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Comments 37751 to 37800:

37751. Alpinist at 23:58 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       Thanks Dana for a great post and also Kevin for comments as well.

37752. Bwana_Mrefu at 23:42 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       In the acknowledgements the Loehle paper thanks " Nic Lewis for helpful suggestions." Very interesting timing of the paper and report.

37753. CBDunkerson at 21:55 PM on 10 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       Michael, there have been several posts on the subject of ocean heat transfer. I think the most recent was this one.

37754. MA Rodger at 21:23 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       Praise be !! The gospel according to Lewis & Crok is now available in all its glory without having to hand out your e-mail to the GWPF gatekeepers.

       
       The 44 page GWPF Report 12 linked in the post is but an edited version of the longer 72 page GWPF Report 13. (The shorter version was "written for the lay reader, and summarises [the] longer, more technical document.") Both reports are not solely the work of Lewis & Crok but also incorporate the "help & comments" of Annan, Curry, Henderson, McKitrick and Montford. Curry also wrote the forward for both documents, strangely both times providing "this report" with a word-for-word identical eulogy.

       The question to be asked of Lewis & Crok is why they feel any serious scientific study should be presented to the world as a GWPF Report. These documents (along with GWPF Briefing Papers) have such an excellent track record of misrepresenting the evidence and presenting untrustworthy analysis that they manage to bring all UK charities and the UK Charity Commission into disrepute. Frankly I cannot consider a less appropriate method of publication (unless you consider a web-page on such planets as Wattsupia constitutes 'publication').

       Surely, if this gospel according to Lewis & Crok were worthy of anything other than the rubbish bin, they would publish elsewhere, perhaps within a journal which peer reviews its content. Or perhaps Lewis & Crok believe the "help & comments" of Annan, Curry, Henderson, McKitrick and Montford are adequate to eliminate any embarrasing errors, a belief I fear that itself constitutes an embarrasing error.

37755. barry1487 at 20:54 PM on 10 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       Great article. Kudos, and thanks.

37756. Michael Whittemore at 20:26 PM on 10 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       A little of topic, but could someone please direct me to the skeptical science page that explains how the heat is being transferred down to the deep ocean? I saw the page but forgot where. Thanks .

37757. chriskoz at 20:02 PM on 10 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       william@6,

       what you are advocating for:

       correct relationship between the small solar owner, the power company and the government

       brings in a whole array of economic social and political issues, including energy generation and energy efficiency, gov regulations, energy retailers' new business model, to name just a few. I recommend a recent book

       Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change

       by Mark Diesendorf from NSW Uni, who discusses all those issue at depth with numerous references. Very good starting point for anyone interested in the research of AGW mitigation. And a very positive one (i.e. zero-carbon energy future is very much possible with renewable technologies only, even excluding nuclear, cause Mark is very skeptical about nukes).

37758. chriskoz at 19:34 PM on 10 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly Digest #10
       

       I have a question: is there anything at SkS server side possible to prevent the data loos when the server times out why I'm typing a comment? It happened to me recently more often: my crafty comment including several links and a picture just disapeared when I hit submit button, obviously to my utter frustration. The browser back button does not bring the input editor back: I need to re-logon to bring it back and my comment is long gone. I think the server timeout has been decreased lately (down to some 30mins?) increasing the likelyhood of such unexpected comment loss.

       On the client site, in my Firefox browser, "Submit" button is a typical HTML input. So, to prevent comment losses in the future, I speculate that the server could perhaps send the response to the "timed-out" client:

       Your message [input HTML text] has not been posted because the connection timed out. Please try again.

       That would be enough to prevent the data loss. I;m not sure if other blogs have such mechanisms or they don't care. But I think SkS could care because this blog is valuable to me as most of the user comments. Thanks!

       I think Bob Lacatena would give the best response to my question although anyone whoknows the impl details of SkS server can chime in...

