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Comments 31251 to 31300:

31251. CBDunkerson at 22:42 PM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       ryland, the Central England Temperature record is about as far from a "pure and unadulterated temperature reading" as you can get. For example, the values for the early decades are essentially guesses based on descriptions of the weather in old letters... if people wrote that it was a hot summer or that a river stayed frozen longer than normal then the estimated 'temperature' value for that year was adjusted up or down accordingly.

       This is not to say that's 'bad'... it's the best data available, but the idea that the CET is in any way 'more accurate' than other temperature records is just not valid.

31252. CBDunkerson at 22:35 PM on 27 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Elmwood, I'm sorry but that just isn't remotely true. The EPA regulations Obama pushed through essentially outlaw new coal power plants in the United States. That's more than just "paying lip service". As are the high fuel efficiency standards he has enacted. Ditto the deals he has made with China and India (the other two big emitters) to get them agreeing to emissions targets after long refusing to do so.

       As to the State Department report, as you note one of their assumptions was that the tar sands would still be extracted just as quickly without the pipeline... history has now already proven that assumption false. The current low oil prices have made the tar sands much less profitable and decreased extraction significantly. If the pipeline were in place, or even in progress, then the long term profitability of the tar sands would be greater and extraction would not have dropped as much. If oil prices stay around their current level and the pipeline remains unapproved for another five years or so it seems likely to me that the bulk of the tar sands will not be used... another significant achievement in GHG reduction.

31253. shoyemore at 21:58 PM on 27 February 2015
       Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
       

       I will probably read this book sometime, but at the moment I am disappointed that it is quite expensive, even on Kindle. Is there a paperback edition on the way?

31254. wili at 21:12 PM on 27 February 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9A
       

       WSJ says that China's coal use decreased last year, and Carbon Brief says total CO2 emissions also went down.

       www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-consumption-and-output-fell-last-year-1424956878

       www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/official-data-confirms-chinese-coal-use-fell-in-2014/

31255. Kit at 21:10 PM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Zeke, many thanks!

31256. michael sweet at 20:54 PM on 27 February 2015
       Animals and plants can adapt
       

       Looking deeper I found this reference which is more reliable and suggests only about 5% of Texas trees were killed by the 2011 drought.  I stand by my point that managing forrests will produce little return in the face of historic drought.

31257. michael sweet at 20:43 PM on 27 February 2015
       Animals and plants can adapt
       

       Protagorias,

       I saw an interesting find where it described that 25% of the trees in Texas over 4" diameter at breast height were killed by the drought they have had.   In California the current drought is the worst in the past 1200 or more years.  Fires alone have killed millions of trees.  Do you think the increase in trees in Central Europe is more or less than the decrease in trees in the American West?  What should we do to manage the forests more responsibly in the face of historic droughts?   

31258. protagorias at 15:50 PM on 27 February 2015
       Animals and plants can adapt
       

       There was an interesting find I saw published in the journal of Nature Communications published September 2014:Central Europe Tree Growth

       
       ...we show that, currently, the dominant tree species Norway spruce and European beech exhibit significantly faster tree growth (+32 to 77%), stand volume growth (+10 to 30%) and standing stock accumulation (+6 to 7%) than in 1960.

        

       That's interesting, a 75% increase in growth rate in beech trees in parts of Europe.

       My personal inclination is simply to work to manage forests responsibly.

31259. wili at 14:07 PM on 27 February 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
       

       Something for the next News Roundup? thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/26/3627490/china-coal-peak/

       Carbon Brief also has an article on this that claims that China's total CO2 emissions also went down about 7%.

31260. scaddenp at 13:37 PM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       I'm curious too. If you only read the station once a day, then I dont see how this helps, unless you get more rain at night/late pm. Morning rain would evaporate in the afternoon.

31261. Zeke Hausfather at 13:18 PM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Hi DAK4,

       As far as I'm aware the reason why morning readings of rain gauges was preferred was to minimize the amount of daytime evaporation.

