Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 Next
Comments 26051 to 26100:
-
stevecarsonr at 08:21 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
michael sweet (#25)
1. Why Czisch & Ernst (2001)
I tried hard to find papers which looked at huge grids.
The reason for this is even with country-wide grids in Europe there would be multiple days where electricity production would be low, even if the whole grid was tied together with enough transmission capacity to allow one region of the country to power the entire demand of the whole country.
To find other papers with better results I looked at many that cited Czisch & Ernst (2001). This was mainly because Czisch & Ernst didn't quite answer the real question I wanted answered, although they gave indications of the problem.
Relating to your claim/question about wind turbine heights, here is what they say in their paper: "For this study the two of these levels close to 33m and 144m above ground were used to calculate the world-wide wind conditions at 80m hub height. The wind data were converted to power using the characteristics of a wind turbine (WT) with variable speed, 80m hub height 1.5 MW capacity and 66m rotor diameter."
So this indicates they are not quite looking at 90-100m, but they are not considering 50m. In any case, the question is not about the total power possible from a grid, it is about how to get something more like baseload power. How much does the height moving from 80m to 95m affect multiple low wind days? I have not seen anyone address this question.
2. Kempton et al 2010
I was very pleased to have a commenter bring up this paper in the discussion and so cited from it extensively in the comments on the Czich paper. You say "..In Kepton (2010) they rely on wind from a number of locations in Florida.."
Perhaps you are looking at a different paper. The paper I cited in the comments of my article and showed a map is called "Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection" by Willett Kempton, Felipe M. Pimenta, Dana E. Veron, and Brian A. Colle and published by PNAS.
This paper considers a grid from Maine down to the Florida Keys. Basically the entire offshore east coast of the USA. Maybe you want to revise your comment.
3. Budichak (2013)
You ask "..On the other hand, Budichak (2013), a more up to date paper, whch you cite above (why isn't Budichak mentioned at Science of Doom?)"
I did a whole article on Budichak (2013): Renewables XIV – Minimized Cost of 99.9% Renewable Study
Why isn't Budichak mentioned at Science of Doom? Maybe you want to revise this question as well.
Then you say:
"..They also do not connect to other nearby grids which would also make it easier and much cheaper to build out the overall grid. They wanted to demonstrate that renewables could be used, not to find the cheapest possible grid.."
The first part of that statement is an untested claim (and the second part is not really correct). As you can see in the article I wrote on Budichak's paper, I question this. They do not attempt to prove it in the paper.
I did speak to Cory Budichak after writing the paper as I had emailed him and asked for his comment on a number of points including that one. He suggested that larger grids didn't have low wind days due to low correlation and pointed to Kempton et al 2010. But Kempton really demonstrates the opposite.
Actually their problem was a little different, as you can see if you read the paper in detail. The computing resources constrained the optimization. Therefore, the cost of transmission could not be included in the calculation. They already had something like 2 billion scenarios to calculate.
It would be wonderful to see someone redo the calculations for Budichak's scenario including a transmission cost for a larger grid. Does more transmission cost and better wind production reduce overall cost or not?
I have yet to find such a paper, perhaps one has not been done. It isn't trivial. Transmission lines are very expensive and given the data calculated by Kempton et al 2010 it looks like even a much larger grid than the PJM network will still have many consecutive days of very low wind production. And cost a lot more.
If the solution is simple - just build a larger grid and that solves the problem - then this should be easy to demonstrate.
Budichak's paper is worth studying in detail. I recommend it.
-
dazed and confused at 07:30 AM on 2 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
@KR
"I claimed that it would be better to compare buoy vs. ship data if you're trying to validate the NOAA adjustments" - That is, in fact, the basis of Karl et al, comparing those data sets to see how to merge them properly.
Yes, and a good goal.
If this refers to the autocorrelation thing, then I was wrong in the last post when I said you didn't mention it.
When I said that the OP should have compared buoy to ship data instead of buoy to ship+buoy data if the goal was to confirm the NOAA adjustements, no one agreed.
When I discovered that Karl himself did just what I had been asking for, even then no one agreed with me, or at least conceded I had a good point.
From the quote above, it seems you are agreeing with me, that this is the way to confirm adjustements.
Since you don't seem to think any of my arguments have merit, I must be misunderstanding. Could you ellaborate?
-
dazed and confused at 07:00 AM on 2 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
@KR - again thanks.
Regarding correlations, note that ERSSTv4 correlates much better with the buoys than ERSSTv3b, both in trend and in details of the anomalies, as shown in the OP:
The trends correlate better, I'll give you that, and there is obvious stats to back up that claim.
I'm glad we agree that correlation of the "details of the anomalies" (I'd call that the data) is important. Perhaps they do correlate, I never claimed otherwise.
Are you expecting me to rely on eyeballing a graph to determine this? Is that science?
If you want to run your own stats on the correlations, go ahead
I'm so used to scientific papers including stats as a matter of course that I just expect it. When I mentioned the lack of such stats (yes, there's one for the trend, but none for correlation), I was amazed that I got any pushback at all on this.
I shouldn't have to do any work to help the author prove their point. Should I write the program and gather the data also?
------------------
This is only one issue I have. The other is the autocorrelation thing. You didn't mention that.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 06:59 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
keithpickering @31...
That brings up a question I'm trying to answer right now. Currently the stated lifespan of a wind turbine is 20-25 years. But there has to be more to it than that. What are the factors that determine that lifespan? If what you say is correct, and turbines have reached their "sweet spot" then what's to stop them from just refurbishing in place? Surely the tower itself can be constructed to last in excess of 100 years. The composite blades I would expect have a useful lifespan in excess of 25 years (or 100,000 hours). The gear box and generator could easily be overhauled (or upgraded) and run for another 25 years.
-
dazed and confused at 06:46 AM on 2 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
@KR
Thank you for addressing the science. Hopefully you can give me some feedback on this and other items.
This comment pertains to my so called "Karl buoy adjustment"
As per the Karl et al article and supplemental materials, the buoys were given a higher weighting when computing the SST due to their lower noise level, as in the referenced Smith et al 2008 paper (which you state you have read?).
