Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 Next
Comments 33801 to 33850:
-
Tom Curtis at 12:20 PM on 10 October 2014The Wall Street Journal downplays global warming risks once again
Hank, your correspondent seems to be taking the view of the greenhouse effect I discussed @9 above, rather than Coonin's actual view. As such, the relevant figures are:
Total greenhouse effect c.1980: 150 W/m^2
CO2 contribution: 20% (30 W/m^2)
(Figures from Schmidt et al 2010)
CO2 concentration c 1980: 340 ppmv
Projected CO2 concentration for mid century with BAU (RCP 8.5): 550 ppmv
Relative forcing: 2.55 W/m^2
Change in CO2 forcing: 8.5%
Assuming that CO2 is responsible for 25% of the total greenhouse effect reduces that to 6.8%. Assuming the forcing change is from 2013 reduces it to 5.6%, or 4.5% assuming the 25% figure.
The only way to reduce it to the 1% figure is calculate it as a percentage of the total greenhouse effect, ignoring the anthropogenic increase over the last 33 years, and ignoring the increase in the total greenhouse effect from water vapour related feedbacks. That is, it requires first fudging the figures, and then making an apples to oranges comparison.
The scenario as described, by the way, deliberately excludes all other well mixed greenhouse gases from the equation; and is chosen to ignore the fact that we are not in temperature equilibrium, and that consequently temperature changes from past forcings (including prior to 1980) are still "in the pipeline".
-
wili at 10:13 AM on 10 October 2014The long hot tail of global warming - new thinking on the Eocene greenhouse climate
Doh! Of course you're right, Wheels. I missed the metaphor. But they do use that throughout, now that I look again.
-
Hank11198 at 08:21 AM on 10 October 2014The Wall Street Journal downplays global warming risks once again
First time post. Hope someone sees this and it not too late.
As an engineer I'm able to follow a lot of the math but not the details. Living in east texas I’m among a lot of deniers. Even other engineers who I would think would understand some basic science. Anyway a friend of mine often sends me articles that criticize climate change science and I try to respond but often don’t understand the details as I said. When I responded to his email he sent me regarding Noonin’s article using one of the comments here, he sent me the following reply.
He is dead on accurate Hank. Koonin said the HUMAN additions to atmospheric CO2 are expected to shift the greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%. That is perfectly in agreement with the fact that the totality of CO2 in the atmosphere contributes 25% of the total greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. What he's saying is that the 25% is going to increase to be 26% to 27% by the middle of this century.
Your science sources are blooming idiots.”
I was hoping someone could help me with a reply because I don’t understand what that reply is talking about.
-
foolonthehill at 06:12 AM on 10 October 2014GWPF funder Lord Leach – relying on unreliable sources of global warming information
I quite like the image but they're not actually seals...
www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/03/walrus-alaska-beach-climate-change-arctic-ice
-
WheelsOC at 05:32 AM on 10 October 2014The long hot tail of global warming - new thinking on the Eocene greenhouse climate
Pretty sure "beat" is the right word, referring to the rhythmic recurrence of the warming even though the suspected sources for it had dried up. Hence the term "heartbeat" after the block quote.
-
wili at 04:39 AM on 10 October 2014The long hot tail of global warming - new thinking on the Eocene greenhouse climate
In the second sentence after "New Thinking": " But Turner et al refute this, showing that the Hyperthermal beat continued long after reserves of methane hydrates and permafrost must have been emptied..."
"beat" should, presumably, be "heat." -
dklyer at 04:19 AM on 10 October 2014It's cooling
Simpleton here with a dumb question. This has probably been answered multiple times but I'm not finding any reference in the main posts. There are 6 long pages of comments that I haven’t read through.
Much has been made of the hiatus in warming. It seems like it is (at present) small compared to the cooling in the 40’s to 70’s. This seems apparent from your graph on the PDO post. I read that the cooling seen from the 40’s to the 70’s was due to aerosols from industrial pollution and volcanism (see New Scientist) and that the temperature began ramping up after clean air legislation in England and Europe followed by similar legislation in the US.