31262. DAK4Blizzard at 12:43 PM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Following figure 2: "Observation times have shifted from afternoon to morning at most stations since 1960, as part of an effort by the National Weather Service to improve precipitation measurements."
       
       How does taking the observations in the morning improve precipitation measurements? Is there a pattern in the diurnal timing of precipitation in the US? Thanks in advance.

31263. RedBaron at 12:27 PM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       MA Rodger,

       You asked, "So where within this work of Rellatack or this work of Teague is there support for your assertion @225 that the IPCC AR5 Chapter 6 "have the numbers right for the land use change to agriculture, but are missing the land use changes within agriculture as methodologies change."?" 

       Retallack I used to establish a base line and context. So for example, when I speck about methodologies in agriculture that use biomimicry to restore ecosystem services function, it is important to define exactly what that means, and show evidence that indeed at one time ecosystems did function to sequester carbon and cause global cooling. So Retallack provides that evidence, context and helps one to exactly understand which ecosystem functions we are trying to restore, why. and how.

       Teague is the direct answer to the question of changes in agricultural methodology, as several types of land use change within different management types of agriculture were directly measured on a real world working ranch scale. Now that was accomplished by using biomimicry, and the concepts being mimicked are evidenced by Retallack. So they are interconnected in that way although Retallack's research has nothing to do with agriculture directly. There are other methodologies that use biomimicry to accomplish carbon sequestration. I simply used Teague because his research is well documented and pretty robust. Many other carbon farming techniques are still in what we would call development and verification stage. I am deveoloping one myself in fact. But I couldn't use that here as it is unpublished original research. Teague's work is published reviewed and pretty strong evidence.

31264. protagorias at 10:48 AM on 27 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Thank you for clarifying. I wanted to address, as a last point, specifics regarding the degree of confidence in the accuracy of the recorded data by the instrumentation from the Venus missions. Is the data coming back from the cameras on the Venus climate orbiter adequate and accurate?

31265. Zeke Hausfather at 10:11 AM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Hi Kit,

       Iceland is an interesting case. NCDC adjusts the mid-century warming down significantly, while Berkeley does not. As Kevin Cowtan has discussed, homogenization may make mistakes when there are geographically isolated areas with sharp localized climate changes (e.g. parts of the Arctic in recent years, and perhaps in Iceland back in the mid-century). For more see his discussion here: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kdc3/papers/coverage2013/update.140404.pdf

       I don't have the expertise on Iceland's specific record to tell you which one is correct; either way, however, the impact on global temperatures (which is primarly the metric we care about) is fairly negligable. 

31266. Kit at 09:29 AM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Hi Zeke, I really enjoyed reading this, thank you. Look forward to your other two posts.
       
       Temp homogenisations are not only discussed on the mainstream blogs, but also in the backwaters. I'm not able to provide answers to the many questions which 'sceptics' have on this issue, but if you had time you might be able to set at least one of them straight :)
       
       http://euanmearns.com/re-writing-the-climate-history-of-iceland/

31267. denisaf at 09:15 AM on 27 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       The stark reality is that irreversible rapid climate change, ocean acidification, depletion of irreplaceable natural resources and irrevocable aging of the vast infrastructure of industrial civilization is occurring. This is an unsustainable process. These discussions are only about policies that can have only a very limited impact on what is acrually happening.

31268. jgnfld at 09:06 AM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       So, you expect me to believe that temperature adjustments are honest as opposed to a nefarious plot by a global conspiracy involving 97% of the climate scientists in the world all bent on

       1. extracting more grant monies from poor innocent taxpayers,
       2. installing a liberal world government controlled by the UN, and
       3. economic ruin?

       I think not!

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Please make it clear if you are using sarcasm, as Poe's Law is easy to transgress.

31269. Elmwood at 07:30 AM on 27 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Obama has done very little, besides paying lip service, to seriously cut GHG emissions in our country. Comparing him to politicans who are explicitly pro Big Oil does little to change this fact. Even the State Department acknowledged that stopping the KXL would not significantly slow the extraction of oil sands. This article IMO is amounts to a propoganda piece for the Obama administration.

