wood and agri-residues can have a footprint of less than 18 g/MJ and an EROEI of 7.5:1; Slightly better if one does produce bio-coal: EROEI 8.4:1 and a footprint of 14 g/MJ --Own calculations, checked with DECC calculator and according to the OpenLCA, using default provided data--.

       It does matter how the bio-coal/wood pellet is used: in a grate stoked boiler the amount of emissions is tripple the value per kWh delivered than used in a gasgenerator by gasifying and water shift+ CO2 capturing installation. 

       Germany is not importing that much wood from the USA, it's a German company owning plants in England, Netherlands and Belgium (and a pellet plant in the USA) which take the bulk of the pellets from USA & Canada. England (Drax) takes  3 million tpa, Netherlands (till 2020) 1.4 million tons and Belgium a 2.2 million tons from USA& Canada. East European countries, Portugal, Germany,Austria, Sweden do have large areals of wood, good for a 10 million tons a year, mainly for household and small boiler use. 

       Corn ethanol has EROEI 1.3:1, cellulosic ethanol EROEI of 2.2:1 and would be much better if the lignin was reused seriously in a high efficiency power train instead of using medium pressure steam generators. 

23717. Paraquat at 15:58 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Hello One Planet Only Forever,

       I understand your point, but you've got to consider something called EROEI (energy returned on energy invested), also known as EROI (energy return on investment). You probably already know what that is since the name is self-explanatory, but anyway, it means you need to expend some energy to get energy. An EROI of 1:1 is useless since you're expending as much energy as you produce, a net gain of zero. If EROI is negative, it's worse than useless.

       A lot of green technologies looks worse when you consider EROI, but for the moment let's just consider biofuels. In the case of burning wood, Germany's greens prefer not to include the energy expended in harvesting the wood (usually in North Carolina), processing it into pellets and shipping it across the ocean to Germany. That energy is almost entirely fossil-fuel based. Furthermore, you should add in the loss of CO2 absorbing ability of a forest that is taken out of production for 20 years or so until it grows back. And then there is the loss of topsoil due to erosion, which is hard to calculate.

       It's even worse with ethanol, another biofuel that - among other sins - reduces the gas mileage of vehicles that burn it, which worsens its already poor EROI.

       I could say some bad things about other "solutions" like natural gas, and even solar and wind have some serious issues. But I don't like to lump too many topics into one, so I'll save that for another post.

       cheers,

       Paraquat

23718. One Planet Only Forever at 14:21 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       To complete my point@2:

       Selective harvesting of mature trees that would naturally be near to their days of decomposing would be the best way of harvesting trees for burning. Those trees are nearly done taking in carbon, and close to decomposing creating CO2.

       That is where the trouble-making current day priority on maximizing short-term profit for the benefit of a portion of the global population gets in the way.

       The real problem is not burning wood. The real problem is the way the burning of wood develops in a socio-economic system that misguidedly prioritizes profit and popular desires (and the freedom of people to do as they please) rather than focusing effort on actions that will genuinely advance humanity to a lasting better future.

23719. One Planet Only Forever at 14:04 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Paraquat@1,

       Burning coal digs up carbon that had been locked out of the recycling environment of our planet and adds it into that environment as excess CO2.

       Burning biomass also produces CO2. But it is carbon that is already in the recycling/living environment. So wood burning is better than coal burning, especially if an amount of wood is being regrown that matches the amount being burned.

23720. Paraquat at 11:49 AM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       The "Paris Agreement" looks very good on paper, but it means nearly nothing since it's no more than a declaration of intent. It doesn't spell out any plan to actually achieve its goals of reducing CO2 emissions.

       Since the "agreement" was reached, there has been nearly no progress on the ground. I would argue that in the past few years there have been some major steps backwards, in particular the buring of "biomass" which is basically wood chips that are about as dirty as coal. The latter gets very little notice, even though at this time Germany is producing about 1/3 of its "green energy" by burning wood.

       I am not an AGW deniers, so for those of you who haven't dismissed me as a mental case, I'd like to refer you to this article. Please take a few minutes to read it so you know what I'm talking about:

       Pulp Fiction: The European Accounting Error That's Warming the Planet

       http://reports.climatecentral.org/pulp-fiction/1/

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Please use the link tool in the editor to do this yourself.

