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Comments 25801 to 25850:

25801. Rob Honeycutt at 12:58 PM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Thanks Steve... I'll poke around and see if I can find any information on that. Since posting that comment, I was also thinking the same might apply to the blades as well. Aircraft airframe hours are tracked, and in recent decades a lot of composites have been used in aircraft airframes. I remember in the early days of composites no one was sure what the reasonable lifetime was on the materials, but I believe that's changed with experience.

25802. Rob Painting at 12:50 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed & confused "I don't think I brought up the pause."
       
       And yet, as you pointed out subsequently, you did. It was likely an attempt to introduce a contrarian talking point into the conversation, but has back-fired spectacularly. It's not you again is it James? 

25803. villabolo at 12:19 PM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A:

       Please explain what sort of balancing out is paid for by the wind-power producer during low wind days.

       As regards to onshore wind, the most economic on the chart, isn't usually consistently windy on the beach? 39% of the US population live directly on the shoreline right by the grid.

25804. stevecarsonr at 11:17 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob,

       Interesting point. If your suggestion is correct, then capacity factor is nicely balanced out by lifetime of equipment. If you find some good information in the future I will be very interested, so please post it in a comment on one of the blog articles I linked.

       I don't have any special knowledge about wind turbines in the field so I don't know if there are lifetime metrics available on current wind turbines that will be useful for this. It's quite a new field. Based on knowledge of other rotating equipment I would guess that many factors as well as run time might be important - number of starts, gustiness of wind..

       The comparison of Oklahoma vs Germany is not 20% vs 40% just because of hours run, although that is part of it - it's also wind speed while running. 

       I'm sure that big wind farm operators are building up some metrics but they probably treat it as commercially sensitive information (i.e., competitive advantage). My experience with maintenance of equipment is that there are a lot of unknowns and typically the easiest metric to measure that clearly has an impact (e.g., run time) is the one that gets used as a proxy for asset life.

       So.. maybe you are right. Maybe Germany will get 2x the lifetime for their equipment compared with Oklahoma. Maybe it's 1.1x the lifetime. Maybe on average they get 4x because of tornados and more violent storms in Oklahoma..

25805. Rob Honeycutt at 09:56 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       stevecarsonr... I'm curious about your Oklahoma/Germany comparison.

       I know with aircraft (which includes turbine style engines), all maintenence and useful life are measured based on time used. Does the same not apply to wind turbines so that a wind turbine that gets half the use would last twice as many years? 

25806. dazed and confused at 09:24 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @davidsanger

       Thanks for the info.  I appreciate the link to ERSST3, as I haven't looked into that yet. I will be especially interested to see how they attempted to handle satellite data, which I understand was removed from 3b.

       Given that there were known issues with the ship-buoy bias, does it make sense that they included the buoy data anyway in ERSST3 and 3b?  Why not wait until they have developed the methodology to remove the bias? Isn't that just going to cause "data artifacts" that will become unnecessary points of contention?  Also, why did it take until ERSST3 to notice this?

       Does anyone else have a problem with this, or am I just way off base?

       Moderator Response:

       [PS} perhaps because in real world, you have to make the best of what data and methods you have at the time because the products have other uses besides examination of temperature trends. Meeting the impossible standards of pseudo-skeptics who have nothing better offer is not a realistic science goal.

25807. dazed and confused at 09:11 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Moderator

       Thank you for taking the time to respond.

       I hope that nothing I said implied that I'm suggesting anything about a global conspiracy or the like. I also have made no claims about AGW or the "pause". I was interested in the science behind this article and the NOAA adjustments.

       I assume you're busy, and you can run your site how you like, so you don't need to read this or respond, but I hope you will.

       If there are no doubts about Karl et al, then what is the point of this article?  Even given that Karl et al are spot on, this says nothing about the validity of the methodology or claims of this article.

       I can go on contrarion sites and find non-peer reviewed articles stating all kinds of things. I am trying to find the truth. Should I be convinced based on non-peer reviewed articles and analysis, whether they are yours or theirs?  If your articles aren't aimed at a guy like me, who are they for?

       May I ask how you decide which articles/analyses you publish on your site?  Do you ever publish opposing points of view?

       A well-known skeptic, Judith Curry, published this very article on her site (If you want a link, I can give it, but I don't want to appear to be advertising).  Given who likely reads her site, she even says, "Since this is a guest post, please keep your comments relevant and civil." I'm sure this wasn't her favorite article, but to her credit she posted it anyway.

       I don't mean to be wasting your time. I am looking for a site that doesn't have an agenda, where questions about science can be raised, and hopefully answered. I am hoping that this is such a site.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] I am but one of many moderators and a junior one at that, but it would appear most are away. Sadly too Zeke and Kevin who would be the ones to respond to points.

       So far there have been no doubts expressed about Karl in the science literature, and hence no need to publish the article there. Pseudo-skeptics scream about any adjustment unless it lowers temperature (hence the term pseudo-skeptic) so I believe the article was targeted at them, and deliberately published on contrarian site which to her credit she published. We are actually fine with links to source of information or misinformation but, yes, if it isnt published in peer review, then take with grain of salt, including this. Our normal response to pseudo-skeptics is to point to the peer-reviewed literature, but in this case, that would Karl et al anyway. 

       The particular objection to linking, to the commentators own blog, you refer to, was considered moderation based on a long term pattern of posting behaviour, and on previous warnings and not a knee-jerk reaction. It was not so much a breach of comments policy but a sustained breach of good manners. 

