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jenna at 07:42 AM on 6 June 2015New research suggests global warming is accelerating
I sincerely hope that SKS will dig deeper into this new paper because it has been getting hammered in the (denial) blogosphere for the last couple of days. We need some serious pushback against that onslaught!
Jen.
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dana1981 at 00:24 AM on 6 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
Tom, thanks. Personally I don't have a big problem with averaging the surface temp data sets for illustrative purposes, although in a scientific paper it's probably better just to show the individual data sets separately.
Note that we've received a draft copy of the Monckton et al. response to our paper, and it's quite poor, even juvenile in places. It will be interesting to see if it goes through a more rigorous peer-review process than their initial submission, and if it survives in a state similar to the draft copy.
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michael sweet at 20:11 PM on 5 June 2015There is no consensus
Truthdetector,
I notice that the American Academy of Science and the Royal Society (and other national academies) refer to the 97% consensus. Why would these prestigious organizations of scientists refer to the consensus if it did not exist? By refering to the consensus, they validate it.
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chriskoz at 13:53 PM on 5 June 2015Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming
It's worth to recall M15 is not the first piece where Monckton's "fantasy".
Fig 3 in M15 show "Observations" until 2050, whereas Fig 2 in this RC post by Barry Bickmore (dated & Aug 2010) show Monckton's Fantasy IPCC "Prediction" of CO2. Two pieces complement each other nicely.
I don't realy need to remind it, but those who may not seen it before, look how M compares scientists and his opponents to Nazis here and here. The guy is simply a lunatic nutter and the best way to deal with such nutter is to simply ignore him. Everyone, even AGW deniers, can agree that tying to bring him from his "fantasy world" back to earth is simply a waste of time.
Unforfunately, Science Bulletin opened their forum for his spin to reach peer reviewd literature. That's is simply fuel for his fire: he won't stop proudly arguing his case, no matter how unreasonable his arguments are shown to be.
Moderator Response:[PS] right over the line. Please respect the comments policy and particularly note "Personally attacking other users gets us no closer to understanding the science. For example, comments containing the words 'religion' and 'conspiracy' tend to get moderated. Comments using labels like 'alarmist' and 'denier' as derogatory terms are usually skating on thin ice."
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Rob Honeycutt at 13:39 PM on 5 June 2015There is no consensus
TruthDetector... If there genuinely is no concensus on AGW then it should be quite easy for someone to read a sampling of research and show that there is a high degree of disagreement in the research.
Why has no one produced such a piece of research yet?
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onlinefun at 13:26 PM on 5 June 2015The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
Is there a tendancy to search for data to fit the hypothesis, esp when becoming accepted in the scientific community is political/social in nature? I am not sure why confirmation bias does not occur in groups.
If the instruments reported increasingly warm oceans, would anyone have looked into it to see if "they were wrong"? Probably not, so chances of finding errors that support cooling dont exist.
Similarly, I also wonder about pulication bias effects on all the studies being done. Who wants to publish a paper that suggests cooling is happening? Few I suppose. Its not cool to publish minority views. Of course, the peer reviews of those papers might be equally influenced.
I read somewhere that about 90% of studies confirm global warming. 90% is good, but not a guarantee, esp. when you are talking about implementing global policies. Do those 10% get much attention? Are they strong in their evidence? Do they just result inclosive or show cooling?
I also am interested in knowing how valid studies are when there is not a double blind experiement with a control. Lab experiements can be valuable, but perhaps unreliable to extrapolate results to a highly complex ecosystem. It's like economics in that you really cant isolate cause and effects.
The hard part of global warming is not environmental science, but rather social science.
Moderator Response:[PS] Completely offtopic. Use the search button to find appropriate place to comment. You can use SKS weekly digest for things that dont fit.
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onlinefun at 13:17 PM on 5 June 2015It hasn't warmed since 1998
Will the current declining in CO2 and pollution help at some point?
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html
Obviously, this is the US only, but we also use more energy than anyone, esp 3rd world countries, so not sure the weight of this trend.