Yes, buoys have a lower noise level. This has been stated many times, and I will definitely concede that point. Is the weighting factor justified? If the purpose of the weighting was to reduce noise (implied, but I'm not sure this was ever stated), I guess it would be justified, and I'm willing to concede that point (but it is an interesting question). However, noise reduction should not affect the trend, since you would expect a normal distribution of noise around the mean (the trend line, in this case), so that more or less noise (a smaller or larger bell curve) should have no large affect on the trend, yet Karl states that it did (it was the third leading cause of trend change in ERSST4). I don't think reducing noise is enough justification to skew the data. While it seems wrong to me, I am not sure how to go about evaluating such a question, which is why I haven't brought it up before. Perhaps you can clarify this for me.
I wasn't so much arguing about the purpose of the buoy adjustement as the mathematical affects of the proposed adjustment on them. But you make a good point. Let me retract anything I said implying motivation and purpose for the adjustement. Let me say it this way: with my proposed adjustment, it would vastly improve any weighting that might be justified, since adjusting the weighting would then have no affect on the trend, only the noise.
What was the weight Huang used (either constant or formula), and how was that weight determined? I could find nothing about that; do you have any idea, or can you point me to somewhere? I'm not saying it's not there, just that I haven't found it yet.
Note that removing a constant bias due to sampling method doesn't in any way force the various trends to be colinear; that would require an offset and (unjustified) scalar changing over time.
In general, you are absolutely correct. Do we agree that getting the trends to be as colinear as possible is the goal of the exercise?
The situation is even more complicated than you desribe. Applying an (unjustified) scalar change over time only works if the two trends are both linear.
In the event actual trends are non-linear, you would need a non-linear function to do it. This, in fact, is true of the case in question, at least because the mix of bucket to ERI measurements is non-linear with respect to time.
But here's what I see as the beauty of what I suggested: the required non-linear function we need is the NMAT ship adjustments calculated by Karl. How do we know? Because, according to Karl, when applied to the raw ship data, it produces a trend that is parallel to the buoy data. It creates 2 parallel lines.
The diff between the 2 parallel lines is obviously a constant (your offset). What does that constant represent? Since one line represents adjusted ship measurments, and the other buoy measumrents, the difference bewteen these two lines must be ship minus buoy, aka the ship-buoy adjustment. So why not use that instead of the .12C?
If, in fact, this wasn't the case, so that the two trend lines weren't parallel, it would mean that even after the NMAT adjustment, the ship and buoy readings were drifting closer or farther apart over time. The use of a contant ship-buoy bias (NOAA used the constant of .12C) would not be justified. However, the lines are parallel, according to Karl.
Let me know what you think.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 06:43 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Keithpickering... California has most certainly used efficiency to reduce per capita electricity consumption. LINK
-
keithpickering at 06:30 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Rob Honeycutt (#27)
You should be aware that a larger wind turbine does not necessarily mean cheaper. Power available to a wind turbine scales with the square of the rotor diameter, but cost of the turbine scales with mass, which in turn scales with the cube of the rotor diameter. There is some improvement by getting big enough to get the turbine out of the surface boundary layer, but that improvement drops off rapidly with height.
The upshot is that there is a "sweet spot" for turbine size that gets you the lowest price per kWh generated. The sweet spot varies by capacity factor. For most locations, that sweet spot is in the 1.5 to 3 MW range. Offshore turbines can be bigger, but that's also reflected in the higher cost of offshore wind power.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 06:18 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
bozzza... Can you reference which comment you're responding to?
-
Tom Curtis at 05:40 AM on 2 January 20162015 SkS Weekly Digest #52
GeoffThomas @3, glad I could help.
The problem with radical ideas in science is, particularly from non-experts, is that they typically are based on the presumption that hundreds of scientists have neglected something very basic and obvious. Nearly always that idea can only be sustained either by getting something basic and obvious wrong, or by completely misunderstanding the standard theory. That is because scientists tend to be quite bright, and are very critical of each others theories so that if something really basic is wrong with a theory, it will be picked up very quickly (often before publication).
I am not sure I agree with the dictum that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" that KR has paraphrased. What counts as an extraordinary claim very much depends on your basic world view, and what theories you currently accept. The dictum is consequently unuseful between people with radically different world views, and too conservative in any event. But certainly radical claims in science need to explain at least as much of the evidence as the standard theory they attempt to replace. Therefore any presentation of radical theories to the public should first detail the standard theory and why it does so well, before going on to show that this new theory has a hope of doing better. If the presenter cannot do that, then almost certainly they do not understand the full range of evidence, and/or the standard theory and can be dismissed. Indeed, even the act of going to the (being generous) relatively misinformed public rather than seeking evaluation be experts by peer reviewed publication is itself suspect. I view it as a vote of noconfidence in their own ideas by the pseudoexperts that take that route.
-
meurig at 04:49 AM on 2 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
Janet Keeping of the Green Party of Alberta offers a useful analysis of the Alberta plan at http://greenpartyofalberta.ca/back-to-the-drawing-board-greens-respond-to-alberta-governments-carbon-plan/
Moderator Response:[AS] I made the link live
-
meurig at 04:39 AM on 2 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
Re Saskatchewan - the figures for 2013 are slightly different from the 2012 figures on the Environment Canada site which you showed, but not a lot different. From the 2013 NIR, the big categories are:
- electricity 21.5% - historically mostly coal, but the current rapid expansion of capacity is mostly gas. Heavy industry accounted for about half of this in 2013, and is projected to continue to rapidly increase its demand.
- transport 19.5% - it's difficult to determin from the NIR how much of this is industry-related and how much personal, but the split on the Environment Canada piechart looks about right
- agriculture 19.2% - mostly N2O and CH4
- fugitive emissions from the oil and gas industry (venting, flaring, leaks) 17.4%. My view is that, owing to the recent massive growth of high-pressure fracking, this figure (which is basically derived from industry estimates) is a considerable underestimate. Saskatchewan only started implementing regulations on venting and flaring last year, and they are less rigorous than in neighbours such as Alberta or North Dakota (let alone Norway).
- process heat in oil/gas extraction and mining 14.7%.
