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Dikran Marsupial at 21:54 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom@33 I was going to write a detailed response to your post, however I found that I could not, after seeing that you had written
"Indeed, you try that maneuvre yourself to suggest that my examples are also destructive. ".
I am very dissapointed to read this, as I consider you a friend, but this is essentially an accusation that I was being disingenuous. I was being serious when I asked how close would someone want to be to a Saturn V rocket at take off, and perhaps you should consider your answer to that question. I shall leave the discussion there I think. I understand that you feel strongly on this point, but that does not mean you have the right to make that kind of insinuation.
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chriskoz at 21:50 PM on 29 November 2013Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
topal@1,
You fail to recognise that John is talking about "scientific consensus" rather than "opinion". Regardeless, we've already discussed that the scientiic consensus does matter for those who are unwilling/unable to understand the actual science due to lack of time or impossibility to gain the level of expertise required to judge the actual evidence. There are more than many real life examples where you rely on experts' opinions; simplest example being the doctors you consult re your health.
In your second paragraph, you belittle the value of "a consensus" but qualify your critique with the clause "as long as the evidence isn't conclusive". Therefore, by that measure, you are telling us that the climate science consensus cannot be considered here, because we know there are multiple lines of conclusive evidence of climate science consensus validity.
Finaly, in your closing paragraph, you comparing two entities - multidisciplinary abstract knowledge and an industrial organisation - conceptually so different, that it does not make sense to even conceive such comparison, therefore your sentence sounds like completely chaotic rambling. I can only note that commenters on this site are supposed to make consice, logical points; so your rambling should not have been pronounced here.
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Tom Curtis at 21:50 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dikran @37, there is not any dispute TIAAO among scientists about how to measure the energy of storms or hurricanes. Rather, the total energy is given straightforwardly by the energy generated by condensation of water vapour. Very little or that energy, however, goes into a form that will cause damage by whipping up waves, increasing the storm surge and simply blowing things down. Therefore there are two measures of energy - one for the total energy, and another for the potentially destructive energy. That later is simplified into an index which makes it easy to calculate. There is, of course, significant dispute among scientists as to which is the best index for determining the probable destructive effect of hurricanes, but that is a seperate issue.
Further, I do not object to the use of atomic bombs as an energy comparator per se. I object to the sole use of destructive forms of energy. As I said above, only a range of such comparison truly gets the scale of energy across.
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John Cook at 21:39 PM on 29 November 2013Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
topal, I'm guessing you didn't follow the link and read the article as it begins by discussing evidence:
MANY lines of evidence confirm that humans are causing global warming. Scientists measure more heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a result of burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Satellites measure less heat escaping to space at the exact wavelengths that greenhouse gases trap heat. Human fingerprints are being observed all over our climate.
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Dikran Marsupial at 21:39 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom@35 with regard to my point @32 the fact that there is not a single obvious way to measure the energy of a storm amongst scientists suggests that it isn't a straightforward matter for the general public. The comparison with Little Man (or indeed Trinity) made it clearer to me that *I* was underappreciating the amount of energy in a storm, which shows how effective it is as a means of communicating very large amounts of energy. Trinity/Little Boy doesn't make much difference to me as the difference in yield was not orders of magnitude different.
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Tom Curtis at 21:34 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
I will add, re thunderstorms, that a thunderstorm comparison appears to me to be an almost perfect. It is a common phenomenon, particularly for people in the tropics, subtropics and the USA. Further, it has a very large amount of energy, only a very small part of which results in destruction. By comparions with a suitable atomic bomb, the raw power of the storm can be appreciated, while recognizing that most of that power is in a non-damaging form. Once readers realize this, the comparison with thunderstorms becomes very informative.
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Tom Curtis at 21:31 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dikran @32, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. As to the choice of comparator to put thunderstorms into context, I have chosen Little Boy only because that is the chosen benchmark for "Atomic Bombs" in the widget. Introducing Trinity (which I would prefer) would only create confusion due to the different yields of the two devices.
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Tom Curtis at 21:28 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
chriskoz @31, you will find it at the widget's home site, under "understand the science". I disagree that it is the centerpiece of my critique. The centerpiece of my critique of the choice of comparators is that they are all examples of destructive forms of energy, in most cases very destructive; added to the fact that I know that less destructive comparators were suggested (including Trinity rather than Little Boy) prior to publication and rejected because they did not have enough "impact". That "impact" comes at the cost of distorting the scientific message. It is only seen as not a cost if, at whatever level, the alarm engendered is part of the message you want to include.
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michael sweet at 21:24 PM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
jhnplmr:
Your claim at 23 that fossil fuels are runnig out is false. Please provide a citation to support your wild claims. There has already been enough CO2 released to prevent global cooling for over 100,000 years. Do you really want to argue about what will happen in 500,000 years?
Saying "if I could find a way to upload my graph I could show you but I can't!" is not very convincing. This is a scientific board. Your unsupported word is not worth much. No-one will listen to you if you cannot provide peer reviewed support for your claims. Continously repeating the same unsupported claims is sloganeering. If you do not begin to support your claims the moderators will start to edit yout posts.