It seems we are doing the right things here according to this chart, and I dont suppose we'd want to encourage the 3rd world to give up their growing economies just because ours is mature and we are rich. Other modern countries are likely to have the same or better trends. So with warming ocurring, population growth slowing, not sure what valuable actions could be implemented (besides more people buying into the "be more responsible" lifestyle).
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link, but this has nothing to do with the topic. Perhaps copy it to here because it will be deleted shortly.
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Tom Curtis at 21:06 PM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
Kevin C @7, I certainly do not have a problem with using HadCRUT4 for (as you put it) cross checking, or (as I put it) replication. I have long disliked theories that depend for their validation on one or more of the available temperature series being false. On the other hand, if you are going to use just one temperature record, it is a mistake IMO to use HadCRUT4 in preference to BEST. And if you are going to use all of them, it is also a mistake to average them first.
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Kevin C at 20:30 PM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
Tom:
HadCRUT4, which is the most commonly used record, is the worst on both of those criteria (ie, it has the least raw data, and employs the worst statistical method). Ergo, as good practise scientists should currently employ either only the BEST record or (as replication is important), all records shown seperately.
While I'm a big fan of Berkeley Earth (the temperature record formerly known as BEST), I think the CRU station data should not be dismissed. While the station count may not appear spectacular, the stations are very carefully chosen and validated. As a result, coverage is dramatically better than GHCNv3 post 2000.
They also make use of (often manual) homogenizations from the national weather services rather than automated methods used elsewhere. That's a very important cross check.
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billthefrog at 19:22 PM on 4 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE
Sorry, got distracted by the men's QFs at Roland Garros.
I should also have added the following...
A typical (if that adjective can even be applied in this context) IBM Supercomputer can run at about 10 MegaWatts, but the UK Met Office model runs at about one quarter that figure. A typical UK nuclear power station might run somewhere in the very low GigaWatt range. The 3-Gorges station can crank out about 22 GW. (Apparently, last year's aggregated output was almost 100 TWhours.)
If we ever get to the state hypothesised in your penultimate sentence - that we may lack the energy supply to run supercomputers - then, by that time, human society will be well and truly fu**ed.
If you are interested in some more info about the Met Office Supercomputer, have a look here or here.
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uncletimrob at 19:18 PM on 4 June 2015Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming
mmmm.... Indicative of the desperation of deniers to match their "science" to actual science?
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Rob Painting at 18:41 PM on 4 June 2015Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming
"For example, instead of testing their prediction against real world data records, they invented their own "observations" up to 2050. While their prediction looks good when compared with the future they made up, they look bad compared with the past that we've already measured"
That's hilarious.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:54 PM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
chrisoz,
Based on other observations of what is going on around the planet it appears to be quite likely that there is a correlation of the publishing of the Monckton document with funding to key individuals in the publishing organization by parties like the ones that fund Willie Soon's making-up of claims.
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chriskoz at 12:10 PM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
The quality of M15, having Monckton as the lead author, is of no surprise: it underpins the utter lack of any scientific credentials of the author.
The only interesting question is: who was the editor/reviewers who allowed such piece appear in peer reviewed literature, rather than in some obscure anti-science blog or proceedings of anti-science organisations like NIPCC, where Monckton is known to have published his previous work.
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Tom Curtis at 08:28 AM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
1) Dana, congratulations on publication of the response.
2) @3, it is certainly inappropriate to average surface temperature records with satellite temperature records to produce a combined record. Not only that, even averaging surface temperature records is dubious. As there is considerable overlap between the stations used for the different records, the effect is to downweight the effect of stations not represented in all records. As HadCRUT4 ignores the Arctic, de facto assuming arctic temperature increase equals the global average, averaging temperature records also downweights arctic temperature trends.
In fact, if you want to use a single record it is difficult to justify using anything other than that record which employs the most raw data, and uses the best statistical approach. At the moment this is the BEST record. HadCRUT4, which is the most commonly used record, is the worst on both of those criteria (ie, it has the least raw data, and employs the worst statistical method). Ergo, as good practise scientists should currently employ either only the BEST record or (as replication is important), all records shown seperately.