37759. Jim Hunt at 19:34 PM on 10 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       A new BBC video:
       
       http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26511229
       
       

       Large stretches of the British coastline have been hit hard by storm after storm this winter, with some areas suffering the equivalent of seven years of erosion in just three months.

       Now the National Trust has called for a rethink on how Britain defends its coastline and suggested that some locations may have to to be sacrificed because the sea can no longer be stopped.

37760. Kevin C at 18:39 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       In a larger context, at the point AR5 was finalised, there were in my view 3 big, new and unexpected problems in climate science.

       1. Could the apparent slowdown in warming be explained?

       2. Why was observed warming lower than the model projections?

       3. Why did simple models give lower sensitivity estimates than GCMs and paleoclimate.

       I think now we've got tentative answers to all three. Coverage, forcings and ENSO address (1) and (2) and Shindell addresses (3).

37761. Kevin C at 18:30 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       The Shindell paper is breathtakingly simple. It just takes two completely well known facts, puts them together and points out the trivial and inevitable conclusion:

       1. The NH responds more quickly to changes in forcing than the SH, because the SH has more water.

       2. Most of the aerosol cooling effect occurs in the NH.

       Since the cooling is happening in a place where is has a more rapid effect, the impact is greater than if it were happening uniformly. So we see less warming than we would expect from a model which treats the whole globe uniformly.

       This leads to the second conclusion: If we use a uniform forcing over both hemispheres, such as in Otto et al or my own n-box model, then we will conclude that TCR is lower than it actually is.

       I think there must be a few climate scientists slapping their foreheads over this one. The only thing left to do is to confirm the size of the effect.

       (My model produces more mainstream TCR values only becuase I haven't adopted the latest aerosol forcing estimates. Thus it contains two errors which just happen to roughly cancel out.)

37762. sidd at 15:33 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       Let me see ... looks like stage 3)1)it's not happening2)it's not us3)it's not bad4)it's too hard5)it's too latealtho i suppose 4 and 5 could be rolled together
37763. Tom Curtis at 14:41 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       Albatross, Dana, Nic Lewis has been a co-author of two papers, and sole author of a third that I am aware of:

       Improved Methods for PCA-Based Reconstructions: Case Study Using the Steig et al. (2009) Antarctic Temperature Reconstruction

       Energy budget constraints on climate response

       An Objective Bayesian Improved Approach for Applying Optimal Fingerprint Techniques to Estimate Climate Sensitivity

       On a side, note, as I was doing my google searches to find exact titles and links for the above, I came across a new paper by Craig Loehle also estimating low climate sensitivity (1.99 C per doubling).  His trick appears to be to attribute much of the recent warming to the PDO, but I would need to buy a copy of the paper to determine the exact details.  Publication date is March 24th, but now available online, so we can expect to see that cited a lot in the near future.

37764. dana1981 at 13:32 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       'Few' is vague.  I'm pretty sure it's 2, but I said 'few' in case I missed any.  I think he's just got Lewis and Otto though.

       The Curry Foreword is kind of interesting from a psychological perspective.  First, why did GWPF invite her to write it?  She has no publications and no expertise in sensitivity research, as her comments on the subject make crystal clear.  I can only guess they wanted a 'climate scientist' to write something since neither of the authors is really a climate scientist.  Basically to try and make it seem more credible.  And I suppose they couldn't think of many climate scientists who would be willing to endorse that report, for obvious reasons.

       And then why would Curry agree to write the Foreword?  It totally undermines her claimed role as the 'bridge builder', as GWPF is an anti-science, anti-policy, politcal advocacy group.  Perhaps it's naîveté about what GWPF is and does.  Perhaps it's that she views her role as amplifying 'skeptic' voices.  That's basically how she explained it on her blog.  But it's pretty hard to maintain the perception of a bridge-building open-minded skeptic when you're writing material for a group like GWPF.

       In any case, we shouldn't turn the comments into a psychoanalysis of Judith Curry.  More important is that the report itself is a totally biased, cherry picked misrepresentation of the full body of climate sensitivity research.