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Tom Curtis at 21:18 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dikran @29:
First comparators.
To date I have included mutliple different comparisons in my discussion, including human food take; the kinetic energy of air in the lower atmosphere; thunderstorms, Saturn V rockets and, now Hurricanes. I believe it is necessary to include multiple comparisons of different types like this if you truly want people to get a feel for large numbers. It is necessary that they understand the very large amount of energy involved in a thunderstorm, and compare that to atomic bombs as well as to the heat gain at the Earth's surface. It is necessary to also appreciate the heat gain in terms of human food intake, and to realize that the total energy of human food intake in a minute and six and half seconds equals the energy of Little Boy when making the comparison. Only in that way, by comparing energy levels across a wide range of forms and entropy levels that they will appreciate the energy in itself, as distinct from its destructive capacity or its presence in low entropy states.
It is also usefull to make different forms of comparison, like the example of how hot the atmosphere would become if all the world's gain of heat had been confined to it. Or the fact that over the last ten years, the Earth has accumulated energy equivalent to seven days and eight hours worth of sunlight over the total of the Earth's surface.
But most important of all, the comparisons should be given scientific context.
I have tried to do all three with my multiple comparisons and discussion of entropy. The figure I have heard is that only 1% of internet discussions result in changing somebodies mind; and I have no reason to think this discussion will be even that successful given that the presentation of the widget means I was unable to change peoples minds in the discussions on the SkS private forum which led, eventually, to my resignation. I figure at least this discussion will give the scientific context, and multiple appropriate comparisons even if the widget does not.
You try to make the point that it is hard to think of non-destructive comparators for large amounts of energy. Most of my examples demonstrate that is not so. Unless, of course, you consider food intake and summer breezes destructive. You might reasonably point out that we do not appreciate the energy in the lower atmosphere, and of course we do not. But when it is compared to that from a nuclear weapon, and to that accumulated due to global warming, we are no longer tempted (if we have understood the comparisons) to treat the explosive, destructive features of the nuclear weapon as being essential, or even significant in the comparison. The nuclear comparison makes the energy evident, but the "summer breeze" comparison makes us aware that energy need not be destructive in any way; and that it is only the energy that is central to the comparison.
In contrast to my diverse comparisons, the widget focuses exclusively on destructive examples. Given a choice among these, it chooses the more destructive examples (Little Boy rather than Trinity), and when describing three of these it personalizes them, imaginatively placing the reader in the position of being the focus of the energy. It is as if in my comparison to Saturn V's I had compared it to the energy of being underneath a Saturn V at blast of - thereby taking the focus of the energy and onto personal destruction.
Indeed, you try that maneuvre yourself to suggest that my examples are also destructive. I very nearly included an example of the Hoover Dam power generation for a comparator. Would you have suggested also that it was destructive because we cold imagine it short circuiting through me?
Second, the website.
To start with, I hate the name of the website. It has entirely the wrong focus, and may well be offensive to Hiroshima survivors. Further, the discussion is too limited, not including any discussion of entropy, nor extended examples which defocus the attention on destruction. Rather, it personalizes it, bringing the focus onto the destruction by the three words highlighted in my quote @28. Beyond that, the links back to SkS are too non-specific. It tries to isolate the message by not linking to blog posts such as this one, and that linked to by Dana above. Beyond that, and the comparators chosen for the widget itself, no I have no significant problem with it (I have not read all of it in detail).
Third, motives.
I can understand not wanting to second guess motives, but sometimes it is necessary. That is particularly the case in that the widget is not science - it is an attempt to communicate part of a complex fact in as simple a form as possible. When you do that, it is very easy for you to identify factors as important to clarity when they are only important to secondary messages. One clear example of just that was the choice of the Little Boy over Trinity (or a host of alternative suggestions). Consequently, I think in this case the identification of secondary motives is appropriate. (I certainly disagree with any suggestion that alarming people is the primary motive involved, such as those raised by Terranova @17, both because it is not parsimonious with the evidence, and because I have participated in related internal discussions and know it is not true.
However, let us leave aside the issue of motives. That does not end the issue of the subtext of the message. Subtexts can be involuntary and even accidental. The simple fact is that people do read subtexts into communications. Given that, what subtext will people read into the widget? And if, as I maintain, it is one of alarmism, how can the SkS team alter the widget to avoid that subtext and bring the focus back to your primary message?
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shoyemore at 20:49 PM on 29 November 2013Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
topal @1
What is it you want to demonstrate with this article? Prove that the opinion you represent is more worth than the opinion of others?
I think it is John Cook's facts-established-by-research versus the opinions-and-obfuscation of Anthony Cox.
No contest, really, if you read the articles without prejudging them.