3) When I read the abstract of the paper, I thought it one of the most damning critiques of another paper I have ever read. Well worth a read:
"Monckton of Brenchley et al. (Sci Bull 60:122–135, 2015) (hereafter called M15) use a simple energy balance model to estimate climate response. They select parameters for this model based on semantic arguments, leading to different results from those obtained in physics-based studies. M15 did not validate their model against observations, but instead created synthetic test data based on subjective assumptions. We show that M15 systematically underestimate warming: since 1990, most years were warmer than their modelled upper limit. During 2000–2010, RMS error and bias are approximately 150% and 350% larger than for the CMIP5 median, using either the Berkeley Earth or Cowtan and Way surface temperature data. We show that this poor performance can be explained by a logical flaw in the parameter selection and that selected parameters contradict observational estimates. M15 also conclude that climate has a near-instantaneous response to forcing, implying no net energy imbalance for the Earth. This contributes to their low estimates of future warming and is falsified by Argo float measurements that show continued ocean heating and therefore a sustained energy imbalance. M15’s estimates of climate response and future global warming are not consistent with measurements and so cannot be considered credible."
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dana1981 at 05:15 AM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
DrMcoy @1 - Monckton et al. (2015) shows the average of RSS, UAH, NCDC, HadCRUT4, and GISS in its Figure 1. We didn't make this point in our rebuttal, but averaging together the satellite estimates of lower troposphere temperatures (RSS and UAH) with surface temperature measurements (NCDC, HadCRUT4, and GISS) doesn't make sense. Since it's a comparison to model surface temperature projections, UAH and RSS shouldn't have been included. But the misrepresentation of the model projections was far worse, so we focused on that.
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bcglrofindel at 04:15 AM on 4 June 2015Can we trust climate models?
@Tom Dayton,
Thanks, giving it a try on that thread as well.
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Tom Dayton at 04:06 AM on 4 June 2015Can we trust climate models?
bcglrofindel, since you've gotten no reply to your query here, I suggest you ask on the "Unforced Variations" open thread at RealClimate.
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Kuni at 03:31 AM on 4 June 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
The point I am trying to make is that we need to also include other disciplines, than just climate science, when combating those who are conspiring, for whatever motivations, to commit mass murder on a global scale with AGW.
Taker Easterbrook’s lasted BS for example:
Whoever is across from him on the stage at a debate/symposium/conference/whatever needs to use Marketing/Advertising techniques to create a single simple easy to understand by most people sentence sound bite that deals with what Easterbrook did when he used his bogus model output.
The rest of the allotted time should then be used to hammer home the fact that Easterbrook is a sociopathic terrorist, who for whatever dark twisted reason, is conspiring to murder, using the WMD known as AGW, the children and grandchildren of everyone present.
Pointing out the fact that a sociopath is a sociopath is not a personal attack, it is merely a statement of fact.
Pointing out the fact that when it comes to global warming that science has spoken and that there is no debate, there is no discussion, and there is no opinion. There are those who want to commit mass murder on a global scale with global warming, and those who do not want to commit mass murder on a global scale; is not engaging in political activity, it is merely pointing out a simple fact.
Moderator Response:[JH] Inflamatory rhetoric and diatribes against individuals are not welcome on this website.
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Kuni at 03:16 AM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
DrMcCoy
Yesterday, while posting at one of science deniers sites out there, I also notices that the graph at the top of the page did not match up with the actual data they claimed they were using.
The following statement accompanied the graph: But don’t take my word for it. Here, in a single handy graph, are five major global temperature records (UAH, RSS, GISS, NCDC and HadCRUT4) from Climate4you:
It would appear that Climate4you is also in the business of creating bogus temperature data graphs.
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Tom Dayton at 02:36 AM on 4 June 2015There is no consensus
TruthDetector: For detailed, factual rebuttals to all your linked complaints about the consensus, you should actually read the original post at the top of this thread, including all three tabbed panes--Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Then enter the word consensus in the Search field at the top left of the page to find other even more detailed posts that are relevant.
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KR at 02:31 AM on 4 June 2015There is no consensus
TD - Repeating foolishness over and over does not improve its quality.
Quite frankly, I find repetetive attacks on consensus, not to mention specific papers or scientists, to be indicators of their quality and veracity - the number of complaints in the denier blogosphere appear to be directly related to how clearly and effectively they demonstrate the actual science that debunks climate denial.