31270. Zeke Hausfather at 07:22 AM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Hi ryland,

       The Central England Temperature record is an amalgation of multiple stations, and is subject to time of observation adjustments, instrument change adjustments, station move adjustments, and others. See this paper by Parker et al for example: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/Parker_etalIJOC1992_dailyCET.pdf

       Mercury thermometers weren't even invented to the early 1700s, so data before that is tough to accurately interpret.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link

31271. Jim Hunt at 06:54 AM on 27 February 2015
       Telegraph wrong again on temperature adjustments
       

       Jubble @7 - You may wish to compare notes with the response we got from The Telegraph. We have been talking to IPSO about this sort of thing for quite some time!

       A Letter to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph
       
       Whats the scientific definition of "egregious inaccuracy"?!

31272. MA Rodger at 06:02 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       RedBaron @239.

       Fine. We are looking at the same sources. So where within this work of Rellatack or this work of Teague is there support for your assertion @225 that the IPCC AR5 Chapter 6 "have the numbers right for the land use change to agriculture, but are missing the land use changes within agriculture as methodologies change."?

31273. RedBaron at 05:19 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Here is the published text that support the conference lecture. That is what is in The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Sorry I got the conference name wrong by swapping it with his published paper.

       http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-124001?journalCode=earth

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] FIxed link

31274. RedBaron at 05:05 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       OK I got the Name of the conference wrong, but here is a link.

       http://bio4climate.org/conferences/conference-2014/program/

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link

31275. ryland at 04:49 AM on 27 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       The author says there is no such thing as a pure and unadulterated temperature reading.  Does this apply to the Central England Temperature record which I understand is a well regarded record of temperatures since the 1600s.  I have a particular and arguably proprietorial, interest in this as I come from Central England and would like to have something to skite about.  

31276. thinstatic at 02:40 AM on 27 February 2015
       CO2 lags temperature
       

       (Moderator, forgive the funky link. Policies/firewalls here break some features of websites - I see a basic comments box, no tabs.)

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] If I'm not mistaken, you can also just type in the html code to embed links. If you know a little html that might be a workaround.

31277. thinstatic at 02:37 AM on 27 February 2015
       CO2 lags temperature
       

       Maybe this isn't the appropriate thread - this article might apply to several arguments, but CO2 lag seemed to fit. Brief on LiveScience on observed greenhouse effect(vs. modeled):http://www.livescience.com/49950-greenhouse-effect-measured-us.html

31278. CBDunkerson at 02:29 AM on 27 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Obama certainly has a mixed record on global warming, but I don't think there is any question that the title of the piece is entirely accurate... with a GOP president Keystone XL would have been approved years ago, there would be no EPA regulations on coal plants, there would have been no funding for renewables research, there would have been no subsidies for solar and wind development, there would be no tightening of automobile MPG requirements, et cetera.

       Sure, you or I could have done the job better ( :] ), but Obama has done more than any president before him on this issue and vastly more than any GOP president would have.

31279. MA Rodger at 02:14 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Correction to #236. That Teague link is here.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Commenters like RedBaron are expected to document the source of their assertions about what others have supposedly stated. It they do not, or cannot, their comments are merely heresay hearsay. 

31280. MA Rodger at 02:11 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       RedBaron @235.

       I assume this paper by Retallack will contain what you're advocating. And (I do hate linking to video - life is too short) this 24 minutes of somebody's life will explainwhat you mean by Teague (& this the Retallack equivalent).

31281. RedBaron at 01:19 AM on 27 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       @MA Rodger,

       I am not sure I am up to the monumental task you just outlined. But what I can say is that Greg Retallack and Richard Teague both spoke at the most recent Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences conference. They appear to be in support of each other completely. Ie the paleo record supports the current observations and they both point to potential near future solutions of AGW. 

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Please document what Greg Retallack and Richard Teague said at the most recent Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences conference. Where and when was this conference held? Who sponsors it? Were you in attendance? 