37765. Albatross at 13:23 PM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       Dana,

       You say Lewis has published a "few" papers on climate sensitivity.  I am aware of only two papers by him in the peer-reviewed literature, and on one of those he was a co-author on a paper temperatures over western Antarctica. Did I miss a couple?  For now Lewis lies squarely in the climate "hobbyist" desgnation, and his fellow fake skeptics are bending over backwards to try and boost his impact.

       Curry's foreward was entertaining to read, nothing more.  That she is falling over herself to praise this report is hardly surprising given that she has declared that she supports the (ideological and political) objectives of the GWPF lobbyists.

       This report though is also another example of how the fake skeptics fail to present a coherent and physically plausible alternative hypothesis to the theory of AGW.  Some of them deny it is even warming, others claim anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a hoax, others claim that there is some magical negative feedback that will result in virtually no warming, others like Lewis cherry pick literature to delude themselves into thinking that climate sensitivity is low, while others are convinced that an ice age is imminent ;)

37766. Tom Curtis at 10:48 AM on 10 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Russ R @72, if you recall, what I originally indicated @47, and which you challenged, was:

       "Fox & Gallant estimate the costs of transferring to renewables on the assumption that all gross costs of electricity generation are also net costs. That is, they assume that increased investment in renewable energy will not be partly offset by reduced investment in coal fired power plants. That fact alone means that their headline result does not follow from their analysis"

       That should have been straightforward enough for you, but apparently not.

       In simple terms, if Ontario had not embarked on a LTEP to switch to carbon reduced* power generation, costs of electricity to the consumer would still have risen. They would have risen with increased wages due to inflation. Potentially they would have risen due to increased costs of fossil fuels. They would have risen due to increased investment in fossil fuel power stations to meet demand. The real cost of the choice to go to carbon reduced electricity, therefore, is the difference between the cost of that decision, and the cost of the cheapest alternative energy plan that did not take a reduced carbon route, but which similarly increased generation capacity. In economic terms, that approximates to the opportunity cost.

       The LTEP does not itemize that opportunity cost. It does not compare the cost of the LTEP to an alternative, high carbon plan that would have been pursued instead. Consequently referring back to the 2010 LTEP does not account for those opportunity costs. Nor does it show how their adjustments (even if considered legitimate) would effect alter the opportunity cost.

       For what it is worth, the 2013 LTEP indicates that the total cost of coal use was 4.4 billion a year. That is 25% of the 2013 total cost of electricity generation, and 22% of 2030 costs. (These figures underestimate the cost of coal as they compare 2003 nominal values with 2030 nominal values.) Health costs alone could have risen above 3 billion per annum (2005 study cited by 2010 LTEP).

       You introduced Fox and Gallant to show that projected costs of renewable energy programs underestimate actual costs. As has been pointed out, it only showed that one set of projected costs was higher than another. More to the point, it has now been shown that both the 2010 LTEP, and even more so, Fox and Gallant overestimated the increase in costs, at least over the first 3 years of the plan.

       Finally, you, following Fox and Gallant, highlighted the discrepancy between the Geoge Smitherson's statement in parliament and the 2010 LTEP. Neither you nor they, however, have shown whether Smitherson's statement referred to real value, nominal value or oportunity cost. Of the three, the later is the far more likely, and as it would be absurd to promise the LTEP would keep energy rises below the inflation rate, nominal value is extremely unlikely. Yet despite this, you (and they) have been quite happy to compare projected nominal increases to that statement as though they refuted it. For the record, the 2010 projected real increases work out at 2.3% per annum over the 20 years to 2030, not 3.5% quoted by Fox and Gallant. And opportunity cost would have been way below that.

       * not carbon free because they will still use gas power plants.