Is there any new data on aerosols from Asia and India and how those may be affecting global average temperatures? Is the aerosol affect still thought to be the main culprit in the post WWII dip? Didn’t I also read that the aerosols were thought to be a factor in shifting rainfall patterns that created multi-year drought conditions in North Africa? Are people looking at how aerosol pollution from Asia may be affecting the drought in the American Southwest?
-
jja at 03:20 AM on 10 October 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #41A
The IPCC AR5 report is written as an update to the 2007 AR4. The information used to update the previous report was gathered between 2005 and 2009. Then that information was collected, analyzed and a peer review paper was submitted. The newest paper utilized in the AR5 was published in 2010.
Since 2010 we have learned that the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is losing mass at twice the rate published in the AR5. We have also learned that the topography of the WAIS valleys will allow a steady increase in melt rates leading to eventual, unavoidable, collapse (Rignoit et. al). We have also found that the arctic sea ice is set to be ice free in September sometime closer to 2030, not "as early as September 2050". This means that by 2050 the arctic will be largely ice free in June, during the summer solstice when the arctic receives a higher daily solar insolation than occurs at the equator. This will produce significantly higher temperatures and regional melting of arctic permafrost and the Greenland ice sheet than is currently projected by the AR5.
Additionally, the AR5, while showing permafrost area decomposition in the graph of this article, it does not include permafrost emissions as a contributor to global warming. The closest that the AR5 comes to including these is by showing a graph that indicates carbon feedbacks will reduce the amount of future emissions that are captured by the earth and sea (taken from the atmosphere) by 6%-29%. This means that an additional 160 Billion tons of CO2 will be effectively rejected by the earth and sent into the atmosphere by 2100. (IPCC AR5 WGI Fig. 6.27)
If the emissions from thawing permafrost were included, especially with the new understanding of arctic feedbacks (ice loss) and the rapid rise of arctic temperature that it will bring was then applied to the thawing of permafrost in the arctic we would find that the arctic permafrost, on its own, has a very high likelihood of emitting between 200 and 600 billion tons of carbon (not CO2) into the atmosphere between now and 2100. This is enough to raise the global atmospheric CO2 burden by between 90 and 270 ppm, on its own.
Finally, Lawrence Livermore Lab just released its study of the southern hemisphere oceans and found that the current warming rates are underestimated, by a vast amount. This means that global current warming rates have been underestimated by 9.4% to 30.3%, with the vast majority of that heat going into the oceans.
This means that our current understanding of the basic heating effect of CO2 in our atmosphere has been underestimated, significantly. This makes worst-case projections much more likely.
In summary, this current CO2 abundance of 402 ppmv in our atmosphere will likely lead to 4C of warming by 2100, even if all emissions were halted today. We have no more time to waste in our efforts to repair our broken biosphere.
-
bill4344 at 21:56 PM on 9 October 2014GWPF funder Lord Leach – relying on unreliable sources of global warming information
Though the mental image is great, you may want to modify 'actual seal level experts'
-
Firgoose at 13:33 PM on 9 October 2014GWPF funder Lord Leach – relying on unreliable sources of global warming information
@Alexandre: Why allow that these people may have made a mistake when blatant lying fits their consistent behaviour far more accurately?
-
Joel_Huberman at 08:41 AM on 9 October 2014Bart Verheggen Interview: Scientists’ Views About Attribution Of Global Warming
Very nice article. But, just like the preceding three words, "Despite the overwhelming evidence in the scientific literature showing that we’re causing global warming" is not a sentence. I hope that the author will correct this problem in both his original post and in the Skeptical Science re-post. Correction should be simple--replace the preceding period (stop) with a comma, and change "Despite" to "despite".
-
mancan18 at 08:21 AM on 9 October 2014Bart Verheggen Interview: Scientists’ Views About Attribution Of Global Warming
Sadly, the balance of 97% agreement by climate scientists re Anthropogenic Global Warming and Climate Change versus the only 55% of agreement by the public relects the reality of getting a message across using modern media. Having publicists, media advisors and proper marketing is just as important as having climate scientists agreeing. While Internet sites like Skeptical Science and Real Science deliver a pro-AGW/CC perspective, and the related Internet forums do allow those who understand the issue to discuss it and provide information to interested lay people, the vast majority of people still get their information from traditional mainsteam media outlets like newspapers, TV and radio. Because of the recent decline in investigative journalism due to the economic realities of running traditional media outlets today, there has been an increase in spin by the competing political entities who provide copy to fewer and fewer journalists. It is this spin that is being reported mostly, not proper investigative journalism. This means that the reporting of this issue has been biased by the the effectiveness of the media and marketing advisors on the each side of the debate, a debate that the contrarian side is winning due to the powerful vested interest backing it and because they can afford the media and marketing advisors to properly promote it. This may be one of the reasons for the consensus imbalance between the science and the public.
