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bibasir at 05:11 AM on 10 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
I read the link in 12 giving the Catholic Church's view of the Galileo inquisition, and I think it is somewhat self serving. From wikipedia, " On February 24 the Qualifiers delivered their unanimous report: the idea that the Sun is stationary is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture..."; At a meeting of the cardinals of the Inquisition on the following day, Pope Paul V instructed Bellarmine to deliver this result to Galileo, and to order him to abandon the Copernican opinions; should Galileo resist the decree, stronger action would be taken. On February 26, Galileo was called to Bellarmine's residence and ordered, "to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it... to abandon completely... the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing."
In addition, the January Scientific American has an article titled "The case against Copernicus." There was substantial scientific controversy about Copernicus' heliocentric theory well after both Copernicus and Galileo. Below are the final paragraphs. The full article requires a subscription.
" The acceptance of Copernicanism was thus held back by a lack of hard scientific evidence to confirm its almost incredible claims about cosmic and stellar magnitudes. In 1674 Robert Hooke, curator of experiments for the British Royal Society, admitted, “Whether the Earth move or stand still hath been a problem, that since Copernicus revived it, hath much exercised the wits of our best modern astronomers and philosophers, amongst which notwithstanding there hath not been any one who hath found out a certain manifestation either of the one or the other.”
By Hooke’s time a growing majority of scientists accepted Copernicanism, although, to a degree, they still did so in the face of scientific difficulties. Nobody convincingly recorded the annual stellar parallax until Friedrich Bessel did it in 1838. Around that same time, George Airy produced the first full theoretical explanation for why stars appear to be wider than they are, and Ferdinand Reich first successfully detected the deflection of falling bodies induced by Earth’s rotation. Also, of course, Isaac Newton’s physics—which did not work with Brahe’s system—had long since provided an explanation of how Brahe’s “hulking, lazy” Earth could move.
Back in Galileo’s and Riccioli’s day, however, those opposed to Copernicanism had some quite respectable, coherent, observationally based science on their side. They were eventually proved wrong, but that did not make them bad scientists. In fact, rigorously disproving the strong arguments of others was and is part of the challenge, as well as part of the fun, of doing science."
Moderator Response:[PS] Interesting as this may be, can we please not have this topic derailed by historical discussions.
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ubrew12 at 03:19 AM on 10 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
I'm no expert, but I think what they're saying is if the atmosphere heats up due to CO2, where does it heat up? In heats up in the lower troposphere, mostly. Hence, where is additional H2O going to make its home? In the lower troposphere, below cloud-formation level. This has the unfortunate effect of increasing the lower troposphere further, making it a better home for even MORE H2O. If much of the additional H2O never makes it high enough to form clouds, its a positive feedback (or at least less of a negative feedback than it would be if you assumed most of it WAS making it up that high).
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gws at 02:44 AM on 10 January 2014Methane emissions from oil & gas development
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martin3818 at 23:47 PM on 9 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
@Rob
If you could find the time to explain in detail (diagrams and all) where high and low clouds form, where mixing takes place, how mixing influences cloud formation and why mixing will increase when the temperatures go up - this would probably answer many of the questions being asked in this comment section.
I must admit, I'm still confused.
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Composer99 at 22:54 PM on 9 January 2014Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows
FYI the block-quoted text from Jara Imbers, likely because it is cut off before being completed, is affecting the formatting on the main page. At least, that is how it appears to me.
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pheidius at 22:43 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
I also read the second figure in question to be natural output. He phrased it as "the modern mean annual rate of Mantle co2." So I have the concepts but got led astray by dividing by 12 in my attempt to get to the modern atomic weight and then try to convert that when all I had to do was multiply by 12. So 6,000 GT divided by 2.13 would mean a theoretical atmospheric input of 2817 ppmv over that (plus minus) 1,000,000 million year time period less whatever the Earth's carbon sinks could then reabsorb. Mclean strongly implied a weaker feedback mechanism in describing the ocean's of the day as being warm, deep and with slugish circulation. So a conservative number might be closer to 40%. That would imply the the ppmv towards the end of the period was around 2012 ppmv. The other author'(s) paper, however, stated that the ppmv was pretty consistant at around 350-500 ppmv until, right at the KT mark, it shot up to 2300 ppmv. Darn: it would seem both of these sources can't be right. I was looking, in all of this, for an aproximation of the tipping point when the ocean's heatsink mechanism just shuts down. It would seem all the author's numbers agree about ppvm being roughly in the 2000-23000 range indicating dead oceans below at the end of the sequence. The Ma period numbers preceding are wildy divergent. The second paper looked for 4600 Gt to be thrown up by an impact to get to 2300 ppmv.
4600Gt divided by the current anthrogenic number of 8.2 is 560 years to dead oceans. That is worrysome indeed, but I wish there was more consensus on the background data as there seems to be on current data. In both of the papers I cite, the ppmv figures in the long term neatly support each author's hypothesis but both can't be correct. One would think peer review would catch major discrepencies such as these. Thanks for the help. I am just a laymen who can read fairly technical data but strugeles a bit with the math.