37767. Rob Honeycutt at 08:49 AM on 10 March 2014
       GWPF optimism on climate sensitivity is ill-founded
       

       There's a great point in one of Richard Alley's lectures where he talks about the CS graph Dana has included here. He says, when the study that is 5th from the bottom came out he spent two days answering phone calls from reporters. All the other CS studies, nothing.

       http://youtu.be/Z_-8u86R3Yc?t=13m43s

       Tells you a lot.

37768. scaddenp at 08:25 AM on 10 March 2014
       Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected
       

       Actually, updating the article with this paper (Shindell 2014) looks like a good idea since this enhances our understanding of sensitivity and forcings so that differing estimation methods are reconciled.

37769. Ben Lankamp at 07:08 AM on 10 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       #5 - the primary source was Jonathan Powell, whose name was already mentioned in #7.

37770. DSL at 07:05 AM on 10 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Bobki, you realize that turning down the opportunity to argue your position makes your position look insecure, yes?

37771. Russ R. at 05:53 AM on 10 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Tom Curtis@67,

       "Finally, on a side note, I questioned Fox and Gallant's costings as not including savings from reduced investment in fossil fuel generation. Russ challenged that on the basis that those savings had been included in the LTEP. Perhaps Russ could quote the section of the plan that discusses how those savings were factored in?"

       If you look at page 10 of the LTEP2010, it lays out the main drivers of the plan and associated cost estimates:

       "Key features of the plan include:
       • Demand will grow moderately (about 15 per cent) between 2010 and 2030.
       • Ontario will be coal-free by 2014. 
       • The government is committed to clean, reliable nuclear power remaining at approximately 50 per cent of the province’s electricity supply. 
       • Ontario will continue to grow its hydroelectric capacity with a target of
       9,000 MW. 
       • Ontario’s target for clean, renewable energy from wind, solar and bioenergy is 10,700 MW by 2018 ...  (etc...)

       ...

       • Residential bills are expected to rise by 3.5 per cent per year over the next 20 years. Industrial prices are expected to rise by 2.7 per cent per year over the next 20 years.
       • The government is proposing an Ontario Clean Energy Benefit to give Ontario families, farms and small businesses a 10 per cent benefit on their electricity bills for five years."

       Not only did they assume "reduced investment in coal fired power plants"; they projected zero future investment in coal-fired plants from 2014 on.

37772. Rob Honeycutt at 05:32 AM on 10 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Bobki52...  Then you can't complain that you were stifled in your discussions. You broke posted rules and your comments were deleted according to policy. You've been politely invited to present your comments in a way that is compliant with policy.

37773. william5331 at 05:23 AM on 10 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       I worked in fish culture research most of my working life so I know how tempting it is to go for exotic exciting solutions when simple solutions are right in front of you.  In our case we were using all sorts of sophisticated hormone treatment to get fish to spawn out of season when just by selecting batches of eggs that from time to time were spawned a little out of season, the same result was obtained.  The "Seampunk" is a case in point.  All we have to do to solve the carbon crisis is to make it worthwhile to put solar panels on the roof while at the same time being fair to the power companies.  The technology is adequate and the price is right.  All that is missing is the correct relationship between the small solar owner, the power company and the government.

       Link:

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Please learn how to do this properly. Using Sks to advertise your own blog while making work for moderators is poor form.

37774. citizenschallenge at 02:11 AM on 10 March 2014
       Lindzen's Junk Science
       

       Thanks for the plug Tom.

       I've just finished another one that's worth mentioning here:

       
       Saturday, March 8, 2014

       Howard Hayden’s one-letter disproof of global warming claims - examined

       http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/03/hayden-disproves-global-warming-claims.html#more

37775. michael sweet at 23:57 PM on 9 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       The Los Angeles Times had an article on Agnotology, the study of cultural ignorance.  Most of this is funded currently by industry.  Doubt is Our Product is a good documentation of this type of activity.  There were some interesting points.  They recommended a strong news industry to counter industry falsehoods (good luck on that!)