       This site does have an agenda - to debunk myths put up by pseudo-skeptics by pointing to actual science. We arent so much pro-AGW as pro-science. If there was actual science supporting contrarian views, then your point would be more valid.

       I hope Zeke and Kevin will respond to your questions, but please note that discussion of moderation is always offtopic.

25808. davidsanger at 08:43 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused @ 2
       
       To answer your question "Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?"
       
       The documentation for ERSST3  (referenced here) states:

       "Since the 1980s the SST in most areas has been warming. The increasing negative bias due to the increase in buoys tends to reduce this recent warming. This change in observations makes the in situ temperatures up to about 0.1°C cooler than they would be without bias. At present, methods for removing the ship–buoy bias are being developed and tested."  (emphasis added)

25809. davidsanger at 08:40 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused @ 2 
       To answer your question "Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?" The documentation for ERSST3 (referenced here)states:
       
       "Since the 1980s the SST in most areas has been warming. The increasing negative bias due to the increase in buoys tends to reduce this recent warming. This change in observations makes the in situ temperatures up to about 0.1°C cooler than they would be without bias. At present, methods for removing the ship–buoy bias are being developed and tested."

25810. stevecarsonr at 07:52 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Writing blog posts from an interview with a lobby group gets a bit of a different result from writing blog posts from reviewing a number of papers.

       LCOE for conventional electricity generation (i.e. dispatchable) is already a function of a few variables and you need to understand which ones were used to get your favorable / unfavorable comparison.

       These variables are:
       - capital cost
       - interest rate, because you have to borrow money for the capital cost
       - lifetime of the plant
       - fuel costs
       - operations and maintenance costs

       It’s pretty easy to move costs around by a factor of 2-3 with the “right” choices of variables. If you want a plant with much higher capital cost to look better, choose a low interest rate or long lifetime. If you want a plant where most of the cost is fuel to look worse, choose a high fuel price. That’s easy to do as well, just find a forecast or past price you like.

       If we look at the comparison between wind and gas using the conventional LCOE approach, there are 2 important factors.

       First, gas is an expensive fuel, much more so than coal. The recent price difference for gas in Europe vs US is a factor of around 3.
       Second, the capital cost of say a CCGT plant is quite low compared with wind so interest rates and lifetime don’t affect the CCGT LCOE very much, but the wind LCOE moves a lot.

       These factors by themselves make it hard to compare the relative costs with “one number”. Better to understand each of the numbers that go into the comparison (see links below).

       But then we get to the problem that LCOE is not a good metric for intermittent renewables like solar and wind.

       If we take wind for example, the same turbine can be installed in Germany where the average capacity factor is under 20%, or in Oklahoma, where the average capacity factor is over 40%. Exact same turbine, similar installation costs, similar grid connection costs. But less than half the output in Germany compared with Oklahoma. This means the LCOE changes by a factor of more than 2 between these locations. Install in Ireland in a good location and you get just over 30%, and so on.

       Then we have the transmission costs. Most grid operators in Europe have to pay the costs of connecting to the grid. But they don’t pay the costs of building the transmission line to get to their wind farm (not usually, e.g. Spain where the cost of building or upgrading transmission is “socialized”, the term they use). Conventional gas plants can be built near the load center, but the best location for wind farms is often far from load centers.

       And transmission lines are very expensive.

       Then we have the costs of intermittency (backup by plants that need to ramp up and down to cater for low/high wind periods). These are low when wind penetration is low - but obviously the plan is to get to a high penetration. These costs increase with penetration. (And there are other factors like fault ride through - becoming more common on current generation of wind turbines; frequency control in a synchronous network not yet really resolved for high wind penetration..)

       This means that the real cost of wind **depends** on the case in hand (capacity factor of wind turbines for that location, current penetration of wind onto the network, costs of transmission lines that need to be built).

       All in all, LCOE is not a good metric for comparing wind and gas plants unless you want to promote your point of view and then it’s very handy.

       Not a simple subject. I’ve written a few articles on this subject, most relevant are:
       Renewables IX – Onshore Wind Costs
       Renewables XI – Cost of Gas Plants vs Wind Farms

       And also an interesting example in one location, where Budischak et al (2013) calculated the lowest cost of high penetration of renewables and needed to overbuild a lot (2-3x more wind turbines). If you read the paper in detail and look at the different scenarios you can see that changes in different costs result in huge changes in the optimized build, and big changes in the total cost. None of this is captured with LCOE because it was a metric designed for a different world.

25811. ianw01 at 06:25 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       This article leaves me very uneasy. I agree with jpjmarti @4 that it undermines the quality of the SkS site. The article title is "The strong economics of wind energy". However, the fundamentals of levelized cost are not even explained or adequately addressed. In the comments (where the issue is left to us readers) we seem to gloss over the extent to which we must over-build (x2?) to compensate for regional variations in wind/solar generation, then get drawn off into a debate about time-of-day-based dispatchability, rather than one tied to current wind speeds.

       I'd love to be able to make a strong case for wind energy, and know its limits, but frankly this article and discussion lacks the depth to face the fact that wind is intermittent and any place that relies on it will enevitably find times when huge regions have insufficent wind to generate even a small fraction of the needed power. Not always, but it will occur.

       There are so many issues to be addressed in any strong case for wind power: Do we need to advocate brown-outs or rotating blackouts in times of low wind? How do we need to size alternate generating capacity? How do we get the market machanisms to make best use of intermittently low supply?  How well are various regions suited to wind generation, based on low correlation of wind speeds over a reasonable power tramsmission distances?  The devil is in the details.