23721. jmcookie at 11:42 AM on 13 July 2016
       Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
       

       I've been following the climate change issue for some time and although This petition does not hide their academic degree list of signatories or their fundamental argument against AGW. They do have peer reviewed research papers giving details if anyone that reads this site is actually interested. I'm not a climate scientist I watch a lot of the skeptics like Dr Roy Spencer and John Christy who seem very well informed. I've never watched a NASA climate scientist speak out so I checked and I found that NASA is a executive government agency and the climate scientists are told to NOT discuss their views publicly (so we actually don't know how many NASA scientists are skeptics). I've also watched a lot of deceit and data manipulation from major players like IPCC (Climategate) and NAOO (2015 data manipulation). I’ve read these reports and I think all this is common knowledge as these events are in Wikipedia if references are necessary.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Perhaps try expanding your reading somewhat (here is a good place) and showing some real skepticism (ie critically examine your anti-AGW sources as well as published science).

       Your statement contains numerous errors. Please see the Intermediate version.

23722. Bob Loblaw at 10:47 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       Alexandre:

       I really don't think it's much of a problem....

       

23723. Alexandre at 00:55 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       I think we should start preparing a new rebuttal to the next skeptical argument: Global warming stopped in 2016. Sigh...

23724. swampfoxh at 00:49 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       It seems that we spend some valuable time proving the proofs.  On the one hand we can change baselines and thus change the outcome (only somewhat), but we already know the Larsen A & B are gone and the "C" is in trouble, we know Greenland is in trouble and we know that because ice melts when it get warm.  So, irrespective of the deniers denial we have a climate problem called "warming" instead of a climate problem called "cooling", so let's just go on and stop proving our proofs.  What say?

23725. Kevin C at 00:04 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       chriskoz: It's arbitrarily dependent on the baseline.

       Here's a recent version (from the SI of Richardson et al 2016). The blue is the correct comparison:

       

       That doesn't include 2016, which will be hotter. The series are aligned on 1861-1880 for comparison to a previous work. But you can shift the observations up or down relative to the models by picking a different baseline.

23726. chriskoz at 22:36 PM on 12 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       It's time now to update the comparison of HADCRUT data vs. CIMP5 models, that was done pre-super ElNino 2015-16. For example this article from 2y ago found good agreement between updated models in Schmidt et al (2014) and Cowtan-Way updated temp set. But the models were still running slightly below observations.

       Are CIMP5 model still running below, 2years since that discussion? Or maybe above now? Everyone seems to br silent on it. The silence of "skeptics" (i.e. deniers) does not surprise me: they are vocal only when they see the confirmation of their pre-conceived opinions. But the silence of the scientists puzzles me. Showing last two years data (perhaps add this year's prediction) on top of latest Gavin's model would be a very simple debunking of preponderous "global warming has stopped" & "models are unreliable" memes.

23727. BC at 16:56 PM on 12 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       In Australia we have just elected the right wing coalition government (sometimes called coal-ition) under Malcolm Turnbull who scraped in with a majority of 1. So we have the party with the least ambitious targets for emissions reductions (26-28% by 2030) when what we really need are the most ambitious targets and action to suit. In the election they didn’t even present a renewable energy target beyond the existing 23% by 2020, whereas the main opposition party had a target of 50% by 2030.
       However there is one positive with Turnbull compared to the previous Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Abbott has said in an interview ‘climate change is crap’ (admittedly a few years ago) and when he agreed to the above targets for Paris you had the feeling that he would then pretty much ignore them and continue with his support for fossil fuels (“coal is good for humanity” being his most famous quote). The good thing with Turnbull is it is clear that he believes in action on climate change. He has said (in 2010) "We can move, as we must move if we are to effectively combat climate change, to a situation where all or almost all of our energy comes from zero or very near zero emission sources." Abbott was extremely unpopular and was rolled by Turnbull in late 2015, just before Paris. A condition placed on Turnbull to get support within the party was that he not change the Paris targets or other (weak) climate changes policies. At least with Turnbull you have the feeling (or hope) that he will push for those targets to actually be achieved.
       Here is a link to a 30 sec video of Turnbull making the above statement. It was back in 2010, when he launched Beyond Zero Emissions' plan for 100% renewable stationary energy.