A study of traditional media with the respective market shares of each outlet and how it reflects the scientific consensus should be quite informative. Quite simply, Climate Change is not currently winning the marketing war. It's a sad reality that having a 97% consensus among Climate Scientists is not simply enough to turn around public opinion. To do that will require simplifying the CC message with the science presented to the public in terms that can be more easily understood; using professional media advisors providing appropriate copy to journalists; and marketing advisors providing a proper marketing strategy of to convey the science. Scientific discussions between climate scientists and just expecting journalists to properly convey the balance of those discussions will not translate the balance of the scientific consensus into a similar media consensus and hence a similar public consensus.
-
Paul D at 04:27 AM on 9 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
tcflood@66 AFAIK the only limitation regarding storage time is 'leakage' of heat from the hot store and gain of heat from the surroundings in the cold store and that is down to how good the insulation is insulation. The storage medium is gravel and the gas used is Argon.
This video might help:
http://youtu.be/sIxt6nMf-IQ
-
Alexandre at 01:00 AM on 9 October 2014GWPF funder Lord Leach – relying on unreliable sources of global warming information
Lindzen also claims that high climate sensitivity comes from models, whereas low ones come from observations. Odd that an active climate researcher could make such a mistake. Didn't he bother to read the papers from his colleagues, perhaps?
-
JARWillis at 23:02 PM on 8 October 2014Bart Verheggen Interview: Scientists’ Views About Attribution Of Global Warming
Any sensible person who really believes that 55% (never mind the actual 97%) of experts are telling us that we must cut carbon emissions to avoid the risk of catastrophe would surely want to play safe. 'Prepare for the worst while you hope for the best' and that sort of old fashioned wisdom. The problem seems to be that people are not behaving sensibly over this arguably most urgent of all issues. Too big to comprehend, perhaps.
-
Zeboo at 19:47 PM on 8 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Some reflections: 1) Finland is highly technical developed and stable democratic society with a long history of running nuclear plants. If they can not build one nuclear plant on time and within budget, who will do it? Both investors and governments are likely to divert their money to other areas. 2) Are there any life cycle assesment of real (carbon) costs of nuclear energy, which includes mining, building (a lot of concrete) and long term waste disposal? A new study seems to be very favorable for renewables 3) The discussion here focus very much on production side of energy. As much as there is a need to vary energy production, what are technologies for smart changes in demand? If the wind is low during a day, how much can a combination of smart utilities and smart grid adsorb the need to lower demand? I think more out of the box thinking is needed.
-
Michaelf at 14:58 PM on 8 October 2014Tackling global warming will improve health, save lives, and save money
Ingvar, your post shows absolute ignorance of the actual consequences of global warming and the associated climate changes. More likely though you are deliberately misleading, and yes I agree that should be a criminal offence. In summary, the issue is not a slight change in temperature in one area but the effects of an increase in global temperature on the climate, sea levels, ocean warming and acidification. Your understanding, if true, indicates zero knowledge of the science, the real world and lacks common sense.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 14:11 PM on 8 October 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Skinny_Pete...
And here is your experiment performed (for all intents and purposes).
-
Rob Honeycutt at 13:55 PM on 8 October 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Skinny_Pete...
1) You should read all 3 levels of the article you're commenting on first.
2) You should understand the difference between a greenhouse and the greenhouse effect.
3) You should read the comments policy for SkS before you make another comment.
Now, to answer your question. Yes. Greenhouse 1 will get hotter than greenhouse 2.