Which 'TruthDetector' has just demonstrated once again.
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DrMcoy at 02:30 AM on 4 June 2015Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned
I had the pleasure of being at the RSE meeting on Climate Change and Society last week, about which Christopher Monckton wrote a lovely piece - misrepresenting most it and highlighting his own predujices. It lead me into reading a bit more of his published material.
One question - the plots he shows for the observed temperature change look completely different to most which I assume is down to the datasets he chooses to average but can you give some more details? Unfortunately I don't have access to your paper if it's in there. -
PhilippeChantreau at 02:24 AM on 4 June 2015There is no consensus
Truthdetector, the quality of your sources is duly noted, as is that of your argument. Of course, what little substantive content is in these links has long been addressed, in this thread and others. Readers interested in reality will do their own digging and find out the truthiness of it all.
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TruthDetector at 02:03 AM on 4 June 2015There is no consensus
The consensus that was never there
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Consensus-on-climate-change-causes-a-myth-6295631.php
97% never did agree, just a myth, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
http://patriotpost.us/articles/28035
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/08/97-consensus-is-only-76-self-selected.html
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Lionel A at 01:48 AM on 4 June 2015Melting moments: a look under East Antarctica's biggest glacier
I don't know how valid exploring the countors of the section in and around Totten Glacier and Law using GeoMapApp is but the results from using the Distance/Profile and Digitize Longitude, Latitude and Depth may be revealing and indicate the various pathways that are below or near to sea level.
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Tom Curtis at 01:02 AM on 4 June 2015The history of emissions and the Great Acceleration
saileshrao @28, that result has been known in essence since at least the late 1990s. The proof is in the balanceing of the O2/CO2 budget. Essentially, it is known that the total reduction of O2 in the atmosphere is less than the amount predicted from combustion of fossil fuels, allowing for the fact that combustion of the hydrogen in fossil fuels also reduces O2. The shortfall has to be made up by photosynthesis in excess of natural respiration, ie, of an increase in land biomass.
The sources of the excess respiration are not so easy to quantify. Part of it comes from massive reforestation in the mid to high latitudes of the NH as forests partly or completely destroyed in the 19th century regrew over the twentieth century (particularly in the US and Europe). The green revolution accounts for a further part. A further part comes from increased absolute humidity on average leading to increased plant growth. Finally, the greenhouse fertilization effect will account for some more. The first two of these should already be included in the net LUC, leaving the second two as the primary drivers of the land uptake component. Partitioning the relative contribution of the two, however, is likely to be difficult. Further, there may be other small (or even large) effects with which I am not familiar.
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saileshrao at 23:34 PM on 3 June 2015The history of emissions and the Great Acceleration
I'm puzzled by the land carbon accounting since 1750. It appears from Le Quere (2014) that the net carbon loss from anthropogenic land use change since 1750 is almost completely offset by the carbon uptake of land. In other words, the carbon on land has remained unchanged despite the massive changes in vegetation and soil in Asia, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa throughout European colonization and the modern industrial era.
Can someone help me make sense of that assertion? Thanks! -
billthefrog at 21:50 PM on 3 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE
@ denisaf
"I wonder, however, how they take into account the impact of friction"
To the best of my extremely limited knowledge, all GCMs use the Navier-Stkes equations when describing the motion of fluids, such as the oceans and the atmosphere. As I'm sure you know, these are used in the description of viscous flows.
Physical behavioural aspects that cannot be adequately modelled are handled by a process known as parameterisation. (Please note that the term may well be used with a somewhat different meaning from that which you may be familiar with when employed in turbine design.) If you are uncertain of the usage of the term in conjunction with GCMs, you could have a quick look at this page from the World Meteorological Organisation, and scroll down to the section dealing with parameterisation.
"...the models do not take into account the decisions that people will make in the future..."
Not true. Model runs are set up under a variety of future emission scenarios. Skeptical Science already has a Beginner's Guide to Representative Concentration Pathways, and I would suggest you perhaps have a look at that.
cheers Bill F
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billthefrog at 21:11 PM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
"Selective concern. Bird mortality only seems important to most of these people if it's in regard to windmills - and not as an actual concern in it's its own right. This is very similar to climate denier 'concerns' about the poor, which only seem to appear in regards to regulating coal plants, and not in terms of actually helping said poor or third world countries with health, energy, or at the root - any kind of monies."