       Turnbull supporting climate action

        

       (note: on this page, scroll down to access the video)

23728. DrivingBy at 14:57 PM on 12 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       Well, the graph goes down from 1879 to 1920, and 1943 to 1980, and sorta kinda if you squint from 1998 to 2012. Who knows, it could start going down any minute now!  

       Which is my way of saying  'don't waste your breath with deniers on blog comments'. If someone wishes to believe up is down, no rational argument will change that wish. 

23729. Tom Curtis at 11:08 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       My apologies.  @65, I failed to account for the roundness of the Earth, so that total insolation should be divided by 4, and the percentage terms multiplied by 4.  That still requires only 0.132% of the Earth's surface to be covered in solar cells to entirely supply human energy needs at 5% efficiency, and a 0.132% change in albedo.  That represents a maximum forcing of 0.45 W/m^2 easily compensated by other means as noted in my final paragraph.

23730. Tom Curtis at 09:45 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       JimmyJames @64, yes I do.  Better than that, I quantify.

       In 2012, global primary energy supply was 71,013 terawatt hours, or 2.56 x 10^20 Joules.  Total insolation after albedo was 153218.46 x 10^20 Joules, so total primary energy supply was just 0.0017% of the energy the Earth recieves from the Sun.  Put another way, at 5% efficiency, we would need to cover just 0.033% of the Earth with solar cells to completely power our civilization.  With a maximum albedo loss of 1, that represents a change in albedo of just 0.033% - ie, completely negligible.

       To put that figure in context, that is significantly less than the area currently covered by roads.

       Of course, if it should ever be a problem, we could just cover a compensating area with a high albedo surface (like concrete, or sand) to prevent any net change in albedo.

23731. JimmyJames916 at 09:22 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       There is alot more happening with the earth then just some global warming that is the least of the worries i carry around in my head, if we are trying to reflect the suns radiation and solar energy then why are we absorbing it with solar panels more then ever in the last 10 years Solar Panels might be a very bad thing if they are worried about how much we are reflecting MAN worry more about how much we are absobing   YOU THINK  :) 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Please read the comments policy. no all-caps.

       Note your point is discussed here though I havent checked the figures.

23732. nigelj at 09:05 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Trakar @ 3

       This web sites comments policy says basically "no politics", as this is presumably to avoid technical issues descending into rants about ideology or politics, and this is good policy. However we have to use a bit of commonsense. I take the approach that if the article is political in nature, (like the attacks on science article)  then obviously at that point it's ok to post political responses, provided they are measured comments and not a rant or inflammatory. We are not living in a vacuum.

       The reason for articles on republican and democrat attitudes to climate change is probably because ultimately only legislation can really deal with the climate problem. Regional and individual initiative is also important, but unlikely to be sufficient. It's pretty obvious this website supports mitigation through some sort of legislative action, and they are entitled to that view. I have read one or two articles on regional and individual initiatives, so I think the website is reasonably balanced. Of course more articles like that would be interesting and useful.

       And lets face facts, republicans and democrats are poles apart on climate change. The republicans are pretty much in denial about climate change as a whole. This appears to be widespread within their party and almost an article of faith.

       The democrats accept theres a problem, and I do agree they are not particularly strong on solutions or have some internal divisions. However the parties are fundamentally pretty different, and there is little nuance or grey area between the parties as a whole, so articles do tend to reflect this.

23733. Tom Curtis at 08:15 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Trakar, of the articles listed above, I only find one that directly addresses US policies.  That article applauds Hilary Clinton for adopting a more ambitious policy than Barak Obama (something that is not obvious to me), but strongly criticizes her for not pursuing a price on carbon.  The ony positive point made for Clinton's policy in that regard is that it avoids the need for congressional approval.