-
Skinny_Pete at 13:00 PM on 8 October 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Let's take a look at a small scale model. As everybody knows if you cover a greenhouse frame with clear plastic it quickly gets much hotter inside than outside the greenhouse on a sunny day. Yet if you cover the frame in shade cloth which is perforated, the temperature in the greenhouse goes down in full sunlight. The cloth helps retain some warmth during the night, thus helping to stabilize the extremes. This is a typical greenhouse effect model and is in fact the reason why greenhouses and shadehouses are so popular in backyards. It is also the reason why shade cloth is so popular in large car parks.
Now, consider the following experiment. I have two greenhouses completely covered with clear plastic and both are in full sunlight, out in the open, and side by side, on the same day. I extract all of the air out of the first greenhouse and then pump it full of CO2. I do nothing to the air inside the second greenhouse. Question: Will greenhouse 1 get any hotter than greenhouse 2?
-
DSL at 12:27 PM on 8 October 2014Tackling global warming will improve health, save lives, and save money
Ingvar, where has anyone said that living in a world that's on average 2C warmer is the primary threat from global warming. You're building a strawman. How's about you actually read some of the research from the scientists out in the field--out in the "the world out there." Here's a good place to start. Perhaps when you can actually articulate what it is you wish to attack, you'll be taken more seriously.
-
wili at 11:30 AM on 8 October 2014Bart Verheggen Interview: Scientists’ Views About Attribution Of Global Warming
Somewhat related: Psychologists Are Learning How to Convince Conservatives to Take Climate Change Seriously
I had heard that pointing out the scientific consensus was one of the more successful approaches, but this article suggests other kinds of reframing.
-
Ingvar at 11:24 AM on 8 October 2014Tackling global warming will improve health, save lives, and save money
Of course warmth will possibly be a cause to health problems. But climate change theory is not that terrible. For example living in a temperate climate I moved into a tropical environment where the average temperature was 11C higher. That situation lasted for 4 years in the late 1970s. The alarmist view displayed here for a puny 2C increase by year 2100 as mentioned by IPCC indicates to me that researchers have little or no experience of the world out there.
Emotional drivers work well on the uninitiated population. But to deliberately mislead should be a criminal offence. We do not owe anything to environmental scientists, because nature, common sense and honesty should be the main purpose in our lives. Maybe I should add a better ethical standard.
Moderator Response:[PS] you have been warned previously about sloganeering and this is dangerously close. All you are really indicating is that you have not bothered to read the science and are happy to accept other's distortions instead. If you want to play that game, find quote in paper or IPCC report and then present data or papers that you think contradict it. Take some time to understand what is being claimed before you dismiss it. Further nonsense like this will be summarily deleted.
-
tcflood at 05:42 AM on 8 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Glenn @63
Thanks. That helps a lot.
Still, it looks like both the hot and cold storage reservoirs need a narrow region of thermal gradient bwtween the two isothermal zones. This seems to imply that 1) the system must be discharged as some point short of complete temperature conversion of a reservoir (limiting its storage time) and 3) prevention of widening of the gradient region might be a problem through numerous partial cycles.
I realize this is getting off topic for this thread, but I don't know a proper thread and it seems important to me to have some idea of the reality of solutions to storage that are presented on the web.
-
How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Gustafsson - I suspect that's because the topic, nuclear power, provided an opening for the general topic of nuclear power in a reduced carbon economy. As far as I know there aren't any specific threads for that.
Personal opinion: nuclear will certainly have its place. But given the failure of nuclear power to seize a large worldwide share over the last half century, and the general lack of solutions (economic and political) to nuclear ash and plant end-of-life, I have some doubts as to whether nuclear can present a really large scale alternative. We'll see...
-
Gustafsson at 18:31 PM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
I find it surprising that apart from KR @25 nobody seems to stress the fact that the data is from such a short timescale and doesn't really answer the question of wether wind can cover for reduced nuclear. (Although the people stating that wind stepped in when nuclear failed is apparently wrong it's a very small question in the scope of it all, isn't it?)
The market reaction to a short term energy shortage is not the same as the long term reaction to a long term energy shortage. If we shut down nuclear plants the short term market response might be the same, given insufficient time to adapt in advance but the long term response is given by which new form of energy is considered the most economically viable at the time.
For a better (more relevant) analysis i recommend looking at using a tool like MARKAL (http://www.iea-etsap.org/web/Markal.asp), developed by the IEA, or simmilar and looking at the long term changes. An analysis like that would be truly worthy of SKS ;)
-
Glenn Tamblyn at 13:37 PM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
tcflood
The Isentropic system is based on the Brayton Cycle.