31282. One Planet Only Forever at 01:06 AM on 27 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Synapsid,

       The portion of XL that was built was indeed to increase the movement of damaging fossil fuels, but it does not need to be extended into Canada where it would further damage things. And Obama had absolutely no influence over that portion beacause it did not cross the US border.

       Obama could do little to stop what the greedy likes of the Tea Party/Republican controlled House wanted. Same goes for coal export.

       The problem is the likes of the Tea Party/Republicans including those who call themselves Democrats but will vote for coal if they are in a region where the damaging activity is a prominent part of the economy.

       A global ban on the ability of greedy pursuers of personal benefit to export any product derived from the oil sands is needed. Many self-interested people will try any way they can get away with to benefit as much as possible, even if they are fully aware of how unsustainable and damaging their pursuits are.

       However, I agree that his apparant support of Arctic Drilling and Ga-Fracking are unacceptable, if he had authority to actually block them, which he probably doesn't.

       The real problem is the American voters who share that attitude in numbers big enough to elect members of the House and Senate in the bizarre shaped Jerrymandered House constituencies created by the likes of the Tea Party Republicans (combined with their deliberate attempts to keep people who would not vote 'with them' from getting to cast a vote).

       What the Americans can do, in addition to stopping any expansion of coal export facilities, is to ban the movement and export of the Petroleum Coke by-product of trying to turn the bitumen into something more readily burnable.

31283. MA Rodger at 20:22 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       RedBaron @233.

       Down this thread since #217, you have been presenting perhaps three separate arguments which may be why the responses haven't been quite hitting the mark for you.

       Perhaps the least controversial (relatively) of your three proposals concerns sequestartion of CO2. There are people (coming from different directions) who advocate using grassland management techniques to improve sequestration of atmospheric CO2. It is usually at the same time also argued that such management of grassland would hughly incerease pastoral livestock production. Further I have seen such argument made in a general sense to cereal production as well.

       These multiple approaches reaching similar conclusions would suggest there is merit in such arguments although the slow of progress made by such arguments suggests also that the benefits are not as straightforward as claimed (or as not so easily demonstrated as claimed).  It also suggests that a discussion here will not easily provide a clear outcome.

       However, it is the second argument that you present that is the main bone of contention within the thread. You are arguing that the rise in atmospheric CO2 results directly from changes in agricultural practice and such changes have caused CO2 emissions that remain unaccounted for by any of the studies of the likes of Houghton.

       Such an argument is strong stuff. Yet in establishing such a hypothesis, I would say that I don't think you have begun even to scratch the surface.

       But there is a third hypothesis that you are proposing. You suggest that it was the spread of grasslands during the Cenozoic that resulted in the fall in atmospheric CO2 levels over that period. Again, this is strong stuff.

       Mixing up all this into one big debate will get us nowehre. Thus I would recommend that these three areas of discussion are addressed separately.

31284. Elmwood at 18:02 PM on 26 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Synapsid is spot on, Obama has done very little to decrease our nations future production of fossil fuels and has laid the ground work for growth. Despite the right-wing mantra, Obama has shown himself at best to be a centrist moderate on environmental issues.

       
       Opening up drilling off the southeast coast should be a shock for people concerned about AGW and his removal of areas from future leasing in the Arctic were mere postage stamps relative to the vastness of the lease sale areas, besides the fact that they were not thought to be prospective to industry. His administration has scheduled lease sales in the Cook Inlet, Beaufort and Chukchi Sea in Alaska, which is ground zero for climate change.

31285. protagorias at 17:38 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       I see, but i think I make a valid point when I say we don't have enough data. We don't have accurate enough measurements regarding the composition of gases on Venus today to warrant speculation about what happened on the planet millions of years ago.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] You've made your point. Please move on to a different topic.

       Excessive repititon is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Any future posts by you on this topic will be summarily deleted.

       Sloganeering is also prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Any future posts by you that lack credible documentation to support your position will be summarily deleted.