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jhnplmr at 20:41 PM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
#19 HK
"BTW, the summer solstice insolation at 65oN is close to its minimum right now at 481 watt/m2 and will remain between 480 and 493 watt/m2 for the next 20,000 years because the precession that changes the time of perihel will be countered by decreased orbital eccentricity and axial tilt."
I don't know how you plot your Milankovitch cycles but I use the same method that Milankovitch used, ie, using the orbital eccentricity, the precession and the axial tilt to calculate the solar insolation at any time.
Saying:
"because the precession that changes the time of perihel will be countered by decreased orbital eccentricity and axial tilt."
is meaningless as these factors have already been taken into account in the calculation.
Moderator Response:[RH] Removed blank lines.
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Dikran Marsupial at 20:12 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom@30 The subtlety/complexity rather illustrates why thunderstorms are not a good analogy as most of us won't have a good conception of just how powerful a thunderstorm is. In fact the comparison with the Little Boy bomb puts it nicely into context - I find that a rather surprising comparison.
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jhnplmr at 20:04 PM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
#Moderator Response:[TD]
"No, the next glaciation won't be happening for many tens of thousands of years"
I didn't say the next glaciation, I said global cooling. I am well aware that the present dip in the Milankovitch cycle is insufficient to trigger the next glacial period. The effect of man-made warming is to offset the cooling due to the Milankovitch cycle, that is why the present interglacial has been extended far beyond the duration of the last interglacial period. Plot the graphs and see for yourself.
We are running out of fossil fuels so it is unlikely that we can continue to inject sufficient GHG to offset future cooling.
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topal at 19:51 PM on 29 November 2013Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry
What is it you want to demonstrate with this article? Prove that the opinion you represent is more worth than the opinion of others? Opinions are not evidence, they cannot be exchanged against facts and evidence. Opinions can easily be influenced, facts cannot.
In the Middle Age, there was a consensus of more than 90% that whitches had to be drowned becaused they were responsible for extreme weather events. You don't gain anything if you have all the opinions on your side, as long as the evidence isn't conclusive.
Climate science is not like the tobacco industry, but there is a commonality between them: both may be considerable contributors to the livelihood of their partisans.
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chriskoz at 19:51 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom@28,
The centrepiece of your critique is the alleged John Cook's "slip of a tongue" that you bring in here in the form of a long citation in the middle of your comment. Specifically, you emphasize the five bullet points & argue that the harm implying words therein should not be used in the description of the widget. However you do not provide any link as the evidence of the validity of your claim. Can you provide one? Thanks. Myself, I cannot find that text with google, so I'm confused where your citation comes from...
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jhnplmr at 19:50 PM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
#19 HK
"while the annual insolation has decreased at high latitudes during Holocene it has increased in the tropics"
There is a very strong correlation between Vostok ice core temperatures and the Jul 65N Milankovitch cycles. There is more land mass in the northern hemisphere so lower summer temperatures here have more effect on global temperatures. Glacial periods are caused by lower summer temperatures where ice doesn't melt. Plot it for yourself, if I could find a way to upload my graph I could show you but I can't!
"BTW, the summer solstice insolation at 65oN is close to its minimum right now at 481 watt/m2 and will remain between 480 and 493 watt/m2 for the next 20,000 years because the precession that changes the time of perihel will be countered by decreased orbital eccentricity and axial tilt."
I don't know where you are getting your figures from but from mine:
-3000 424.1W/m2
-2000 423.61W/m2
-1000 424.61W/m2This shows a clear minimum in 2000 years time. After that insolation will rise.
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Tom Curtis at 19:47 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
I have been looking at why Roscoe Braham's 1952 estimate of the energy of an average thunderstorm (cited @28 above) is so much larger than the energy assigned to Hurricane Sandy by the widget. Part of the explanation is that there are two ways to measure the total energy of a storm.
The first, used by Braham, is to determine the total amount of water that condenses in the storm, and determine the amount of energy released by that condensation. It is that energy which, of course, powers the storm, and hence that energy is the total amount of energy produced by the storm. Emmanual (1999) cites a text book by Anthes et al (1978) to the effect that an average Hurricane produces 10^14 watts of energy by this process. R A Anthes did a lot of early work on hurricane energy, so can be taken as an authority on the subject.
Using this estimate, and the the approximate lifetime of Sandy of seven days, Hurricane Sandy would have generated a total energy of 60.5 x 10^18 Joules of energy. This is probably a significant underestimate due to Sandy's large size, but I will use it as a working value. That is 46,000 times the energy of an average thunderstorm, or 900,000 times the energy of the Little Boy bomb, or the equivalent of 2.8 days worth increased energy storage by the Earth due to global warming.
Most, however, of that energy is disspated harmlessly. Much of it is dissipated as increased gravitational potential energy of wind and air carried to high altitude at the hurricane's center (or the powerfull updrafts of a thunderstorm). A sizable fraction is used as the storm disperses and the clouds evaporate, thereby reversing the process which made the energy available in the first place. Consequently there are other methods of estimating a hurricane's energy.