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Tom Curtis at 20:48 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
pheidius, 1 mole of CO2 contains 12 grammes of carbon. Thus, 5 x 10^17 moles of CO2 equals 60 x 10^17 grammes, or 6,000 petagrammes of Carbon. A petagramme is also a Gigatonne, so 6,000 petagrammes of Carbon is 6,000 Gigatonnes of Carbon. 4.1 x 10^12 moles equals 49.2 x 10^12 grammes, or 0.0492 Gigatonnes Carbon. In contrast, the IPCC cites a value of 9.5 Petagrammes of Carbon (or Gigatonnes of Carbon) in 2011. Given the large discrepancy, it is likely the figure you cite from McLean is an estimate of natural emissions only.
The unit, ppm does not stand for a given mass of CO2, but for part per million, ie, a concentration of the gas within the atmosphere. Strictly what is called ppm in climate science is actually ppmv, ie, parts per million by volume - ie, the ratio of numbers of molecules in the atmosphere rather than the ratio of the total mass of each component of the atmosphere. Given the mass of the atmosphere, 2.13 Gigatonnes of Carbon = 1 ppmv of CO2. However, about half of all emissions are taken up by the ocean or biosphere rather than staying in the atmosphere.
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Jonas at 20:17 PM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Wunderful idea to make the numbers less abstract!
I reposted it with the numbers for germany:
597 kg waste per year ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abfall )
11,2 tons of CO2 per year ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Länderliste_CO2-Emission )
11200kg / 597g = ca 18.76 kg CO2 per kg of waste ... -
pheidius at 19:02 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
As a footnote to the above, I am reading another paper, "An Atmospheric pco2 Reconstruction across the Cretaceous_Tertiary Boundary from Leaf Megafosils." This paper compromises the usual bolide vrs. outgassing argument by accepting the linear increase from the Daccan traps but postulates a bolide colision as well that threw 4,600 GT c into the air rasing the ppm from 500 PPM to 2,300 ppm in only 10,000 additional years. I think were the two authors to duke it out in person, Mclean would argue that 500 PPM was the tipping point where the carbon sinks failed causing the rapid rise and consequent extinction while the author(s) of this other paper argue that another cause was neccssary for such a quick and dramatic increase.
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chriskoz at 18:45 PM on 9 January 2014Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows
If Sherwood 2014 ECS of 4°C is correct, then the actual equilibrium deltaT will be incidentally equal to the W/m2 forcing, which is the RPC number. That makes it very easy to calculate, e.g. RCP6.5 - 6.5°C.
That does not mean that I like the larger deltaT; but the simplicity is my favourite aspect of any knowledge according to KISS paradigm especially important while talking to denialists.
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pheidius at 18:29 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
I admit to some difficulty with Mclean's math as he was using moles as a measurement while current measurements use ppm(petagrams). I could not find any online calculator as moles and metric measurements are apples and oranges. He cites the figure of 5 x 10 to the 17th moles of co2 as the total Deccan release. I made that out to be 500,000,000,000,000,000(500 quadrillion moles). He gave a current mean figure of 4.1 x 10 to the 12th moles as the annual realease from all sources. (410,000,000,000 410 billion moles) At first, I thought I would try to convert from moles to the modern atomic unit by dividing by 12 and then trying to convert to ppm but then got muddled into thinking I could just multiply the moles by 1,000,000 to get PPM. Then I got tired and decided to post in the forum before going further. So how does Maclean's 1985 math fare against more recent calculations?
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Bernard J. at 17:05 PM on 9 January 2014Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows
On the matter of the climate sensitivity side of things Steven Sherwood says:
Rises in global average temperatures of [at least 4C by 2100] will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don't urgently start to curb our emissions.
One of the foremost denialist mantras at the moment is the notion that climate scientists are "extremist" - an yet Sherwood's words are simply "profound impacts"... This is hardly an extremist statement, so I struggle to understand why there is such venomous antipathy to the warnings of the professional scientists. Even Dana refers to "potentially catastrophic" results - I'm happy to go out on a limb and say that the adverb is unnecessary and that 4+ °C will be catastrophic if we allow the planet to warm to that extent.
It's worth noting that we're tracking close to the RCP8 pathway, although I think that over the course of the century the RCP6.5 pathway is likely to be closer to what eventuates. Taking this latter emissions trajectory into consideration and using Sherwood's et al results we are heading for somewhere between a tad under 5 °C and a smidgin over 7 °C of warming since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. And this is only for 2100 - not for the eventual plateauing of the trajectory...
My money's currently on the the lower end of Sherwood's et al estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity (for a couple of years now I've punted for 3.4 ± 0.2 °C for ECS) but this is still in "catastrophic" territory with a respond of just over 5 °C by 2100 is we continue with business as usual for the rest of the century. Even half of that amount of warming would be "catastrophic" for hundreds of millions (at least) of people and for >20% of the planet's biodiversity, and given that we're just about locked into that lower temperature plateau already, based on an assumption of a (now apparently conservative) 3 °C ECS and the emissions intentions of the international community for the forseeable future, there seems to be no way to avoid a bad end. And despite all this we continue to conduct out business such that we track at the higher end of emissions.
It's really a choice of a 'little' catastrophe in the future, or a big one. How long before we finally stop shovelling coal into the boiler?
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Tom Curtis at 14:34 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
pheidius @371, the background rate of natural emissions of CO2 over the last several million years has been 0.09 Gt C per annum. That compares with a current rate of industrial emissions of 8.2 Gt C per annum. That is, rather than a 10-25% increase of emissions, there has been a 90 fold and counting increase. If you feed that into David Archer's GeoCarb model by setting the transition CO2 spike to 0, and the simulation CO2 degassing rate to 682.5 x 10^12 mol/yr, then look at the result after a million years, you will see that the CO2 concentration is still increasing linearly after a million years. Effectively, the current rates of emissions of CO2 are so high that they cannot be stabilized by geophysical processes. Only be radically reducing emissions can we stabilize.
