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EddieEvans at 18:30 PM on 22 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Thanks for helping me out with the Hausfather paper. It took a couple of readings but is worth the time. It clarifies the "mixing of two different concepts: a world where CO2 levels in the atmosphere remain at current levels; and a world where emissions reach net zero and concentrations begin to fall." I believe that I was at the latter, "a world where emissions reach net zero and concentrations begin to fall." That was some years ago, and it seemed intuitive. Somewhere I became interested in the former and forgot the latter. I remind myself of today's biggest climate literacy problem, how many voters mix weather and climate. (My in-laws) I will summarize the article and make a robotic read video for Youtube.
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John Mason at 01:46 AM on 21 January 2023Can induction stoves convince home cooks to give up gas?
I've been using a single portable induction-hob and it's amazing the diversity of dishes that it can churn out. Got a single ring camping gas stove too, of a similar size, that I used for much of last year. I've kept that in case of power-outages, but am very impressed with the hob.
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Cajetan at 14:08 PM on 20 January 2023Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use
It is evidently a global warming issue. Since Kilimanjaro is located along the equator it makes matters even worse. Climbing Kilimanjaro during the wet season you might not notice but during the dry and warm season, you can obviously notice how dry the peak can be. is it that glaciers have a lifespan or global warming is the primary cause? Most glaciers and icefields have receded. Some of the famous glaciers on the Mountain e.g, Arrow Glacier, and others have disappeared completely.
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scaddenp at 11:07 AM on 18 January 2023Can induction stoves convince home cooks to give up gas?
i have used a few induction tops which convinced me that good controls are necessary to convince someone used to using gas. On 250V supply, it heats much faster than gas. However, first one I used had digital controls which were fussy to use and effectively "quantized" control to 10 levels. Compared to fine level of control on gas, this was awful. Also, the control system had slow feedback so on low settings the heat oscillated around the control point - ie your simmer was constantly going off and on. These put me off till a friend (very keen cook) showed me his which had none of those problems. If you are switching from gas, then pay the money for decent controls.
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Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 10:32 AM on 18 January 2023Can induction stoves convince home cooks to give up gas?
My induction stove top is 20 years old this year. It works as well as it ever did. It was installed beside a gas cooktop because at the time we were getting a lot of brownouts.
It's years since we've used the gas. The induction stove is much, much better to cook with. The temperature control is terrific plus it's so clean.
Is it the low 110V domestic power supply in the US that is the drawback to takeup there? It seems strange. I've always thought Americans were early adopters of technology.
(I'm planning to sell the gas stove together with the gas heater that also hasn't been used in years.)
Moderator Response:[PS] Edited more or less as requested
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sailingfree at 08:30 AM on 18 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
MA Roger @69,
Thanks for clarification of the data. And thank you moderator [PS] for fixing the mess I made with the URL.
Moderator Response:[PS] You are welcome. Thanks for your work
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Bob Loblaw at 04:08 AM on 18 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Eddie: Rob linked to the Hausfather paper at the end of paragraph 2 in comment #4. The text only displays "Hausfather", but the lin is there if you click on it.
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EddieEvans at 02:24 AM on 18 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
I'm not sure where to find you link; I must have missed it.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:05 AM on 18 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Eddie... Regarding the Hansen paper, note it's not a peer reviewed paper, yet. It's going to go through revisions prior to being published. Take this pre-review version with an appropriate quantity of salt (even from Hansen).
@5... No, I'm not ignoring ocean heat. What I stated is, once we stabilize CO2 concentrations warming will stop. Please read the Hausfather explainer I linked to.
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BaerbelW at 01:58 AM on 18 January 2023New paper: Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections
Thanks, Joel! But credit has to go to Geoffrey Supran for laying things out clearly in his Twitter thread! I didn't do much more than a "copy & paste job" with just a few tweaks here and there.
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Joel_Huberman at 00:50 AM on 18 January 2023New paper: Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections
Thank you, Baerbel, for this clear, informative summary.
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EddieEvans at 00:37 AM on 18 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Here's a recent pipeline article by James Hansen. It took some searching.
"6.14 Recently, the first author (JEH) of our present paper published a
qualitative description of the decade-long investigation that led to the conclusion that most climate models are unrealistically insensitive to freshwater injected by melting ice and also that ice sheet models are unrealistically lethargic in the face of rapid, large climate change.15"Not to be obnoxious, but I did want to refer to James Hansen. Also, if you believe that a warming ocean is a "blessing" to humanity, you might want to take that up with residents in Maimi, Maryland, Vietnam (Mekong Delta, a rice bowl to millions), China, and an assortment of Pacific islanders. Then there's the plankton surviving in a warming ocean, never before tested in human history. Biodiversity in the Global Ocean will become stressed beyond the bounds of natural selection and loss of habitat for unknown numbers of ocean ecosystems.