The second way is to measure the dissipation of energy in the form of wind. Over its life time, the energy dissipated as wind equals the energy used to generate the winds, so that the two are equal. Therefore this represents the total kinetic energy of the hurricanes winds. Emmanuel gives the formula in Emmanual (1999). As it turns out, this energy is linearly proportional to the cube of windspeed; and hence forms the base of the Power Dissipation Index (PDI). The later, however, is just an index. It is a linear function of storm energy, but is not in units of energy.
Emmanuel calculates the power of a representative Atlantic hurricane as 3 x 10^12 watts. Taking that value, and applying Sandy's durration, we have a total kinetic energy estimate of 1.8 x 10^18 Joules. Again, this is probably a significant underestimate, but I shall use it as a working figure, lacking the detailed data on Sandy. That values is equivalent to 2 hours energy storage at the Earth's surface as a result of global warming.
These figures are obviously much larger than those ascribed to Sandy by the widget. The reason is that the widget used the figures for the Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE), an index of hurricane destructivity. The IKE of Sandy was indeed reported as being 140 terajoules, the figure used in the Widget. The integrated kinetic energy, however, is not the kinetic energy. To see this, we need only imagine a 2 Kg wait traveling without any forces being applied at 1 meter per second for 10 seconds. Its kinetic energy, give by 0.5mv^2 is 1 joule. In contrast its integrated kinetic energy over the ten seconds is 10 joules. Although the unit of "joules" is retained by integration, the IKE is not the energy of either our example weight, or of a storm. The retention of that unit, however, has lead to confusion both at the Washington Post, and in the creation of the widget.
As a side note, the very much greater actual energy of the storm compared to the IKE shows that there are very strong forces resisting the storm as it travels; which explains why hurricanes dissipate so quickly when their fuel (ie, condensing water) is cut of when they travel over dry land.
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Kevin C at 19:41 PM on 29 November 2013Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access
Wiley are disputing the payment has been made. I've got the payment tracking details from my bank though, so they've got no legs to stand on.
Sorry about the delay, I'm escalating this as fast as I can.
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Anne-Marie Blackburn at 18:58 PM on 29 November 2013No, Greenland Wasn't Green
mspelto, thanks for the feedback. I think it's worth remembering that this is the basic version of the Greenland was green rebuttal, so my aim was to keep the message simple and highlight the key points only. I think it would be good to use the links you provide in the intermediate version of the rebuttal - I'll have a word with John and see if that rebuttal should be updated.
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bratisla at 18:49 PM on 29 November 2013Video: 10 climate myths debunked in under 4 minutes
I think he found a great way to answer the last argument. A personal way - this is an open question, one can disagree with him - but it's breaking the "you are haters wanting us to go back to the Dark Ages" meme in a not so common way. Fossil fuels indeed had advantages - it was a "cheap" way to extract and transport energy back in the XIX and XX century - the problem is that their drawbacks are now huge, it is not as cheap and it will become more expensive as we scrap the bottom of the barrel (peak oil).
And, for once, we have a Gish Gallop of correct answers - I would like "skeptics" to answer everything :]
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:38 PM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom@28 I think you are reading too much into what has been written about the analogy, especially the existence of a subtext. It is hard to think of examples of large amounts of energy that most in the general public will appreciate that do not have some element of destructiveness. You yourself suggest thunderstorms, which have a clear detsructive element (and I would suggest the total amount of energy in a thunderstorm is not something the general public will easily appreciate). Likewise Saturn V rockets, how close to one would you want to be when it lifts of?
People are not very good with large numbers, so an example is needed where the individual components themselves are obviouly very large and then show that even for those large components you still need a large number of them. Almost evey object that has a large amount of energy assiciated with it wil have some element of danger when viewed in a particular way.
In discussing science (or indeed anythin) it is better to stick to what is actually said, rather than "reading between the lines" as it may be that you end up attacking an argument that nobody actually intended to make. I am a big fan of Hanlon's razor, although I like to reword it along the lines of
"always interpret the actions [or words] of others in the best light that is consistent with the observations".
Human being are only too good at inventing motives for others (I suspect an evolutionary adaption facilitating living as a member of a society), in the same way we are only too good at seeing patterns in noisy signals. None of us are mind readers, and if you think there is a subtext, it is better to ask for clarification rather than assume that it is genuinely there.
The real problem is that most people can't grasp the amount of heat we recieve from the sun (a large nuclear device that will one day destroy the Earth completely), which is why a very small change in atmospheric constituents can have such a large effect on the energy balance as it is modulating a very very large flow of energy. The widget helps to put the amount of energy into context without involving scientific units that will me meaningless to most people. Hopefully it will surprise people and make them think.
Would you agree that the text provided on the widget website on the impacts is moderate and well justified?
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r.pauli at 13:40 PM on 29 November 2013Video: 10 climate myths debunked in under 4 minutes
Great. I wish he would do more on the subject.. His video style would move things along considerably.