Those words - from KR's comment #29 - certainly resonate with my own experiences. I've just spent the last 15 minutes searching through the local village magazine archive trying to find the example that I knew was buried in there somewhere.
From the Lustleigh Parish mag, April 2010 (p90) ...
"Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and a wonderful plant food that has often been at higher concentrations than now. It is tragic if we demonise it and spend billions fighting an imaginary problem when there are so many real problems of poverty, pollution, and change of land use that we should address instead."
Unbelievable! The generic semantics of that closing sentence can be rendered thus...
"Why spend time/money on < whatever it is you are ranting about > when there are on-going problems with < enter something that will tug at heart-strings, and gain a sympathetic ear > ?"
As KR rightly states, this is nothing but hollow rhetoric, built on hypocrisy and ideology.
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John Mason at 18:26 PM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
An interesting discussion has kicked off, to which I can add little, except to suggest that anyone visiting North Wales should really take the time to visit the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme. An internet search for Electric Mountain should find it quickly enough. I visited some years ago and was technically very impressed indeed.
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bozzza at 17:12 PM on 3 June 2015Greenland is gaining ice
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william5331 at 16:25 PM on 3 June 2015Greenland is gaining ice
I wonder if a Walker type cell could develop between the ever warming Arctic Ocean and the Greenland Ice sheet. Rising warm air contacts the ice, cools and flows down the ice sheet warming by compression and giving its heat to the ice. Warm foen winds cause extreme melting when in contact with ice.
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chriskoz at 14:42 PM on 3 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #23A
"Burning coal is hot; its warming is far hotter" title is misleading, because taken literaly, the claim that greenhouse effect be hotter than concentrated heat of C burning process is absurd. Of course they mean the total radiative forcing integrated over the time until releasaed CO2 is sequestrered back to earth.
The underlying study gives some puzzling numbers: if FF waste heat is equaled by intergated RF on GHE within ~1/2year, but ultimately RF grows to 100,000 times greater than FF, then it follows that the integrated lifetime of said GHE is 50,000 years. That looks high, considering that most (75%) of CO2 is sequestered within first thousand years, according to the cited study of CO2 lifatime (Joos et al 2013). It look as the "long tail" CO2 residual 10% lasting about 500ky would have given such a number as if GHE lasted 50,000 years. I don't have access to (Joos et al 2013) full text but such number seems high to me.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:30 PM on 3 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE
denisaf,
Please explain what you mean by "the inevitable desline in supply of electricity".
I understand that there will be a decline in the supply of electricity form burning fossil fuels, but that decline needed to have happened long ago and really is not "the supply of electricity". Fossil fuels also do not need to be the fuel for air travel.
In fact everything we use fossil fuels for can be done in less damaging truly sustainable ways. The only barrier to the development of those ways of doing things was the permission granted to the pursuit of profit from the cheaper damaging unsustainable burning of fossil fuels, something that is clearly understood to only benefit a few people for a short period of time in the grand scheme of things.
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denisaf at 13:47 PM on 3 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE
This retired physical research scientist admires Professor Slingo for her balanced comments on a very complex issue and how it should be tackled. I did mathematical modelling of the performance of gas turbine engines decades ago so I have some understanding of the nature of climate modelling. I wonder, however, how they take into account the impact of friction on the motions as it cannot, in my experience, be treated by mathematics so it has to be accounted for by approximations. Professor Slingo discussed how super computers would enable better models and so improve the forecasting. But the models do not take into account the decisions that people will make in the future. The declining supply of many natural resources, including oil, will have an unpredictable impact on those decisions. For example, the inevitable decine in the supply of electricity will have an impact on the use of super computers. The declining supply of jet fuel (from oil) will reduce airline flying for such purposes as conferences.
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Kuni at 13:15 PM on 3 June 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
It is a related point. If facts were the only thing required, there would be no discussion.