In contrast to the current rate of anthropogenic emissions, a 25% increase in the base background rate of emissions (simulated by setting the degassing rate to 9.4) results in an atmospheric increase to only 510 ppmv after a million years. Importantly, after 500 years there has only been an increase in CO2 concentration from 273 to 276 ppmv, and a corresponding temperature increase of 0.1 C. In contrast, in half that time, from 1850-2100, anthropogenic emissions will raise CO2 levels and temperatures by approximately the equivalent of a million years of Deccan traps outgassing.
What makes this fact worse is that species adjust to changes in temperatures either by migration or adaption. For most species the potential for migration is low, and the speeds of migration are slow. For some species, at high altitudes or at the poles, there is no potential for adjusting by migration at all. Species in those regions face a future of extinction as better migration by species better adapted to the new, warmer conditions results in their being out competed in the areas they formerly dominated.
For those species that must rely on adaption, we face the conumdrum that evolution is slow relative to human scales, though rapid in geological terms. An indication of how slow evolution is is the fact that many humans are still ill adapted to diets high in milk (lactose intolerance) or grains (glutten intolerance) 12 thousand years after the invention of agriculture. As it happens, most species are currently adapted to conditions colder than those that prevailed pre-industrialization. That follows from the slow pace of adaption and the fact that just 10 thousand years ago the world was much colder for 100 thousand years. So, for adaption, species are already behind the eightball. And now they are faced with the prospect of adapting to a million years of warming in just 250 years.
Given these facts, it is probable that the current anthropogenic warming will result in extinctions far greater in number than those caused by the Deccan traps.
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pheidius at 13:38 PM on 9 January 2014Climate's changed before
Ok, I asssume this forum will be eager to slap this down but I am honestly trying to do the math based on geological evidence. First, there is little doubt that the recent Co2 increases can be attributed to anything else but human impact. What i don't get is that the math doesn't seem to add up to any serious problem unless measured in Ma. I will use an average increase of 10% per year based on the numbers in the original header. I note that the Dacaan traps are briefy cited in one of the posts. Dewey M Mclean in his 1985 paper, " Deccan Traps Mantle Degassinging the Terminal Cretaceous Marine Extinctions," has established the mechanism of volcanic outgassing being the proximate cuase of several mass extinctions(besides the one cited in this paper). This theory has now largely surplanted the impact theory and should rightly be taken as a blue print of how excess Co2 could cuase mass extinction events. The problem I am having in looking at the numbers is trying to understand why the current increase is seen with such alarm and portrayed as immently catstrophic in affects. If you read this paper, you will see that he asserts that this geological event increased the rate of annual Co2 outgassing over baseline by 10-25% . This increase is comparable if you take his lower number and far greater if you take the higher numbers. Becuase of the intermittent periods of eruptive events of the traps, the anual numbers probably ran up and down this scale of averages. Still the mean increase would be substantialy higher than the modern rate of increase. The problem I have with these numbers comes down to this: this paper asserts that these increase took place in a .53-1.32 Ma time frame. For the sake of simplicity, lets use 1,000,000 years as a round number. I just can't imagine what is so different now about the earth that it could handle 1,000,000 years of continual co2 increase before pitching a fit, but now is only seen as capable of going only a few hundred years before an extinction event is seen looming. Help me out here.
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Riduna at 11:31 AM on 9 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
My understanding of the Sherwood Paper is that it says cloud formation at lower altitudes (>850 hPa) reduces as temperature increases because of mixing with cold dry air from mid troposphere (<750 hPa) dissipating water vapor near the surface. In other words, the warmer it gets, the less low cloud is formed, reducing its albedo and increasing solar radiation reaching the surface. Is this wrong?
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Tom Curtis at 10:39 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
chriskoz @14, emisssions from LUC are considered distinct from those due to the CO2 fertilization effect, melting of permafrost and other feedbacks. Consequently they are not strictly part of the terrestial carbon sink. Nor should we consider them so unless we also want to consider deforestation in the Amazon as also part of that sink. As noted before, while LUC in the US is a net sink, globally it is a net source of emissions. I don't object to the exclusion of LUC or CO2e in popular articles to allow simplicity of communication. However, when queried we should point to more detailed sources that include those complications. Indeed, if we follow Schneider's principle, we should include pointers to such more detailed treatments in the article, or at least indicate that you are simplifying.
Your point about the export of emissions, however, is a good one. I do not know where any such detailed calculation is made, however, the US exports 0.7% of its GDP to China, and imports 5% of China's GDP back. The net effect gives, as a first approximation, that the US trade with China "exports" 5% of US emissions. That is, US emissions per capita would be 5% greater if it manufactured internally the products it currently purchases from China.
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gws at 10:33 AM on 9 January 2014Methane emissions from oil & gas development
deweaver @28: That number was calculated from methane soil uptake flux data dividing by the atmospheric concentration (definition of deposition velocity; used when uptake is first order as in teh case of microbiol uptake). Typical uptake rates are around 1 mg m-2 d-1, atmospheric methane is about 1.2 mg m-3. Gives about 0.001 cm/s, I meant to estimate high. I see if I can find some papers to list here. Compared to other gases, soils are not good sinks for methane.
