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Comments 25901 to 25950:

25901. chriskoz at 20:21 PM on 6 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Digest #1
       

       NOAA has added 2015 to the CO2 annual growth rate records. 2015 turns the highest ever rate of 3.17ppm/a, beating the current reigning 1998 (2.93) by a considerable margin. The exact 2015 number is preliminary but there is no doubt it'll beat 1998 regardeless potential correction.

       I remember Indonesian massive pit fires (with estimated 2Pg of carbon burned) have been blamed for the 1998 spike. A now famous super ElNino was listed as a secondary cause.

       So, it's interesting how we are going to explain current unprecedented spike, esp. considering that emissions have stalled (peaked?) in 2014. I don't have any preliminary 2015 data. So such large departure from mean growth rate (which recently have been around 2.1) demands explanation. The blame on current ElNino is insufficient.

25902. ryland at 19:43 PM on 6 January 2016
       95% consensus of expert economists: cut carbon pollution
       

       Eclectic I didn't make myself clear, irrespective of the GHG emissions from  transport/industrial food processes,  livestock are responsible for a bigger share of total global GHG emissions than is the whole of global transport.  That's a very significant amount and I found it surprising that this and the emissions from agriculture in general, appeared not to have been comsidered by the ecomomists.  

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25903. Glenn Tamblyn at 16:32 PM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       angusmac
       
       From  Ljungqvist - "A new temperature reconstruction with decadal resolution, covering the last two millennia, is presented for the extratropical Northern Hemisphere (90–30°N)"
       
       So your comment "I suggest that the MWP mean from Ljungqvist (or any other reasonable paleo reconstruction) would be an appropriate baseline for preindustrial temperature." isn't a very good idea.

       Comparing an old record taken from 25% of the earths surface with a modern record for 100% of the surface is comparing apples and oranges.
       
       In contrast, here are the zonal graphs from GISS instead of the global graph Rob used. The top one is Northern extra-tropics. They aren't using 30N as the cutoff but 23.6N but it is still closer than using the entire globe.
       
       For the period around 1900 to the present that is a temperature rise of around 1.4 C
       
       Superimpose 1.4 C on the graph from Ljungqvist starting around 1900 and what do you get?
       
       

        

       Next, the graph you show isn't directly from Ljungqvist which can be found here. Ljungqvist does have some modern temperatures shown. They use CRUTEM3 & HaddSST2. So a land and ocean dataset, and a slightly older one at that. Yet when you look at their paper virtually if not all their proxies are land based. So are the trying to compare a land-only proxy record with a recent land and ocean dataset? If so, since land temperatures vary more than ocean there is a good chance an apples with apples comparison would show results similar to GISS. And the GISS graphs is land and ocean as well.
       
       So all in all, using Ljungqvist as a baseline doesn't seem like a very good idea.

25904. wili at 14:33 PM on 6 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1
       

       Nice shout out to SkS from Dr. Jeff Masters toward the end of this good interview at www.voanews.com/media/video/hashtagvoa/3132077.html?z=1433&zp=1

25905. Eclectic at 14:13 PM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       Why indeed not use for comparison the Medieval Warm Period ?

       Or indeed, Angusmac, why not use the Dark Ages Cold Period, instead, as the baseline for comparison ?

       Then also, for the MWP, we have the little problem ~ that the Southern Hemisphere did not have a comparable "MWP" .   So, to avoid fruitless bickering . . . best if we stick with the much-better documented temperature information that we have for the latest couple of centuries.  Clearly the best choice, by far.

25906. Rob Honeycutt at 13:30 PM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       One more thing... Why would you think it appropriate to use a "previous warm period" as a baseline instead of the most recent preindustrial temperature?

25907. Rob Honeycutt at 13:28 PM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       I would also note, angusmac, that Ljundqvist is "extratropical Northern Hemisphere (90–30°N)," thus not only is it not global, it's not even inclusive of the entire northern hemisphere. (Stated right there is the abstract you link to.)

25908. Rob Honeycutt at 13:25 PM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       angusmac...  What I've done is limit myself to the GISS data. 1880-1909 is the earliest 30 year period in that that set.

       Going back to the MWP would be inappropriate since (a) itsn't not inclusive of the data I'm using, and (b) it's several hundred years prior to the industrial revolution.

       As Tom states, my preindustrial baseline likely underestimates actual preindustrial temperature, but it's as close as I can get with GISS.

25909. Tom Curtis at 10:39 AM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       angusmac @3, fairly obviously, the forcings in operation in 1000 AD did not have the same strengths as the forcings in operation in 1750, or 1890.  Therefore the value of the forcing in operation in 2015 are not the value of the forcings in 1000 AD plus the anthropogenic forcings.  Rather, they are the values of the forcings in 1750 plus any changes to natural forcings, plus the anthropogenic forcings.  It follows that the temperature comparison needed to determine the impact of forcings is that between 1750 and 2015 - not 1000 and 2015.  By best estimate, Rob's baseline underestimates the temperature rise since 1750 by about 0.2 C.