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Tom Curtis at 12:48 PM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Rob @16, it does matter. If "warmist" bets are closed and "coolist" bets remain open, the gap between them will be closed over time. After a few years it will appear that both sides are equally convinced of their claims as evidenced by willingness to bet, whereas "warmists" were overwhelmingly more confident of their opinion in fact.
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wili at 10:55 AM on 29 November 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #18: Warsaw Climate Talks
The link for the story, "South scores 11th-hour win on climate loss and damage" yields a "File Not Found" message for me.
William, I am not exactly against the tax approach, but it seems rather weak tea considering the catastrophe we face. It would be as if WWII Britain discovered that there was a whole industry on their soil that was madly producing thousands of bombs and sending them to the Germans to drop on British cities, and the British government's response was, "We are goint to increase the tax a bit on those blokes who are building those bombs and sending them off to the Gerries. That ought to do the trick."We know now that burning ff is deeply immoral and deeply damaging to ourselves, our children, and our future. We don't have to marginally discourage their use. We have to abolish their use. Essentially immediately.
But for some reason, that wasn't among the major proposals being considered in Warsaw last week, as far as I saw, unfortunately.
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Tom Curtis at 10:51 AM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Jason B @16 and Dikran Marsupial @24 & 25, here are some more interesting statistics for you. The Earth is accumulating energy due to global warming at a rate equivalent to 0.19 times that of the average energy of a thunderstorm every second. It is also accumlating energy at the rate of 2 milliseconds of global sunshine per second. Or of twelve Saturn V rockets per second.
Intentions are complex things. I am certain that the primary intention of John Cook and Bob Lacatena with the widget is to find a direct counter to the "global warming pause" nonsense being spouted by deniers; and one that will stick in peoples memories, and get their attention. But we often have more than one intention with regard to things we do, particularly complex things - and we are also often not clear in our mind as to what those intentions are. In this case, while the text of the widget is about energy accumulation, the subtext is about damage, and disaster.
This is made clear by the choices of comparators for the widget; all of which involve damage, and very great significant damage. It is telling that not one comparator that does not involve the risk of damage is used. Even with the atomic bomb comparator, the choice was made to not leave the risk of damage abstract, by choosing a comparator from a bomb test, eg, the Trinity device, but rather to make it very specific by comparing to Little Boy.
John Cook lets slip the subtext when he describes the reason for the widget:
"“Joules per second” is a difficult unit of measure to appreciate, and is especially foreign to people who are unfamiliar with science. This widget attempts to put that heating into terms that are easier to visualize. 250 trillion Joules per second is equivalent to:
- Detonating four Hiroshima atomic bombs per second
- Experiencing two Hurricane Sandys per second
- Enduring four 6.0 Richter scale earthquakes per second
- Being struck by 500,000 lightning bolts per second
- Exploding more than eight Big Ben towers, with every inch packed full of dynamite, per second"
There is, of course, no general difference between the energy of a lightning bolt that does, or does not strike somebody. There is a big difference in the harm. In this instance, this is a mere slip of words - but it is a slip that reveals an underlying intention. Note, underlying, not primary. Given the range of choices made in designing the widget - the choice of harmful comparators, the preference for an atomic detonation in war over a civilian population to a test device, and John Cooks slip of the pen, the subtext of the widget is very clear. So clear that when I simply described the comparators of the widget to my mother (without mentioning any of my objections), she exclaimed, "They're trying to scare people silly!"
I believe that John Cook and Bob Lacatena and the rest of the SkS team are so focussed on the primary intent that they may well be missing the subtext. But it is there. And because it is there it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that the rate of energy accumulation is a poor index of potential harm from global warming.
Finally, and specifically, Dikran draws attention to how difficult it is to concieve the amount of energy involved. That is correct, but the comparators do not help much in that regard. Can you really conceive of the energy involved in an atomic explosion? Your are familiar with scientific notation and units of energy. Does that allow you to look at an image of an atomic explosion you have not seen (or read about) before and guess with reasonable accuracy its energy in joules? All you really appreciate is that it is a lot of very destructive energy. The same applies to varying degrees to the other comparators. And as for Big Ben's full of dynamite, just how much dynamite is that? And how do you tell from appearances the amount of energy released per stick of dynamite? All that conveys is that it is a lot of energy, with a nice visualization of a massive explosion in central London.
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Tom Curtis at 09:24 AM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
chriskoz @26, the slugulator is a very simple model. It's "energy trapped" is the "time integrated readiative forcing", not the time integrated TOA energy imbalance. This creates three distortions for the use you want to put it to. First, the TOA energy imbalance is much less (currently about a third of) than the radiative forcing. Second, as temperature stabalizes (approximately 40 years in the slugulator) the TOA energy imbalance falls to near zero, while the radiative forcing remains significant for near 1 million years. Third, the slugulator introduces CO2 in a single slug, thus seeing CO2 concentrations (and radiative forcings) that will never occur with the gradual emissions from anthropogenic sources. The difference is that with the slugulator, initially atmospheric CO2 rises by the full value of the emissions, before falling to about 25% of that over a few hundred years. With gradual emissions, atmospheric CO2 never rises above 50% above initial emissions, before falling to 25% of initial emissions over the timescale of emissions plus a few hundred years.