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EddieEvans at 23:30 PM on 17 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
If you are following US politics, you may believe that descent is underway. It would not matter in any case. I refer to history, especially after US President Johnson pointed to the issue in 1965, over half a century ago. I also refer to Jame's Speth "They Knew: The US Federal Government’s Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis," and Juliana vs The United States Government. James Hansen recently co-authored a paper on CO2 in the pipeline, and it was not encouraging. Then there's global dimming and the rest, not to mention Arctic Sea ice melt, which no one has found a way to rectify. I could go on and on. I have not seen research on cooling the global ocean in any short-term scenario. What I'm reading says "hundreds of years," at least. If you have more comforting information, I would enjoy seeing it. We have no idea what we are handing to the next generation. "Nature is very complex to think about, and probably more complex than we can think."
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MA Rodger at 19:25 PM on 17 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
EddieEvans @1,3&5,
The threat to humanity is not the extinction of our species. The threat is the collapse of the world economy and a descent into a future where the sovereign state system is replaced by an anarchy. The further we push the climate and thus also the natural world, the more likely that threat will become a reality.
The idea of there being "plenty of CO2 in the pipeline" is worth a few words. The IPCC has for some time set out the science which links the rise in global temperature we face with the accumulative CO2 emissions reached at the point of 'net zero', as per AR5 Fig SPM.10 below. As we know the CO2 emissions so far, that sets a budget of CO2 for any measure of temperature rise. And it appears humanity is struggling to stay within a budget commenserate with a +1.5ºC rise, indeed struggling to admit there is any such budget.
But do note that to curtail the temperature rise for a CO2 budget, the 'net zero' event is now followed by decades of 'net negative' when CO2 is drawn down more quickly than nature would manage alone (amounts depending on the scenario) with (for the SSP1-1.9 projections) all our emissions ~2007-to-'net zero' extracted as 'negative' emissions.
And the "warming oceans" you mention are actually a bit of a blessing. Once the energy balance out into space is restored, the "warming oceans" will maintain a cooling of surface temperatures. But of course we do need to get the energy balance up above zeroed.
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EddieEvans at 17:29 PM on 17 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
At the risk of being dogmatic, your assessment seems to miss the warming ocean, which cannot be cooled in any foreseeable future. Nuclear weapons, population pressures, plague, and overall loss of sustainable habitat tell me we'll live up to our history, we'll kick the can down the road, and pass the buck to the next generation until there is no next generation. I'm pointing to what I'm reading, seeing, and hearing, and my personal experience. The question is not if, but when. Science cannot answer this question because it's a bit metaphysical. We have no crystal ball, only our history on thi planet.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:02 AM on 17 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Eddie... @1: Human extinction is highly unlikely in any scenario. Extinctions (plural) of a broad range of wild species is ongoing and likely to worsen. Those extinctions have impacts on humanity. High emissions scenarios could produce a collapse of modern society as we know it. That would entail a great deal of human suffering. But actual human extinction isn't likely.
@3: The recent research on "warming in the pipeline" is suggesting this is incorrect. Once we get carbon emissions down to "net zero" (to the point where atmospheric concentrations stabilize) warming is expected to stop. Currently, with renewables scaling exponentially, we could get to net zero by mid-century. (Haufather)
Climate related impacts are certainly going to keep getting worse until we can get our emissions stabilized. Bringing them back down to, say 350ppm, isn't in the cards any time in the foreseeable future. Thus, I think the climate we have for quite a while is the one where we stabilize emissions. That's a very different world than the one most of us were born into.
...but, again, human extinction? No.
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EddieEvans at 02:25 AM on 17 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
I'm basing my comment on what I'm reading and seeing on the Internet and in books. Global ocean warming cannot be stopped or turned around any time soon, and there's plenty of CO2 in the pipeline even if, and when humanity gets it right.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:54 PM on 16 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
EddieEvans,
I am optimistic about the future of humanity. Human history appears to have a long-term trend towards individual activity being governed by ‘the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful’. There appears to be more thoughtful leadership limiting the harm done, encouraging people to be more accepting of harmless differences, and encouraging people to be more helpful to Others.
I am encouraged by the development of important global understandings like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Sustainable Development Goals, and even the ‘inadequate so far’ global agreements to limit the harm done by climate change impacts.
Some powerful groups try to fight against helpful harm reducing learning. But it is unlikely that their attempts to stifle learning will succeed in the long-term. Unfortunately, as the climate change challenge proves, a lot of harm can be done while they fight their losing battle against improving the future for humanity.
However, I understand that the long-term winners may be the disastrous cases in the past where ‘interests contrary to learning to be less harmful’ become permanently powerful by resisting learning to develop sustainable improvements.