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Tom Curtis at 10:20 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
grindupBaker @13, the graph you are thinking of is from Archer et al, 2009:
It should be noted that the percentages you give are for a one of, instantaneious dumpt of CO2 into the atmosphere. As it happens, just 44% of all human emissions including those from landuse change currently remain in the atmosphere. That means the reduction will be to 60% of the current CO2 anomaly over the next couple of thousand years, ie, to about 25% of the total emissions.
The aphorism is intended to place things in perspective in human terms, not geological terms. In human terms, 2.5 ky is the age of western civilization, dating from its origins in ancient Greece. It it 3 times the duration since the early beginnings of modern constitutional government with the signing of the Magna Charta. It is 10 times the duration since the signing of the declartion of independence. In a world in which governments have difficulting pursuing policies with a time scale greater than the electoral cycle, it is forever.
Even form a geological perspective, however, the increase in CO2 is noticable. It will not finally return to natural levels until a million years from now, 80 times the duration since the invention of agriculture, and five times the duration of our species.
(Note: the duration to eliminate excess CO2 from the atmosphere depends critically on the amount dumped, with significantly shorter times to a given percentage remaining with lower levels of cumulative emissions.)
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chriskoz at 10:10 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
grindupBake@13,
Your critique is inaccurate. You argue that:
2.5ky (when up to 50% CO2 emissions stays in A) is only a small fraction of forever
while the sentence in the article "Most of the CO2 in the air will stay there essentially forever"
Note that "essentially forever" is different than "forever", so your critique does not aply. I think that 2.5ky can well be considered "essentially forever" is human lifetimescale, especially the lifetime of those who only want to "enjoy" the benefit, or to pocket the profit from the continuous FF burning. Therfore, "essentially forever" should not be considered a "hyperbole" here.
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chriskoz at 09:50 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Tom@12,
Thanks for that important update.
So the numbers in this article appear to underestimate (contrary to my previous assertion) US emissions when grant total CO2e is considered which is reasonable.
It's also worth noting that US land use changes are part of terestrial carbon sink when total CC budget is considered, therefore land use emission importance, or "seriousness factor", is smaller than the "seriousness" of 100My old fossil carbon. Therefore, I agree with the land use can be exclused from this consideration.
As a side note, I want to mention that US, similar to many developed countries) export lot of their emissions to G77 countries. Lots of products and goods requiring energy to produce therefore having high C footprint, are produced in countries like China and then imported to US for consumption. Emissions used to manufacture the products are attributed to China. If we attribute them to US, calculating the more proper "total consumer emissions", the average US citizen would "dump" even more CO2e in the air. Has anyone done such "consumer emissions" calculations and can show the numbers?
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grindupBaker at 09:36 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
AGU meeting 5-9 Dec 2011 has Davied Archer et al graph showing residual CO2 in air after future years as:
100 52%-79%
200 48%-74%
500 36%-68%
1k 32%(24% outlier)-61%
2.5k 21%-50%
3k 19%-44%
10k 10%-32%
Since 2.5ky is only a small fraction of forever, the "Most of the CO2 in the air will stay there essentially forever" is somewhat hyperbole and contradicts the following "for many millennia". Fine for social-science of course (human lifespans & whatnot) but unsuitable as a physical science comment. -
idunno at 09:22 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Hi Dana,
Re your concerns about trolling, expressed elsewhere.
I have previously noted that the amount of trolling on there goes up inordinately as soon as WUWT publishes an attack-piece on your work, or those of other regulars.
Imho, it would be very helpful if you, somebody, possibly me, possibly their own mods were to at least politely welcome the new arrivals, so that everybody is aware of what is going on.In an ideal world, you might even be able to coordinate with one of the burgeoning WUWT satire/rebuttal sites and link to the rebuttal by way of a welcome. In my own opinion, a dose of hotwhopper, What'sUpWithThatWatts, or similar, would be very good for some of them.
Cheers.Moderator Response:[PW] Eliminated unnecesary white space.
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Tom Curtis at 08:48 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Further to scaddenp @11, that only fossil fuel and cement manufacturing emissions are not included means that CO2 emissions from human respiration is not included (as it should not be). It does mean, however, that US emissions are slightly over estimated as the US has been a net sink for CO2 due to land use change. Globally, however, land use change is a net source of CO2, accounting for about 20% of all emissions.
Using EPA figures, US land use changes result in net emissions of -800 million tonnes of CO2e per annum, out of 6,700 million tonnes of CO2e per annum. That is, emissions from fossil fuels and cement manufacture would have been 7,500 million tonnes per annum absent the regrowth of forests, draining of swamps and other land use changes. The "e" means they are recording CO2 equivalents, ie, the total emissions of all greenhouse gases measured in terms of equivalent effect of CO2.
Recalculating for CO2 equivalents, and using the 2011 population, that means US citizens dump 58.8 kg of CO2e per day, or 53.5 kg CO2e for each kg of solid waste they dump. Thus, the overestimate by ignoring land use changes is more than made up by the underestimate of the effect by considering only CO2.
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Tom Curtis at 08:24 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Frankelfin @various:
1) Mathematically, it is inaccurate to talk about a linear trend slowing. At the trend is linear, it has constant slope. So, at most you can claim that the trend from 1981-1997 is greater than the trend from 1997-2013, but see (2) below.