37776. Jim Hunt at 23:53 PM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       I'm not having much luck getting things formatted properly on here! Perhaps it's simpler if I link to my own article on the subject?
       
       http://econnexus.org/the-weather-report-from-soggy-south-west-england/
       
       Note in particular the bit where David Cameron says "Man-made climate change is one of the greatest threats to the UK and the rest of the world".
       
       My apologies for the politics.

37777. Bobki52 at 23:11 PM on 9 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       No thanks.

37778. catamon at 22:27 PM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       John @ 19:  

       The paper by Sewall is here:

       Being from Oz there has been lots of "you cant attribute this (insert disaster here) to Climate Change.  Floods, Droughts, Bushfires, whatever, its always something that everyone seems to keep away from.  But now it seems to me that the California Drought, Rest of the US Freeze, and English Ridiculous Wet Winter of 13/14 may all be linked to a phenomenon that someone actualy predicted in 2005 in a narrower context.

       So, if someone accepts that the proposition that this east Pacific persitent high is due to loss of Arctic ice, and Arctic ice loss is due to Anthropogenic Global Warming, i dont thnk its much of a stretch at all to attribute the California Drought, Rest of the US Freeze, and English Ridiculous Wet Winter of 13/14 to AGW.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link

37779. John Mason at 22:00 PM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       #18 - Thanks for that link. Plenty of good leads to follow there!

37780. catamon at 20:43 PM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       Had a read of this, and what struck me wa the image of the jetstream.  Seems to me its actually all about the persitent high in the eastern Pacific??

       Another (politics) blog i frequent had this link on it:

       Which again is basically about that persistent high, why its there, its effects and that it was all modeled nback in 2004/05.

       The Grumpy True Disbelivers are going to be a bit annoyed at this wot??  :)

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link

37781. Jim Hunt at 20:20 PM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       As one example of the damage to infrastructure, here's Network Rail's time lapse video of their attempts to repair the main Great Western railway line at Dawlish:
       
       http://youtu.be/tWGxuPF7wNU
       
       At around 28 secs you can see the impact of the next big storm that arrived on February 14/15. The current estimate for the trains to start running again is April 4th. According to the leader of Plymouth City Council "the rail disruption was costing the city £5 million a day". 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link.

37782. Tom Curtis at 15:43 PM on 9 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       chriskoz @2, 1 in 100 year floods happen frequently.  That is becuase they have a return period of 100 years for a given location, but there are far more than 100 locations on Earth such that their precipitation events are effectively independant.  I haven't looked carefully at the statistics, but there are probably 1 in 100 year floods every year, somewhere on Earth.

       For comparison, the 2011 Brisbane flood came of the back of rainfall with a return period of about 100-200 years averaged over the Brisbane River catchment from Sun through Tues, with a follow rainfall for tuesday with a return period also about 100- 200 years.  That is, we had two >100 year rainfall events in just one week.  Some individual stations recorded rainfall with return periods of 1 in 2000, and the Wivenhoe release that triggered excess flooding came from a 1 in 2000 rainfall event directly onto the dam (ie, without any chance of buffering of the flow by forest, etc).

       This is not to detract from the suffering of the people of Christchurch, who have copped an absolute hammering over the last few years.  They certainly have my sympathy, and I agree that the floods in Christchurch should have wider reporting - certainly in Australia.

37783. DSL at 15:29 PM on 9 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Bobki, general slaps-together of standard denial talking points usually get deleted.  Take your strongest point to the appropriate thread (left menu).

37784. John Hartz at 14:43 PM on 9 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       A follow-up article to the one linked to by chriskoz above:

       Global warming warning after ChCh floods by Adrien Taylor, 3News, Mar 6, 2014 

37785. Bobki52 at 14:11 PM on 9 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Ouch... I've been crushed.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB]  You are welcome to use the Search function in the upper left portion of every page to find the most appropriate page to place your individual points of discussion on.  Note that comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error.  As constructed, your removed comments constitute Gish Gallops and do not merit inclusion in these discussion threads.

       Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

       Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

37786. chriskoz at 14:08 PM on 9 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       I'm surprised no media (in my country and in US)  seem to care about:
       1 in 100y flood in CHC

       (perhaps the Malaysian Air disaster prompted it but I still argue that "1 in 100y" events deserve far more global attention than airplane crashes)

       People in CHC saying 0.5m SLR contributed to the event which may now be happening every few years or so. I wonder how come they're exagerating SLR to "0.5m"? The asnwer is that the recent earthquake that destrroyed the cathedral, among other things caused the city to "sink" a little bit, therefore increasing the effective local SLR.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] CHC = Christchurch, New Zealand

37787. chriskoz at 12:40 PM on 9 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10B
       

       Very interesting news about the link of California drought and loss of arctic ice, that cannot be missed:

       Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be ‘Even More Dire’

       the title sais it all. Interestingly, Jenifer Francis is not the only (or not even the first) person to have found how Arctic Ice melt contributes to extreme events at mid-latitudes.

37788. Chris Snow at 09:03 AM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       John (#5) and Magma (#7 and #8).

       This amusing George Monbiot column has a bit more about Jonathan Powell.

37789. scaddenp at 05:52 AM on 9 March 2014
       Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected
       

       jsmith, why do you think that it would be a good idea to expand the article with this particular article? (Especially in light of a critical comment follow-up and more recent papers also critical of methodology). Why do think that one is important rather than the deluge of more recent papers on the subject?

37790. Paul D at 03:18 AM on 9 March 2014
       A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 4
       

       Bob forgot to mention that everyone contributes and helps for free.

37791. Paul D at 03:08 AM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       I'll point out John that Hambledon has a 'history' of ground water flooding. However that doesn't detract from the fact that greater frequency of flood events and extreme weather will make things worse.

       My understanding is that in Hambledon before WWII, the kerbs were raised higher than today, so that the roads acted like rivers/canals durring rainy times. The kerbs were lowered durring WWII to allow the passing through of large numbers of big military vehicles (eg. D Day preparations).

37792. Paul D at 02:50 AM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       John M and all that read this...

       
       Was listening to Inside Science on the BBC iPlayer this week and there was a mention of the ClimatePrediction people doing a citizens science project to find out if there were any relationships between the recent UK flooding/extreme weather and climate change.

       If you want to participate, you download the climate model and do a run. The results are being collated and published live.

       Here is the link to sign up for the project:

       http://www.climateprediction.net/weatherathome/weatherhome-2014/

       
       They say they need to run two large ensembles of weather simulations and that requires public help.

37793. Jim Hunt at 01:20 AM on 9 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       As a resident of Soggy South West England, I've been following this particular story with interest for quite some time. I'm not sure what I can usefully add to John's in depth article. Perhaps this (slightly cloudy) Landsat 8 image of the Somerset Levels?
       
       

       For any other locals in here, the town of Bridgwater is visible top left.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Reduced image width to 475.

37794. Chris8616 at 20:51 PM on 8 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       UK storms caused ‘greatest tree loss in a generation’ (March 2014)

       Video: UK Minister: Climate Change a National Security Crisis

       Video: Ancient 5,000-Year-Old Forest Unearthed by UK Storms (They later discovered these tree stumps were 10.000 years of age).

       UK: Wettest Winter In 250 Years (Infographic)

       UK Floods 2014 Could Last for Months + 1.6M Homes at Risk for Flooding (Covers the unprecedented groundwater flooding and precipitation patterns)

37795. Sapient Fridge at 19:49 PM on 8 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       Today's BBC Science page is remarkable focussed on the recent floods, and climate change in general (archived here).  I spot at least 10 flood or climate change related stories!

       I think there is a dawning realisation in the UK that this winter's weather was simply not normal.

37796. John Mason at 19:33 PM on 8 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       So it does did! I know the winter seemed to go on for a long time, but not that long! Thanks for spotting it :)

37797. Leto at 13:25 PM on 8 March 2014
       The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
       

       Typo: Graphic for Feb 2014 says "2015".