When was the last time one of these sociopaths accepted the science? Point out the GRACE data to them that shows that the Antarctic is losing ice mass, they just turn and pretend that the increase in the sea ice, which is nothing compared to the loss of land ice, still magically not only cancels out the much larger loss in land ice but also proves that the ice pack is growing.
There is no hiatus/pause. This is just the same old 1998 BS repackaged.
Over at a denier site they are using the existence of this thread as proof that there is a hiatus.
Moderator Response:[JH] The residents of Deniersville say and do strange things. Generall speaking, it's best to let them stew in their own pseudo-science poppycock.
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Kuni at 10:01 AM on 3 June 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
Who was my comment directed to?
Everyone and anyone who keeps falling for the old Conservative trick of letting them define the language.
Moderator Response:[JH] Per the SkS Comments Policy, "The purpose of the discussion threads is to allow notification and correction of errors in the article, and to permit clarification of related points."
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Tom Curtis at 09:56 AM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Phil @31, from the abstract of the relevant part of the PhD thesis:
"We monitored 55 cats during a 1-year period (Nov. 2010- Oct. 2011) using KittyCam video cameras. Participating cats wore a video camera for 7-10 total days and all outdoor activity was recorded for analysis. We collected an average of 37 hours of footage from each project cat. Results demonstrated that 44% of free-roaming cats hunted wildlife, of which reptiles, mammals, and invertebrates constituted the majority of prey. Successful hunting cats captured an average of 2.1prey items during 7 days of roaming, with Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) being the most common prey species. Most wildlife captures (85%) occurred during the warm season (March - November in the southern USA). Twenty-three percent of cat prey items were returned to households; 49% of items were left at the site of capture, and 28% were consumed. Our results suggest that previous studies of pet cat predation on wildlife using owner surveys significantly underestimated capture rates."
(My emphasis)
So, while each cat was monitored for just seven-10 days, they were not all monitored simultaniously, and overall monitoring occured over a full year (contrary to your claim). That does introduce a substantial potential bias in that successful hunts were far less frequent in the "cool season" (Dec-Feb), and a significant number of the cats who were not successful in hunting may have come from that period.
Loyd only extrapolates her results to Athen's, writing:
"However, if we were to extrapolate our findings (1.6 prey captured/week/ hunting cat) to the entire estimated population of free-roaming cats in Athens, greater than 300,000 wildlife prey (including > 40,000 birds) may be lost to pet cats each year in ACC, Georgia alone."
That extrapolation should be uncontentious. It shows, however, that cat predation in just one small town in Georgia accounts for 30% as many deaths as the total US wind farm industry. On that basis alone it is absurd to think that deaths caused by wind turbines represent a significant proportion of total avian deaths caused by cat predation. Further, the extrapolation by multiplying out the the total population of free roaming cats in the US should be correct within an order of magnitude, again easilly showing greater predation by owned domestic cats than by wind turbines. A simple extrapolation shows 2 billion animal deaths per annum from owned domestic cats, with 262 million bird deaths from domestic cats. Even extrapolating at a 10% rate, that still yields 26.2 million owned domestic cat deaths across the US, compared to the extrapolated 7 million bird deaths per year for the US if 100% of the US's energy were provided by wind turbines.
The extrapolation to 4 billion animal deaths per annum mentioned above includes feral cats (contrary to my mistaken claim, for which I apologize). That is certainly a conservative estimate in that there are about 60 million feral cats across the US, and they rely primarilly on hunting for food (unlike domestic cats) and are consequently likely to hunt more frequently, and more skill fully.
More importantly, given your original contention because "... the UK figures were obtained from a volunteer survey for which the original purpose was to map the small mammal population of the UK using "cat-kill"" "... no special mention was made of reporting non-kills, i.e. cats that had not killed any animals and so vastly inflates the figure of deaths of all animals by domestic cat predation in the UK", it becomes apparent from the PhD research that only 44% of free roaming cats exhibit hunting behaviour; but that only 23% of captured prey were brought home. It follows that overall estimates of cat kills based on owner surveys are likely to underestimate cat predation.