       More fundamentally, the reason for tracking the temperature is the widespread concern that temperature increases of 2 C above preindustrial temperatures (defined as those in 1750) will cause significant harm to the global economy, and catastrophic effects to some individuals.  For tracking progress towards that target, again obviously the 1750 temperature is the appropriate temperature.

       Where you not more keen on making a silly rhetorical point than in understanding the debate, I doubt you would have missed these nuances.

25910. denisaf at 10:16 AM on 6 January 2016
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #52
       

       I had a career as an aeronautical research scientist. Imagine my surprise in eventually learning that science at large did not accept until recently that the combustion of fossil fuels to supply energy had the unintended consequences of producuing the vast amounts of greenhouse gases that have contibuted to climate disruption and ocean acidification and warming.

       This type of failing of scientists has been common for centuries but the lack of understanding of the deleterious consequences of using fossil fuels must go down as the most influential to date. However, the current failure to understand that that technological systems are irreversibly using up limited natural material resoures, including the fossil fuels, will hit hard in the future, as it is an unsustainable process.

25911. angusmac at 10:03 AM on 6 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       Rob

       Using the 1880-1909 baseline for preindustrial temperatures could be construed as cherry picking because it represents a period of very low values in the temperature record.

       Would it not be more logical to use a previous warm period as representative of preindustrial temperature, say Moberg et al (2005)?

       For example, I present Ljungqvist (2010) which shows that the MWP mean is similar to the 1961-1990 instrumental mean.

       
       Reconstructed Extra-tropical (30-90 °N) Decadal Temperature Anomaly to 1961-1990 mean (after Ljungqvist, 2010)

       I suggest that the MWP mean from Ljungqvist (or any other reasonable paleo reconstruction) would be an appropriate baseline for preindustrial temperature.

25912. dana1981 at 08:48 AM on 6 January 2016
       95% consensus of expert economists: cut carbon pollution
       

       knaugle @2 - I'd argue that 195 countries signing onto COP21 is virtually 'every country' agreeing to cut emissions.

       chriskoz @1 - 'no opinion' is a bit tricky.  For example, in Cook13 we included papers that said the human contribution to global warming was uncertain (in the 3%).  'No opinion' is pretty analogous to that.  It's only papers that didn't take a position (analogous to 'no response') that we excluded.

25913. knaugle at 02:03 AM on 6 January 2016
       95% consensus of expert economists: cut carbon pollution
       

       @Criskoz

       I would argue that one could also include the "only if everyone else does" as actually a "do nothing" opinion because it sets a nearly impossibly high bar.  It's what one says when you don't want to do something, but don't want to be seen as a lone naysayer.  Still, anything over 90% is a pretty compelling level.

25914. grindupBaker at 13:49 PM on 5 January 2016
       Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
       

       oldmanthames @ 226. Yes, you've nailed the underlying misunderstanding about that. The unlearned assume that it's about radiation from surface either getting to space or not, helped by the infotainment cartoons. But of course, it isn't and the energy shimmer is actually throughout the atmosphere since GHGs (inc. H2O) exist. I've heard it noted by a scientist that the *average*  transmission point to space must be at an average temperature of 255K and that is not the surface, it's at ~4.7 km altitude and most water vapour is below this point so it obviously cannot affect radiation from here heading off to space. I've been posting this table I made as a YouTube comment for 12months. I've been hoping to occasionally trigger some corrections because the source data was thin and fattened out by my estimates. But of course it's YouTube so I've never received a single worthwhile response.

       Water vapour *was* the most significant greenhouse gas when it was released into the atmosphere but now the effect is almost 100%

       saturated except for a 10% frequency band that gets from surface to space. It's been incapable of being the major driver of temperature

       change for billions of years because its freezing point is too high. The +CO2 "global warming" is happening at 6km-16km altitude and there's

       37.6x as much CO2 as H2O at 15km altitude. That's why climate scientists keep calling CH4, CO2, N2O, CFCs "well mixed", it means they go

       high without freezing out. Water doesn't. Like:----------
       alti- air air
       tude tempe- density --— atmospheric ppmv --
       km rature g/m3 CO2 water vapour
       0 16 1,290 400 14,000
       0.5 12 1,235 399 11,000 **84% already caught and shimmering around**
       1 9 1,180 398 8,500
       1.5 5 1,130 398 6,400
       2 2 1,075 397 4,900
       3 -6 965 395 2,900
       4 -13 860 394 1,700
       4.7 -18 783 392 1,200 This is the average point from where Earth's radiation is
       sent to space (temperature of 255K).
       More CO2 then water vapour above to intercept radiation.
       5 -20 750 392 1,000
       6 -27 680 390 600
       ** zone above approx. this height has more CO2 than H2O **
       ** zone above approx. this height is not "saturated" with GHGs **
       ** zone above approx. this height produces most +CO2 & +CH4 warming **
       7 -34 610 389 350
       8 -42 540 387 200 Contrails typically higher than this
       9 -49 470 386 120
       10 -56 420 384 70
       11 -56 370 384 40
       12 -56 320 381 25
       15 -56 200 376 10 ** 37.6x as much CO2 as H2O **
       ** not much +CO2 & +CH4 warming above approx. this height, air too thin **
       20 -56 90 368 8
       25 -52 40 360 8
       30 -47 20 352 8
       40 -25 5 344 8
       50 -3 1 336 7
       60 -18 0.39 328 7
       70 -50 0.125 320 5.5 to 6.5
       80 -83 0.027 312 2.5 avge (2 to 4.5)