Note particularly the sections on Closed and Reverse Brayton cycle. So the basic process is fairly standard. Also read the FAQ at Isentropic — this covers the question of the applicability f the Carnot Efficiency.
During the discharge cycle the Carnot Efficiency applies to the conversion of heat to work. However during the charging cycle it is acting as a heat pump, a Carnot Refrigerator
Carnot Efficiency for the discharge phase is (Thot - Tcold)/Thot
So some of the heat flowing is extracted as work, the rest flows through to the cold store. Efficiency is less than 1.
Whereas during the charging phase the Carnot Coefficient of Performance applies Thot/(Thot - Tcold)
Work in plus some heat from the cold store is transferred to the hot store. CoP is greater than 1.
It is because this is a cycle. If the system were perfectly reversible then they would get 100% of the energy they put in back out again. But because of irreversibilities they get less than this. Their performance claims are about the quality of the equipment and thus how close to true reversibility they can get. Carnot does not apply to that calculation
This diagram might illustrate this:
If all the processes are perfect, reversible processes then Win = Wout.
It is only the irreversibility of the processes that leads to any losses.
So yes, it does pass the smell test.
-
chriskoz at 12:01 PM on 7 October 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #40
From the policy frontlines, I think recent selective misquoting of wikipedia by current Australian env minister Greg Hunt, proving him as totaly unfit for his job, did attract the attention os SkS readers.
Now, it turns out Greg not only proved to be ill-informed science denier, but also deliberate obfuscator, because according to smh, BOM warned Greg Hunt about climate change before he cited Wikipedia. So Greg did not just forget to seek the scientific truth on the matter, he deliberately ignored the given truth, replacing it with his agenda. As a scientist, I can only follow Kerry Emmanuel's lead and say I am ashamed to be an Australian but I do precisely qualify that my shame is because we have such env minister.
-
chriskoz at 11:47 AM on 7 October 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #40
Agree, Bojan, one of the best cartoons I've seen for a while. Deserves special mention.
-
tcflood at 11:04 AM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Talking about "pumped heat energy storage" @53 and 54.
Take a close look at the video in the link @54. It seems to me there is something seriously wrong with the thermodynamics in these two (charge and discharge) cycles. In charging, the upper cylinders engage in adiabatic compression heating of the fluid, while the lower cylinders undergo an expansion/cooling power stroke. When the device is discharged, the upper cylinders undergo an expansion/cooling power stroke, while the lower cilinders must consume power to compress and heat the cold fluid. I don't think this adds up.
In addition, while a working fluid temperature change between 773 K and 113K (claimed in the video) would give a Carnot efficiency of 85%, the real temperature differences are between "ambient" (say 300 K) and 773 k for the hot fluid and 300 k and 113 K for the cold fluid, one being a compression and the other an expansion simultaneously. I don't think this can possibly work, let alone give an efficiency of 90%.
Does any of this pass the smell test?
-
michael sweet at 10:32 AM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Glenn,
Budischak also found solar was cost effective for only about 5% of supply. It strikes me that studies like this become rapidly dated and need to be redone. Budischak was only offering a perspective, one that did not include storage. Arguing that storage makes renewables too expensive is not necessarily true.
For our discussion I think we need to keep our minds open to a variety of options. Price on a lot of strategies is rapidly changing and it is difficult to predict the winners now.
If nuclear can lower their costs with pre-approved designs it might become cost effective.
Until renewables are about 40% of supply on a regular basis it makes little difference, storage is not needed and backup is already built. The change from 40% to 100 percent is where these issues become important. Currently Holland uses the EU grid for renewable backup just as France uses the grid to off load excess nuclear at night.
-
Tom Curtis at 08:03 AM on 7 October 2014Scientists find human fingerprints all over Australia's hottest year on record
Ashton @12, you represented me as making a claim that implied MGST would increase monotonically. That was not the case, and transparently not the case from what I wrote. You are not pretending that you made no such claim - which quite frankly makes me even more dubious of your honesty.