       With regard to that, an early June vote by the House of Representatives to condemn carbon taxes shows the nature of the barrier.  The vote was 237-163 against carbon taxes, with just six Democrats voting with the majority, and no Republicans voting with the minority.  Given that currently Republicans hold 246 to the Democrats 188 seats, even if all Democrats had voted against the resolution, they could not have voted down the 231 Repubiclans who voted for it.  From that we can determine that of the 188 Democrats, 86.7% voted against the resolution, 10.1% abstained (or were absent), and only 3.2% voted against the measure.  Of the 246 Republicans, 93.9% voted against the measure, while 6.1% abstained (or were absent).   Those numbers refute categorically your claim that "the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle".

23734. Trakar at 05:24 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       My "thumbs up" was for your response, not my post.

       I am just concerned that with many of the largely approving tone to some of the Democratic candidate articles being posted, where the candidates are proposing half-step, drag your feet proposals that won't even majorly slow national anthropogenic emissions, much less global emissions. We run the risk of fooling those whose understanding and interest in climate change, that SKS supports the idea that one Political Party is composed of "All-in Climate Hawks" while the other party is made up of evil "Deniers." Truthfully, there is much more nuance and mixture within both parties. In fact, the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle. More to the point, replacing centerist (left-leaning) fiscally moderate, socially conservative Republican law makers, with more of the fiscally conservative socially liberal Democratic law makers is a net-zero gain for addressing climate change issues.

       We need to be more about building and featuring articles about local and regional climate activists/movements and public climate policy leaders regardless of party, and less time promoting articles about the differences between national party and political figures who are unlikely to be able, or willing, to act significantly and substantively to address climate change issues.   

       Democratic leaders deserve no less coverage regarding their half-stepping and foot-dragging than Republican leaders regardless of their lip service toward or against climate science and the issues that face our planet's inhabitants.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] SkS, founded by an Australian, is international in scope and following. Each day, I sift and winnow through a variety of sources for informative articles from throughout the world for posting links to on the SkS Facebook page. I post the links at three hour intervals 24/7. That's the best I can do given the amount of time that I am able to devote to SkS matters.  

       [PS]

       [PS] The comments policy prohibition on politics is largely there to prevent threads descending into political/ideological arguments with little or no science. There are plenty of other sites where robust political discussion (preferably with people from the same country) are welcome.

       However, one point is well-made. It is my belief, (and I am a moderator, not owner of the site) that no endorsement of any party in any country is intended. Calling out politicians of any persuasion for promoting climate myths is however very much fair game. Dont be surprised however if commentators who rate climate action highly prefer parties whose platform position is to mitigate climate change over other parties who deny there is a problem to solve.

       Sks is also not really a climate activist site so much as a resource for debunking climate myths. Other sites do activism better.

23735. Trakar at 04:28 AM on 11 July 2016
       New research: climate may be more sensitive and situation more dire
       

       The issues in this article, along with equilibrium observed over a compressed time cycle may be responsible for much of the difference between paleoclimate approximations of sensitivity and modern estimations. I've always tended toward the post-diction estimates of paleoclimate research for this issue and assumed that the differences between the values they indicate and modern assessments to be primarily the result of things we either haven't yet understood (properly or entirely - to include aerosols/clouds and various other known and unknown feedback systems).

23736. Trakar at 03:12 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       If we aren't allowed to discuss politics, shouldn't the articles about the lies and half-step climate shuffles politicians of all parties are telling to voters be eliminated, or at the least exposed for the inadequacies they represent?  Currently this only seems to being done on a partisan basis which leads to the impression that only one party is inadequate in addressing the issue of climate change seriously. We here, know that this is at best, a half truth implied disingenuously.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Given the myriad of topics addressed in this weekly listeing of 50 plus articles, the comment threads for Weekly News Roundups are considered to be "open threads." If you wish to discuss politics related to climate change on this thread, you are welcome to do so — as long as your comments comport to the SkS Comments Policy. 

23737. ubrew12 at 02:33 AM on 11 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       Michael Mann estimates that cessation of coal burning would cause sulphate aerosols to rain out within a few years, and global temperature to increase by about 0.5 C.  If these aerosols were speaking Chinese and 'goosed' the PDO into a negative phase for 15 years, its possible the increase would be 0.1 C or so higher than that.

23738. Ian Forrester at 01:02 AM on 11 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       BBHY, the year 1998 was chosen because that is the cherry picked starting point for the deniers to claim "no warming for xxxx months". This paper shows that there has been warmng since that date, all be it at a lower rate due to increased arerosols.