        

25915. chriskoz at 07:49 AM on 5 January 2016
       95% consensus of expert economists: cut carbon pollution
       

       The "cut carbon pollution" consensus number 95% assumes those who did not respond "no opinion" and "no response" (4%) have been lumped into the contrarian cetegory. Is it correct? Should they be simply excluded from the consensus number like those abstract that did not express opinion about AGW were excluded in Cook2013 survey of climate science literature? The true contrarian "under no circumstances" represent only 1%. So the "cut carbon pollution" consensus would be much higher: above 98%.

25916. StBarnabas at 22:29 PM on 4 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       keithpickering (#29) many thanks for the PV lifetime references. Sadly the one with actual data, Mallineni (2013) is for Arizona (which I know well from my PhD days) is for a very different climate to Northumberland; a lot colder and wetter. I will keep my eye on the literature.

25917. denisaf at 21:18 PM on 4 January 2016
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       This has been a fascinating anthropocentric discussion that touches on only a little of reality. Future generations will have to try to cope with the demise of the infrastructrure that provides them with services they have become so dependent on. The operation and maintenance of this irrreocably aging infrastructure entails using up the limited natural material resources as it generates the wastes that are polluting land, sea, air and all organisms, including people while devastating the environment, including the climate. 

25918. Tom Curtis at 10:08 AM on 4 January 2016
       Why the 97 per cent consensus on climate change still gets challenged
       

       Dar Dedar @31, I do not have access to the Skeptical Enquirer in print so I am going to ask for several points of clarrification, but before that two points of criticism:

       1)  First, the time between obtaining results of a study and seeing it published are in the 1 to 2 year range.  It may take substantially longer to undertake the research leading to the publication.  Therefore a two year publication window may be distorted for this sort of survey simply because of the timing of results.  Therefore I would not accept a firm figure for the consensus for any literature survey with so small a time frame.

       2)  Far more concerning is the evident reasoning.  Specifically, he finds just 4 authors rejecting AGW and concludes that there is 99.9% consensus in favour of AGW.  The thereby assumes that nobody is on the line, ie, undecided on the issue.  Given that Cook (2013) found that 1% of those abstracts indicating a position on AGW were uncertain, that is an unwarranted assumption.

       Worse, JL Powell only considers explicit rejections of AGW.  He does not consider the percentage expressing no opinion which should be excluded from calculalation of the headline result.  Nor does he consider implicit rejections (0.45% of all abstracts; 1.35% of abstracts expressing an opinion).  He has in fact adopted the same flawed strategy of the denier critics of the Cook et al paper who claim the real endorsement level is only 0.54% (the percentage of explicit, numerically quantified endorsements from all abstracts).  The reasoning is no more valid in service of a good cause than in service of a bad one.

       Moving on to the clarrifications, JL Powell excludes duplicate 'skeptical' authors.  Did he also exclude all duplicate authors from the other papers?  Did Powell classify all the abstracts by himself, and if so did he explicitly read all abstracts or classify by word search?

25919. Dar Dedar at 09:08 AM on 4 January 2016
       Why the 97 per cent consensus on climate change still gets challenged
       

       As we see through this thread, it's commonly claimed that 97% of climate scientists accept human caused climate change.
       Climate change deniers and various conservatives have vehemently denied this and it turns out they are right. The 97% number is not correct.

       Excerpt from the most recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer.

       ---
       The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming.
       "In 2013-2014, only four of 69,604 publishing climate scientists rejected anthropogenic global warming. The consensus
       on anthropogenic global warming is not 97 percent, as is widely claimed; it is above 99.9 percent"
       -
       "I used the Web of Science to review the titles and abstracts of peer-reviewed articles from 2013 and 2014, adding the search topic "climate change" to "global climate change" and "global warming."
       Of 24,210 abstracts, only five--one in 4,842 or 0.021 percent--in my judgement explicitly rejected AGW. Two of the articles had the same author, so four authors of 69,406 AGW. That is one in 17,352, or 0.0058 percent.
       This result would allow the claim that 99.99 percent of scientists publishing today accept AGW. To be conservative, I prefer to say above 99.90 percent.
       Excluding self-citations, only one of the five rejecting articles has been cited and that article only once.
       Remember that the 99.9 percent figure does not represent what we usually mean by consensus: agreement of opinion. Rather it is derived from the peer-reviewed literature and thus reflects the evidence therein. It tells us that there is virtually no publishable evidence against AGW. That is why scientists accept the theory.
       The consensus on AGW is not 97%. Instead, publishing scientists are close to unanimous that "global warming is real, man-made, and dangerous" as President Obama put it."
       In another article this author notes: "Anthropogenic global warming is as much the ruling paradigm of climate science as plate tectonics is of geology and evolution is of biology."
       ---
       James Lawrence Powell is executive director of the National Physical Science Consortium. He has been president of three colleges and of the Franklin Institute and the Lose Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He is also a former member of the National Science Board.
       Excerpt from article: "The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming." Published in Skeptical Inquirer, Nov/Dec 2015, pg 42.