It is tragic when undeserving winners of power and perceptions of superiority relative to others can over-power learning to be less harmful. It is discouraging to see supposedly more advanced people fail to effectively govern and limit harm done. They set very bad examples that others can be tempted to aspire down to (a potentially tragic downward spiral).
Hopefully more people are learning to be less harmful fast enough to govern and limit the harm done by the pursuits of 'more perceptions of superiority' by people who resist learning to be less harmful.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:50 AM on 16 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
The C-14 article is just lipstick on an old pig - the same errors that permeate earlier papers are applied to C-14 concentrations instead of just CO2.
The key factor is that differentiation over the short term cannot tell you much about long-term processes. There is a fundamental error, covered in the "correlation" link above, but not really expanded on or explicitly stated. Basically, when you differentiate (look at the short-term rates of variation) you eliminate the constant terms. Many moons ago I expressed this in a private forum as follows:
I am reminded of a math joke told to me years ago by a mathematician
friend. (Yes, I know. "math joke" is an oxymoron. Don't ask me to tell you the one about Noah and the snakes.)Two mathematicians are in a bar, arguing about the general math knowledge of the masses. They end up deciding to settle the issue by seeing if the waitress can answer a math question. While mathematician A is in the bathroom, mathematician B corners the waitress and tells her that when his friend asks her a question, she should answer "one half X squared". A little later, when the waitress returns to the table, mathematician A asks her "what is the integral of X?". She answers as instructed, and mathematician A sheepishly pays off the bet and admits that mathematician B was right. As the waitress walks away, she is heard to mutter "pair of idiots. It's one-half X squared, plus a constant".
Salby and Harde forget that integration is not complete without adding a constant - a moot point if you are just doing the integration symbolically, but absolutely critical if you want to put actual numbers on it. CO2 does track the integral of temperature - as long as you don't forget to add back in the constant that dominates the correlation. Without the constant, there is no correlation, which tells us that the short-term variations in temperature are not affecting the long term buildup of CO2. Because Salby sees a correlation between the noise in T and the noise in CO2, he mistakenly assumes that integration will entirely reverse the differentiation without reference to the constant.
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EddieEvans at 21:24 PM on 15 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Five years ago I still believed that humanity would avoid extinction whenever possible. I'm now confident that I was wrong. I see the next generation's ruling elites taking part in climate deception, and then the next if there is a next.
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EnderWiggin at 20:07 PM on 15 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
Thanks alot to Bob for his answers! I already knew the four articles on skepticalscience you linked to, but apparently the C-14-articles were not adressed therein.
Sorry for posting several times, I just thought to increase my chance to get an answer. Next time, I'm going to post only once.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:55 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
The fundamentals of the argument you continue to make are still:
- The emissions from the ‘tailpipe’ of the most efficient hybrid is to be compared with all of the emissions of charging 'any and all' EVs or plug-in hybrids with fossil fuel generated electricity that does not have emissions reduced by CCS.
- Therefore, until there is no fossil fuel generation of electricity 'anywhere' there should be no EV or plug-in hybrid use. Not maintaining this part of the argument opens the argument up to the question of how much EV use makes sense.
Try again after reviewing all of the comments, particularly my comment @36, particularly the point that any unnecessary fossil fuel use, including electricity use in regions with fossil fuel as part of the generation mix, needs to be curtailed.
That understanding leads to appreciating the benefit of, and need for, government action to encourage the purchase of EVs paired with government action to reduce unnecessary energy use, especially actions that rapidly end fossil fuel use which would include discouraging the purchase and use of fossil fuelled vehicles, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
Note: I have always driven my efficient hybrid as little as possible. So, some people do not need government encouragement and discouragement to be less harmful and more helpful. But since everybody's climate impact actions add up government actions to encourage less harmful behaviours and discourage more harmful behaviour are required contrary to, and corrective of, developed popular misunderstandings and related harmful profitable activities.
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BaerbelW at 04:37 AM on 15 January 2023Publishing a long overdue explainer about a scientific consensus
To add another option to share this explainer, I created an audio version and put it up on Youtube: https://youtu.be/CQIowIu0yoc
This might come in handy whenever trying to explain a scientific consensus in YouTube comments where links to other videos work, but - at least for me - comments with links to other websites make them disappear immediately.
P.S.: Thanks to EddieEvans for giving me the idea to do this recording!
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:20 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @44... "So the net result of adding the EV load is an equivalent 'increase' in coal generation compared to the scenario when no EV load existed."
Coal generation is clearly declining.
Renewable energy is now scaling exponentially.
The net result is reduced carbon emissions. Electrifying surface transportation with EV's is a (the most, even) significant part of that equation.