It is difficult from that to determine an actual ratio of "good" and "bad" heat from fossil fuels. Integrated over 50 years (the time for near stabilization of temperature in the slugulator), "bad" heat is approximately 100 times "good" heat; and allowing for corrections for the difference between TOA energy imbalance and radiative forcing is approximately a third of that. I shall assume that the difference between the spike and gradual emissions (which extend the time to near energy balance) cancel each other out, which give a very approximate estimate that "bad" energy exceeds "good" good energy by about a factor of 33.
The slugulator, however, does illustrate one of the problems of focusing on the energy imbalance. The energy imbalance approximates to zero from about 50 years after the cessation of net emissions. The temperature consquences persist for hundreds of thousands of years. It is the temperature difference that does the damage. Therefore integrating TOA energy imbalance over time (let alone radiative forcing) is a very poor index of potential damage from global warming. It, however, does progressively less damage with time after stabilization as first society, and then ecosystems adapt to the new temperature. Consequently even integrating temperature difference overtime (which the slugulator also does) gives little indication of likely damages from global warming.
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TonyW at 08:56 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
jhnplmr, James Hansen's book is a good one to read. He shows that humans could overwhelm any natural forcing that would lead to an ice age by building one chlorofluorocarbon factory and ejecting the product. So, an ice age will never happen for as long as humans have such a capability. I suppose that might not be for long, though. -
chriskoz at 08:29 AM on 29 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dikran@24,
Most scientifically correct and "least hyperbolic" way to realise the effects of AGW is to run David Archer's slugulator model:
climatemodels.uchicago.edu/slugulator/
Ignore (or get rid of) the methane spike which does not apply here and leeave the default CO2 spike. Then look to the top right to compare Energy Yield From Fossil Fuel to Energy Trapped (in Joules). Just with the default model settings (modest 1GtC emissions) and over just 100y (your theoretical lifespan), the numbers are already staggering:
3.75e+19 vs. 1.58e+22
i.e.: the "bad" energy due to GHG is 500times more than the "good" or "useful" energy we can get by burning FF. The actual number is like 1000 times due to efficiency of FF machines.
If you setup the longer time (e.g. million y) the number will be beyond imagination (~e+5 times) because a fraction (some 5-10%) of CO2 you've burned will last in the atmosphere more than 100,000y, essntially forever on any human timescale. As David said: "this is going to be the longest lasting legacy you will leave behind - think about it every time you fill in your gas tank"
That comparison is the best, better than Tom's comparison with food, because it compares apples to apples exactly and creates the right feeling - not scare or shock - but guilt. However, that comparison is inadequate if directed to the ignorant public who does not care to understand the science. That unfortunately includes the nast majority of piliticians, who perhaps do not even understand exponential notation. In such ignorant cases, the only analogy lest is a shocking analogy of #HB/s.
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Video: 10 climate myths debunked in under 4 minutes
The rebuttal of "The sun's just getting hotter" at 1:16 took about 0.5 seconds! :-) :-)
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Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
#15 jhnplmr:
You are wrong. The insolation change you are referring to wasn’t global, but regional, while the GHG forcing is global. If you look at figure 2 here you will notice that while the annual insolation has decreased at high latitudes during Holocene it has increased in the tropics. The global average hasn’t changed at all. And figure 1 shows that AGW hasn’t only stopped the cooling trend that started 5500 years ago, but caused most of the warming back to Holocene optimum level or higher in only 150 years.
Human emissions of greenhouse gases are now the leading forcing that will determine the Earths climate for millennia to come.
BTW, the summer solstice insolation at 65oN is close to its minimum right now at 481 watt/m2 and will remain between 480 and 493 watt/m2 for the next 20,000 years because the precession that changes the time of perihel will be countered by decreased orbital eccentricity and axial tilt.
So, even without AGW it’s unlikely that we would get an ice age during the next 20,000 years. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:52 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
mrkt... Just double checked and the data I have is correct in the chart, I just stated it incorrectly in the blog post.
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Rob Honeycutt at 05:50 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
mrkt @6... You're right. I'll fix that.
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Rob Honeycutt at 05:41 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Tom @7... I should have gone back to read the terms more clearly. You're correct. But it didn't seem like a contentious issue on what charity would receive the funds. I remember there being some discussion of Doctors Without Borders, which is perfectly find. And I think Pierre likes them as well.
My primary point of the bet has already been confirmed, that deniers are not willing to put their money where their mouths are. I was actually excited at one point to be proven wrong on this point. Reading back through the comments there was another "warmist" who also wanted to come in at the time the betting was open for $5k. But we've so overwhelmed their betting level at this point that it doesn't really matter.
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jhnplmr at 04:21 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
"You just can't add 2.3Watts/m2 of man-made radiative forcing (source) to the climate system and believe the planet is not going to warm."