       This site is called "Skeptical Science", and over the years has provided an amazing resource of information, facts, research and de-bunking. But let's remain skeptical and not suspend disbelief because something is low-carbon.

25812. uncletimrob at 05:01 AM on 30 December 2015
       2015 in Review: another productive year for the Skeptical Science team
       

       Thanks,  SkS features on a yammer site at my school and is starting to attract attention from (mostly highschool) students.  It has also been very useful in providing links to resources from othe sites.

25813. dazed and confused at 05:01 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Rob Painting

       I don't think I brought up the pause.  In fact, I said, "Let's leave asside the issue of global warming and the hiatus for a moment." (See 2).

       Again, this article is about whether NOAA's adjustments are supported by the buoy data.  So far, no one has answered my questions regarding that.  Telling me that there wasn't a pause or that AGW is a known fact doesn't address the topic.

25814. anticorncob6 at 04:56 AM on 30 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       I was excited to hear that the Paris Conference was a success.

       But I've heard that Ted Cruz plans on withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement. This scares and infuriates me.

       Can the president him/herself withdrawl the U.S. from the plan? And what will happen if the U.S. does withdrawl?

25815. dazed and confused at 04:55 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       In trying to answer my own question regarding Reynolds vs. Hausfather and Cowtan above, I went to try to find the peer reviewed paper in question.

       Imagine my surprise when I find that the initial article was published on a blog!

       If I go too far, then forgive me.  Hopefully you can show me the error in my thinking, rather than kicking me.

       In the Updated comments policy, it states (correctly, IMHO), "...we believe the only genuine debate on the science of global warming is that which occurs in the scientific literature,...".

       This article is clearly describing new science and making claims based on that science. What's it doing on this site?

       I have seen mod warnings given to commentors who cite their own blog.  I don't see how this is any different.

       I understand that this isn't my site, and that the operators can post whatever they please without having to justify their decisions, either to me or anyone else.

       However, if you want to claim impartiallity, and a dedication to the science, IMHO it seems hypocritical to put up an article that makes scientific claims without peer review.  Apparently, the article has been updated based on comments on the site. Is this an attempt to do peer-review apart from the scientific literature?

       Do you have any non-peer reviewed contrarion articles on this site?  If I write one (I'm not a contrarion, so this is hypothetical), would you post it, if I had some graphs and links to programs I wrote?

       I understand that you are trying to help Hausfather and Cowtan make their article better, and that isn't my gripe. However, from your link, and the title, it seems as though this is established fact, when nothing could be further from the truth.

       At least, put a big warning across the top that says something like "CAUTION: Unconfirmed, non-peer reviewed material presented for your consideration".  I wasted a lot of time trying to show the problems with this article, only to find the article is irrelevant.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] If there were genuine doubts/debate about Karl et l published in the peer-reviewed literature, then this work would definitely be sent to a journal. However, the real scientists have little time for suggestions that they are involved in a global conspiracy to create fake warming by invalid adjustments. Skeptical science has published and reprinted many articles/analyses to expose the falseness of pseudo-skeptic positions and will continue to do so. This in no way contradicts our position on where genuine debate occurs. If the contrarians have a real argument, then they should publish but mostly they are only interested in fooling the unskeptical or themselves.

       Recent warnings about links to blogs, were for repeat offender, using comments to advertise their own blog rather than genuine engagement with conversation.

        

25816. Rob Painting at 04:25 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       If you consider the 'pause' to be off-topic, why did you bring it up?  When we examine other data sets, especially ocean heat content and corresponding sea level rise (see below), we see that the 'pause' is simply wishful thinking by those that cannot accept the observations.

       

25817. Tristan at 03:57 AM on 30 December 2015
       Climate's changed before
       

       Tom: That PAGES reconstruction contains consecutive dots that differ by up to 0.3C. Does that mean that during that time, temps rose/fell by as much as .1C/dec? for ~30 years, or is that an issue of precision?

25818. dazed and confused at 03:55 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Allow me to try again. The title of this article is "A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments". The title doesn't mention the hiatus, and it doesn't mention AGW, although certainly it will have a bearing on those issues. While I appreciate the responses, it seems that they are off topic, since the hiatus and the data supporting AGW are already discussed in the main arguments of this site, and are not the main topic of this article.

       I believe that my point is on topic. I am claiming that this study does not do what the title states.

       I'll try again to make my case:

       The adjustments that were made to the NOAA data of interest were to the ERSST. Two of the three were essentially adjustments to ship data. (The other was an extra weighting given to buoy data that affected the trend much less than the other two). In order to determine if these adjustments are valid, it would be desirable to check the adjusted ship values against some other data. The best "other" data available, I would concede, is the buoy data.

       Unfortunately, this study doesn't make that comparison. Intsead, it compares ERSST4 : buoy data. Essentially, this is comparing (buoy data + ship data) : buoy data. The buoy data composes 50% (beginning) - 90% (ending) of the ERSST4 data during the period in question, and is given some additional weight that I have been unable to determine from the literature (probably I haven't looked hard enough). The fact that the slope of the trends is similar isn't suprising.  The buoy data contained in ERSST4 will obviously correspond very nicely with the buoy data, and will tend to mitigate any affect the adjustments to ship data cause.

       In fact, what I'd expect is that in the near present, the ERSST4 data would coincide almost completely with the buoy data, since ERSST4 is made up of 90% + weight of the buoy data.  There would be less convergence in the past, since the earlier data is more dependant on ship data.  Looking at figure 4 from the article, this seems like that might be the case.