23739. Tom Curtis at 09:10 AM on 10 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Here is one from today at the ABC:

       "'Shocking images' reveal death of 10,000 hectares of mangroves across Northern Australia

       By the National Reporting Team's Kate Wild

       

        

       Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.

       Key points:

       A mangrove expert says it is the most extreme "dieback" he has ever seen
       The mangrove death occurred across a 700km stretch of NT and QLD
       An expert believes it is linked to climate change
       International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the "dieback" was related to climate change.

       "It's a world-first in terms of the scale of mangrove that have died," he told the ABC.

       ..."

       The link to climate change is a probable cause in either a short wet season and/or very high sea surface temperatures which are related to the recent El Nino, but which have been significantly enhanced in strength due to global warming.  Sufficiently so that the SSTs are unprecedented, as is the dieback.

       No doubt this will result in the usual argument as to how do you attribute events to climate change.  One method takes the total AGW warming todate as a percentage of the SST anomaly - a method that will attribute less than 50% of the event to AGW.  That method misses the point, however, that the probability of such a warm SST absent AGW is very slight.  Without doing the maths I cannot say how slight.  The attribution, however, would then be based in the difference between the probability of such an event absent AGW, and the probability with AGW.  In the case of unprecedented events such as this, that is by far the more informative method (although both methods are valid, but measure different things).

23740. william5331 at 08:06 AM on 10 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       It is inevitable that as the Chinese population becomes more wealthy and more influential in the politics of China that they will insist on a clean up.  The Technology already exists to remove particulates and sulphur compounds from Coal fired stacks and this could happen very rapidly.  America had to do it and it took very little time once the political decision had been made.  In addition, China is the world leader in the uptake of renewable energy.  We will, very soon, witness the result of this experiment of drastically cutting the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere.

23741. BBHY at 19:08 PM on 9 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       "In its latest report, the IPCC calculated (pdf) that global surface temperatures between 1998 and 2012..."

       You lost me right there. Using 1998 as a starting point is the ulrimate in cherry picking. Did they get the same result using 1997 or 1999 as the starting poiint? No? Then the whole thing is completely useless, IMHO. 

23742. scaddenp at 18:40 PM on 9 July 2016
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       mr_alanng - I think it would by a lot simpler to just get off using fossil fuels rather than trying to sequester CO2. Also, while methane is an issue, it is less than 30% of total forcing from CO2 because the emissions are far smaller.

       " Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human."

       I dont think any food is "for human" except breast milk but evolution has equipped us to use it. The gene for lactase persistance is highly selected for since the paleolithic particularly in european populations. Ie once you had settled agricultural, humans with lactase persistance survived and bred better than those without.

23743. ubrew12 at 05:43 AM on 9 July 2016
       Climate scientists are under attack from frivolous lawsuits
       

       Mother: "What did you learn in school today, Exxon?"  "Today we learned all about the First Amendment!"  "And what about the First Amendment did you learn?"  "We learned that exercising our Free Speech means paying others to sift through decades of emails of Climate Scientists, cherry-picking discriminating information, and releasing it to a soundbite-conditioned public to take out of context, thereby clouding that Science by ruining the public reputations of its practitioners, and warning young Scientists to pick another subject ... or else!"

23744. Rolf Jander at 02:42 AM on 9 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       So during the period between 1940 and 1970, poloution was enough to temporarily cancell out the warming effect of our co2 output. If this research is acurate. now even the massive poloution put out by China and the fires in Indonesia could only slow it down.

23745. mr_alanng at 18:58 PM on 8 July 2016
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       Everyone on the world needs to glow at least 10 tree in his/her life. Assume only half of population can grow the trees for some reasons. The current population is 7.4 billions. Then we have 3.7 billions of people grow the trees, eventually, we have more 37 billions of tree. Each big trees can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year. Each year, 370 billions of carbon dioxide will be absorbed by trees. And we have schedule to control the tree, say to cut away the old trees, to collect the wood (solid carbon oxide) as recycle, reusable materials. The next thing we need to do is to get rid the dairy farm. As we know, the green effect of the methane is 12 times of CO2. A dairy cow can produce 110kg CH4 a year. Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human. Some countries not rely on the cow milk. I think these two method can improve the green house effect.