31286. RedBaron at 16:56 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       I also have found very limited maths concerning this as well! It is an over looked but in my opinion highly important part of the problem! It's an oversite that in my opinion causes the IPCC analyses to be flawed! There is however some information out there. It just hasn't been rigorously applied to climate science models. At least not to my satisfaction.

       But let's start with historical ecosystems prior to the anthropocene. (the proposed epoch that began when human activities had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystems)

       https://www.zotero.org/jsebastiantello/items/itemKey/Z6B9F3QE 

       "the truly novel event of the Cenozoic was the evolution and expansion of grasslands, with their uniquely coevolved grasses and grazers. Neogene expansion of the climatic and geographic range of grasslands at the expense of woodlands is now revealed by recent studies of paleosols, fossils, and their stable isotopic compositions. Grasslands and their soils can be considered sinks for atmospheric CO2,CH4, and water vapor, and their Cenozoic evolution a contribution to long-term global climatic cooling. Grassland soils are richer in organic matter than are woodland and desert soils of comparable climates, and when eroded, their crumb clods form sediment unusually rich in organic matter. Grasslands also promote export of bicarbonate and nutrient cations to lakes and to the oceans where they stimulate productivity and C burial"

       So according to Retallack, the primary driver that gave us the climate we humans evolved in was the grassland/grazer biome. Admittedly taking geological time to evolve. Grasslands/graziers didn't just pop into existence and immediately take over 1/2 the worlds forests. But the biome is the biome that once established did make a major contribution to our climate. So this is the biome that historically originally pulled down our carbon to pre-industrial levels. Simply removing that biome would tend to cause climate to rebalance at pre-Cenozoic levels. (much warmer and wetter than we are now)

       Now look at agriculture. What is the primary agricultural ground? Yes some of it is cleared forests and alfisols. But they tend to loose their carbon and fertility quite rapidly. The prime agricultural land is regions like the midwest North American plains. Particularly the tall grass prairie. Why? because that's where the deep fertile mollic soils are primarily formed! But those ecosystems are largely extirpated and replaced by artificial agricultural ecosystems. Even in the dryer plains/savanna areas of the world, the grazers are largely extinct or extirpated, causing those grasslands to no longer effectively function as carbon sinks. Replaced once again with agriculture, either dryland crop production or livestock. Often many of those grasslands are burned due to there not being nearly enough animal impact to cycle the vegetation.

       Because of this we get analysis from many sources already mentioned in this thread: "Since 1750, anthropogenic land use change have resulted into about 50 million km2 being used for cropland and pasture, corresponding to about 38% of the total ice-free land area (Foley et al., 2007, 2011)"

       It's not just that 38% is in agriculture. But the prime arable land is almost completely under agriculture. It's not evenly distributed. Mountains and deserts have far less % of the land in agriculture. Agriculture rests primarily right in the middle of the best land, which also is the land responcible for mitigating carbon increases in the atmosphere! So that 38% is right in the same land that potentially would be mitigating our fossil fuel emissions. Quantifying it is hard though. Entire regions and whole trophic levels of the biomes are gone. We are not going to let loose millions and millions of bison in Iowa corn country and let them and the wolves roam freely to measure what carbon would have been sequestered if we hadn't extirpated them. Certainly can't bring back the extinct megafauna of the planet. So hard numbers on that are very difficult to get.

       But what we can and have done is develope models of agriculture with farming methods that function as carbon sinks. They have been measured compared to conventional best management practises currently being used.

       Here is an example: LINK

       and 

       http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/1051-0761(2001)011%5B0343:GMACIG%5D2.0.CO%3B2

       These studies show that best management practises on both rangeland and planted pasture increases CO2 sequestration by 11 tons CO2/ha/yr simply by regenerating ecosystem function. You couldn't of course say all grassland does that, but it shows an INCREASE over conventional by that amount in those locations. Some areas like Iowa probably would be more as the conventional model there is corn fed instead of grass fed. Here is a white paper by the author of the first paper descibing the potential if that model were applied worldwide:

       LINK

       It's not as easy to restore ecosystem function without animal impact. But relatively good results have been achieved by David Brandt on traditional row crops. Documented by USDA NRCS on Brandts demonstration farm. 