       Excellent article and magazine. Check it out.

25920. Glenn Tamblyn at 08:42 AM on 4 January 2016
       Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1A. A Primer on how to measure surface temperature change
       

       declan
       
       Thanks for the catch, it wasn't clear enough - even after 4 years proof reading never ends.
       
       I have alrered the text to clarify the point.

25921. Digby Scorgie at 07:47 AM on 4 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob, to date we have not succeeded, but I hope you're right and things will start to happen soon.  I'll wait and see.

25922. Rob Painting at 05:09 AM on 4 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       As Sou points out, December 2015 was very hot in the RSS satellite record, the warmest ever in fact. Should prove interesting in the next few months as the 1998 record monthly temperature for the lower atmosphere may be under threat.

       Here's what Tao Triton shows is happening in the equatorial Pacific Ocean for the surface...

       

       and subsurface.....

       

25923. declan at 04:43 AM on 4 January 2016
       Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1A. A Primer on how to measure surface temperature change
       

       This page is very useful to an educator like me, but the following will throw my students for a loop: "...Next question: if each of our two stations['] averages only change[s] by a small amount, how similar are the changes in their averages? This is not an idle question. It can be investigated, and the answer is: mostly by very little...."

       Question: "How similar are the changes...?"

       Answer: "...mostly by very little?" 

25924. Rob Painting at 04:31 AM on 4 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1
       

       Kiwiiano - do you have a reputable source to back up the claim that mismanangement was the major cause of the UK floods? The precipitation rates that I've seen for the recent UK storms were exceptionally high and not something that local land use changes can affect. 

25925. Kiwiiano at 04:06 AM on 4 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1
       

       UK flooding has a climate change component, everything does, but the major cause is appalling management of the headwaters and river basins. The authorities have screwed up on just about every aspect they could.

25926. Paul D at 22:57 PM on 3 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1
       

       UK flooding...

       
       Trouble is all the talk is about flood defences and one of the newspapers even emphasises doubt about the causes saying we need more science. Deliberate of course.

       No mention of relating the flooding to cutting carbon emissions and the governments higher carbon energy policies.

25927. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 20:11 PM on 3 January 2016
       Tracking the 2°C Limit - November 2015
       

       Thanks, Rob.

       Regarding the El Nino, just looking at the Southern Oscillation Index - it was positive, quite a lot for a bit, but the bottom has fallen out the last five days or so and it's swung negative - a lot. BoM says that's not uncommon for this time of the year, when El Nino should be starting to wind back. (When the SOI is less than -7 (minus 7) for an extended period, it's considered the El Nino is in force.)

       I did an update of the RSS chart for the El Nino too, adding December temperatures, and the temperature has gone up faster (and higher) than it did in 97 and 2009. Each El Nino is different.

       

       I'll probably look into this more sometime over the next few days. The next Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) update is this coming Tuesday, so will time it after that.

       BTW it's uncharacteristically wet and cool here today for an El Nino year, though it's not out of line with the Bureau forecasts. (We got some very hot weather in December.)

25928. Eclectic at 14:02 PM on 3 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       You're welcome, Dazed & con. [ @59 ] .

       You needn't respond to me : for I can make a fair extrapolation to your likely responses.

       * If you are indeed a "real boy", then I must beg you to step back and look at the bigger AGW picture.   Science does not exist in order to produce beautiful numbers.    (IMO) the ultimate aim of science is twofold : to produce real understanding of the cosmos, and to produce effective means of making beneficial alterations therein.  ( Which, and whose benefits, is of course a separate question! )

       * If you are a software, then you are a damn fine piece of work.   Though I must caution your creators not to indulge in quite so many spelling errors ~ stuff like privilege with a "D" , and collinear with one "L"  . . . are not at all convincing (of verisimilitude) to the cynical reader.

        

       But to the real boy Dazed : it was a pleasure to read (some of) your contribution to the thread.   Best of luck for the New Year of 2016.   I hope you will delve "deeper and wider" into climate science, and will also sensitize youself to the (often unstated) background "culture" of climate science discussion ~ and as you proceed, you will note how it is almost exclusively the Denialists who commit the cherry-picking / the fallacious logic / the fallacious comparisons (e.g. Galileo's case) / the continual repetition of previously-debunked ideas & graphs etc.   (And not to mention the insane Conspiracy Theories.)