As to your "coup de grace" contention, while cats are likely to preferentially prey on weak animals, it is unlikely that in general "weak" equals so weak as to not be able to feed themselves. And while it is likely that at least some animals killed by cats would have been killed by other predators in the cats absense, that just indicates that cat predation is likely leading to reduce population numbers in other competing predators. That is particularly the case given that the non-feral cat population is not constrained by the carrying capacity of the country.
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Phil at 08:00 AM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Tom @22
One problem with domestic cat predation is that it may simply be a "coup de grace" on an animal that is dying through other causes. Given that small garden birds will produce 20-30 eggs in a lifetime, a stable population will see 18-28 mortalities before breeding age; it is not unfeasible that many of these are primarily down to malnutrition which provides the predator with an "opportunistic" kill.
In UK, there used to be healthy population of Lynx (now extinct) and Wildcat (almost extinct) and so predated species were well adapted to feline predation; obviously domestic cats (along with rats) are more of an issue where they have been introduced to regions that had no such predators, Galapagos, New Zealand (and Australia?) being cases in point. Given these problems, it would seem more realistic to compare avain wind turbine deaths with those for skyscrapers and high voltage electricity lines.
As an aside, I note that the Ph.D you linked to extrapolates a national US figure for predation based on a sample of just 55 animals, in one town in the USA, monitored over a period of a few days at one time of year - it does seem a bit of a stretch!
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scaddenp at 07:24 AM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Given the effect of past rapid climate change on biodiversity (ie mass extinctions), worrying about bird deaths from windmills as an argument against getting off fossil fuel is somewhat eyebrow-raising. Hopefully not a case of "I hate windmills ergo AGW is wrong".
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KR at 06:48 AM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
I find two aspects of the "wind energy avian mortality" meme tiresome.
- Sheer innumeracy. Windows kill more than 103 more birds than windmills, three orders of magnitude, feral cats kill more than that, yet for some reason deniers find the wind numbers meaningful. This is the inverse of the 'trace gas' arguments about CO2, where actual effects are ignored to hype the rhetorical appearance of a number.
- Selective concern. Bird mortality only seems important to most of these people if it's in regard to windmills - and not as an actual concern in it's own right. This is very similar to climate denier 'concerns' about the poor, which only seem to appear in regards to regulating coal plants, and not in terms of actually helping said poor or third world countries with health, energy, or at the root - any kind of monies.
It's just bad rhetoric.
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Daniel Bailey at 06:09 AM on 3 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
I find the "whole wind turbine avian mortality" meme tiresome. Let's review the sources:
Wind turbines kill orders of magnitudes fewer birds than do fossil fuel energy generation sources. Where's the outcry against those?
In reality, cars kill 2,800 birds for every 1 killed by a wind turbine.
And cars kill more pedestrians than windmills kill birds. Is it time to ban cars yet?
The leading causes of Raptor deaths in the Altamont study:
1. Shooting
2. Poison
3. CarsBut climate deniers aren't interested in facts that disagree with their desired outcome.
Nature Link
Erickson et al 2005
LINK
LINK
LINKPer Erickson 2005:
Table 2–Summary of predicted annual avian mortality.
Buildings______________________ 550 million
Power lines____________________ 130 million
Cats*___________________________ 100 million
Automobiles____________________ 80 million
Pesticides_______________________ 67 million
Communications towers_________ 4.5 million
Wind turbines_________________ 28.5 thousand
Airplanes_______________________ 25 thousand*This figure only includes bird deaths from cats claimed as pets by owners and does not include those from feral cats (cf Loss et al 2013)
Bird deaths from solar farms have been estimated to be relatively low, though — a U.S. Fish and Wildlife study earlier this year found only 233 bird deaths at three different solar farms in California over the course of two years.
As for coal, those bird death numbers came from a peer-reviewed study in the journal Renewable Energy. That estimate had a more sweeping methodology, though, with the study’s author including everything from coal mining to production — and bird deaths from climate change that coal emissions produce. Together, that amounted to about five birds per gigawatt-hour of energy produced by coal, almost 8 million per year.
Cat's out of the proverbial bag. Per Loss et al 2013, feral cats kill most of the 87,000 times as many birds (in the US alone) than do all of the wind turbines in the world do, combined. That's 3.7 BILLION bird deaths per year, by cats alone...in the US. Or about 10 MILLION per day, as compared to about 2 per day per wind turbine.