Everything else is a relatively minor proportion - though the lack of a building energy code together with one of the coldest winter climates in the inhabited world means that we are using several times as much energy to heat our buildings as would be the case in say Sweden or Denmark.
The basic problem here is an economy which is heavily dependent on energy-intensive extractive industry - potash, oil, gas, minerals, coal (and much of our strongly input-dependent agriculture could be put in that category too) - and has weak manufacturing and services sectors. Combined, of course, with very weak commitments to conservation, efficiency and renewables.
-
keithpickering at 03:03 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
StBarnabas (#19)
System lifetimes for solar are notoriously hard to pin down, and may vary considerably by both manufacturer and by the skill of the installers. One old but useful reference is Czandernda & Jorgensen (1997), who point out that UV degradation of the cell is only one of several possible failure modes. For real-world data from a utility-scale installation, try Mallineni 2013. YMMV.
Digby (#20)
Point taken, as long as we substitute "non-fossil" for "renewable". I'm not leaving out nuclear, and I hope nobody else does either.
Michael Sweet (#25)
The problem with Mark Z. Jacobson is that he won't tell us how much his all-renewables plan costs in numbers, prefering only adjectives instead. The adjective is invariably "low", a characterization he arrives at by applying the external cost of fossil fuel. That's not necessarily wrong, but it certainly is inadequate. Budischak is more open, telling us that all-renewable will roughly triple the price of electricity. Based on the recent experience in Germany and Denmark, I can certainly believe it.
Meanwhile, the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (which is interested in decarbonization, and not just all-renewable-at-any-price) finds that the median high-renewable pathway is about four times more expensive than the median high-nuclear pathway. Not surprising, when you consider that high-renewables must depend on either storage (very expensive) or transmission (very expensive) to cover the windless nights. Their high nuclear pathway also sees a large increase in renewables from present levels, but keeps it below the curtailment point, and therefore keeps systems costs at a minimum.
So the lowest cost alternative appears to be (1) hydro and geothermal where available; (2) wind & solar up to the curtailment point; and (3) nuclear for the rest. Also bear in mind that as we decarbonize the grid, we will decarbonize currently non-electric fossil use by switching to grid electricity (e.g., cars and space heat). Thus we should expect electricity demand to increase significantly as we decarbonize.
Regarding efficiency, it has never reduced overall energy demand in human history, and recent works by Garrett suggest it never will. Thermodynamics can be a dismal science.
-
bozzza at 02:23 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
You mean, in a good way?
-
Rob Honeycutt at 00:34 AM on 2 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
I was noticing in the Seimen's LCA docs I was reading through that, end-of-life for wind turbines is based on timing of newer technology. Older turbines are taken down, refurbished and sent to new locations, and the existing site will have a newer, larger turbine installed.
That seems to build a whole other factor into the cost of scaling wind power.
-
Paul D at 23:48 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
When considering the economics of the size of a wind turbine I suggest considering the basic equation that determines the energy capture of a blade size:
Power = 0.5 x Swept Area x Air Density x Velocity3
Swept area is the most important factor when it comes to cost.
The bigger the turbine the better, because if you double the blade length the swept area is the square of that length (Pi x r2).With wind turbines economies of scale are also supported by maths/physics.
A game changer though is the field of superconductors. A superconducting wind turbine of say 3MW would probably be half the weight/size of todays turbines. It's a shame American Superconductor ran into problems a few years ago (with dodgy Chinese license agreements), otherwise we may already have a working superconducting wind turbine.
-
michael sweet at 22:52 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Steve Carson,
I looked over your post at Science of Doom and noticed that your primary references are out of date. Czisch & Ernst (2001) was the one you showed the most data from. Did they use hub heights of 90-100 meters, like current wind turbines use, or did they use 50 meters as was the case in 2001? Is this data really applicable to the current state of the art? I doubt it.
In Kepton (2010) they rely on wind from a number of locations in Florida. Nowhere in Florida has good enough wind to be commercial so that data appears to expand their areal coverage without adding any sites where someone who wants to generate electricity would build a wind farm.
On the other hand, Budichak (2013), a more up to date paper, whch you cite above (why isn't Budichak mentioned at Science of Doom?), uses data to show that over a 4 year period they are able to use wind and solar for up to 99% of electricity. While Budichak is more expensive to build out all necessary power, they explicitly state that they do not use hydropower from Canada as a backup because it would be too easy to use renewables for 100% of power in that case. They also do not connect to other nearby grids which would also make it easier and much cheaper to build out the overall grid. They wanted to demonstrate that renewables could be used, not to find the cheapest possible grid. Obviously it is more economic to build the cheapest grid.
Since you neglect to mention Jacobson et al (2014) which is more the state of the art I am not sure what you find objectionable with that analysis. Jacobson and his group have evaluated the entire USA using hourly data, as you have said is necessary, and found that it is cheaper to use 100% renewable power. They use a great deal of Hydrogen in their plan, which I think is risky, but many other opitons are available. For example, excess electricity could be used to make diesel fuel instead of hydrogen.
It seeems to me that a realistic evaluation of renewables should include current research and not rely primarily on references from 2001 and a source that relies on Florida wind for a significant part of its power. 2001 cannot be state of the art and Florida is not economic for wind.
I am disappointed that Science of Doom chose to use outdated references for their analysis. A brief check of the papers that cite Budichak would give many references that are much more up to date.
-
stevecarsonr at 20:23 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Digby (#23),
How to reduce fossil fuel usage - now there is an economic argument.
Putting a price on carbon is endorsed by many economists as simpler and more efficient than other approaches (like cap and trade). But I can't claim to any real understanding of economics despite a lot of effort in that direction on my part - uncertainties seem to overwhelm calculations and falsifiable theories.
My only point is that realistic costs surely help in any assessment, rather than just adding an infinite tax.
How quickly should the world reduce CO2 emissions to zero? No idea. Add that uncertainty to the huge uncertainty that is economics and I think (but can't prove) that you can get any answer you want.
-
Digby Scorgie at 19:21 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Steve
Okay, it looks like I should refine my viewpoint. I admit I was looking at the end goal in the future. Some people say we've got 20 years to reduce fossil-fuel use to near zero; others extend the period, but it's still relatively short. Whatever the period, the taxing of fossil fuel needs to increase steadily so as to effect this result. I don't mean that it should happen overnight. Is that correct?