       LINK

       Unlikely to reach the historic 8-10% SOC with Brandts system as it doesn't include animals. But he has achieved results as high as 4-5% SOC  sequestered in a decade even in a row crop model. (no til with multi species covers)

       There are systems out there that integrate all three of the above that have achieved the historic 11%!

        

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Shortened links that were breaking page format.

31287. Tom Curtis at 15:38 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       RedBaron @228 and 230:

       1)  The argument that we have degraded the terrestial biosphere's ability to sequester fossil fuels is different from your initial claim that:

       "The hocky stick isn't fossil fuel emissions, it's agricultural degradation of the soils, particularly carbon", and that. Sure emissions also help somewhat, but even without a single fossil fuel drop, degrade the ecosystem services and we get global warming."

       Specifically, your current argument relies on fossil fuels providing the excess CO2, with the implication that has we equally degraded the biosphere, but not emitted the fossil fuels, there would have been a much reduced increase in CO2 emissions.

       2)  Degrading 50% of the terrestial biosphere's ability to sequester CO2 is not the same as degrading the terrestial biosphere's ability to sequester CO2 by 50%.  For them to be the same, we would need to, not degrade, but eliminate 50% of the terrestial biosphere's ability to sequester CO2, that 50% would have to account for half of natural sequestration, and there would have to be no compensating increases in the ability to sequester in the other 50% of the biosphere.  You have not shown any of these conditions to be true.  Indeed, plausibly, the degradation of the ability to sequester scales with the biomass.  That is, plausibly we have degraded the ability of the terrestial biosphere to sequester CO2 by the ratio of cumulative LUC emissions (160 GtC) to total terrestial biosphere Carbon (2500 GtC), or by 6.4%.

       3)  Whatever the degradation of the ability to sequester is, the fact is that the terrestial biosphere has sequestered 130 GtC, and that over the last few decades, total biosphere sequestration has exceded total emissions from LUC as shown by the O2 data (see my post @223).  Ergo the increase in the ability of the terrestial biosphere to sequester CO2 due to the increase in temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration exceeds the degradation of the ability to sequester consequent on LUC.

31288. Tom Curtis at 15:19 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       scaddenp @111, it is more than (or should that be worse than) ridiculous.  Logically, the instruments used to obtain empirical emissions data from Venus were not experimentally tested on Venus.  Therefore it is possible that Venusian conditions result in a change in physical laws such that the data is misinterpreted if we use the theory based on experiments on Earth to interpret the data.  If, therefore, we apply protagorias' restrictions on the use of theory, we can not use any data from Venus we have obtained.

       If, on the other hand, we assume that physical laws tested in experiments on Earth, that work well in Earth's atmosphere and appear to work well in Venus (and Mars') atmosphere also work on Venus, then we obtain the results protagorias excoriates as too theoretical.  His objection, therefore amounts to no more than pseudo-philosophical cant,  which disguises that fact by not applying it explicitly to any particular observations or theories (where such application would show immediately he is resorting to unjustified obscurantism).

       Given his chosen internet name, this should not surprise us.  He has chosen the name of a philosopher who argued that theoretical maths (specifically, Euclidean geometry) was not applicable in the real world, and excessively theoretical; and that truth was relative.  (Note, Protagoras lived before Euclid, so the geometry he objected too had not yet been axiomatized, but was Euclidean in the sense that it treated parallel lines as never meeting.)  Given that his namesake would not even accept that a line could be tangent to a curve, why would we expect him  to accept the maths behind the Kombayashi-Ingersol limit?  Or consider it worth discussing with him, as he wants to imunize his views from debate by avoiding specifics.