2) More importantly, mathematically when you calculate the OLS trend, you apply a statistical model that assumes there is an underlying linear signal, plus some random noise. The calculated OLS trend represents a best estimate of the underlying trend, but it is inaccurate to say the trend has changed just because the best estimate of the OLS trend differs between two segments. Rather, you need to show that the difference is statistically significant. If you do not, the calculated difference has no bearing on the slope of the underlying trend. As it happens, the difference in slope between 1997-2013 and 1975-2013 is not statistically significant, so there is no basis to claim the trend has changed.
3) Restricting ourselves to just the annual (or monthly) global temperature observations, we have more reason to think that the underlying trend has increased rather than decreased with the addition of the last 16 years data. That is because the best estimate of the long term trend (whether calculated from 1880, 1901, 1975, or 1981) has increased as a result of adding those years to the data. Indeed, from 1991 to 1997 the Gistemp OLS trend is 0.068 +/1 0.01 C per decade, whereas from 1901 to the end of 2013 it is 0.084 +/- 0.009 C per decade. That is, the additional data from 1997 onwards results in a statistically significantly greater trend. Deniers attempt to misrepresent this state of affairs by falsely describing the temperature data after 1997 as "a pause" or "no warming" even though it results in a statistically significant increase in the centenial trend.
4) We do not have to restrict ourselves to the temperature data alone to determine whether or not the difference in short term best estimates of the trend are due to differences in the underlying trend or simply due to noise. We can actually look at some of the known sources of noise to determine their likely effects. In particular we can look at ENSO, which is known to be the dominant source of short term noise in the temperature record:
The inverted SOI is the best characerization of the ENSO signal, IMO. Other ENSO indices rely on temperature records, often of a single region. As a result they must inevitably include the global warming signal as part of their ENSO record. By using a pressure difference rather than temperatures, the SOI avoids that trap. Consequently the inverted, lagged SOI is an ideal independent characterization of the noise in the temperature record (excluding that from volcanoes). As can clearly be seen, the noise shows a strongly negative trend over the last 16 years. It follows that the underlying temperature trend will be significantly greater than the best estimate of that trend from temperature data alone over that period.
In summary, in your dispute with KR you are trying to make a narrow mathematical point, ie, that the best estimate of the OLR trend from 1997-end 2013 is less than the best estimate of the OLR trend from 1975 (or 1985) to 1997. If you are going to be a stickler on mathematical points, however, you don't get to stop halfway. Being entirely accurate mathematically supports KR's contention. Further, we have independent evidence that the supposed "pause" in warming over the last 16 years depends entirely on treating known noise as part of the long term trend.
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scaddenp at 08:16 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Joel, if you follow the link for the source of 17 tonnes of CO2 emissions, you find this statement:
"The data only considers carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, but not emissions from land use such as deforestation."
So this is total emissions for a country from CDIAC inventory divided by population. It includes emissions by businesses as well personal use.
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The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
franklefkin - Short data sets do not allow drawing any conclusions about underlying trends, as they are overwhelmed by noise (short term variation). Data trends without statistical significance, yes. Climate trend identification, which I consider far more relevant, no. My apologies if that was unclear; I thought that my discussion of statistical significance clarified matters.
As to the comparison of 1975-1997, 1997-present, and 1975-present, you do see that the 1997-present data (0.076 ±0.119 °C/decade 2σ), while crossing over the previous trends, has _not_ gone as far below the 1975-1997 or 1975-present slopes as 1998 raised it above? And therefore (as both Tom and I noted) that the inclusion of the most recent 16 years increases the observed long term climate trends? The temperature data is exhibiting behavior consistent with regression to the mean and short term variation over the recent (again, not statistically significant) period.
You've miscompared trend periods between Toms and my posts, and although as discussed we have insufficient data from the last 16 years to determine if climate trends are slowing, or for that matter accelerating (see here), you continue to emphasize it. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I just don't see where you are going with this...
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Joel_Huberman at 07:24 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Another confusing aspect of this otherwise excellent article is the question of the source of the CO2 being measured. We humans, like other animals, release CO2 when we exhale. But the CO2 we breathe out does not raise the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, because the CO2 we exhale comes from the carbon in our food, which was recently extracted from the atmosphere by plants during the process of photosynthesis. What's not clear is whether the CO2 discussed in this article is only CO2 derived from fossil sources, or does it also include exhaled CO2?
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franklefkin at 07:01 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
KR,
Your assertion that "the trend is slowing" is simply not supported by the data.
The trend for the last 16 years (17 inclusive) as calculated by Tom 0.076 C/dec
The trend for the 23 years inclusive, just prior to the above, as calculated me 0.155 c/dec
The rate has dropped to half. I'd say that the data does support my claim.
Again, I am not adding anything regarding statistical significance to the argument, nor am I saying that the 17 year "slowdown" means anything at this point.
I am aware of what regression to the mean is.
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The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
franklefkin - I fail to see where you have an issue. Both Tom Curtis and I noted that the additon of the last 16 years to the previous record shows a higher rate of warming (acceleration), and while that increase is not statistically significant there is certainly _no_ evidence of a slowdown. You should really read up on regression to the mean.
Your assertion that "the trend is slowing" is simply not supported by the data.
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franklefkin at 06:33 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
KR,
I was referencing your statement
As Tom noted, including that most recent 16 years actually increases the long term trend estimate, as they average above the 1975-1997 trendline; warming has not halted.