       

       Of course, eyeballing a graph is not determinitive. If Hausfather and Cowtan are interested in whether the ship adjustments (the only ones of significance going form ERSST3b to ERSST4) were valid, why not run buoy vs. ship data?  Doing some correlation analysis would seem to also be appropriate, since the trend itself isn't the whole story. Perhaps that analysis will support the ship adjustments, but it would be nice to know.

       In fact, this analysis has been done on buoy data vs. unadjusted ship data, and is the input to the famous buoy adjustment. In a paper referenced by the ERSST4 paper in the Journal of Climate (do I need to site this?), Reynolds et al* looked at this.  They produced a table indicating that the adjustment for 1989-97 is -.14C, while 1998-2006 is -.12C. (I would reproduce the small table here, but for the life of me I can't get the insert table thing to work, it always puts the table at the top of the comment, but I have given the data it contains).

       In our context, it is noteworthy what Reynolds et al say after they produce this table: "These results strongly suggest that a spatial and temporal constant bias correction is needed for ship SSTs. Furthermore, finer space and time corrections do not seem to be possible with the limited in situ data available.[my emphasis]"

       For the period 1998-2006, at least, according to Reynolds, producing more than a single number indicating correlation between ship data and buoy data, while desirable, isn't possible.  Obviously from the above graph and article, Hausfather and Cowtan claim to have coaxed out a much finer comparison. Given Reynolds credentials, is there some reason to believe Hausfather and Cowtan instead? 

       * R.W. Reynolds, C. L. Gentemann, and G. K. Corlett, 2010: Evaluation of
       AATSR and TMI satellite SST data. J. Climate, 23, 152–165,
       doi:10.1175/2009JCLI3252.1.

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Resized image that was breaking page formatting. Please keep images down to 500px.

25819. Tom Curtis at 03:29 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A @3, the demand for 'dispatchable' power is overstated.  Currently, with dispatchable power, there are economic inefficiencies with over production in non-peak periods - particularly at night.  Power companies deal with that by offering large discounts for off peak only power supply.  By doing so they level out the power demand.  Having done so, that economic distortion then becomes the basis for insisting that renewables be 'dispatchable', but that is primarilly a demand that economic patterns geared to fossil fuel (primarilly coal) power production be preserved for power generation when it is no longer economic.

       More sensibly, under primarilly renewable energy production, the discount will be shifted from the middle of the night to the middle of the day, or (with a slightly more sophisticated distribution system) to periods of peak supply.  For some industrial uses (desalinization near desert regions, generation of hydrogen through electrolysis) time of supply is almost an irrelevance so that great advantage can be taken of the relatively cheap energy.  For others, on-site storage will become economical with the relatively cheap electricity at peak supply.  

       Domestically, heating of water can obviously be done at any time.  Using thermal mass from stone, so also can the heating of households, and air cooling requirements tend to coincide with excess production from renewables.  The use of slow cookers can shift the peak time for cooking (the largest daily peak).

       The economic inefficiencies of variable supply are not as great as those from excess supply from 'dispatchible' supply - but they are not as great as is often suggested.  Certainly an industrial economy could be run on purely non-dispatchible supply.  In the end the argument from the fact that many renewable sources are non-dispatchible comes down to an insistence that because we have adapted our economy to FF energy sources, we must set those adaptions in stone; and not likewise adapt to renewable sources when they become dominant.  

25820. One Planet Only Forever at 02:35 AM on 30 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Eclectic,

       A 'Flat earther's' denial is very different from a climate science denial. That is distinguised by the "brief labels" I suggested.

       A Flat-earther's denial can actually be Harmless (not just Mostly Harmless but actually Completely Harmless) while a Climate Science denial is almost certain to be Harmful. Both are denial, but have very different consequences.

       And those who have not given much thought to AGW are blind to the issue. That blindness can result in them acting in a harmful way. As they become more aware tehir response will be their choice to move from Blindly Harmful to "Mostly Harmless - Helpful" or "Deliberately Harmful".

       So using the terms Helpful and Harmful can be more applicable than denial or denier.

25821. KR at 01:40 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A - Several points:

       • Wind/solar are dispatchable when there is excess capacity, which several studies indicate is the most economic approach.
       • They are also quite predictable on the order of several days (i.e., weather predictions of wind/clouds), making dealing with generation lows reasonably managable. 
       • Connecting renewable generation over larger geographic areas hugely decreases potential low periods, as weather patterns are of limited extent (Archer et al 2007) - permitting baseload power even without storage.
       • The LOCs above do not include externalities - a conservative estimate of the external costs of coal extraction, pollution, disposal, etc., inicates that the LOC of coal should be three times the base generation cost (Epstein et al 2011), meaning that doubling wind capacity to provide surplus power for lows is a no-brainer. 

       On a one-to-one generator basis, no, renewables and fossil fuels are not directly comparable. On a system-to-system basis, they are quite comparable, and renewable baseload power is indeed less expensive for economies on a whole. 

25822. Rob Honeycutt at 00:05 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       jpjmarti @4...  The EIA puts LCOE for onshore wind at $73/kWh in the US [link], so the numbers are clearly not out of line, and even are likely understated in this article.

25823. Leslie Graham at 18:32 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       The table is wildly underestimating the cost of nuclear if it doesn't include the costs of decommissioning and 'storage' of waste for hundreds of years.

       Who pays for that?

25824. jpjmarti at 17:34 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Incredible! You are doing it again. Uncritically parroting whatever lobbyists tell you. Your figure on costs rely on gray literature which in fact seems to be unavailble outside press releases and at least in the case of nuclear costs widely inconsistent with serious sources. This type of "reporting" just undermines the good work you do.