-
stevecarsonr at 16:50 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
villabolo (#13):
It's true that wind is "more consistently windy" near the coast as a very very general rule (except Oklahoma has the best onshore wind stats), which is why offshore wind would be wonderful if it wasn't for the high cost of offshore installations.
But - important point in understanding wind energy - if you look at a time series over a decade you usually find one period of many days of very low wind.
This is true even if you consider a very large area where the correlation between sites is apparently very low.
In Renewables XII – Windpower as Baseload and SuperGrids I had a look at a paper which investigated a supergrid around Europe/N. Africa. Then in the comments someone highlighted Kempton et al 2010 - a better paper for that subject - and I posted some data from that paper. It looks at the stats from a (hypothetical) offshore wind farm running from Maine to the Florida Keys and even with this "supergrid" the wind power production runs into a bad week over a 4 year period.
This isn't a tragedy for wind. It just indicates that you need to review time-series data rather than just rely on hand-waving, or even aggregated correlation data. The upshot for a working grid - where electricity demand is met rather than blackouts - is that either you need very expensive storage or fossil fuel backup (the latter is currently more realistic).
-
stevecarsonr at 16:37 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Digby (#17),
The article that was written was "The Strong Economics of Wind Power" not "The Necessity of Installing Wind Power and Other Renewables Regardless of the Cost". I think this is what people, including me, have been addressing.
And, as Keith points out, knowing the cost is important anyway. Being ignorant about the cost will lead to more expensive decarbonization.
In #20 you say "But ignore the economics of fossil fuel. In any case the latter should be taxed out of contention."
Do you want to make it infinitely expensive? This will also lead to very bad outcomes. In Budischak et al (2013) you can see the (very high cost) problem of moving to 99.9% renewables. And to move to 100% from 99.9% perhaps the cost will be yet more amazing (in a bad way).
I believe being realistic about cost and technical problems is important. I seem to be in a small minority. This observation is based on anecdotal evidence only, no scientific study, but I observe:
a) article written about how cost of renewable electricity generation is actually less than conventional electricity
b) some people, occasionally me, point out that the cost calculation is problematic
c) other people arrive and say, but - item b) people - that's irrelevant: without making this change it will be the end of days
All unsurprising, but my key point is that prior to item b) the item c) folk don't arrive and say "that's irrelevant - i.e., your article about wind/solar/etc energy being lower cost - without making this change it will be the end of days". Perhaps a research project for some psychology PhDs.
-
Digby Scorgie at 14:59 PM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Keith
What I meant is that instead of comparing renewables with fossil fuel, just introduce the renewable system that is best or cheapest or both for the relevant circumstances. Which system is best will vary from region to region. But ignore the economics of fossil fuel. In any case the latter should be taxed out of contention. Is that better?
-
2015 SkS Weekly Digest #52
GeoffThomas - The more radical the notion, the larger the burden of proof required, it's asymmetric. Because that radical notion has to have sufficient proof to overturn _all_ the evidence proceeding it.
Radical notions require extra evaluation and care before acceptance.
-
Wol at 12:16 PM on 1 January 2016Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target
We should be careful attributing any weather incident or pattern to climate warming, it just plays into the hands of the denial industry.
I accept the evidence on warming, which seems to have legitimate science on its side. But it appears that the effect on weather is not as well understood and forecasts can come back to bite.
-
GeoffThomas at 10:32 AM on 1 January 20162015 SkS Weekly Digest #52
Hi Tom, thankyou for your reply, it did not occur to me that Robitaille would have not checked what is a central pillar in his presentation.
Yes his presentation is not very crisp and succinct, on the other hand it is a pretty radical thing had he been correct.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 09:46 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
Andy,
The OP alludes to what is likely required of Alberta and many other places that 'developed their economies since 1990 in ways that increased their impacts'.
Those places probably need to see a drop from their current developed perceptions of prosperity. In Alberta, that would mean reducing the rate of Oil Sands production to someting like 1 million bbls per day, a rate that does not need the Energy East Pipeline or any other new expediture that has no real future.
Getting people to accept that they do not deserve developed perceptions of prosperity has never been easy. The continued attempts to discredit the developing better understanding of climate science is proof of that.
When President Bush announced that the US was not formally signing onto the Kyoto Protocol he said Americans did not need to change the way they lived. That was a very popular statement with very damaging consequences. Similar statements have been popular in many other regions of the planet. And the government of Alberta is still trying to make them in the current attempt to buy the 'social permission' to sell oil sands as cheaply as it can get away with.
The real problem is socio-political systems based on 'regional popularity and perceptions of prosperity that come from getting away with understood to be unacceptable pursuits of profit'. Competition between such regions leads to attempts to win the most benefit in the least acceptable way that can be gotten away with. The winners of this type of 'competition' continue to effectively delay of the inevitably required and harder to accomplish global changes of attitude and action.
This policy is clearly a step in the right direction, but the willingness of the population of Alberta to support the sprint away from benefiting from fossil fuels that is required of them remains in doubt.
-
Tom Curtis at 08:25 AM on 1 January 2016Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
paulchevin @15, that is correct. However, even there still remains a significant further reduction at the rapid rate over the first few centuries.
Consider the first figure in my comment @14. It appears to show a slug of 2,500 billion tonnes of Carbon, sufficient to raise the atmospheric CO2 by 1170 ppmv. If that did not appear as a single slug, however, but over 150 years, only the retained fraction of 45% of that increase would remain in the atmosphere. That still represents an increase of 530 ppmv, for a total atmospheric concentration of 810 ppmv. That is still significantly more than the ~640 ppmv remaining at the end of the ocean intrusion, for a total increase of 360 ppmv over the preindustrial levels. The ratio of the increase (360/530, or 68%) gives a rough idea of the further reduction from current levels over the next two centuries or so if we ceased all emissions. That ratio is also approximately the ratio between the Transient Climate Response and the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, the transition to which occurs over approximately the same timescale.