From the Jul 65N Milankovitch cycle the solar insolation was 469.44W/m2 at the maximum 10,000 years ago. It is 426.76W/m2 today, a fall of 42.68W/m2. It seems to me that you will have to add a lot more than 2.3W/m2 to avoid global cooling in the next 2000 years (minimum of present cycle). Whether this will be apparent in the next decade is anybodys guess, there are too many other variables.
Moderator Response:[TD] No, the next glaciation won't be happening for many tens of thousands of years. Here is a starting point for you, but read the comments as well: We’re heading into an ice age
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william5331 at 04:01 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Seems likely that there will be an El Nino before the end of this decade. Where do I get a piece of the action.
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Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
I’m quite sure you’ll win this bet, Rob!
This is the result if we use the data from GISS instead of RSS or UAH:
January 2001 – December 2010: 0.593oC
January 2011 – October 2013: 0.574oC
November 2004 – October 2013: 0.598oC
The running decadal average up till now is already in the lead, although the margin so far is much smaller than the uncertainty.
The fact that every year after 2000 have been warmer than every year before 1998 (according to GISS data) is a strong hint that the increasing forcing from the GHG’s already has cancelled out much of the cooling impact from negative ENSO, aerosols and a weak solar cycle during the last 10-12 years.
So, if a decant El Niño doesn’t occur soon, it’s just a matter of time before the next annual record will be set in a neutral or even an ENSO negative year!
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Emilio at 01:46 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
WT* American Meteorological Society are doing here?
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1
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kmalpede at 01:33 AM on 29 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/extreme-whether
We are a not-for-profit 501 (c) 3 raising money to produce a play that tells the story of Climate Scientists battling climate deniers...it's based on what has actually happened to the real-life scientists. If you want a good "charity" think of contributing to our Indiegogo campaing. We will also be hosting Festivals of Conscience when scientists and activists dialogue with audiences. James Hansen, Jennifer Francis, the late, dear Father Paul Mayer have spoken after public readings of the play. Needless to say, the Sloan Foundation (which endows a chair at MIT held by a major denier) and other big foundations connected to fossil fuels have refused to fund us. Take a look at the video on the link above. I think you'll like what you see, or www.theaterthreecollaborative.org
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macoles at 23:23 PM on 28 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Yes, the last graph is by far the best way of tracking the bet, unfortunately I didn't see it on the first read.
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Dikran Marsupial at 23:07 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Incidentally, I am sure there are blogs out there that will attack the widget as being "alarmist" (even though it isn't*). However I suspect there will be rather fewer of them that attack it as being factually incorrect (i.e. there is a significant disparity in joules on each side of the equation).
As John Cook says:
"The only downside of this metaphor is it is emotional - the Hiroshima bomb does come with a lot of baggage. However, this metaphor isn't used because it's scary - it's simply about communicating the sheer amount of heat that our climate is accumulating. I've yet to encounter a stickier way of communicating the scale of the planet's energy imbalance."
*even the "impacts" tab of the widget website only goes so far as to say that it presents a "clear and worrying danger", and provides references to the literature to justify that assertion. I agree we should be worried about climate change, but that does not mean we should be frightened, scared or alarmed by it, that is hyperbole. There is still time to do something about it, but one thing is for certain, which is that bloviating about alarmism whilst being unable to accept scientific truths is not part of the solution.
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Dikran Marsupial at 21:33 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Tom, I think you are over-interpreting the widget. It records the amount of heat in multiples of Hiroshima bombs, not the amount of harm. Common sense ought to suggest that this is not the intended message as the harm of 2 billion atomic bombs is fairly easy to visualise, and would have left a rather more noticable effect on the planet!
The widget is intended to convey the amount of energy that has been added to the planet due to the imbalance in the energy budget to a general audience not to scientists, so some analogy is needed. For me the the food analogy doesn't work either because most people don't have a good conception of how much energy there is in a food calorie, it is actually quite a lot, but the body is rather inefficient in turning it into work, so it doesn't seem all that much.
As for whether things are scary, I don't see anything in the article that suggests that we should be alarmed or scared by this figure, just surprised.
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barry1487 at 21:19 PM on 28 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
FTR, If my bet is allowed I would pay the full amount regardless of what the other side pledges. Putting my money where my mouth is # it's for charity.
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chriskoz at 18:46 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
I have a simple question which I guess should go to Bob,
SkS and Guardian setup the widget to count from 1998.
However some other blogs e.g. this one managed to set the count from 1970. I cannot find the UI settings to change that parameter. Where is the setting for the starting year and can you set it to any year of your choice? Then, how does the widget calculate the baseline #HBs to start counting from? Based on the heat uptake history from some known publication, e.g. Nuccitelli 2012?
Moderator Response:[Bob] Any host can choose any start date (starting from 1970) when they configure the widget for their own web site or blog.
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macoles at 17:24 PM on 28 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Am I misunderstanding something?