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Doug Cannon at 02:47 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
One Planet Only Forever #43
I would take issue with your second paragraph re “....any(all) electricity for EV's must come from fossil...”
In my original #15 I was very specific in the first two paragraphs. I made it clear that my position was in regard to “total CO2 emissions in the U. S.” and it was based on”a best case scenario” for renewable electricity by the eia. I later gave a link to that eia report.https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2022_ReleasePresentation.pdf
In that scenario, in the middle of page 15, the graphs confirm the fuel mix I described in my 2nd and 3rd paragraph.
You're correct. There is a conceptual issue. The concept being: as we're trying to clean up the grid, and the two variables in the fuel mix are (1) increasing renewable generation and (2)equally decreasing coal generation, then: as an EV load is added, that increased EV load has to be met by not decreasing the coal generation. So the net result of adding the EV load is an equivalent “increase” in coal generation compared to the scenario when no EV load existed.
It's a very simple concept. One can disbelieve the eia forecast; that's fine. But, assuming their forecast is correct, the resulting concept is clear. -
MA Rodger at 00:56 AM on 14 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
sailingfree @68,
Note that the data for global temperatre you plot is NOAA data but not GISS (LOTI) data. Both use the same raw data but process them differently. Thus in NOAA 2015 is warmer than 2017 by +0.02ºC while in GISS 2015 is cooler than 2017 by -0.02ºC.
And both have published the 2022 figure which slots into the record above 2021, although not by much in NOAA.
As you rightly say, the present La Niña is depressing the global average SAT, a La Niña which is expected to end through the coming year, and expected to end a lot more suddenly than previous strong La Niñas (like 1988, 1999 & 2008 which were more sudden transitioning into La Niña and more gradual transitioning out).
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sailingfree at 14:00 PM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
Here is the update to Scafetta's Widget.
Moderator Response:[PS] I have updated comment to the actual image, and removed failed attempts You again linked to a page, rather than the image in that page. You want link that has .png, .jpg etc in it.
Additional information on adding image or html to a comment can be found on the comments policy page (at the bottom). The link to the comment policy is just under the comment editor.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:44 AM on 13 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
A follow-up to my comment @ 69, which was a response to EnderWiggin @ 68.
On Tuesday, I did a search for the title and author (Salby) that EnderWiggin provided. I was able to find parts 1 and 2 on a site hosted at scc.klimarealistene.com - but by Wednesday, that domain name had disappeared and could no longer be reached.
klimarealistene.com does still exist, but has no signs of the papers. A bit of searching on their web page found a link to scienceofclimatechange.org. Eventually, the two papers were found on this page (Volume 1.2 December 2021).
A bit of background. Klimarealistene is a well-known Norwegian climate "science" contrarian group. The "journal" Science of Climate Change is their creation. I suspect the change in web location has to do with reorganization of the journal's online pages. The old "scc" portion of the klimarealistene link was undoubtedly short for Science of Climate Change.
On the main SCC page, they say:
4 November, 2022
The journal Science of Climate Change was funded by Klimarealistene in Norway in September 2020, and the first issue appeared in August 2021. Several additional articles have been published in 2021 and 2022, but due to a heavy work load on the Editor they have not been collected into Volumes before now. A few articles have also been delayed in being published. The Scientific Council of the Norwegian Climate Realists is at the moment working on a plan for the management of the journal from 2023. In the mean time I have stepped in as Editor to handle the backlog…
The list of authors on their Volumes and Issues page reads like a who's-who of climate science contrarianism in Norway. Standard names such as Salby, Humlum, Harde, and Solheim dominate.So, the "obscure" journal, as EnderWiggin refers to it, looks like it is basically just a mouth-piece for Klimarealistene, so they can "publish" stuff and make it look like a journal. Credibility factor approaching zero.The two CO2 papers in question are co-authored between Salby and Hermann Harde. Interestingly, Salby is listed with an affiliation of "Ex Macquarie University" -a university he was fired from in 2013, after only 5 years. Not an inaccurate claim - he's clearly no longer there - but rather reeks of resume padding. (Of course, Salby is now "Ex Earth", having passed away in 2022.)Part 1 basically looks at C14 fluxes and argues that it can be used to estimate carbon uptake rates. Part 2 follows to look at recent (nothing older than 1956) variations in CO2 and temperature, to claim that anthropogenic contributions to the rise in CO2 are negligible.I didn't try to evaluate their math in detail, but basically it looks like yet another case of taking the short-term variation in CO2 concentrations and temperature, and making erroneous statistic correlations that mislead them about long-term trends. Same dog, same old tricks.In my comment above, the most applicable debunking is probably the one in this SkS post: -
sailingfree at 06:33 AM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
photos.app.goo.gl/9y372EWor6C9ExJi9
Moderator Response:[PS] if you use a image service that just serves the image, then you can use insert image, make sure width is constrained to 500, and the image will display in the comment. google photos is bad for this as links are to the photo viewer, not the image.