For what it is worth, although I first noticed this correlation on this simple level, which is very approximate, since then at least two papers have been published showing the same thing with a combination of carbon cycle and climate modelling. The following graph is from Matthews and Caldiera (2008):
And here is a clearer image:
(See also Matthews and Solomon 2013)
-
chriskoz at 08:18 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
Thanks Andy@4 for that graph which properly shows the context of your OP.
QC & ON have large populations but lower than average per capita emissions and falling recently.
-
Eclectic at 08:05 AM on 1 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
Dazed & con. @ #42 and earlier,
You seem to be very exercised by the notion that ship/buoy data trend lines are not "collinear" (rather than being parallel with a small offset).
Please pause [or hiatus! ] for a moment, and consider why you are perturbed by that discrepancy. And what consequences of importance (if any) derive from such non-collinearity.
In the stone block & pyramid analogy :- you seem to be arguing that one stone block (somewhere high on the western face of the pyramid) has one edge which is not perfectly rectangular. Should the architect send some workmen to chip a few inches off that particular block ?
. . . I can well imagine that Einstein, Schrodinger & Hubble would all say that the pyramid is already "within specification". ;-)
-
Andy Skuce at 07:59 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
Here is the breakdown, by province and territory, of emissions in Canada. From Environment Canada, link in the comment above.
-
Andy Skuce at 07:42 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
OPOF: Quite true, I meant per capita and didn't include the territories.
Chris: Indeed Saskatchewan has high emissions per capita, a bit higher than Alberta's. I haven't looked in detail at SK's emissions, but the province has a big heavy oil industry and relies on coal for electricity. They have a lot of catching up to do, but they have Brad Wall as premier, who is something of a mitigation skeptic. SK's population is about 1.1 million compared to AB's 4.2, so their overall emissions are much lower than Alberta's and they have not been rising as fast.
Here is the breakdown of SK's emissions, 55% from oil, gas & mining plus electricity generation.
-
chriskoz at 07:21 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
You underscore the high 65 tonnes per capita emissions in AB (much higher than national 15 tonnes), blaming its tar sand industries, rich McMansions.
But figure 7 shows that Saskatchewan emissions be even higher (I'm eyeballing 68 tonnes per capita). So, AB with all its tar sands does not seem to be the biggest problem in CAN.
Where do all those incredible emissions in SK come from? Why, in your analysis of CAN mitigation pledge, do you concentrate on AB, the second biggest polluter but ignore SK, the biggest one?
Or am I reading Figure 7 which show record emissions by SK, wrongly?
-
A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
dazed - As per the Karl et al article and supplemental materials, the buoys were given a higher weighting when computing the SST due to their lower noise level, as in the referenced Smith et al 2008 paper (which you state you have read?). Not to counteract differing trend lines, as you posit, but explicitly to emphasize the best data in the merge. The supplemental data is quite clear on that.
Note that removing a constant bias due to sampling method doesn't in any way force the various trends to be colinear; that would require an offset and (unjustified) scalar changing over time.
Regarding correlations, note that ERSSTv4 correlates much better with the buoys than ERSSTv3b, both in trend and in details of the anomalies, as shown in the OP:
So that work has already been done. If you want to run your own stats on the correlations, go ahead - but ERSSTv4 is clearly an improvement.
"I claimed that it would be better to compare buoy vs. ship data if you're trying to validate the NOAA adjustments" - That is, in fact, the basis of Karl et al, comparing those data sets to see how to merge them properly.
---
Again, I'm not seeing any meat in your issues with Karl et al, or for that matter the Hausfather and Cowtans article regarding it. Rather, I'm seeing what I think are several misconceptions best addressed by carefully reading Karl and the earlier Smith papers and supplementals.
-
Rob Painting at 06:00 AM on 1 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
dazed & confused - " 3) I claimed that a better test of fit between 2 time series is a test of correlation, not comparing the trends. Again, I think this is pretty standard stuff. I'm not sure what statistical analysis I would do to convince you."
This is a key issue, you've made this claim repeatedly, but provided no statistical analysis that this approach would be a better estimate of the true temperature anomalies. All these measurement methods have spatial and time-varying biases. The buoy data, for instance, have been demonstrated to have greater precision than the ship data. The buoys have become the dominant source of data in recent times and the ship data have dwindled, so wouldn't we logically expect to see the correlation between these two measurement methods grow worse in time? The trends will diverge. You seem to be claiming they'll remain the same. Hence I'd like to see some analysis that supports your assertions. If all I get is another wordy reply then I can only surmise that you cannot back up your claims with actual number-crunching.
"Threatening me with a mod intervening seems like a strong-arm tactic. Are these the tactics you use to smash anyone who doesn't agree with your point of view?"
See the comments policy - specifically sloganeering. Needless repetition of a meme constitutes sloganeering. Whether a moderator chooses to intervene is another matter, but I suspect your continual failure to back up repetitious claims with actual analysis may draw a moderator's attention.
"I don't even think I've ever claimed anything about the hiatus"
No, but I suspect it was mentioned purely for troll value because the 'pause' is a common myth amongst AGW deniers. Continued sea level rise amply demonstrates how absurd that whole myth is. -
Duaney at 05:57 AM on 1 January 2016Rapid climate changes more deadly than asteroid impacts in Earth’s past – study shows.
What we know from all the comments is that the Earth will have episodes of warming and cooling, all by itself, regardless of mankind. Some of these events will be rapid or slow, depending on the cause. The rapid change's are associated with mass extinctions. There is evidence that man's emmissions are causing a rapid change. But I'm not certain that the Earth isn't warming all by itself regardless of man, or that man's activities causing warming isn't preventing the next ice age. It's all so speculative.
-
paulchevin at 05:08 AM on 1 January 2016Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
Thanks Tom. I appreciate you taking the time to post that.
It appears that David Archer's model is based on a single large addition of CO2 to the atmosphere and it therefore isn't directly comparable to the gradual increase (currently around 2ppm per year) that we're seeing in reality. Much of the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere over the past century or so will surely have already undergone the most rapid phase of ocean absorption.
Thanks again,
Paul
-
dazed and confused at 04:17 AM on 1 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
Suggestion to improve the buoy-ship bias number.
I'm beginning to suspect that you (plural) aren't understanding my arguments, and that's why I'm getting kind of general criticisms rather than specific refutations. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I'm not explaining myself very well, or perhaps it's because it's New Years.