       In view of the many Canards put about by the science-deniers . . . it is best if learn to clear your throat in a way that doesn't sound anywhere near a quack.  [ excuse puns! ]

       Cheers !

25929. Rob Honeycutt at 11:17 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Digby... I would disagree. I think we're likely very close to seeing broad use of carbon taxes.

25930. dazed and confused at 11:05 AM on 3 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       I'm sorry for wasting your time. I will stop posting for the time being, as to not clog your airwaves.

       I'd appreciate it if you didn't kick me.  If per chance anyone has a question for me, I'd still like to be able to respond.

       My goal all along has been to talk about the mathematics with someone who understands them.  That hasn't happened.  Perhaps that's my fault.

       If the mod felt the need to censor me on #56, I appreciate that the mod at least left it readable instead of deleting it.

       I believe #56 (part b) reflects the very basics of time series analysis.  I thought I was stating the obvious. If I could indulge you one last time, show that single post to someone who knows about that stuff, and see if they think I am wrong in any way.  Please let me know what they say.

       There seems to have been a lot of suspicions about my motives.  That's understandable, as you're at defcon 5 when it comes to contrarians.  

       I know you have no reason to believe me, but for the record I don't have any secret agenda. I absolutely love science, and to that end I'd like to see the science be the best possible in any area. I think it's obvious there is global warming, just look at the buoy data.  At this point, I don't have an informed opinion about much else.  I will continue to explore the issues surrounding global warming, sadly without your help.

       @eclectic - I never gave you the response I promised. My apologies for that, but it doesn't seem likely at this point.  Perhaps you are happier for that.

       Thank you for the priveledge allowing me to post at SkS!

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] You are welcome to post reasoned comments supported by credible evidence and substantive analysis.  But when responses are given, it is incumbent to both understand the given response and to then revise one's position as appropriate.  Merely ignoring the response and repeating yourself is not effective communication nor enhancing the discussion.

       Inflammatory, argumentative and moderation complaints snipped.

       [JH] Excessive repetition is also expressly prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

25931. Eclectic at 08:35 AM on 3 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       MA Rodger @55 , and KR @57 , your comments are appropriate, though a tad harsh perhaps.

       Yes, even from post #2 of this thread, there have been strong whiffs of the denialist tribe of fairytale sub-pontine dwellers.

       Nevertheless, there has been a degree of entertainment value in the dazed ramblings ( ?circlings? ).   It is almost as if the "Quill" (prose-generating) software has been married to a Monckton-simulating algorithm.

       If true, that marriage represents a "marvellous" technological development : and adds a whole new dimension to the Turing Test ~ in that we readers must now  seek to discriminate between human psychopathology  vs.  intellectually-vacuous software.

25932. Digby Scorgie at 07:45 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob #39

       Yes, we are now struggling with the idea of attaching the costs of pollution to the sources, but we have not yet succeeded.  This comes of a culture ruled by the dollar and one that views the planet as an infinite repository of resources and a bottomless sink for pollution.  I suspect we'll need to change the culture in order to make any further progress.  Continuing climate change might not give us the necessary time.

25933. william5331 at 06:57 AM on 3 January 2016
       Antarctica is gaining ice
       

       I suspect the "water lift" effect might come to dominate in coming years.  The underside of the ice shelfs slope upward from their grounding line to the seaward edge of the ice.  As this ceiling melts under the influence of slightly warmed sea water, it freshens the water which being lighter, flows oceanward along this upsloping ceiling of ice.  As the grounding line becomes deeper and deeper as the ice melts back under a retrograde slope of the ocean bottom, this effect should increase.  Of course as the freshened water flows up and out on the surface of the ocean, it pulls sea water in under the ice.  An added effect is that the ice melts at lower temperatures at depth so the fresher water may be "super cooled" with respect to the shallow water where it exits the ice shelf.  This could be an added explanation for the increase in sea ice as this very cold, somewhat fresher water then comes in contact with Antarctic Night air.  These currents may also be pushing the ice outward, opening leads that then freeze over.

25934. KR at 06:17 AM on 3 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed - "It's what I've been saying [not colinearity] all along" Bzzzzt. You've erroneously harped on the ERSST adjustments being about colinearity and parallel trends in more than half your comments. And you continue to do so in your last one. 

       You continue to go around in circles, implying and suggesting failures of methodolgy, promptness, etc., while not doing any work yourself, demonstrating that there are actually issues, referencing papers that might, or for that matter - fully reading or understainding the work you are criticizing. You are simply wasting peoples time. Quite frankly, you are IMO just trolling. Accordingly, I'm not going to waste further breath on your unsubstantiated complaints. 

25935. Rob Honeycutt at 05:50 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Note that the force exerted on an airframe squares with speed. Large commercial passenger aircraft have a max takeoff weight of upward of half to a million pounds and cruise at speeds of 500 knots. That's a massive amount of force when you enter unexpected turbulence.