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sailingfree at 06:29 AM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
It has been a decade since Scafetta’s 2011 projections were made, so it is time to update the temperature data to compare it to his projections.
In the figure below I have updated his graph by adding the global surface temperature yearly
average anomalies from NOAA/GISS. I’d say the IPCC models are pretty good, especially since the last few years have been La Nina years.
Scafetta projection, the black wavy line, misses the temperature change over the decade by a third of a degree. Recent temperatures of 2015 to 2022 are already comparable to his projection for 2100.(The NOAA/GISS data is referenced to the 1900-1999 average so I adjusted it to the 1960-1999 reference that Scafetta used. The NOAA/GISS data average for 1960-1999 is 0.135, so I
subtracted that from the data before plotting it as the black dots.)Moderator Response:[PS] If you want to put an image into a comment, you need to first put the image into some suitable image server (eg imgur) and then insert a link. SkS doesnt have ability to host images despite the illusion of it doing so.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:31 AM on 11 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
EnderWiggin:
First, you've posted the same question in three locations. That is bad form. In the main menu under the masthead, the "Comments" link will show any new comments on any thread, so posting your question once will allow it to be found easily.
As for Salby, without a link to the papers I can't tell what that particular version of Salby's wanderings are wrong, but his name has been a frequent occurence here. You can use the search function at this site to find more, but in roughly chronoogical order here are several posts that discuss errors in Salby's work. I don't think he's come up with anything new in many years, so even old posts will probably cover any "recent" errors.
https://skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natural.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-Confused-About-The-Carbon-Cycle.html
https://skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html
https://skepticalscience.com/salbyratio.html
Moderator Response:[BL] Edited 2023/01/12/ to delete a link that pointed to an unpublished web page.
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EnderWiggin at 04:19 AM on 11 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
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EnderWiggin at 04:17 AM on 11 January 2023CO2 has a short residence time
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
Moderator Response:[BL] This question was also asked on another thread. I have posted an answer here.
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EnderWiggin at 04:16 AM on 11 January 2023Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
Moderator Response:[BL] This question was also asked on another thread. I have posted an answer here.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:29 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
There are some other interesting tidbits in that contract between Smithsonian and Southern Company Services. A lot is just boilerplate put in by the lawyers, but it also lists deliverables:
- progress reports
- detailed summary and analysis of results and findings
- ...and freedom for SCS to use the data and results "for its internal purposes"
There is also a Publicity clause:
Smithsonian shall not publish and utilize the name or otherwise identify SCS or its affiliate companies in any publications or other advertisements without the express written consent of SCS. As further consideration to SCS, Smithsonian shall provide SCS an advance written copy of proposed publications regarding the deliverables for comment and input, if any, from SCS.
In one context, that simply gives SCS the right to review the results of the work to make sure that it meets their needs as "deliverables".
In another context, it looks like SCS wants to keep the source of the funding secret, and wants to make sure that any results it does not like will not see the light of day.
Most academic granting agencies will want their name spread far and wide as supporting research, and academic freedom allows researchers to publish and publicize their results regardless of outcome.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:10 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
I would say there's a certain perverse incentive built into the system enabling a certain level of bad research to get funded. Soon is a perfect example.
As I sit here, the question occurs to me: Is there some inherent value to this kind of activity?
I've always believed it's important to understand what doesn't work as much as what does work. Researchers are almost going to aggressively defend their work, good or bad.
I don't know. Is the noise their work generates more destructive than the bad science they produce? If so, maybe that's a problem with how information propogates in the public sphere, and how private interests utilize it, rather than an inherent problem with people like Soon producing bad science.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:49 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
This is a very old thread, Long. Topal notes in comment #1 that all funds go to the Smithsonian, not individual scientists, but there are some catches to that.
Some of the links in the post are dead, but the "Climate Sceptic’s Fossil Fuel Funding Exposed" page is alive, and at the bottom of that article there is a link to original documents.
One of those documents is a 2008 contract between The Smithsonian and Southern Company Services Inc. The contract includes the proposal from Soon, and part of the proposal includes the items the money is to be spent on. That covers the following:
- 494 hours of Soon's labour, valued at $25,209. (That would put Soon's salary for a 2000-hr work year at roughly $100,000).
- Program administration
- Secretary
- Leave and Fringe benefits (i.e., overhead costs related to labour)
- "Direct Operating Overhead @ 30%".
- This would be Smithsonian's cut, to cover things like office space, etc.