When I said that the number was larger than the number Tom indicated. It was you who brought 1975 into the discussion. I just pointed out that your numbers were incorrect. 16 years is too short, I didn't say otherwise. Since a comparrison of the rate during the last 16 years was made to the previous 16 years, I thought the correct trend, and the correct time duration should be used. FWIW, it should probably be 1980 to 1996 however, but since you used 1875 to 1997, I kept 1997 as the end point.
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deweaver at 06:28 AM on 9 January 2014Methane emissions from oil & gas development
gws,
How do you get a velocity of only 0.01 cm/s. When the rate of distruction in soils and on surfaces are a non-linear funtion of the concentration and the problem of mass transport from the atmosphere to the soil is a complex problem with both advection terms due to atmosperic pressure fluxiations and diffusion terms, there is no way a simple velocity function could every fit the data.
Once the concentation is above Smin (energetic break even concentration for the bacteria), the biomass will rapidly increase to bring the concentration back down to Smin in a dynamic equilibrium with the mass transfort function. With diffusion being an X^2 type function, non-linearity is basic to the problem and increasing concentration can result in a very rapid destruction rate with all moist surfaces biodegrading methane as fast as it reaches the surface.I don't know that concentration level, but we should know it.
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The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
franklefkin - First, Tom Curtis didn't give figures from 1975. Second, warming rates have increased over the last 150 years (not monotonically, a notable dip ~1940-1975), meaning that the last 50 years have a higher trend than the last 130. You are comparing apples/oranges.
Finally, and most importantly, 16 years is just too short a time period to draw conclusions from - one of the mistakes most often made by 'skeptics'. There simply isn't enough data to separate trends from null hypotheses, or to separate trends that differ less that a quarter degree or so per decade. You simply cannot say from that limited subset of the data if the trend is slowing, increasing, or remaining steady - that statistics don't support such claims. As I've said before:
Examining any time-span starting in the instrumental record and ending in the present:
- Over no period is warming statistically excluded.
- Over no period is the hypothesis of "no warming" statistically supported WRT a null hypothesis of the longer term trends.
- And over any period with enough data to actually separate the two hypotheses – there is warming.
Short term surface temperature variations are large enough that discussions of 16 year trends wrt climate are just noise about noise.
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franklefkin at 05:46 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
KR @24,
When I put in 1975 and 1997, I got a warming trend of .155 C/dec, which is more than the number Tom indicated, so your logic does not follow. I would have used the years 1981 - 1997 (same duration as 1997 -2013), which has a value of .116 C/dec, which is also higher than the .076 C/dec ---- so the trend is slowing, not increasing!
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dana1981 at 04:58 AM on 9 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Let's please not forget that as our own Cowtan & Way showed, the surface temperature record has a cool bias over the past 15 years, during which time the actual trend is about 0.12°C per decade.
adrian @21 - what you read is wrong.
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wili at 04:39 AM on 9 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
I'm afraid I'm still confused. At minute 1:40 Sherwood says that in some models the water vapor always rises up to 10 or 15 kilometers--wouldn't those be high clouds??
From clouds wiki: "Clouds of the high family form at altitudes of 3,000 to 7,600 m (10,000 to 25,000 ft) in the polar regions, 5,000 to 12,200 m (16,500 to 40,000 ft) in the temperate regions and 6,100 to 18,300 m (20,000 to 60,000 ft) in the tropical region."
But at the end he says that it is the low clouds that don't form. So I'm still confused. -
Steve L at 04:03 AM on 9 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
I wrote the confused comment below in response to misunderstanding the following: "warming of the lower atmosphere pulls water vapour away from those higher cloud-forming levels of the atmosphere." Perhaps the article can be edited to emphasize that "lower atmosphere" means "non-cloud-forming altitudes" -- I initially thought the distinction was between "high cloud altitudes" and "low cloud altitudes." See below to understand my confusion...
This is confusing to me, at least on a superficial level. I googled "high cloud low cloud feedback" and went to the basic explanation on SKS for "What is the net feedback from clouds?" There the text indicates that high level clouds produce a positive feedback and low level clouds produce a negative feedback. The above indicates that we'll have fewer high level clouds because water vapour is actually drawn from the upper atmosphere into the lower atmosphere (which is warming). ... Ah, now watching the video I understand. This is not about high clouds versus low clouds. This is only about low clouds.
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wili at 03:26 AM on 9 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
Good points, chriskoz. Here's a link to a review of the Sherwood article from Nature. Unfortunately, they don't seem to address the issue you point out. (I'm assuming it is just an issue of sloppy wording, but maybe there is something else there.)
Moderator Response:[RH] Fixed link that was breaking page format.
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The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
adrian smits - To expand a bit on what Tom Curtis said, the years since 1998 are exhibiting Regression to the Mean, and the variations below the longer term trend has not gone as far as the 1998 3-sigma El Nino varied above that trend.
As Tom noted, including that most recent 16 years actually increases the long term trend estimate, as they average above the 1975-1997 trendline; warming has not halted.
And despite misleading graphs from a few 'skeptics', the climate models continue to be accurate, with temperatures remaining within predicted trends +/- short term variations. You should take a more critical view of the sources of your misinformation.
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ellisr01 at 02:48 AM on 9 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Excellent obervation of the fact that the atmosphere is our preferred "dump". It's so handy. Just burn things and they magically "disappear". Take note of the growth of this approach with the current expansion of incineration and its fig-leaf clothed sibling, waste to energy. These along with other clever schemes like cooking plastic to turn it into a handy liquid fuel are all moves to replace the cost of landfilling with that free dump, the atmosphere.