-
Composer99 at 06:57 AM on 7 October 2014Tackling global warming will improve health, save lives, and save money
FYI the article "breaks" in preview mode at the end of the blockquote and it's messing up all the following articles on the front page.
-
Glenn Tamblyn at 06:05 AM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Michael
Budischak are using lithium batteries as the form of energy storage in their study and data from 2008. In contrast the links above to Isentropic are giving storage costs for that technology 1/4 the costs used by Budischak.
This is a fast moving area and it would be interesting if they repeated their study for differing storage costs. I wonder how sensitive the over-build ratio is to storage costs?
-
Paul D at 05:59 AM on 7 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
Non-Scientist@50
I disagree with you. The per capita approach is a good measurement. Taking your example, then a household of 14 people who produce a total CO2 figure that is double of a smaller household (of one) is indeed better and more efficient.
The fact is those 14 people are most likely using fewer resources and use less energy each. If they copied the other household, then they would be producing 7 times as much CO2 (0.5 x 14) as the 14 person household.
CO2 emissions is all about people. It's about how individuals can live whilst minimising their impact.
-
jja at 03:01 AM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
At 400ppm CO2 we will experience increasing temperatures for the next 40 years until we reach equilibrium gloal warming of 1.8C above pre-industrial levels. At this new equilibrium in 2055 the Arctic sea ice will have completely melted and the northern hemisphere will be largely snow and ice free by June 1 each year. This albedo shift will produce a regional warming in the summer of over 8C above current averages.
The IPCC AR5 report does not include this schedule in their analysis with most models projecting sea ice to remain perennial through 2065 and then reaching minimum in mid September. Therefore their models severely underestimate the albedo forcing.
The combined regional warming and albedo-driven warming will produce a massive decomposition of tundra. This carbon cycle feedback is not included in the IPCC models.
Over the next 100 years the CO2 equivalent emissions of arctic permafrost will far exceed the current U.S. cumulative annual CO2 emissions from coal-fired powerplants (about 1 Gt per year). It is likely that total cumulative emissions from permafrost will be 200-500 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.
What then to do if CURRENT atmospheric CO2 levels will bring about 4C of warming by 2100?
we can only survive this coming cataclysm if we start RIGHT now with an "all hands on deck" mentality of total resource mobilization. This means the utilization of ALL potential non-fossil fuel energy sources (as well as transportation) AND the restructure of food production.
Even then, we will be very hard pressed to remove 300 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere over the next 100 years. -
michael sweet at 02:26 AM on 7 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Budischak et al provide data to suggest storage is not economic. They say it is cheapest to overbuild renewables. In their models building three times nameplate provides essentially 100% power. Current hydrostorage plants were built to load balance nuclear power.
Budischak et al do not use grid ties to other power systems or programs to reduce load on days when renewables are forecast to be low. Both those strategies are currently used. Budischak spill the excess power. I expect that a use for excess power can be found.
-
How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
ed leaver - Part of the intermittency solution, as I mentioned before, is more renewable sources. When the generators are spread over multiple weather patterns, intermittency due to weather decreases, and the average production of the grid as a whole moves closer to capacity values (Archer et al 2007). That isn't a 100% solution, of course, there will be some need for supplemental power at times, but the problem isn't as large as generally assumed.
An interesting and fairly recent study, NREL Western Wind and Solar
Integration Study Phase 2, looks at 35% wind/solar penetration in the Western US. They found that cycling of the fossil fuel plants increased costs (maintenance) by $35-$157M, representing an added cost to wind/solar of ~$0.14–0.67 per MWh, but with fuel cost reductions of $28–$29/MWh. This mix also reduced ~30-35% of CO2 emissions, of course.Storage will certainly have an important role to play, but even without storage and use of gas or other generators as fill-ins, large-scale renewable power appears to be a financially feasible option.
-
John Hartz at 23:35 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
[Moderator's Comment]
Please refrain from responding to future comments posted by paul until a Moderator has had time to review them. If his future posts constitute trolling and/or sloganeering, they will be summarily deleted.