- Travel
- "Printing and reproduction"
The way I would interpret this is that at least part of Soon's salary at Smithsonian is (was?) not coming from general Smithsonian funds, but from grants and contracts that Soon pulls in. This is not uncommon, AFAIK.
So, Soon's salary is (was?) probably fixed by his employment arrangements with the Smithsonian, but the Smithsonian gets off the hook for finding money to pay Soon - or at least, partly off the hook. Soon does not get rich by having a lot of contracts, but his continued employment at the Smithsonian would be made much easier by virtue of having industry cover his salary.
...and having grants or contracts to cover travel makes it a lot easier to participate in the contrarian talking road show. (The details in that contract cover travel to a "Scientific meeting, San Francisco". Possibly the AGU, at a guess?)
I certainly would not argue against you in speculating that gas and oil money will be a lot easier for Soon to get than regular government research grants.
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Long Knoll at 11:46 AM on 10 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
There's something I don't get about Willie Soon. Even though he's received huge amounts in grants from oil companies, presumably he hasn't got rich off them, because scientists don't get rich even off large grants as pointed out elsewhere. So why is he taking the grants from oil, as oppose to the government grants he once received? What's the advantage? It only seems to undermine his credibility. Is it because he is incapable of getting public money due to the poor quality of his research?
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Charlie_Brown at 07:33 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67
As a retired engineer (chemical) myself, I can address the fundamental problem with Seim & Olsen’s experiment from an engineer’s perspective for the benefit of your friend. The key mistake is neglecting the cold temperature of the tropopause (217K) that is the source of radiant energy loss to space in the range of about 13.5-16.5 microns. This has to be combined with the overall global energy balance.
The experiment is designed to measure radiant energy in conditions similar to the lower atmosphere, near the surface. Much of it sounds technical, so that it might sound convincing to someone with a technical background who does not fully understand how the greenhouse effect really works. The explanation provided in the Introduction is correct, but falls short of being complete because of the key mistake that I mentioned above. Section 3.4 addresses a variety of thermal issues that demonstrates knowledge about energy balances and confounding effects of convection and conduction. But it misses how the atmosphere is thermally balanced within the context of cold temperature at high altitudes, which is a common misunderstanding, and the fundamental fact of radiation that emitted energy from a CO2 molecule depends only on the presence and their temperature.
There is too much to explain in a short note without knowing the specific nature of your friend’s stumbling block in their understanding of global warming and the experiment. The basic, intermediate, and advanced rebuttals in the myth 74 “CO2 effect Is saturated” provide concise explanations for the fundamental misunderstanding underlying the experiment. The last few comments in that thread provide references for detailed explanations (especially Zhong & Haigh, 2013) for the overall global energy balance, fundamentals of radiant energy transfer, and basics of atmospheric physics. I suggest that your friend takes some time to study them. MODTRAN, as MA Rodger just referenced above, is an excellent and fascinating educational tool that should spark the interest of a curious, technically-minded, engineer (see Brown, et al, "Introduction to an Atmospheric Radiation Model" Chemical Engineering Progress, May 2022.)
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MA Rodger at 04:44 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67,
That appears to leave only Feldman et al (2015).
This was always an odd paper. Note on google scholar it is showing with 206 citations but if you look, most of these are not real citations of the paper's findings.
The question is: much extra downward surface IR you would expect from increasing CO2 from 370ppm to 385ppm (which is what Feldman et al attempt to measure)? MODTRAN gives a rise of 0.188Wm^-2 when modelling a mid-latitude winter and 0.314Wm^-2 when modelling mid-latitude summer. That these values are even the same order of magnitude of the climate forcing from such an increase in CO2 (which would be 5.35 x In(385/370) = 0.21Wm^-2) is entirely coincidental.
Your "retired engineer" appears to be dismissing this +0.21Wm^-2 CO2 forcing over the decade 2000-2010 because he says there is some cloud effect that is an "order of mangitude more relevant." So is there an increase in cloud forcing of +2Wm^-2 through that decade? Or is it perhaps a decrease of that size he talks of? Whichever, he does need to demonstrate this massive cloud effect that appeared through that decade to show he is not talking codswallop.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:40 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
...and the Seim and Olsen paper was also discussed in several comments on this recent thread:
SkS_Analogy_01_Speed_Kills_Part3_How_fast_can_we_slow_down.html
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Bob Loblaw at 02:34 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Additional note:
Scientific Research Publishing (scirp.org) also has a Wikipedia page about it.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:28 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
To follow-up eclectic's comment @ 68:
The Seim and Olsen paper "The Influence of IR Absorption and Backscatter Radiation from CO2 on Air Temperature during Heating in a Simulated Earth/Atmosphere Experiment" appears to be this one:
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608
scirp.org is Scientific Research Publishing, which is on Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers. Not exactly a reputable journal.