Indulge me, let's try this:
I have a suggestion how to improve the buoy-ship bias. I think we'd agree that would be a good goal if possible. This is in no way a condemnation of what was done with the buoy-ship bias in ERSST4 (I think this was the best thing about the new version, by the way). It's very possible that my suggestion sucks. Could someone on this board explain back to me what I'm getting at, and then comment whether they think this is a good suggestion or not?
In the supplemental materials, Karl explains how he checked the ship adjustments (discussed above). He compared the trends of the buoy only data with the adjusted ship only data. The difference in trends was .002C. This means that the trends were essentially parallel. Of course, this is before the ship-buoy bias is added.
What occurs to me is that the vertical difference between these two trends is probably the best possible calculation of the ship-buoy bias ever done (I'm calling this the Karl ship-buoy bias). To the extent that the trends are parallel, the use of a constant for the ship-buoy bias is justified.
What would be the result of using the Karl ship-buoy bias? It would ensure that the resulting ship and buoy trends would be colinear! When marrying two different time series, it doesn't get sweeter than that.
What would be even better is if the Karl ship-buoy bias = .12C. That would be unlikely for several reasons, the least of which is not that the standard error on the bias is something like .03C (I think, it's not critical to this discussion).
What would be the result of not using the Karl ship-buoy bias, but using the .12C bias? The two trend lines would be separated by a small distance (Karl -.12C, obviously). The old familiar affect from the change of the mix of data would still occur (obviously much smaller than with no ship-buoy adjustment at all). Using the Karl ship-buoy bias would remove this affect entirely.
This explains a phenomenon that puzzled me up until this point, which is how I hit upon this idea. Karl states that when he gives the buoys more weight, this changes the overall trend by ~.01C. Imagine that the ship and buoy data trend lines were colinear. Changing the weight back and forth from ship to buoy should have no effect on the final trend, since both trends are the same.
However, if the trends are offset slightly, then changing the weight would make a small difference.
Up until now, I never understood the rationale behind the weight adjustment. Now I'm thinking that it's possible that it was done to counteract the effect of the slightly offset trend lines. If this is the case, using the Karl ship-buoy adjustment would remove the need for the weight adjustment altogether.
-
dazed and confused at 03:03 AM on 1 January 2016A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
@ Rob Painting
Really?
Look at the claims I made:
1) It took 8 years from the time NOAA was developing and testing the buoy bias until they implemented it. I cited the stuff. What statistics do I need to back up this claim?
2) I claimed that it would be better to compare buoy vs. ship data if you're trying to validate the NOAA adjustments, since this would remove the autocorrelation bias inherent in the method used by Hausfather and Cowtan. It seems to me that anyone familiar with statistics would understand that. Apparently Karl understands; it turns out that's what he did (see my post above). Ask Karl for statistics on this one.
3) I claimed that a better test of fit between 2 time series is a test of correlation, not comparing the trends. Again, I think this is pretty standard stuff. I'm not sure what statistical analysis I would do to convince you. If you're in doubt, I suppose I could hunt down a source.
The only thing I can think of where your point could be valid is the thing about "finer space and time corrections do not seem to be possible with the limited in situ data available." I pointed out what appears to be attempts to do what is claimed to be impossible. Do you expect me to run some analysis to decide this issue? I even mentioned that I could be wrong for several reasons, and I asked for help from the board in understanding this apparent contradiction. Haven't seen anything. Not that anyone owes me anything, but I was hoping.
I have even tried to help by suggesting ways to could defeat my arguments where possible. I don't know what more I can do.
If there is something I've claimed that needs statistical analysis, could you point it out?
Something to consider:
I started looking at this issue because a denier friend (I can call him a denier, he's ok with that) 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 before, and thought it would be a great place to challenge my conclusions. It was not an easy decision, since I knew I'd get plenty of blow back (not complaining, it's your site, I'm the "uninvited" guest).
I wish eclectic would take one of the stones out of his pyramid and put me out of my misery. Surely there must be something in that pyramid that can easily refute what I've been saying. Restore my confidence in the pyramid! Please, show me that I'm wrong. I'll congratulate you. Honest.
Telling me I'm one nobody against the "experts in the peer-reviewed scientific literature", or about the power of the pyramid doesn't help me. Threatening me with a mod intervening seems like a strong-arm tactic. Are these the tactics you use to smash anyone who doesn't agree with your point of view?
I don't even think I've ever claimed anything about the hiatus or AGW, so I'm not even sure that I've said anything that disagrees with your point of view (I am not pretending that I know your mind, of course). My concerns are simply with methodology.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 02:54 AM on 1 January 2016Alberta's new carbon tax
One minor clarification or correction. The claim that Alberta is the 'wealthiest' province needs clarification.
Even when oil prices were higher the GDP of Alberta was lower than Ontario, and only slightly higher than Quebec's (2014) (Stats Can Reported GDP)
Per-Capita the Alberta GDP was the highest among the provinces but the North West Territories actually had the highest per-capita GDP (Wikipedia summary of per-Capita GDP).
And the dramatic drop of oil and natural gas revenue in 2015 will likely drop Alberta in the ranks.
-
StBarnabas at 02:13 AM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
KeithPicketing @16. You state "first, solar and wind generators don't last that long." Your figures for wind are completely credible. When I researched PV whilst installling my 3kWp system in 2008 it was very difficult to get definitive figures on PV lifetimes. I would be very interested in seeing some estimates. I also have an evacuated tube solar thermal hot water system and again lifetime figures would be very interesting. Can you point me to any decent references?
-
keithpickering at 01:01 AM on 1 January 2016The strong economics of wind energy
Digby,
Cost is still important no matter how you slice it. In the first place, we will be able to build more non-fossil energy, faster, using the lowest-cost alternatives. In the second place, energy provides leverage that makes all other economic activities possible. Expensive energy therefore is a drag on the economy.
-
Rob Painting at 23:25 PM on 31 December 2015A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
dazed & confused "If I provide my name and address will you be more convinced?"
No, but if you could provide some statistical analysis to support your claims that would be a nice start. As it stands we have the published scientific literature versus some bloke on the internet unwilling to provide any sort of statistical analysis to support his bold claims. You can appreciate how underwhelming that might look to readers.