31289. scaddenp at 14:19 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Okay, RedBaron, it looks like we are in more agreement. What is the basis for your statement "we have degraded the terrestrial biosphere's capability to sequester carbon by roughly ~50%+/- by degrading the terrestrail ecosystems world wide." I havent seen data published on this (which is not to say that it doesnt exist). I admit to being skeptical because some sequestration mechanism are sensitive to CO2 concentration so the maths doesnt fit.

31290. RedBaron at 13:56 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       @Scaddenp: You said, "But what Houghton does is add up all those changes. That is where the numbers come from. Your original post was "Sure emissions also help somewhat," whereas the evidence from all those sources with all the maths, calculated by multiple methods, would suggest that the phrase should be "Sure human agriculture also help somewhat" - to the tune about 8% what FF does..." Actually I have seen figures around 10% but either way 8-10% is close enough. That's emissions. The ecosystem service of carbon sequestration is on the opposite side of the carbon cycle. So we have emissions of 8-10% but what is missing from your analysis is that we have degraded the terrestrial biosphere's capability to sequester carbon by roughly ~50%+/- by degrading the terrestrail ecosystems world wide. Even in their highly degraded state, the ecosystems manage to sequester about ~ 50% of all emissions. Restoring the ecosystems to full function with regard to carbon sequestration should potentially be able to eliminate the other 1/2. Restore them to higher functionality than wilderness ecosystems should actually potentially begin drawdown.

31291. scaddenp at 13:20 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       But what Houghton does is add up all those changes. That is where the numbers come from. Your original post was "Sure emissions also help somewhat," whereas the evidence from all those sources with all the maths, calculated by multiple methods, would suggest that the phrase should be "Sure human agriculture also help somewhat" - to the tune about 8% what FF does. There is strong evidence to support a number around that magnitude and so far you havent cited a source which would suggest otherwise.

31292. RedBaron at 12:58 PM on 26 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Think about it Tom. You said, "Houghton et al (2012) looked at the primary literature and found that while in some cases the flux is positive, increasing atmospheric CO2, in others it is negative and that the net global effect is close to zero." And the IPCC report that I quoted said, "Since 1750, anthropogenic land use change have resulted into about 50 million km2 being used for cropland and pasture, corresponding to about 38% of the total ice-free land area (Foley et al., 2007, 2011)" Meanwhile about 1/2 fossil fuel emissions are being sequestered (although not all of that is in terrestrial sinks)

       Add up what all those independant sources mean. It means just what I said in my first post here. Agriculture has broken the natural buffering capability (ecosystem service of sequesting carbon and moderating climate) of the terrestrial biosphere roughly by about 1/2 +/- and the current biosphere is falling short of sequestering CO2 from fossil fuel emissions roughly by about 1/2. There is your primary problem confirmed in yet another way.

       The reason this is important IMHO is that it points to many potential mitigation solutions that are biology based. Agricultural land is already intensively managed. It doesn't take huge budgets of new research and development that the energy technology fixes require to simply change the management. It's simply an educational solution. Farmers only need educated in the already developed management techniques that restore the ecosystem services to the land they manage. Very small costs, and big returns in both carbon sequestration and actually instead of costing society huge sums, turns out to be a net profit!

31293. scaddenp at 12:45 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       This is rediculous. We have an absolutely mass of data on Venus. Where is there any sign of an observation that disagrees with known physics? By your definition, geology and maybe biology are not sciences because we cant rerun a planet. As a reminder, the core of science is about testing of ideas, usually expressed as models, against what is possible to be observed. Experiments are a way to generate observations but no mean the only way. Sending a probe to the surface of Venus and measuring all the way down is another perfectly valid one.

       The idea for instance that the Radiative Transfer Equations (which is how you calculate the GHE for Venus) are derived from "a single point that may be transient in nature" is absurd.

31294. protagorias at 12:45 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Tom Dayton, thank you for pointing that out. Begrudgingly I have to admit that I stand corrected. We are, I think, a civilization going through a modern and enlightening period in history.