25936. Phil at 05:41 AM on 3 January 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1
       

       Whilst looking for something else entirely, I found this polling analysis of UK public perceptions which I found interesting enough to share. Bottom line:

       Future willingness of the British public to bear the costs of climate change mitigation might well depend on public debate about the economic consequences.

       which I suppose is fairly obvious. I do wonder where this debate might possibly take place though, (Certainly not in the comment stream below, which is, however, good for a laugh)

25937. One Planet Only Forever at 05:32 AM on 3 January 2016
       Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target
       

       I support setting the 1.5 C target. Setting a 'stretch target' is a common business practice (also applicable to sport performance and just about any other pursuit worth pursuing).

       Such 'targets' may appear to be, be able to be claimed to be, or actually be unachievable. However, the focus on aspiring to achieve them will result in a better outcome than setting 'lower standards' that can continually be lowered as you aspire to 'succeed?'.

       Many people have attempted to delay any action that would lead to the advancement of humanity to a better future for all of humanity. Many people 'like' the promotion of perceptions of 'opportunities' for some of humanity (them personally) to enjoy a better life from understood to be damaging and unsustainable developed and developing activity for as long as they can get away with.

25938. Rob Honeycutt at 05:19 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Keith... How do you make the determination that the stresses are less? I would expect a typical commercial aircraft is designed to take far more stress and cycles than a wind turbine. Passenger aircraft are designed to take in excess of 6 G's fully loaded. They're designed for high negative G-loads, and are clearly designed for cyclical stress loads for turbulent air and for repeated takeoff and landings. The cyclical stresses on a wind turbine blade can't be nearly as high, and is likely more limited to the differences between the force placed on the high and low blades due to laminar flow.

       As I originally mentioned, according to Seimen's LCAs, the 20-25 lifespan is based on a tear down, refurbishment and transport to a new location, while the original location would be replaced with updated equipment.

       [Edit]

       Recycling turbine materials

       When wind turbines are dismantled, it is typically not because they have reached end-of-life but because they are replaced with larger turbines. Consequently, most dismantled turbines are refurbished and sold for installation elsewhere. 

25939. dazed and confused at 05:07 AM on 3 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @KR

       The issue discussed re: ERSSTv4 is not addressing colinearity of trends, but rather correcting for the biases of different measurements of the same values, the SSTs. Once the buoys and ship readings are comparable as apples/apples, only then can you look at the overall trends of the regional and global data.

       Couldn't agree with this statement more.  It's what I've been saying all along.

       That's my beef with ERSST3.  It knowingly published data where this wasn't true, leading more or less directly to the hiatus issue.  If they needed to publish a data set before they could make this adjustment, they should have choosen either the apple or the orange.  Since the buoys don't go back very far, they should have used only ship data until this was corrected.

       It's also my beef with NOAA for not correcting this ASAP.

       Do you agree?  I don't see how you couldn't, given your statement above.  If you don't, please explain.

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

       Colinearity is not the goal per se, as you say; the apple to apple thing is the goal.  However, the only way to accomplish the apple to apple thing is to make the trends co-linear. 

       As you say,  you need to convert apples & oranges to apples & apples.  You do whatever adjustments you think are necessary to turn the oranges into apples.  How do you know if you've done a good job?  The ideal would be that when you processed your data, the apples and the neo-apples would end up producing the same exact results.  Of course, that's never going to happen.

       It would be useful to know how close to this ideal goal you are. For one thing, if the apples and neo-apples don't trend together, you don't really have apples to apples.  That's why Karl checked this very issue and found them to be parallel to a tolerance of .002 C/decade.  Is that good enough?  Karl thinks so, but as you know, there is a statistical test (a Welsh t-test would probably be the preferred choice) to tell you whether this difference could be most likely do to noise (good) or not (bad).  I do not know if Karl did this type of test, but I haven't seen it.  Given how noisy the data is, I'd guess it would pass, but I don't like to guess.

       So the trends must at least be parallel.  If they are parallel but not colinear, it means that the neo-apples are giving you different temperature readings than apples at every time in the series.  So even with parallel trend lines, you're not looking at apples to apples.  When Karl adds in the buoy adjustment, he made them nearly parallel, but not exactly (I won't explain why I think this again unless you want me to).  I'm saying, why not make a slightly different adjustment that makes them exactly parallel?

       Co-linearity of the trends still doesn't mean you've achieved apple to appleness.  You'd also want to make sure that the covariance is high (they zig and zag together).  Especially you'd want to make sure that the covariance improved after your adjustments, or it would be hard to justify them.  After all, if your adjustments made the zig-zag thing worse, they probably don't reflect reality very well, since both should strongly correlate with the actual AWT and so with each other.

       I'm not saying that this isn't the case with the NOAA adjustments, I'm saying I don't know, and apparently, no one else does either, other than by eyeballing a graph. This is why I was dissappointed about the OP, based on the title.  If you're confirming adjustments, this is the kind of analysis I'd expect.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] As KR notes, you are simply resorting to sloganeering now and are wasting people's time here.

       Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

       Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, off-topic or repetitive posts oft debunked. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
        
       Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

       Please take the time to again review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

       Repetitive and sloganeering stricken.

25940. keithpickering at 02:10 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob #41, 42

       Stress on an airframe is very much smaller than stress on wind turbine components, and much less cyclical. Reducing torque on a turbine is possible, but that loses energy output, which is the whole point of the machine. (Power = torque x RPM).

       #43 

       Doubtful. Total energy consumption is much more closely tied to GDP than to population. Of course, we could reduce (and have reduced) total energy consumption in periods of economic contraction, but that's hardly an acceptable solution. And in fact it's not a solution at all, since any climate plans that require economic contraction would be unable to garner enough political support for their implementation. This again points up the need to keep cost as a touchone when considering alternatives to fossil fuel.

25941. Rob Honeycutt at 01:42 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       keith... RE: per capita and total energy. If California's population had stayed flat through that period then total energy use would have fallen. 

25942. Rob Honeycutt at 01:38 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       keith... I'd also suggest the torque factor is controlable through blade pitch. Torque loads are going to be a function of the resistence presented by the turbine the blades are pushing relative to how hard you make the blades push it. Right?

25943. Rob Honeycutt at 01:33 AM on 3 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       keith @40...  You're describing exactly what aircraft already do. Typical lifespan for a commercial airliner airframe is 120,000 hours. Composite airframes can apparently go even longer, I believe, but complete composite airframes haven't been used in commercial aircraft yet. And, no, the loads shouldn't be that much different than commercial aircraft. In fact, aircraft likely have greater load factors to deal with than wind turbines, and are designed to take on extreme loads due to the fact they carry passengers.

25944. MA Rodger at 22:17 PM on 2 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and xonfused @52/53.

       I note you are getting replies down this thread which may require better explanation. That is because these replies are too polite to make plain what they are having to contend with from you.

       You say of Rob Painting @51 "You quoted my question, but you didn't answer it. I don't know what to make of that." Indeed so! Throughout this thread, your questioning is that poorly framed. I'm not sure anybody would "know what to make of that." That is the essense of it.

       You engage here with the oddest of style that does little but suit your chosen eponymy. Thus @52 you tell us:

       "What I am "amazed" about is that they didn't include the stats I have come to expect when trying to make this kind of claim. Obviously others aren't as amazed."

       Yet there you leave it, full stop, end of subject, like someone dazed & confused. If I had "come to expect" the inclusion of "stats" within papers of this form and found them here absent withn Karl et al (2015) to the point of being amazed while all others seem oblivious, how should I react? Would I not strengthen my position by further demonstrating why all should be amazed? Would I not point to exemplars that do include these "stats" and set the challenge which would demonstrate how exceptional this omission truly is? Surely I would justify my amazement saying "Laurel & Hardy (2013), Jekyll & Hyde (2014), Skywalker et al (2015). All such papers have the "stats". Only in Karl et al (2015) are they absent!!!" So when you stop in full flow without such an addition and continue on a different point, you leave the whole world dazed & confused. Especially as that other point then presents the same thing but now says:

       "What calculation would I do to prove that? The OPs have made a claim. Where are their calculations that prove that? They are not there."

       What calculations? Surely the ones in Laurel & Hardy (2013), Jekyll & Hyde (2014), Skywalker et al (2015). Oh but they are the fictional exemplars of my contrivance.

       Now, @41 you tell us you are about this issue because a denialist friend:

       "...brought it up. I love science, and have since before I could read. When I started digging, I couldn't believe what I saw. I mean, this is NOAA. Surely I must be wrong. What am I missing? I've been on this site (SkS) before, and thought it would be a great place to challenge my conclusions. ... My concerns are simply with methodology."

       So what are these amazing conclusions you on about?

       Helpfully, @41 you list "the claims I made." Great! Except we are back to missing "stats" (1 & 2), a methodological claim (3) for which your parting comment is " If you're in doubt, I suppose I could hunt down a source.", and finally (un-numbered) a garbled account of a discission-in-progress involving apparently "attempts to do what is claimed to be impossible." It is all as clear as mud.

       Here is a question for you. If the (1) (2) & (3) presented by you back @2 were exchanged for the (1), (2) & (3) presented by you @41, would it make the slightest difference to #2 or #41? If not, does that bring into question what if anything has been accomplished by the 10,000 words of comment you present between #2 & #41?

       Despite your strong trollish accent, the commenters here have addressed you comments with respect. But nothing is being gained. Whether this is because you are unwilling to develop you position or unable, I couldn't possibly know, but this is why you are being urged @51 & @54 to put up or shut up, and I concur wholeheartedly with that urging.

25945. Andy Skuce at 16:59 PM on 2 January 2016
       Alberta's new carbon tax
       

       meurig: thanks for those comments

       Larry E: that Drake landing project is impressive and thank you for supplying the very interesting links.