The bet is that the absolute 2011-2020 decade average will be warmer than the 2001-2011 decade average. The graph is showing the derivative of the decades (progressively averaged to date). The bet isn't will 2020's decadal warming rate be higher than 2010's warming rate.
Unless January 2001 has the exact same absolute temp as January 2011 then ploting the warming rates side by side isn't going to tell you much.
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scaddenp at 16:53 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Okay, earth retains heat, but in practical terms the effect is that surface radiation is increased. Elsewhere ("its not bad"), is probably best place to discuss this but I would contend that your belief that this much energy doesnt matter is completely uninformed by science. Sealevel rise doesnt matter? Or by what have you convinced yourself that Dai doesnt matter?
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jyyh at 15:40 PM on 28 November 2013Will extreme weather like super typhoon Haiyan become the new norm?
I'm getting 180-190 mph limit for category 6 here, http://erimaassa.blogspot.fi/2013/11/haiyan-scale.html
I think there is a need for a consistent scale of above 11 beauforts, since i think the ocean water-atmosphere exchange should increase even though the height of the waves do not. Do stronger hurricanes produce saltier rain than the lesser ones? In the grand scheme of things this likely isn't very notable effect but locally it might be, not to talk anything about the devastation caused by the tropical cyclone itself. My 6$ isn't much but it should be enough for some water proof cloth for a shelter or rain water collection. on B.Gates income that would be some 10M$, and he does a lot of charity, but every little bit may help.
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Tom Curtis at 15:19 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
chriskoz @15, that is a very narrow definition of harm. Never-the-less you raise a valid point. Not all harm comes from the flows of energy per se, and therefore the inverse of entropy is a limited measure of potential harm. Life, for instance, is not just a heat engine, but also a complex set of chemical reactions in solution. As a result temperatures significantly below freezing, by freezing the solvent (ie, the liquid in which the chemicals are dissolved) prevents the continuation of life. As a result, a massive loss of energy from the Earth's surface as in a glaciation, is also harmful.
Never-the-less, to the extent the gain of energy is harmfull, it is largely due to the loss of entropy with that gain. And given the destructive nature of the units in the widget - atomic bombs, hurricanes, earthquakes, lighting strikes, 6,900 tonnes of dynamite (a Big Ben full) - are all destructive, there is no question that the widget emphasizes the destructive nature of the energy. It does so regardless of the intentions of the creators of the widget simply because of the chosen units. And given that, the issue of entropy is central as to wether the widget, in an attempt to communicate one part of the science very clearly inadvertently misleads on another.
In passing, by the way, I think you seriously underestimate the destructiveness continuing high frequency rain of nuclear weapons. A rain of atomic bombs at 4 per second means that everywhere on Earth, on average falls within the area of total destruction from an arial blast twice a year. Continued over a century (the minimum time frame for potential ocean anoxia) that would certainly exterminate all surface life. If bombs falling over the ocean detonated at 250 meters depth (or the bottom, whichever is deeper), it would also exterminate most ocean life, including all corals. In all, it would release 40,000 times the energy of a total nuclear exchange (at slightly higher entropy). It would only avoid ocean anoxia because it would create a nuclear winter sufficient to bring back, in all probability, snow ball Earth.
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Terranova at 14:40 PM on 28 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
scaddenp @ 18
The earth does not receive extra energy due to GHGs, but it does retain energy due to GHGs. But, no, at this point I do not find it neither scary, nor much less worrisome. And, the Stern Report is frought with issues that need to be addressed before it can be taken seriously.
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Tom Curtis at 14:23 PM on 28 November 2013Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update
Rob, a small point. You say that the losers money will be donated to "a charity of the winner's choice". In contrast, Pierre Gosselin writes:
"As mentioned above, the charity organisation is yet to be chosen, but will (1) be one that both sides agree on, (2) help children in dire need (3) have low overhead and (4) be international."
You may wish to clarrify that point.
Further, who counts as a winner? Specifically, as denier bets are only a fraction of pro-science bets:
1) do all pro-science pledgers cound as winners (should they win), with loser bets assigned pro-rata?
2) Or is it first come, first served, with bets paired of based on time of reciept so that later betting pro-science winners are not counted as winners?
3) Or is it just handled en masse, with choice of charity decided by a committee,
4) or by the two principles (you and Pierre)?
Or is some other method used.
Further, will the "warmer" side only pay an amount equal to the "cooler" sides commitments in the event that the temperatures are cooler? Pierre seems to indicates as such. If so that makes the former question even more consequential, for with choices (1), (3) and (4) those betting for warmer will only need to pay a fraction of their commitment. In the case of (2), early betters will pay their full commitment, but late comers will not need to pay (if betting stays as it is).
The upshot is that only if Pierre is right about the paltry betting by "coolists" limiting the commitment of "warmists"; and further only if method (2) is used, does he have reasonable grounds for nolonger taking "warmist" bets. In all other cases, his refusal to take more bets looks like an attempt to limit the embarassment of "coolists" from their lack of conviction in their beliefs.
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