25825. Rob Painting at 17:25 PM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused - IMO the post by Zeke and Kevin does a great job of explaining the issues here. Engine room intakes (ERI) warm the water slightly before it is measured thus, as ERI sampling has changed from a major to minor source of SST data (figure 2), they were likely to introduce a spurious cooling bias. The buoy only reconstruction supports the new version 4 of NOAA's ERSST (figures 3 & 4).

       What legitimate basis is there for suspecting that the thermometers aboard the buoys are introducing a spurious trend?

       As for the so-called pause, that's dead and buried. The continued warming of sea surface temperatures is consistent with the ongoing build-up of heat in the ocean (some 93% of global warming). That's why, as others have pointed out, it's useful to look at the 'bigger picture'. The scientific evidence is consilient. The warming sea surface temperatures are consistent with the recorded warming of the land surface and warming of the atmosphere. For the subsurface ocean to continue warming as it has, in the background context of a cooling sun over the last four decades, the atmosphere has to warm and direct more downwelling longwave radiation back toward the sea surface. Doing so lowers the thermal gradient through the cool-skin layer and traps more heat in the ocean.  

       How can there be a pause in warming when the oceans continue to rise as fast as they have? With thermal expansion of seawater and the addition of meltwater showing no signs of slowing down, atmospheric water vapour continuing to increase, heatwaves becoming more frequent and severe, how can anybody take claims of a pause seriously?

       

25826. Charlie A at 16:12 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       In general, you cannot compare directly non-dispatchable power sources like wind and solar with dispatchable sources like coal, gas, and nuclear.

       If the wind farms had sufficient backup power storage on site to supply power for several hours (or perhaps several days) of low wind, then the levelized cost of the combined wind turbine + power storage unit could indeed be compared directly to other dispatchable power sources.

       --------------------------

       The article says "The cost of balancing out the variable wind power is usually paid by the wind-power producer".   Does this mean that the wind-power producer pays to keep a coal or gas plant on hot standby?   Please explain what sort of balancing out is paid for by the wind-power producer during low wind days.

25827. dazed and confused at 13:57 PM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Eclectic - Greetings

       I understand there is a great deal of evidence involved.  Just this past week I had the pleasure of meeting a climatologist who has published several papers regarding the warming of fresh water lakes. She was even gracious enough to give me a quick tutorial on the subject.

       I agree with you that one set of data isn't the deciding factor. If it turned out that the ERSST4 data was completely bogus, for example, it wouldn't mean that AGW wasn't true, for bad data has no bearing on the truth.

       For someone like me, who is new to the game, there is so much hype that it's hard to know who to trust.  Therefore, I decided to have a look at the science and methodology involved to the extent I can understand it.

       Hopefully, someone more knowledgable than me can address my questions.  It seems to me there are some questionable aspects to Karl's adjustments, but I'm perfectly willing to chalk it up to my own ignorance.  I'm hoping someone on this site can set me straight.

25828. Glenn Tamblyn at 13:09 PM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Ohhh Tom

       I like your #3.

       
       That would put a lot of dubious corporate types between a rock and a hard place :-)

25829. KR at 12:47 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       LOC -> The per kilowatt hour cost of building and operating a power plant over an assumed financial life and duty cycle.

25830. jipspagoda at 11:53 AM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       What does the term "levelized", in the context of this article, mean? Thanks

25831. Eclectic at 09:46 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @ Dazed And Confused ( #2, #4 ),

       Good to skeptical about the methodology of buoy data.

       Less good, to be tempted to focus only on the buoy data.   As Daniel Bailey says, there is a huge amount of evidence confirming AGW.  ( And almost nothing "unconfirming". )

       Stand back and look at the bigger picture.  Owing to the (GHG-caused) continuous nett inflow of heat energy into the planet, there is no reason to expect any real "hiatus" whatsoever. [ hiatus used in the proper sense : of slow-down or reversal of warming ]

       The ocean is vastly important, as the major heat sink of the global warming process . . . and we have no reason (and no hypotheses) that would lead us to believe that it is not warming.   If buoy data should fail to confirm "the expected", then we should be very much skeptical about the buoys and their associated methodology of data collection.

25832. dazed and confused at 09:29 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       My mistake: On 05:51 AM on 29 December, 2015 I said "I haven't seen a graph of ERSST4 vs. the buoy only trend".  Now that I reread the article, this is no longer true, since the article clearly contains such graphs.

25833. Eclectic at 09:24 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       One Planet Only ( @30 ),

       Fair enough that you wish to consider the consequences of people's denialism.

       Yet we still need short labels for them, all the same.

       If someone asserts that the world is flat . . . then he is a (science) denier.  His motivations and the downstream consequences, are a matter of separate issue.

       There are many people (in cold regions) who are mildly doubtful about AGW ~ but only where they haven't given it serious thought.   But those nowadays who have spent much time investigating/ reading/ thinking on AGW ~ and yet manage to disagree with the scientific evidence ~ have earned the unflattering label: denier.   Just as those who assert "2+2=3" have earned the label of (mathematics) denier.

25834. chriskoz at 08:47 AM on 29 December 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
       

       In 2012 it was East Coast and New York. Now, 3y later, it's the old York accross the ditch.

       Unprecedented flooding in Britain

       A very remarkable is the current outcome of the review of the country's flood defences by UK env agency:

       Apart from conventional flood defences, Mr Rooke also anticipated the government could help people "move electrics up the wall" so homes and businesses could recover faster from floods.