25946. keithpickering at 16:02 PM on 2 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob Honeycutt #33

       Total energy use and per-capita use are different metrics.

       Rob Honeycutt #34

       Wind turbine components are subject to enormous physical loads, and those loads are cyclical. This is just hell on any material. Refurbishment frequently is not an option when facing metal fatigue, you've got to replace. High-speed, low-torque generators are subject to much less wear and tear. Low-speed, high-torque is the worst. Combine that with cyclical loading and it's the worst of the worst. This is a case where smaller is better, because smaller generators have higher RPM and lower torque.

       michael sweet #36

       No, actually you're misreading. The numbers reported on page 47 are annual capital costs, which are just one component of the total system costs reported on Figure 12.

25947. KR at 15:39 PM on 2 January 2016
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed - Several points:

       The issue discussed re: ERSSTv4 is not addressing colinearity of trends, but rather correcting for the biases of different measurements of the same values, the SSTs. Once the buoys and ship readings are comparable as apples/apples, only then can you look at the overall trends of the regional and global data. Again, correcting for instrument biases and how they differ. 

       There is no reason whatsoever to expect exact colinearity from different sampling techniques - random noise, differing sample points/times, and SST heterogeneity will cause trends to differ slightly, albeit in what may be a statistically insignificant amount. 

       Finally, you appear to not understand some very fundamental points, the differential weighting of buoys and ships, as well as the handling of anomalies where there is insufficient sampling: Your comments seem to assume that these are driven solely by temporal filtering, when both issues are in regards to both temporal and spatial extrapolation - how to treat uneven sampling with different noise levels when forming a global SST estimate. Buoys are given more weight when interpolated over space as well as time due to their lower noise, and where spatial-temporal sampling in the record is insufficient (particularly given high noise levels in the early data) anomalies are damped towards zero so that sparse and noisy data doesn't induce false trends. This is a very basic, and quite conservative approach. 

       ---

       As you noted above, you haven't dug into how the very issues you are raising are approached in the literature prior to complaining about them - and that's clear when you demonstrate you fundamentally don't understand how the data was formulated and merged in the first place. Until you actually understand the methodologies employed in ERSST and Karl et al, I cannot consider any of your concerns in that regard meaningful. 

25948. Rob Honeycutt at 14:03 PM on 2 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Digby @35... I would suggest that people sometimes forget that there are already significant social costs attached to our use of fossil fuels. Some estimates range as high at $200/ton. By that measure, carbon-free energy solutions are far cheaper than fossil fuel sources. We just current lack the methods of attaching those costs to their sources.

       By implementing a carbon tax and ramping it up over time, we are potentially making economies more efficient. If those estimates are anywhere near accurate, then we needn't be concerned so much about the cost. The biggest challenge is the upfront costs of transition.

25949. stevecarsonr at 12:32 PM on 2 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       For Michael and others, on nuclear:

       There's a very good summary of nuclear in an open acccess paper, Joskow, Paul L., and John E. Parsons. “The economic future of nuclear power.” Daedalus 138.4 (2009): 45-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed.2009.138.4.45

       And also a good summary in a very recent paper (not journal paper) published by JP Morgan for investors in renewable energy:

       Our annual energy paper: the deep de-carbonization of electricity grids

       This paper does a great job of capturing many of the renewable electricity issues and is well worth reading. They comment on nuclear:

       However, EIA and Carnegie Mellon cost estimates may not reflect reality. The rising trend in OECD nuclear capital and operating costs is a topic we addressed last year. In the US, real costs per MWh for nuclear have risen by 19% annually since the 1970’s. Even in France, the country with the greatest reliance on nuclear power as a share of generation and whose centralized decision-making and regulatory structure are geared toward nuclear power, costs have been rising and priorities are shifting to renewable energy. Globally, nuclear power peaked as a share of electricity generation in 1995 at 18% and is now at 11%, primarily a reflection of slower development in the OECD.

       In contrast to stagnation in the US and Europe, nuclear power is alive and well in Asia where 50 GW are under construction and where plant costs are lower. The World Nuclear Association cites nuclear construction costs in China and Korea that are 20%-30% below US and EU levels. KEPCO (S Kor.) is building 5.6 GW of nuclear in the UAE, scheduled for delivery in 2017 at $3,600 per kW, which is 35% below EIA cost assumptions for the US. Asian cost differentials vs. the US and Europe are apparently related to shorter lead times, shorter construction times and lower labor costs. The differences do not appear to reflect different nuclear technology, since almost all plants under construction worldwide are either boiling water reactors or pressurized water reactors.

       And then some more detail in their Appendix V, with the final comment:

       It may be decades before we know just how much new nuclear power designs really cost.

25950. bozzza at 11:03 AM on 2 January 2016
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       The idea that we don't live in a rational world is not always correct. Money has to flow to create jobs and profits- for those creating those jobs. If employers aren't incentivised with the fruits of enterprise then they just stash their old money away never to see the light of day.

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