The two authors are listed as "former..." affiliations with medical backgrounds.
Google scholar lists two citations, both (self?) published by Hermann Harde (a well-known climate science "contrarian" that never writes anything worth reading).
As eclectic says, trying to refute atmospheric physics with a lab experiment is a fool's errand.
I have not bothered reading the "paper" in detail. All meta-signs point to it being rubbish. In the bits I read, they confuse re-radiation by CO2 as "backscatter", and in the abstract they refer to "temperature ... increased ... about 0.5%". Anyone that uses % to measure temperature change is not worth reading, and they clearly have no understanding of the physics and terminology of radiation transfer.
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MA Rodger at 01:43 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67,
The Rutger snow cover data is not the easiest data to rattle out the impacts of climate change. While the arguments of your "retired engineer" may be something else, the point I would make is that snow cover is not necessarily a good measure of rising tempertures alone as it also requires snowfall which can also be a big variable. And we do have perfectly good instrument for actually measuring temperature, these being called thermometers.
The basics is that it is only the months March to June which show big trends in snow cover. See Rutgers monthly graph webpage and toggle through the months. There are also trends in July and August but through these months snow cover is almost max'ed out. Through the autumn & winter months, the trend is for more snow so more snow cover.
I did a while back write out a few paragraphs on the trend in snow cover and its illusiveness. It's posted about halfway down this webpage.
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Eclectic at 00:02 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Pbarcelog @67 ;
Probably best to look to whatever underlying point your engineer friend is trying to make. Just as hurricane statistics vary considerably over decades, so too does snow cover vary ~ but neither of these measurements do "disprove" the major global warming observed.
It seems he is trying to cherry-pick one or other of whatever observations he can find, which . . . what? . . . show there is no warming and therefore no human-caused effect on climate? If that is his game (to convince himself at some emotional level of "no AGW") . . . then he is simply failing to look at the big picture. He is deceiving himself. And he is also failing to look at the paleo evidence of major climate changes produced by alteration in greenhouse gasses.
Does he have Conspiracy-type doubts that the past 170 years of thermometer measurements are all false, and all the climate scientists are wrong? If the planet is not warming, then why is the sea level continuing to rise?
He may feel that 0.2 Watts or 1.0 Watts is a tiny number . . . but the evidence keeps showing that the world is warming ~ whatever his (rather ill-informed) opinion might be about clouds.
The warming effect of increased CO2 level is only denied by the nuttiest of non-scientists ~ and they have zero evidence to back up their ideas of "no greenhouse effect". The effect of CO2 has been known for roughly a century. Basic physics explains it, and decades of observations confirm it.
(Please note that laboratory experiments cannot re-create the necessary full-depth atmosphere that produces "greenhouse" . . . so I have not bothered to review the "Backscatter Radiation" experiment you touched on ~ but if you feel there is something of great note & importance demonstrated in the experiment, then please discuss it in more detail, and preferably with a direct link to the paper.)
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pbarcelog at 20:24 PM on 9 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Hello everyone, I am trying to confront scepticals but there is people giving me a hard time. One retired engineer is arguing with Rutger's data set of snow coverage for the northern hemisphere, also the article:
The Influence of IR Absorption and Backscatter Radiation from CO2 on Air Temperature during Heating in a Simulated Earth/Atmosphere Experiment Thorstein O. Seim1, Borgar T. Olsenand "Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010" from Nature, because he states that 0.2w/m2 is almost negligible and clouds are order of mangitude more relevant.
Anyone familiar with that data and articles? What is the explantion to a stable snow cover for the last decades? The explanation to Seim's experiment and the relevance of the 0.2w/m2?
Thanks a lot, if you share your arguments with me I will guarantee they are well used in LinkedIn
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:05 PM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
michael sweet,
I hope this helps you understand Doug Cannon's 'perspective'. (I am open to correction of the following by Doug, as long as it is also consistent with what has been presented).
Doug's argument appears to depend on the belief that any (all) electricity for EVs must come from fossil fuel generation (and that would be without carbon capture and storage).
From that perspective, if any EV (or plug-in hybrid) has to be charged with electricity from a system with a mix of generation that includes fossil fuels, then the EV (no other electricity uses), must be tagged with the fossil fuel level of emissions. The reduced intensities of any mixed generation do not apply to EVs - even if all of the EV demand exceeds the amount of fossil fuel generation.
Therefore, from that perspective, if there is a case where an EV is being charged from a grid that only has fossil fuel generation for a minor amount of rapid-start natural gas generation to meet transient peak demand, then all EVs everywhere must been considered to be charged by fossil fuel generation.
In addition to the points already made above, that perspective excludes consideration of the following (such considerations would be seen to be digressions):
- adequate amounts of electricity generation could be achieved without continued or expanded use of fossil fuel generation.