31295. Tom Dayton at 12:22 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       protagorias, your definition of "science" requiring experimentation on a whole-planet scale is incorrect.  Indeed, "science" in general does not require experimentation.  Unfortunately, your definition of "science" is what typically is taught in grade school.

31296. DSL at 12:21 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Protagorias, perhaps you could provide a specific example of where you think this terrible error in judgment has occurred.

31297. protagorias at 12:07 PM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       tom curtis @106,

       On the contrary I think my points are inherently self-evident to anyone who knows how to conduct a scientific experiment and properly interpret data. Quite frankly it's sheer folly and arrogance to take any particular data point, which may be transient in nature, and lacking any ability to test for such transience, ascribe undue meaning to it. I have no interest in playing games of whose creative interpretation of incomplete data is better.

31298. Tom Curtis at 11:52 AM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       protagorias @105, your comments are so lacking in specifics as to be void of content.  Where they rise to any level of specificity, they amount merely to an ad hominen, accusing people of basing their theory on a "philosophical point of view" rather than science, again without specifics so as to avoid detailed refutation.  In all, your post is a classic example of sloganeering, which is banned by the comments policy.  Ergo, it is not worthy of further comment.

31299. protagorias at 11:33 AM on 26 February 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       What's interesting in reading through the comments section here about possible greenhouse warming in Venus' history is the degree to which several factors can contribute to what I think is really an unhelpful paradigm.

       You have first of all a lack of experimental rigor. Data we can measure is incomplete, and we have no current ability to conduct on a planetary scale, any sort of experiment which could yield telling conclusions.

       Secondly, to incomplete data, you have an excess of theoretical mathematics. Interpretation of current data, divorced from adequate experiemental results, VERY quickly becomes a creative endeavor. It's extrmely easy to twist aspects of the data to fit a predetermined philosophical stance.

       Thirdly, you have an issue when you bring in a philosophical stance to an issue that should ideally be bereft of one. For example, anyone who uses the term "denier"  is really bringing in an unethical a priori point of view to something that should be science based.

       Lastly, my overarching point is that we have a lack of ability to carry out valid experiment, and that we shouldn't be overly eager to marry a particular philosophical point of view with inadequate data.

31300. Synapsid at 10:40 AM on 26 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       John,

       President Obama vetoed a House bill that would have circumvented the established process for evaluating the KXL application.  He did not veto KXL.  He could still approve it; I don't know how likely that is.  One suggestion I've seen is that he could use it as a negotiating piece with Canada.

       The President did stand in a pipe yard to announce that he had instructed his administration to do everything it could to fast-track the southern end of KXL, and that portion of the pipeline went into operation in January 2014.  The President had called it "vital to the American economy."  Its capacity is 600 000 barrels of oil a day, if memory serves.  (The admistration had no authority over the southern end of the pipeline anyway; it crosses no international border.)

       Under the current administration exports of US coal, much of it from Federal lands, have increased 50%.

       120 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico have been offered for leasing for oil and natural gas (NG) exploration and development.

       The East Coast, which has been shut to oil and NG drilling for decades, has been opened.

       31 000 drilling permits on Federal lands have been approved, including more permits in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011--one year after the Macondo blowout--than since 2007 under President Bush.

       There's more, of course.  The point is that President Obama has been acting realistically--as much as an elected politician can--about energy.  The ongoing emphasis on KXL has served to divert attention and energy from the ongoing increase in the export of crude oil from Canada (much of it from the oil sands).  Where is the value in that?  Last year more Canadian crude was brought into the US than in the year previous, and the story is the same for the year before that and for the year before that--without the northern part of the KXL.  Crude that doesn't move by pipeline moves by rail, as we see in the news, and I don't see that as a plus.

       Here's a thought:  The bitumen from Canada's oil sands won't flow through a pipeline--it's too viscous.  It has to be diluted with lighter oils including condensate, and Canada imports that stuff from...the US.  If you want to slow the development of the oil sands then work to prevent export of US light oils to Canada.  Stopping or delaying KXL won't do it.

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