       Hmmm, that's the last ditch attempt, short of abandoning hte town. I haven't seen any gov anouncing a measure like that yet, which essentially means all other measures have failed.

25835. One Planet Only Forever at 08:41 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Eclectic @24,

       I appreciate the desire to have a brief label that connects in a meaningful way to an action that is being addressed. I would clarify that the terms I presented can be applied to a specific action as well as being a general term applicable to a person with a history of a certain category of actions.

       "Denier or denialist" only refers to a person not a specific action in question (it required an evaluation of a history of actions to jutify its use). Labelling a person a denier requires an extensive presentation of the history of actions that leads to the person deserving the label (as opposed to beiong able to use a label to address a specific action by a person). And just referring to denial of an aspect of science is unnecessarily limited. The motivation for, and consequences of, the action need to be addressed.

       Getting other people to more fully better understand what is going on neds to be the objective. Labeling someone a "denier" may not help. It could be easy for a cherry-picked redeeming action by a person to be used as evidence that the label was not deserved, leading to a rather pointless debate about the applicability of the label.

       Hence my preference for the brief terms of reference to specific actions: Helpful, Blindly Harmful, and Deliberately Harmful in the larger context I mentioned. I consider the elaboration of the reason for using them to be a more important matter for someone to better understand than why a person was called a Denier. And the elaboration of helpful/harmful can be briefer than presenting a history of actions by a person to justify the label Denier. And the helpful/harmful actions of a person can then the the basis for considering the application of the label to a person.

       And I would add "Mostly Harmless" to the set of labels for actions and people, because I love so many of the thoughts expressed by Douglas Adams. I would love all of human activity to be collectively be shown to be "Helpful" and "Mostly Harmless".

       The current developed direction of humans is far too "Deliberately Harmful" for humanity to be able to advance to a lasting better future. Major changes are required, and many perceptions need to be corrected through the development of better understanding of what life is really all about - it is not about what an individual or group desires and might be able to get away with - it is not about popularity and profitability and perceptions of prosperity (in spite of the developed predominance of those things).

25836. dazed and confused at 08:02 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Greetings Daniel B

       I'm trying to understand the science and methodologies behind AGW science, so I can make my own informed decision, to the extent possible.  I'm happy for you that you've already made that journey.

       I don't think I made any claim about AGW one way or the other. You may be right about the converging consilient empirical data confirming AGW, but I have to start somewhere.  So I want to understand the NOAA data, especially given all the fuss over the hiatus.

       Since the NOAA data will undoubtedly be used as the basis for countless papers, it seems to me worth looking into whether the latest adjustments are valid or not, and whether NOAA has done a good job in general in this area.  I think that was the point of the article, and that was what I was hoping to address with my questions.

25837. Daniel Bailey at 06:44 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Fortunately, AGW doesn't rely solely on buoy data. Multiple lines of converging, consilient empirical data exist confirming AGW.

25838. dazed and confused at 05:51 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       I am not an expert at any of this by any means, but I do have a few questions, and I don't know where to turn to get answers.  If there is a place they are already addressed, either on this site or another, I'd be appreciative of a link.  Otherwise, perhaps someone here can help me.

       1)  Let's leave asside the issue of global warming and the hiatus for a moment.  Recent SST data is dominated by buoys during the period in question, from maybe 50% (estimate from graph in article above) to 90% by 2014, see Huang).  Moreover the buoys have received higher weighting in ERSST4 (see Karl), making buoy data even more dominant. So is it any surprise that ERSST4 would correlate fairly well with buoy only data, since that's mostly what it's comprised of?

       If we are interested in verifying Huang's adjustments (used by Karl), and since these adjustments are to ship temperatures (yes, I know about the buoys being adjusted, but it amounts to the same thing), wouldn't it be more illuminating to compare the buoy record to ERSST4's ship only adjusted record for the time period in question?  It seems that would be a better indication of whether the adjustments did their job.

       I understand the emphasis on the trend slope, given the hiatus thing.  But if the concern is with the veracity of the adjustments, then simply showing that the slope of the trends is similar doesn't really say anything about the correlation over time.  After all, two completely unrelated time series can still have the same trend.  I haven't seen a graph of ERSST4 vs. the buoy only trend, or any correlation analysis. Has this been done?

       2) Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?  It seems to me that any time you have 2 streams of data from different sources, you must compensate for any systematic bias by normalizing the data.  In this case, as soon as buoy data was introduced, shouldn't this have been done?

       It might be argued that originally there wasn't enough data to make this adjustment.  Wouldn't that impy that the buoy data should have been excluded until enough data was gathered to make that adjustment, rather than introducing "artifacts of data" (Karl's words)? Look at the obvious negative consequence brought about by not being prudent in this matter.

       Here's the point: If I'm to be convinced about global warming, I will have to trust and rely on NOAA and the rest of the scientific community, since I can't possibly investigate everything myself.  When I see what appears to be a grave lapse of judgement (methodology?), doubt creeps into my mind.

       Am I being overly critical of NOAA on this?  I'm not a scientist, so I realize that I'm not really in a position to judge this objectively, which is why I pose the question.  This is a genuine concern for me.

       3) According to Karl, about 1/4 of the change in "hiatus" trend resulted from additional weighting given to buoys.  I have looked through Huang and I don't see much explanation.  Is there an explanation in Karl's supplemental materials, maybe?  I'd like to get a better understanding of what was done and how it was justified.

       --------------------

       I also have questions about the ship bucket adjustment.  I think I'll save those for another post.

       P.S.  This is my first post.  I have read the comments policy, and I think I have followed it, but since I am a novice at this site, if I have done something wrong, please be gentle with me.