- carbon capture added to existing fossil fuel generation systems would reduce the harm done while the system is run to its natural end of life.
- other electricity uses that are less essential, like non-essential EV use, are responsible for continued fossil fuel generation.
- the shift to EVs in regions that currently do not have any fossil fuel generation will not require 'new fossil fuel generation facilities'. Any required additional generation will be able to be met by new renewable generation.
- already existing EVs being charged in regions with existing fossil fuel generation are not responsible for the continuation of existing fossil fuel generation. The reason/blame for continued fossil fuel generation in already well developed nations, especially over-developed ones, is a lack of responsible leadership action to end the fossil fuel use because the fundamentally flawed considerations of popularity and profitability are allowed to harmfully compromise the actions of leaders (political and business leaders).
Initially I also mistook the problem to be 'how the analysis was being done'. But it is clear that the conceptualization of the issue is the problem. No matter how rigorously a flawed concept is evaluated the result will be flawed.
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michael sweet at 08:18 AM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
You have completely left out the CO2 from the manufacture of the vehicles. Your estimates of carbon emissions by electric vehicles is incorrect. Your calculations are in error. I do not have time to review your incorrect calculations and find more of your errors. It is a waste of time if you leave out major contributions to the problem. The reference at Carbon Brief, and the references that Rob Honeycutt linked at 39 all conclude that driving an EV reduces carbon pollution by a lot.
Your original post at 15 stated:
"It would be good to have an unbiased source determine whether “driving using electricity is cleaner than gasoline even with the current mix in the United States”.
Multiple different posters have shown that multiple unbiased sources conclude that "using electricity is cleaner than gasoline even with the current mix in the United States". It appears that you are completely closed minded to any data that disagrees with your incorrect calculations.
There are a great many proposed renewable energy projects awaiting approval. If they are approved in a reasonable time frame the amount of renewable energy will increase much faster than you project. Since fossil fuels have increased in cost, smart investors will install renewables to make more money. The EIA has always been grossly wrong with their estimations of future renewable installations.
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Doug Cannon at 05:33 AM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Michael Sweet #40
Your reference in Carbon Brief Is an excellent example of what I'm talking about.
The data regarding the hybrid compare closely to mine: 55mpg vs mine of 52mpg
(Go to unitjuggler websitewww.unitjuggler.com/convert-fuelconsumption-from-gperkmgasoline-to-mpg.html?v
and you can convert their 99grams/km equivalent at the tail pipe to 55mpg. I did it the long way using 20.3 lb CO2/gallon and 12,500 miles/year to get 2.2 metric tons CO2 per year. From the Carbon Brief reference it works out to just under 2.0 metric tons CO2 per year from a hybrid's exhaust).
The Carbon Brief data for EV's assigns an average mix of fuels in each geographic area to generate the charging electricity. That gets to the basic proposition I began with:
In the U.S with a constant demand over the next few decades, natural gas pegged at its optimum capacity factor and solar and wind operating at their maximum, as we add more solar and wind we can continue to reduce coal year after year.
But, if we add a demand from EV charging, some of the coal that would otherwise be reduced will have to continue in order to meet that demand. The EV charging demand is directly responsible for that coal useage and that leads to the 4.08 metric tons of CO2 resulting from an EV annually.
If you don't agree with the premise or the logic then you would have no reason to examine references And we'll just drop it
But if you agree you can do your own calculations;
1. eia Electric Power Monthly, Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors) 2012-October 2022www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_1_01
2. eia U.S. Energy Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption:Electric Power Sector, December 14, 2022www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec11_9.pdf
From those two can compute metric tons of CO2/kwhr for coal at .001012
3. eia Annual Energy Outlook 2022. page 15
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2022_ReleasePresentation.pdf
Best case for renewables per eia.Any other references I have merely relate to the digressions that have come up in this thread; not to the basic issue per above..
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MA Rodger at 02:02 AM on 9 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #1
gerontocrat @2,
I have a couple of graphs of the Antarctic SIE anomaly I keep updated (graphs 3a & 3b here, unfortunately not available for 'hot' linking) based on the JAXA daily data. Antarctic SIE year-on-year was pretty static until 2013-16 when it had an icier period, this followed by 2017-20 when it had a meltier period. Then mid-2021, the meltier times returned with the end-2022 and start-2023 suggesting interesting times ahead.
One annual measure I keep tabs on is the number of days when all-time lows for time-of-year. Ranked by number of record days, it looks like this:-
2017 … 107
2022 ….. 78
2016 ….. 65
2019 ….. 59
1986 ….. 20
2018 ….. 11
2002 ….. 11
2023 ....... 7 (to 7th Jan)
2001 ……. 7