37798. chriskoz at 09:08 AM on 8 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10A
       

       For those down under BOM & CSIRO just released 2014 state of climate report

       Of my particular interest is Monthly temperature anomaly (standardised) on page 5 (AKA Jim Hansen's climate dice). They show the frequency of 2-sigma hot events in OZ increased 5 times in 1999-2013, as opposed to Hansen's baseline
       1950-1980.

       So the OZ dice is loded about the same and Hansen's global dice. And more importantly, the warming "did not stop" over OZ land since 1998. The negative  consequences from precipitation changes are looking to be higher than global average IMO.

37799. grindupBaker at 08:55 AM on 8 March 2014
       2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #10A
       

       Wol #6 I suppose it's on-topic because there's a non-science "How money..." posted. You don't say the venue but if it's comments against blogs & videos then IMO my comments aren't to educate or change the opinions of those specific persons, rather I am, you are, giving your opinions to the public who might see them, unless they get moderated like these two... Cheer up. Remember a geologic second ago fully state-sanctioned killing of persons doing science and giving their opinions sometimes existed, so this big money is comparatively trivial. The "deeper level" seems too deep for this venue. Future humans will do whatever. Each present human decides what makes a life, like fun learning stuff, or perhaps genetic imperative just pushes robots. Too deep for me so lets get back to integrating the atmosphere to quantify its LWR.

37800. Tom Curtis at 08:23 AM on 8 March 2014
       Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk
       

       Composer 99 @63, the Ontario 2013 LTEP (page 6) states:

       "• The 2013 LTEP cost and price forecasts are lower
       than previously forecast in 2010.
       • Significant ratepayer savings will be realized as a
       result of reduced Feed-in Tariff (FIT) prices, the
       ability to dispatch wind generation, the amended
       Green Energy Investment Agreement, and the
       decision to defer new nuclear."

       Later, they show a graph comparing current projections of the "total cost of the electricity service" to those from the 2010 LTEP (Fig 6, page 15), which shows the 2013 projection reduced from 21.4 to 17.6 Billion, a reduction equivalent to 6.7% per annum compounded over the last three years.  In Fig 7, they then show the changes in the typical forecast residential bill:

        

       The reduction from a forecast 154 to a forecast 125 dollars per month represents a compounded 7.2% per annum over three years.

       The OCEB is the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit.  The 2010 LTEP shows a forecast price for residential consumption of 800 kWh of $123 without the OCEB ($115.20 with) for 2011.  The 2013 forecast respresents a compounded 6% increase without, and 4.2% with the OCEB.  Those values overstate the real increase, as they are in nominal dollars.  In any event, over the first three years of the plan, prices have increased slower than originally forecast by they 2010 LTEP, let alone by Fox and Gallant.

       Speaking of Fox and Gallant, they quote the 2010 LTEP as saying:

       "Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP), announced by the Liberal Party on November 23, 2010, states, 

       'Over the next 20 years, prices for Ontario families and small businesses will be relatively predictable. The consumer rate will increase by about 3.5% annually over the length of the long-term plan. Over the next five years, however, residential electricity prices are expected to rise by about 7.9% annually (or 46% over five years).'"

       Figure 15 (page 60), however, shows a real increase of 61.4% from 2010-2030, ie, an increase at a compounding rate of 2.6% per annum.  The 3.5% quoted is for the nominal rate, and therefore includes inflation.  Because the increase is front loaded, and indeed, because real prices are projected fall in real terms over the last 9 years of the plan, compounded rates do not reflect the overall cost of the transition.

       Finally, on a side note, I questioned Fox and Gallant's costings as not including savings from reduced investment in fossil fuel generation.  Russ challenged that on the basis that those savings had been included in the LTEP.  Perhaps Russ could quote the section of the plan that discusses how those savings were factored in?

        

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