        

25839. scaddenp at 05:21 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Aren't electroral colleges a completely unnecessary relic from horse and pony days? I note that other civilized democracies manage extremely well without them. 

       To my mind, it should be a constitutional principle that you cant buy an elected official's vote. If you have "lobbiest industry", then you have a democracy in trouble. It implies that the way to get the laws you want is to influence the elected official, rather than campaigns to influence the electorate. It immediately brings into question how the elected member is being influenced. The proper way is public representation to a committee of elected officials considering a new laws. Offering party donations is absolutely the worst way.

25840. Susan Anderson at 04:23 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Though I used to say fake or phony skeptic, I've taken to unskeptical "skeptic" and often enlarge on why that is so.  Also unskeptical "skeptic" climate science denier if to pile it on. But I am a fast typist.

       Too many people take the argument about denier seriously. It's just a way of derailing the conversation, a form of victim bullying.

       Thanks Hank for the references.  I've had RC derailments but usually find I can get through if I close the window, sometimes by choosing a specific article.  I'm too lazy and ignorant to do all that stuff, but do use antivirus (at least daily) and spybot (weekly) fairly regularly.

25841. Tom Curtis at 03:14 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Glenn Tamblyn @6, specifically for the US the key, and possible reforms are:

       1)  Restrict political donations to those by citizens alone (corporations are people, but not citizens under current law);

       2)  Require donations over a certain level to be public;

       3)  Require that donations over that level preclude the donator or his full controlled business interests from receiving government contracts;

       4)  Require electoral college votes to be apportioned proportional to the vote in all states;

       5)  Require electoral college voters to vote for the person in whose name they were elected in the first instance, but if they are defeated either, in accordance with the direction from that person or according to a pre-election list of secondary preferences.

       6)  Require reports claiming to be 'news' or 'current affairs' to be fair, balanced, and based on factually correct information.  Allow any other reporting as the media like, provided a disclaimer is provided that the report does not purport to meet the standards of 'news' or 'current affairs' with regard to accuracy, etc.  (It is not a free speach issue, it is an honest advertizing issue.)

       (5) Would be particularly useful in the US as it would allow third party candidates to not simply detract from the vote of one or the other of the primary parties, and would require that whoever is elected president is the least objected to among all candidates.

25842. Tom Curtis at 03:03 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Factotum @3, I assume from your analogy that you are proposing some form of property based qualification to the right to vote.  That being the case, I will note that:

       1)  Trump is a property holder;

       2)  The Republican Party (so named because it insists the US is a republic, not a democracy) is traditionally the party of the well to do, ie, the property holders; and

       3)  The rise of Donald Trump (and before that, of George W Bush, who was also a property holder) has come about because the Republican Party has thought it desirable to harness the less rational part of the US population as a means of bolstering the vote for legislation favourable to the most wealthy.

       It is clear from the above that a property based qualification on voting would not prevent the absurdity of a Trump leading the race for nomination for President by the Republican Party; nor the absurdity of the US having elected George W Bush.

       I will also note that any property based qualification to vote, or indeed any non-competence qualificaion (such as age, mental well being, and possibly serving a prison sentence) is immoral because:

       1)  The non-voters would still be subject to the legislation, which thereby constitutes tyranny;

       2)  The non-voters would still be expected to serve in armed forces, and therefore die for a land that does not allow them the franchise; and

       3)  The non-voters would still be subject to taxation, even if only indirect taxation (and or course taxation without representation was the anathema of the founding fathers of the US).

       Democracy is not the best form of government because it is less worse than the others, but because it, and it alone has the potential to be a moral government that recognizes that all people are equal.  Of course, if you don't agree with the declaration of independence, as apparently you do not, you can always move a constitutional ammendment for the US to once more become subject to the Brittish Crown on the basis that the original revolution was not justified in either morality or law.

25843. Tristan at 00:40 AM on 29 December 2015
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Theo, I'd start here for a primer on clouds and climate change.

25844. scaddenp at 19:25 PM on 28 December 2015
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       "Slightly off-topic, but with all this talk of "hiatus", are the Milankovich cycles now slowly eroding the warming, cause their effect is well overdue and if you turn down the heater, you will need more blankets."

       Milankovitch questions belong with Milankovitch, but short answer is that rate of change of milankovich forcing is 2 orders of magnitude less than rate of change in GHG forcing - ie completely overwhelmed. The signature is different as well. The last time we had 400ppm of CO2, we didnt have ice ages.

25845. Glenn Tamblyn at 12:49 PM on 28 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Factotum I disagree with the idea of restricting the right to vote. However there are some areas that might be worth considering. Probably not practical but they get to the gist of some of the problems.
       
       