Seems the bird holocaust is getting out of...paw. Meow.
This study from the EPA of Sweden documents siting strategies successful in alleviating most wind turbine bird mortalities:
To Debunk the Anti-Wind Myth of 14,000 Abandoned Wind Turbines in California:
And now dogs are being employed to assist in carcass searches:
A good resource:
Furthermore, the ongoing Exeter University Wind Turbine Bat Research Programme examined the Resilient Energy Great Dunkilns in order to understand the effects of wind turbines on bat populations.
The researchers used trained dogs to check for any dead bats. No dead bats were found and this correlates with Exeter's research on similar sized wind turbines where bat mortality rates have also been found to be low to non-existent.
Lastly, the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants has rejected claims that the frequencies created by wind turbines can have adverse health issues, saying the infrasound generated is often less than a person’s heart-beat.
To sum: About 2 birds and 2 bats per day, per wind turbine.
Versus everything else, which are many orders of magnitude deadlier.
Let's move on to actual, substantive issues.
Moderator Response:[TD] Daniel, I see there is an incomplete myth about wind turbines killing birds. Are you the one writing that? If not, I think you should just past your comment into it with a little cleanup. Please. Pretty please.
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KR at 05:11 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
bozzza - The differences in the Arctic are perhaps 1/4 the ocean thermal mass as global ocean averages, small overall size (the smallest ocean), being almost surrounded by land (which warms faster), more limited liquid interchanges due to bottlenecking than the Antarctic, and very importantly considerable susceptibility to positive albedo feedbacks; as less summer ice is present given current trends, solar energy absorbed by the Arctic ocean goes up very rapidly.
Given the land/ocean balances alone, the northern pole should warm ~10% faster than the southern.
Regarding warm/cold water exchanges, as scaddenp recommended I suggest reading up on global thermohaline circulation.
While these overall effects may not be intuitive, they are very well established.
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KR at 04:57 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
bozzza - Average depth of the Arctic Ocean is ~1000m, while globally oceans average ~3700m, while the Southern Ocean around Antarctica averaging 4000-5000m.
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Kuni at 04:22 AM on 3 June 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
You have fallen for the old Conservative trick of letting them define the language.Stop using the term “hiatus” and start calling it what it is: “The latest attempt by science deniers to cherry pick the last strong el-Nino year while ignoring that 2014 was the hottest year on record.”
Moderator Response:[JH] To whom is your comment directed?
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bozzza at 03:42 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
@ 410, did you say the Arctic Ocean is not deep?
In trying to make sense of the whole shebang in mentally digestable chunks what effect would this have exactly?
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bozzza at 03:31 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
@ 408, yeh just still haven't got my head around this thermohaline cycle yet but even more to the point I feel the basic information of the NH being warmer than the SH should be much more common knowledge than it is if we are to save the world basically... it just confuses me as to why it isn't a high priority piece of information...
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KR at 01:27 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
bozzza - Yes, the NH is warming faster than the SH:
This is wholly unsurprising - land warms (and cools) faster than ocean, and the SH has less land relative to ocean area (warming differential predicted by Svante Arhennius, 1896, p265). This is also partly due to Arctic amplification having an impact (shallow sea with ice surrounded by land) compared to the Antarctic (land ice surrounded by water).
What is your point?
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Kuni at 01:02 AM on 3 June 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
Bozzza
Your question was “why” is the above- the fact that the NH is warmer than the SH- not common knowledge?
I answered as honestly as I can with the knowledge I have.
To answer your revised question would first require validating the claim that the NH is in fact warmer than the SH. That is easier said than done.
Are you talking about total heat energy present north of the equator versus total heat energy south of the equator; and over what time frame. Are you talking about averages, means, or maximums versus minimums? Does all the data exist for the heat in all of the oceans in both hemispheres?
Then determining “why”, if it is true, it is not common knowledge would require an extensive analysis of all the educational systems, all the media channels, and people’s preferences and abilities when it comes finding and retaining said information. And probably a lot of other variables that I am not aware of.
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