Sure you can continue to cast aspersions, until a moderator intervenes at least, but you're really going to have to back up your claims with some number-crunching if you're going to convince anyone that you have a better handle on this than the experts in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
-
dazed and confused at 20:34 PM on 31 December 2015A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
What Karl says
I'm an idiot, and feel free to call me that, at least for a couple of posts.
While I read Karl's paper, I failed to look at the supplemental materials. I was looking for some justification of the buoy weighting, and I couldn't find much in either Karl or Huang. So I looked in the supplemental materials. While looking for that, I found this:
To evaluate the robustness of this correction, trends of the corrected and uncorrected ship data were compared to co-located buoy data [my emph] without the offset added. As the buoy data did not include the offset the buoy data are independent of the ship data[even if it did, it wouldn't matter, since it's simply a constant]. The trend of uncorrected ship minus buoy data was -0.066°C dec-1 over the period 2000-2014, while the trend in corrected ship minus buoy data was -0.002°C dec-1. This close agreement in the trend of the corrected ship data indicates that these time dependent ship adjustments did indeed correct an artifact in ship data impacting the trend over this hiatus period.
www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2015/06/03/science.aaa5632.DC1/Karl-SM.pdf
This is the analysis I was looking for. If you want to validate the correction, you should compare ship to buoy data. This is exactly what I wanted to do with Reynolds' buoy correction (I mentioned this before), but there was only a single number for a decade. What's more, the approach uses the co-location approach (which I believe, but can't prove, is better) rather than the grid system of this article. Good for Karl.
Unfortunately, there are still problems with Karl's work:
1) No confidence intervals.
2) Not easily reproducable. Where is the data and code that calced this? If a stat package was used, at least step by step instructions to reproduce the results would be nice.
3) As discussed before, comparing the trends is a weak test of fitness.
Karl's paper is specifically aimed at dispelling the hiatus. So perhaps he is justified in only being concerned with trends. That's too bad. A golden opportunity was missed. Here's what I mean:
Filtering and adjusting time series data is tricky. Fortunately, in an area like communications, you can put a test signal through, tune your circuit, and look at the signal coming out. You tweak the circuit until you get the best signal possible.
When dealing with historic data, there is no test signal. Usually there is no good way to know if you've "tweaked the circuit" correctly (Ok, there are certainly some statistical tests, but that's not the same). Fact of life. To deal with this effectively, you must be especially rigorous and check everything you can, but there's always doubt. It makes NOAA's job hard. You can see NOAA "tweaking the circuits" from version to version when they use different (more advanced) filters.
In the past, NMAT adjustments only went up to WWII. Now, with ERSST4, the tail end coincides with the buoy era. Validating the NMAT adjustments as Karl did above not only helps confirm the trend during the "hiatus" period, it also helps validate the NMAT adjustments made in the past. In the analogy above, consider the buoy data to be something akin to a test signal.
If NMAT adjustments proved to be valid, that would be fantastic! The adjustments are much bigger before WWII, and having greater confidence in NMAT adjustments would mean greater confidence in the data of that era.
But even more. There is major descrepancy in the ship adjustment between ERSST4 and HADSST3. Showing the NMAT adjustment to be valid would also indicate that it would be the preferred method, compared to the laborious calculations and poor quality data used by HADSST3 for this.
If, on the other hand, the adjustments aren't so good, that means there's a potential for more science to do.
So, why wouldn't you put these adjustments through the most rigorous test possible? If they really work well, you should be able to get a great correlation between buoy and ship data (same comparison as Karl did, but with the additional test). I don't know what software he used, but mathematical packages have correlation calculations built in. Why not run that and see what happens? I'll do it if someone sends me the data.
I have some additional confusion about this topic, but I'll save it for another post.
-
Tom Curtis at 19:30 PM on 31 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
paulchevin @13, a slightly simplifief schematic of the rate of draw down of CO2 over time, with the main processes distinguished, is provided by David Archer:
As you can see, the initial drawdown through 'Ocean Invasion' is very rapid, and occurs over a few hundred years. As it happens, the vast majority of the rise in temperature to the Equilibrium Climate Response occurs on approximately the same time scale. Consequently, if there are no new net emissions, the effects approximately balance.
Despite that rapid initial drawdown, a significant fraction of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for 100s of thousands of years due to the very slow rate of chemical weathering ('Reaction with ignious rocks'). The amount that remains over that period will be somewhere between 10 and 30% depending on which model is most accurate, and (more importantly) the quantity of total emissions. If we restrict total emissions to a trillion tonnes of Carbon, the range is about 8-20% retained, while for
(Figures from Archer et al 2009)
1 trillion tonnes of Carbon is the effective limit to keep global temperatures below 2 C, while 5 trillion tonnes represents a more or less BaU scenario. That is the more important distinction because we cannot control which model will turn out to be most accurate, but we can control our total emissions.
Finally, and as an aside, the 'Reaction with CaCO3' also almost completly restores pH levels so that ocean acidification is a geologically temporary problem - but biologically a very long term problem indeed.
-
paulchevin at 18:19 PM on 31 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
Tom Curtis @6. For some days now I've been puzzling over your comments about natural drawdown of CO2.
I was under the impression (quite possibly incorrectly!) that natural drawdown is a slow process that takes place over thousands of years. If that is true, we would surely expect temperatures to carry on rising for some time after we stop emitting greenhouse gases due to thermal inertia and long term feedbacks. Also, if there is appreciable release of CO2 and methane from the permafrost and clathrate, this would be expected to take greenhouse gas concentrations and hence temperatures higher still.
Are you saying there are mechanisms for natural drawdown which operate on a short enough timescale to counteract this warming "in the pipeline"? If so, what are they and please can you point me to some further reading on the subject?
Thanks.
-
Eclectic at 18:13 PM on 31 December 2015A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
Dazed & con. @ #37 ,
My apologies for not explaining myself to you in a way that is more "water-tight". I was (and still am) rather reluctant to undertake the very lengthy amplification that would be necessary to eliminate all possible misunderstandings / misinterpretations of my comments. A lengthy discourse would derail the thread from its proper topic . . . and yet, I will post a few comments now, because they may indirectly assist the thread to proceed more efficiently. (And I hope they will be of general interest, anyway.)