       • Remove the legal notion that corporations are people and have the same freedom of expression rights. Corporations lying about anything is a criminal offense targetted at the directors.
       • Mandate a public interest test and an impartial presentation of information obligation into the licenses for radio and TV stations.
       • Maximum ownership rules for the media. No individual or corporation can own or control more than a small section of the media. And yes I am thinking of a certain ex-Australian of dubious repute.
       • In parallel with a Bill of Rights, a comparable Bill of Responsibilities, that outlines the reasonable responsibilities of individual citizens. Just getting a 'my rights carry responsibilities with them' discourse might be useful. The notion that we have equal rights but not limitless rights.
       • A nations constitution is reviewed, rewritten perhaps, and reratified by its population every 50 years or so. Build into everyones thinking that democracy isn't some static wonderful thing handed down to us by some 'founding fathers' but rather an evolving living thing where the early versions from our history were just the clunky early prototypes. And we are all obliged to be engaged with that process. This is just the price of a ticket into our society.
       • Ban all campaign donations and financing. Political parties are funded from the public purse and nothing else.
       • Upon being elected, all members of every legislature must resign all membership of political parties and other similar institutions - churches for example. They represent the people of their electorate and their nation, nobody else.
       • Maximum inheritance laws. No individual can inherit vast fortunes. Leaving a few million to each of your kids - fine. But passing on vast vast fortunes down through generations is just creating power centres that aren't governed by democratic processes. Vast empires should always be broken up. So a Bill Gates can become a billionaire through his efforts but his kids have to do that again on their own. This is exactly what Bill is doing with his Pledge. It needs to be law.
       • The compulsory breakup of any corporation that grows beyond a certain size. A world of huge numbers of smaller corporations would probably work better. Not big enough to dominate they are forced to compete and cooperate instead.
       • Adding the teaching of analytical and critical thinking skills into the school curriculum from a young age. Humans aren't necessarily good rational and analytical thinkers but we can all be taught to be.

       Just some random thoughts on what a better democracy might look like.
       
       Democracies do suck, sort of. Because they haven't evolved into better democracies. Perhaps America is currently the worst example of the problem because it was one of the first modern democracies to appear. And it was born traumatically rather through evolution. So American thinking about democracy seems to have become frozen around the idea of checks only on government and that the individual can be sovereign in everything.
       
       When in reality a society needs checks and balances on all centres of power. And some checks on ourselves as well. We are not infallable and we all need to recognise that. So long as the process of applying the checks doesn't give any individual or group greater power than others.

25846. Andy Skuce at 11:57 AM on 28 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Factotum: I couldn't disagree more. Restricting the right to vote by some kind of "qualification" would be disastrous and divisive.

       I think I would rather live in a society governed by a popularly-elected President Trump than one ruled by a President Factotum who, it seems, would disenfranchise citizens and render them peasants based on where they shop or some other arbitrary criterion. 

       If democracies suck and always fail, please point to some historical cases of non-democracies that have thrived and persisted for as long as the G7 nations, for example.

25847. hank at 07:10 AM on 28 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       and a last postscript — checked back and during the brief RC "hiatus" that site name was being redirected through a known malware source named "goadvs.com" (I captured the info when I saw it go by, and mailed it to RC at the time).  Here is a comprehensive page on how to remove the crap that site puts on computers (Windows, Mac)

       https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-go-goadvs-com/

25848. Wol at 06:46 AM on 28 December 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
       

       I searched the release of the agreement and (I might have missed it) found zero references to "population numbers".

       This is quite extraordinary. Increasing population by 30% will, all things considered, increase emissions by 30%. Everyone knows this.

       Global population is the most fundamental parameter in emissions, let alone resource depletion, yet seems to be a taboo topic even amongst climate negotiators. I see little hope for the future until this elephant is recognised.

25849. shoyemore at 05:07 AM on 28 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       factotum,

       Don't be so hard on the American people. I have to say, though, it is scary to think that neither Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush would have campaigned on Trump's platform, or engaged in his demagogic rhetoric. However, Trump still has to get nominated, and then he still has to win. 

       While he pleases an element of the Republican party, he is still very far from the preferences of the median American voter, on a range of issues from social welfare to energy.

       It is also scary that some of his opponents, like Cruz, are probably worse than he is, if such a thing is possible.

25850. GeoffThomas at 16:45 PM on 27 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 2
       

       Hi Guys, I was in Kiribati in 12/03, re-designing and re-building, can you believe it, the Solar power system for a NUN training centre, - they don't make nuns anymore in the West, I believe, but they do in Kiribati, - and such warriors! - Magnificent.

       Whatever, the system originally designed by BP, never worked, but of course it worked after I finished, and I truly enjoyed the training and help of the locals, such wonderful and creative people.

       But to cut to the chase, already at that time the airport, built by the Americans in WW2 and never flooded, was flooding, Jets had to check the tide charts, breaks were occurring in the surrounding reef of the main lagoon, - we were over at Abaokoro, opposite side of the lagoon from Tarawa, app. 40 kms, and I could tell you such a stirring story of getting the batteries across that lagoon in the canoe with high winds, - all the people in the canoe linked arms and hugged those huge batteries which would otherwise have fallen overboard, the culure is still strong in Abaokoro.. - But in Tarawa, the capital, a feeling of intense stress permeated, - I didn't initially understand, - all the women indicated openness, - ridiculous, young girls especially, not the men, - I was mid 50's, not normally partner material for these younger women, they made all sorts of intimate suggestions, - I have been all over the world, never ever experienced anything like that, and talking to the older nuns, - Western nuns, they said, - they know, they want to escape, - are desperate to escape

       Talking to some very intelligent friends back in OZ, one pointed out that these women wanted to continue their genes, family, whatever, - at a very deep level, they would do anything, even cuddle up to an aging old white man, anyone from higher country, leave their beloved culture, to continue life.

       William has no idea, I actually suspect Global Warming denying such as his is arrant cowardice, - not prepared to acknowledge that he is wrong, as the consequences are too fierce that he has allied with the mistaken fools who think that money and power is the top.

       Perhaps William could go over to Kiribati and bring one of those desperate women back to Australia so their blood could continue, - I actually think Australia should take the population of Kiribati as Kiribus people are very OZ minded, - and even use the Oz currency and would be of huge benefit to us.

       With what is happening at the WAIS in Antarctica, let alone anything else, Kiribati will be submerged.

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