In my trash handling, I separate out the organics for our city operated composting, and my glass, metal, plastic containers, paper and cardboard for conventional recycling. What's left is mainly non-recyclable plastics. I think of it as my contribution to carbon sequestration. Fossil fuels that were converted to plastics and then reburied.
I know people are very concerned about plastics in the environment and thus the great war on plastic bags. I like free plastic bags (mainly made from natural gas) because I make sure all mine go to the landfill. The plastic bags that get into the environment as a hazard is a behavioral problem known as littering. Now, in Canada, all paper money bills have been replaced with new counterfeit resistant plastic money bills. Consider that! Billions more pieces of plastic manufactered and circulating through society. Does this represent an environmental problem? I think not. There is a strong economic incentive not to throw your cash onto the ground so it doesn't happen.
Bottom line, burying plastic is the cheapest fossil carbon sequestration program I can imagine.
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MA Rodger at 23:21 PM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
adrian smits @21 (aka Steve Hales?)
So where is it that you "Last ... read 98% of climate models have been proven to be falsified and the other 2% are just holding on by the skin of their teeth." Is this perhaps the Daily Mail you are reading? Be warned that David Rose, investigitive reporter of that rag, is not the sort of person that you should take at face value. In that respect, he has a lot in common with Dick Lindzen.
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Tom Curtis at 22:08 PM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Adrian Smits @21:
Trend 1880-1997: 0.051 C per decade
Trend from 1997-Dec 2013: 0.076 C per decade
Trend from 1880-Dec 2013: 0.066 C per decade
All trends calculated using GISS on the SkS trend calculator.
So, the situation is, the trend over the last 16 years is greater than the trend up to that point. Further, the trend from 1880 to the present is made larger than the trend up to 1997 by adding the additional data. Yet you insist that that increase in the trend is "a trend that doesn't exist". You have the gall to call accurate reporting of the temperature trends lies because they do not suit your agenda - but are so careless about the facts that you have not even noticed that the 16 year of so called stalled global warming is a period of more rapid global warming than the average over the twentieth century.
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adrian smits at 21:28 PM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Last I read 98% of climate models have been proven to be falsified and the other 2% are just holding on by the skin of their teeth. This says it all. Consider for a moment if the economy had failed to grow for the past 16 years but over the last century had increased in size by 5% you could make the claim that economic output for November was the highest it has ever been since recordkeeping began (bumps and wiggles in a time series don’t influence trends) and it was the 345th consecutive month that economic output was above its 20th-century average. At the same time, government statisticians ignored that economic output had remained unchanged for the past 16 years. I am sure you would be screaming from the highest point in Camden that this deceitful practice of reporting economic statistics must end at once. But yet when this exact same practice is preformed upon climate data you are alarmed at a trend that doesn’t exist.
Steve Hales
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chriskoz at 20:25 PM on 8 January 2014New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100
I want to know how Sherwood 2014 influenced the actual numbers of ECS components (forcing+feedbacks) and how the new numbers add up.
From AR4 estimates on model/observationally-based research (I don't quote latest AR5 because I think they underestimated it), here's a summary of central estimates:
2xCO2 forcing: +1.25K
H2O fb: +2.5K
Snow/Ice albedo fb: +0.6K
Cloud fb: -1.85K
---------------------
Total ECS: 2.5K
The reason they quoted higher ECS (3.0K) is that other methods (paleo observations) gave higher results (4.0K+).
Now, Sherwood 2014 claims to have adjusted (Cloud fb: -1.85K) component. According to this article, the adjustment resulted in a change in total ECS: 2.5K -> 4.0K. It means that Cloud fb component was increased by 1.5K. So, the new value of Cloud fb component is now -1.85+1.5 = -0.35K.
Two observations/questions follows:
1. Sherwood 2014 brought their model/observational ECS in par with paleo ECS
2.The Cloud fb is appears still negative (-0.35K) after their adjustement, so why is the new cloud feedback described as "positive" in the text above? To be precise, it should be described as "less negative", or that previous research "overestimated the clouds' cooling effect". Am I missing something here or are my calculations wrong or is the article's text inaccurate (clouds' overall fb is still negative according to Sherwood 2014)?
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davidnewell at 14:19 PM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
There is one god to whom we all give fealty: "GOD REALITY".
Denying this god is a losing proposition.
Right-wing denial of "the facts" is madness.
Even "Rushboe", who was smarter than everyone else with "half his brain tied behind his back", had to resort to Oxycodone addiction, to deal with the disconnect..
Ultimately, being on the same planet, we are on "the same page". Some folks just don't know it yet.
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davidnewell at 13:44 PM on 8 January 20142013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
TO: Michael Sweet (above #19)
I did not intend to project the assumption that the water droplets will totally saturate with CO2 in their arc up and down: but I do know that they will absorb some CO2, and that it is a matter significantly dependent on surface area, which is why the scheme includes variable geometry outlet nozzles, to influence droplet size.
Fortunately CO2 is very soluble in water. Other gasses will also be absorbed, and the collection pond for the droplets will become saturated and outgas them. The CO2, however, will be sequestered as bicarbonates and carbonates.
The adsorption of CO2 by a droplet in a spray fan rising and falling is truly a complex multi variate issue best decided by results obtained in the Current “next steps” and “needs analysis”” section of the paper.
It may be noted that the presumed droplets sprayed will be highly alkaline and moderately basic, as well as saline.