23746. Tom Curtis at 06:20 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       MA Rodger @26, thankyou for the correction.

       Redoing the calculation using CH4 concentrations expressed in part per billion (ppb) rather than ppm, ie, the typical unit used to express CH4 concentrations, I obtain a forcing of  0.576 W/m^2, with the remainder of the difference being due to my leaving of the NO2 correction.  Clearly the units used is critical in this equation. 

23747. Dipper at 02:29 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Sincere thanks to HK, Tom Curtis and MA Rodger for responding so quickly and thoroughly. Lots of stuff for me to go and read up on. My simple calculations clearly not what is needed. Much appreciated!

23748. MA Rodger at 00:36 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Tom Curtis @25,

       That CH4 forcing cannot be right.

       Rather than test my own arthmetical skills, there is a year-by-year table 1979-to-date for the various GHG forcings is given by ESRL on that very page you link to. For 2015, CO2=1.939 Wm^-2 & CH4=0.504 Wm^-2.

       Mind, the global temperature increase since pre-industrial times (I assume this is Dipper's "excess heating we experience this year") results from the whole bucket of GHGs. If the analysis includes them all, CO2 & CH4 are only 82%. And if we are to consider that forcings of past emissions continue to operate, different GHGs have quite different concentrations histories.

       So, Dipper @23.

       How sophisticated do you want to get?

23749. Tom Curtis at 23:43 PM on 7 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Dipper @23, the Global Warming Potential is defined by the IPCC as follows:

       "Global Warming Potential (GWP) An index, based on radiative
       properties of greenhouse gases, measuring the radiative forcing following
       a pulse emission of a unit mass of a given greenhouse gas in the presentday
       atmosphere integrated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of
       carbon dioxide. The GWP represents the combined effect of the differing
       times these gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness
       in causing radiative forcing. The Kyoto Protocol is based on GWPs
       from pulse emissions over a 100-year time frame."

       You will notice that, first, the GWP is a function of mass, not volume (as pointed out by HK @24); and, second, that it is a function of emitted mass, not atmospheric concentration.  

       If you want to calculate the relative effect from atmospheric concentrations, you just use the formula for radiative forcing.

       Thus, for CO2, the formula is 5.35 x ln(C/C_o), which for the values you give is 1.82 W/m^2.

       For Methane, the formula is ΔF = 0.036(M^½ - M_o^½) - [f(M,N_o) - f(M_o,N_o)]

       where f(M,N) = 0.47ln[1 + 2.01x10^-5 (MN)^0.75 + 5.31x10^-15M(MN)^1.52] and M stands for a Methane concentration, and N stands for a Nitrogen Oxide concentration.

       Ignoring the Nitrous Oxide adjustment, and using your figures, this yields Methane forcing of 0.02 W/m^2, or 1/91st of the forcing due to CO2.  There is a further, small adjustment due to the relative effectiveness of different forcings but it does not bridge the gulf in the relative impacts between the two.  The result is that, per unit concentration, methane is approximately 12% more effective at warming than CO2 at near current cocentrations, but the significantly larger increase in CO2 concentration means that CO2 is the primary warmer.

23750. HK at 22:53 PM on 7 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       @23 Dipper:
       Your math seems to be correct!

       I think the problem is that the warming potential for CO₂ vs. methane compares units of mass while your calculation compares units of volume.
       CO₂ is 2.75 times heavier per molecule (or ppm) than methane, so the numbers for methane have to be divided by that if you are comparing the climate impact from each on a ppm basis.

       Doing that, you get these results for methane vs. CO₂:
       100 years: 28 / 2.75= 10.2
       20 years: 84 / 2.75 = 30.5
       Instantly: 110 / 2.75 = 40

       And from pre-industrial to 2011:
       CO2: 113
       Methane: 121 / 2.75 = 44

       This figure shows the annual growth of forcings from the well-mixed greenhouse gases after 1950. Since the late 1990s the contribution from non-CO₂ has only been about 20-25 %, but that fraction was up to 50 % until the early 1990s. Note that the methane forcing nearly stabilized in the early 2000s, but has started to increase again.

       

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