-
Yani at 23:31 PM on 6 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
For the first time on an industrial scale, hydrogen produced using wind power is being injected into the natural gas grid in Germany. It’s a development that could enhance the value of wind power by making it useful no matter when it is produced.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Wind-Power-Makes-Hydrogen-for-German-Gas-Grid
Problem solved... gas you can make via wind power and it is being done on a national scale in Germany. -
Non-Scientist at 23:24 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
A quibble:
I believe the use of CO2 per capita and the implied good guy/bad guys comparison between more developed/less developed nations introduces a political, not scientific argument, and that such arguments detract, not add to the persuasiveness of the case made here.
It is a bit like comparing my household energy consumption to yours and finding that my family unit carbon footprint is "smaller", where the case is that I have 14 at one address, while your household has none and uses half the energy of mine. Yet I'm four times more efficient by your measure. Now imagine that you are required you to cut your energy use by 75% and perhaps to mail me a check for the savings.
It would be better to stay with the science, but if one can't resist the temptation to make such arguments, then use C02 output per sq km of habitable land.
-
chrisd3 at 22:54 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
@paul #14:
predictions that the polar ice caps would be melted by now has not come true
No one predicted this. This claim comes from a blatant and intentional misrepresentation of something Al Gore said in 2007. Neither he nor anyone else said that the polar ice caps (by which you actually mean the Arctic ice cap) would have melted by now.
It's impossible to argue coherently using false "facts" like this.
-
Glenn Tamblyn at 22:17 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
Paul
"How can we have a discussion when your starting point is that your view is correct and other views are incorrect?"
I think you are misunderstanding what a 'discussion' is when we are talking about the physical world/universe.
It isn't 'view' vs 'view'. It is 'evidence' vs 'evidence'.
You say you have a different view. Fine. But what evidence is that view based on? Why not put up an example of this evidence Paul? Otherwise it is just 'views' at 40 paces which is worthless.
Why not lead with something? A piece of evidence in support of a view.
-
CBDunkerson at 22:09 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
paul wrote: "How can we have a discussion when your starting point is that your view is correct and other views are incorrect?"
Not everything is opinion. Some things are factually true or false. For example, you cited the common claim about 'global warming having stopped' being pushed by WUWT and other 'skeptics'. A moderator responded with a graph showing the teeny tiny portion of the warming that claim was based on and the continued massive warming of the rest of the climate system. Ergo, we conclude from the data that global warming has not stopped.
How can we have a discussion? Easy. You either acknowledge that the claim you copied from WUWT was wrong (and maybe consider what that should tell you about that site / 'side' of the 'debate') >or< you come up with some logical defense of the position you have taken (good luck with that one).
That's how discussion works. You took a position. Evidence was provided showing that your position is wrong. In a discussion you would now either accept the evidence or counter it... but you aren't doing that. Instead, you now appear to be seeking excuses to ignore the evidence and/or people presenting it. 'You have already made up your minds. There is no point talking to you.' Yes... we looked at the evidence and made conclusions. That's how logical decision making works. Why are you so desperately trying to avoid doing the same?
"Sks comes across as close minded."
Really? 'cuz you're welcome to provide evidentiary support for your position. You just aren't doing that. Maybe because you don't know of any? Yet, rather than acknowledge that, you are keeping the position and dismissing the evidence to the contrary and the people who provided it. Who exactly is being closed minded here?
-
DSL at 21:54 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
Paul, close-mindedness is the refusal to examine your own beliefs in the face of new evidence. You have been presented with new evidence and a variety of questions. You have, so far, refused to respond.
-
paul11176 at 20:51 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
So my question to any who care to respond is:
How can we have a discussion when your starting point is that your view is correct and other views are incorrect?
Sks comes across as close minded.
Moderator Response:[JH] The introduction to the SkS Comments Policy reads as follows:
The purpose of the discussion threads is to allow notification and correction of errors in the article, and to permit clarification of related points. Though we believe the only genuine debate on the science of global warming is that which occurs in the scientific literature, we welcome genuine discussion as both an aid to understanding and a means of correcting our inadvertent errors. To facilitate genuine discussion, we have a zero tolerance approach to trolling and sloganeering.
As stated above, "we have a zero tolerance approach to trolling and sloganeering."
If your future posts are in the same vein as the above and your prior post, they will be summarily deleted.
-
paul11176 at 20:40 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
Sks is open about its purpose.
"This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? "
That is my starting point. Sks appears convinced that global warming/climate change is upon the world and the mission is to refute views that differ.