The patent section of the paper is not yet appended, but it includes proof that (tap) water droplets falling through an 8' fall adsorb CO2, and affect the pH of the collected water: whereas if the collection is accomplished over alkaline playa soils, the pH remains >8.5.
You sugggest pumping 150,000 m^3 per hour up 6,000 feet. How will this energy be generated without CO2? Where will the excess salt go? How many kilotons of salt will there be? How thick will it be after one year of continuous spraying?
The excess salt produced by the evaporation of 3% NaCl ocean water may either be blended into the already-saline soils of the sample playa (Black Rock Desert), or the spray apparatus may be relocated, allowing the first impoundment to dry up, and the accumulated salt scraped up as a commercial product.
I think that probably it would just be redistributed into the overall huge mass of the playa, (with a depth of several thousand feet of alkaline soil,) which would be effected by “water drills” used to access underlying soils when the pH of the surface impoundment approaches approximately 8.2 or so.
Think of a water jet nozzle directed downwards into extremely deep mud.
As regards the energy source, the document uses as comparison the energy used to pump fresh water over the Tehachapis from NorCal to SoCal. As far as I’m concerned, the energy could be diverted from that task to the proposal: but that is not likely to be the case.
I could presume an 800 megawatt nuclear power plant, with the cooling water being part of what is pumped (thus avoiding the thermo-pollutant issues): or other source: whatever, NorCal will be needful of enhanced energy sources in the near future, and this scheme provides “pumped-storage hydroelectricity” attributes, as well.
I will not contest your assessment of the viability of this scheme to make a significant affect on the global CO2 excess problem, as it would be based on presumptions, and therefore principally argumentative. (Which is why the "next steps" section is projected..)
However, it’s putative profile of action as projected in the paper
( Presuming, then, a 150 foot radius spray fan, and an average wind speed of 10 MPH, the volume of CO2 which will pass through the plane of the fan half-circle, per year, is ~ 200,000 metric tonnes. This is for one “spray rig”. Ultimately, thousands are envisaged. (See attachment [3] for single sprayer CO2 “flow” per year.) )
on THIS PLAYA alone, will act on a volume of 200,000,000 tonnes / year.
What % capture rate would make the effort worthwhile?
There are DOZENS of playas with similar characteristics in the Great Basin.I have not answered your concern about “orders of magnitude”, but will investigate a rebuttal.
I would say that as compared to any other proposal I’ve seen to effect direct air capture, this is:
more scalable
cheaper
more in accord with how nature works
and
provides several other ancillary benefits:I am convinced that SOME way to effect DAC must be employed, or we may be an extinct species, along with many others.
Thank you.
David
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SeaHuck5891 at 10:53 AM on 8 January 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #1
If anyone ever doubts the thought process of many conservatives in the US concerning climate change, these Daily Show videos nicely illustrate the logic of the "Fox News Brigade":
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dana1981 at 10:10 AM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
william @17 - I refer you to this quote from the above article, which I think captures the point you're trying to make.
"It's okay to be wrong, and [Lindzen] is a smart person, but most people don't really understand that one way of using your intelligence is to spin ever more clever ways of deceiving yourself, ever more clever ways of being wrong. And that's okay because if you are wrong in an interesting way that advances the science, I think it's great to be wrong, and he has made a career of being wrong in interesting ways about climate science."
Lindzen has previously admitted his Iris hypothesis was bad (at least according to one interview), but I think he's since tried to reanimate the hypothesis. I think he still believes it's valid, although it's been demolished by the observational data.
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sunoba at 10:02 AM on 8 January 2014Talking Trash on Emissions
Nice article, thanks! This is a good way to illustrate the amount of CO2 being released.
I especially was interested in the comment in the 3rd last paragraph:
"the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels will have an ultimate heating contribution millions of times larger than the energy released from burning it".
I've made an estimate along similar lines, but my results are nowhere near as dramatic. I find that of the energy released by burning 1 kg of coal, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 will remain permanently in the atmosphere due to the global warming effect of CO2 that is released.
Details of the estimate are at www.sunoba.blogspot.com, post for 6 June 2011.
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michael sweet at 06:28 AM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
William:
You are wrong, Lindzen is indeed a tobacco apologist. Lindzen has testified in court that there is no statistical connection between tobacco and lung cancer. (This shows the quality of his statistical analysis). The rest of what you say about Lindzen is also incorrect. History has shown that Lindzen has been completely wrong from the start. He should not be respected because he has so strongly contributed to the denier movement. He has worked hard to hurt our children.
I was surprised to see this article, there has not been much from Lindzen lately. I noticed that in the puff piece there was a description of Lindzen's Iris model (not written by Lindzen). Lindzen himself has admitted that the data shows that hypothesis incorrect. I note that Lindzen did not correct the writer and have the Iris material deleted.
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william5331 at 05:24 AM on 8 January 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
We mustn't be too dismisive of Lindzen. He may have been wrong most times but I bet he caused other climate scientists to re-examine their data to make sure they had it right. Lindzen is no crackpot like monkton (small m). He is not former apologist for big tobacco. He is genuine in what he thinks and is willing to swim against the flow. It is far too easy for, yes, even a scientist, to go to off half cocked and go beyond what his data is telling him. It is good to have a few Lindzen's around and even if he has been 90% wrong, he may come up with that critical insight. We must continue to proove him wrong and not to dismiss his ideas just because of the source.
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