Because of my (intended!) brevity, I must ask you yourself to meet me halfway ~ and not look for minute exceptions and "legal loopholes" ( where we could spend endless time wrangling about over-fine points . . . wrangling in a manner dear to the heart of Lord Monckton! ) .
~ First: your quote, "What I was trying to say was that I agreed that a contrarian argument would require more proof, but that whether or not (either way), the requirements for presenting the case should be the same, including citations." [unquote]. My reply ~ fair enough, where the opposing cases are roughly equal ( or at least, within a few miles of equality! ). But in the present case, of climate science versus contrarian ideas, the comparison is very much more like Round Earth Hypothesis versus Flat Earth Hypothesis. Here, it is very reasonable for the established/proven science to pass over the requirement for continually repeated citations (etc) . . . while holding the "challengers" to an asymmetrically higher standard. Unequal, but fair. The very-thoroughly-established science should not be expected "to drop a cannon ball off the Tower of Pisa" day after day and every day!
~ On Lord Monckton, and his "intellectual" activity : If you were previously unaware of that gentleman, then my kindly-meant advice is that you avoid the time-waste of reading his expositions (unless you find some entertainment value in observing some of the follies mankind is capable of). I am sure that no lawyer would assess Monckton as failing to meet the legal standard of sanity . . . yet I am less sure that psychologists would be unanimous on whether he meets the intellectual standard of it.
~ (lastly) : re my quote, ". . . a true skeptic cannot be a contrarian. Nowadays, to be a contrarian is to be a denier of evidence . . . "
(and your own quote), "Isn't that what they told Einstein? Or was it Schrodinger, I can't remember. Oh, wait, maybe it was Hubble. If you conclude that you (or what you believe in) are so right that anyone who opposes you can't be . . . [etc] ".
Hmm, Mr Dazed, you were being a bit naughty there (though I appreciate your restraint in not throwing Galileo into the pot, as well! )
No, the cases you mention, from the early or adolescent days of fundamental physics/astronomy . . . are not at all a reasonable comparison to the huge "pyramid" of modern climate science. The appropriate comparison is something like the Round Earth Hypothesis ~ where the overall picture is something proven beyond reasonable doubt : and where the "contrarian" must be a denier of evidence.
Yes, I paint with a broad brush : but the exceptions (if any) are terribly few . . . and probably also afflicted with a form of the Monckton mindset.
(Again: my apologies for my insufficiency of brevity.)
-
uncletimrob at 15:25 PM on 31 December 2015Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
I'm a bit late to this thread but have purchased are read your book Dana. In summary an informative read with lots of background that I was not aware of. My only "criticism" is the US-centric nature of some parts, but I completely understand why that is so.
A couple of times you mentioned the difference between AGW debate and that of the "tobacco wars". I wonder whether the main difference is that now anyone with internet access can start a blog/website/forum on whatever their pet belief/theory/gripe is, get lots of links to other likeminded people and hence get read and quoted.
Back in that day of big tobacco denying the science, this kind of fast communication with no filter was virtually impossible. A lack of filter is something that educators like me battle with constantly when students givs us "stuff" that is frankly wrong, but served up to them in a believable manner.
Just a thought. Thanks again for a very readable and informative book. Tim
-
David Lewis at 15:23 PM on 31 December 2015Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target
Elizabeth Kolbert has a piece in the New Yorker "The Siege of Miami". An exerpt:
"Scientists who study climate change (and the reporters who cover them) often speculate about when the partisan debate on the issue will end. If Florida is a guide, the answer seems to be never. During September’s series of king tides, former Vice-President Al Gore spent a morning sloshing through the flooded streets of Miami Beach with Mayor Levine, a Democrat. I met up with Gore the following day, and he told me that the boots he’d worn had turned out to be too low; the water had poured in over the top.
“When the governor of the state is a full-out climate denier, the irony is just excruciatingly painful,” Gore observed. He said that he thought Florida ought to “join with the Maldives and some of the small island states that are urging the world to adopt stronger restrictions on global-warming pollution.”
Instead, the state is doing the opposite. In October, Florida filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to block new rules aimed at limiting warming by reducing power-plant emissions. (Two dozen states are participating in the lawsuit.)
“The level of disconnect from reality is pretty profound,” Jeff Goodell, a journalist who’s working on a book on the impacts of sea-level rise, told me. “We’re sort of used to that in the climate world. But in Florida there are real consequences. The water is rising right now."
-
Sunspot at 12:44 PM on 31 December 2015Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target
There is so much confusion over what weather phenomenon to "blame" on global warming. So, these types of weather happened before global warming: rain, snow, wind, hurricanes, tornados, droughts, floods, sleet, freezing rain, el ninos, cold winters, warm winters, cold summers, hot summers... All bau on planet Earth! What AGW does is to cause shifts in weather patterns. It makes the probability of more extreme weather higher. With a bias towards higher temperature extremes. So when people say, for instance, "el nino is a natural phenomenon", that is, of course, completely correct! However, we are currently experiencing the strongest el nino in recorded history. Very likely the result of AGW. As is most of the extreme weather that is happening with increasing frequency all over the planet. That's the whole point of the concern over AGW.
-
Rolf Jander at 12:39 PM on 31 December 2015Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target
It is terrible what is happening in England. Ancient bridges washed away. Villagtes flooded. I wonder what is happening to the wildlife. Here in Vancouver, we are are luckily having great weather. But I agree that there is no sense of urgency from the public on global warming. There seems to be more concern about what mitigation will cost them right now than what climate change will cost ( in more ways than money) in the long run.
-
Digby Scorgie at 12:37 PM on 31 December 2015The strong economics of wind energy
There's another way to look at this: To avert a climate catastrophe we just have to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels — whether we like it or not, and regardless of the cost. Arguing about the cost is therefore irrelevant.
Sooner or later, assuming we want to avert the catastrophe, we have to end up with a mix of renewable sources of electricity, some nuclear power, some electric vehicles, and synthetic fuels for other transport. Is that or is that not our ultimate goal?
Prev 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 Next