Had a debate with a couple of fellas who were not climate scientists who believed the global warming alarmists. Joe says to me that John opined I was a hopeless case and that they ought to move on elsewhere. Joe then says to me "Paul, I told John your smarter than that."
The message was clear. If I agree I'm smart, if I disagree I'm NOT smart.
I got the message loud and clear.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of sloganeering which is prohibited by the SkS Comeets Policy. Please read the Comments Policy and adhere to it.
-
KeefeandAmanda at 19:33 PM on 6 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
I was an evangelical (I prefer "theologically conservative" instead of "evangelical") Christian for a quarter century of my life. Rather than address Paul's posts against the science, please let me share what has worked for me when dealing with these rejections of science by my former fellow evangelicals - all the defenders of real science here already know what I will share, but I've found this following summary applied as follows to be quite effective:
First, for those who believe in God, all truth is God's truth. To deny any truth - including hard to swallow scientific truth - is to deny the One who is the Truth (Christ called himself the Truth). The most hard to deny form of truth is fact - especially hard data. Always push this. Bury those who reject the science in an ever-increasing mountain of undeniable fact that they can't handle, and demonstrate that the facts they give do not imply what they believe they imply - they are false implications. What follows deals with these false implications:
If they claim that a slowdown in atmospheric warming implies that global warming has stopped, then there are several ways to show this implication false. Simply being on a "flatter" part of a staircase-shaped increasing function does not mean that the function has stopped being an increasing function. Show them a simple function like h(x) = sin(x) + x. Long-term atmospheric warming has been roughly following such a cyclic pattern, every roughly 60 years according to Tung and Chen:
http://www.nature.com/news/atlantic-ocean-key-to-global-warming-pause-1.15755
This means no slowdown in the underlying uptrend trend even for atmospheric warming. Also, point out that in the last calendar year, according to the NOAA, last November, April, May, June, and August were the hottest months in recorded history (since the late 1800s) for their respective months (April this year tied April 2010):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/8
We may see 2014 become the hottest year in recorded history, even though it is not an El Nino year.In addition to the above, do as a commenter did here, point to the oceans and the graph this commenter gave as well as others. Emphasize the "global" in global warming, to show that global warming does not mean merely atmospheric warming. And point out that including the oceans leads to the fact that global warming may actually be accelerating. More evidence for this acceleration is from this paper that came out yesterday:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html
This shows that the Southern Ocean may have been warming as much as twice as fast as previously thought.When they try to use the increase in Antarctic sea ice as "evidence" that either global warming is not happening or has stopped, I first point out that the total mass of ice (land and sea) is decreasing at an accelerating rate in the Antarctic, and then I *always* hit them with the fact that their hero Judith Curry published a paper in 2010 which essentially tells us that the global warming that occurred and the global warming that will continue has caused and will continue to cause an increase in Antarctic sea ice for the next several decades until that trend finally reverses, still with ever-continuing global warming. Note: She has not retracted her authorship of that paper. See here for quotes from her and her coauthor:
"Resolving the paradox of the Antarctic sea ice"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816154958.htm
Also, a 2014 paper explored here
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/antarctic-sea-ice-volume/
tells us that the amount of decrease in Arctic sea ice volume is roughly an entire order of magnitude of 10 greater than the amount of increase in Antarctic sea ice volume, and that the increase in this latter is roughly half of the increase in the fresh water supply there. I add the corollary fact that they need to know that saltwater freezes at 28 degrees F and freshwater freezes at 32 degrees F.There's more, but this should do for now.
-
Ashton at 18:57 PM on 6 October 2014Scientists find human fingerprints all over Australia's hottest year on record
My apologies Tom Curtis as I really don't deliberately try to misrepresent your comments to "create a bizarre strawman" and to be honest I don't know what this bizarre strawman is. Nor do I deliberatyely misinterpret what you write. I take your comments at face value and respond accordingly. Apologies again but I don't understand your comment "In particular, had his interpretation been correct, then every year after 2013 would have been warmer than 2002."
I'm not sure why you
-
BojanD at 17:00 PM on 6 October 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #40
Nice cartoon. Now we only have to wait for Russ R. to tell us that snowflakes are not really that big. :)
Prev 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 Next
