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Comments 48551 to 48600:

  1. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Climate science has so many good voices and so much good material online, and the information is developing fast enough that I do not use a textbook.  Instead a series of websites including SkS are the text my students read.

    Moderator Response: [rockytom] I suggest that perhaps you should take a look at "Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis." I imagine that requiring certain internet sites instead of a textbook would provide a disjointed approach to the subject. Of course, one could work oneself silly and read all the pertinent sites and choose from all the posts?
  2. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    Regarding the WBGU (in the SkS spotlight above), although I am only about halfway through the lecture series based on the flagship report World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability, I highly recommend the lectures for those who are interested not only in the science of climate but also in practical steps that may result in avoiding the worst consequences. I am currently on page 171 of the 420-page pdf file of the report (reading as time permits). This is pretty basic stuff (by basic, I mean not necessarily simple but fundamental). The lecture series is apparently designed as a German university course, but the lectures are in English. If there is interest, I could post a list of the 30+ YouTube links to the lectures. If you are only interested in the science behind current global warming, then Lecture 3 by Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf is quite good, in my opinion. In particular, Episode 1 of Lecture 3: WBGU - World in Transition - L03E01 - Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, Ph.D. (31:47). The SKS spotlight shines on some pretty good stuff! IMHO

  3. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Back in the beginning of time, Eli had three excellent rants on the distortion of the US textbook market.  Your book costs $108, which is, to be charitable, about half of what a chemistry textbook costs but still high enough that the kids are going to sell it back right after the course ends.  If it came out at $40 in a paperback they would keep it, and a teacher could have the students order your book and another and hope they would keep both.  Sorry, but that's the problem.

    Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed link.
  4. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Terranova,

    This whole website provides unchallengable documentation of the main lines of fake argument and outright lies promulgated by paid disinformers, political shills and hysterical paranoids looking for a global conspiracy to deprive them of their precious bodily fluids.  To list that material and provide the rebutals in no way deviates from the purpose of a textbook about climate science- except in the minds of people who don't accept climate science in the first place, the sort of people who trot out their misunderstanding of a third grade definition of science and expect to bully doctoral level working scientists with it.

    If I read a textbook about thermodynamics or quantum mechanics or chemical reaction mechanisms it doesn't just present me with the facts...it tells me what they mean, it is prescriptive.  If I read a textbook about virology I expect that the reasons why HIV is a demonstrated infective agent dispite Duesberg's claims about violating Koch's Postulates to be in there, as well as a section on vaccines as public health measures and what the science says about the various claims about thimersol, immune overload and other crackpot claims about autism.  For Doctors especially, knowing this material is essential for providing care to patients.

    I couldn't disagree with your unsubstantiated and unsupported opinion more strongly.  I also note that at your level of training, your standing to make such an assertion is suspect.

     

  5. Bert from Eltham at 12:26 PM on 25 February 2013
    2013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction

    Kevin it is so unfair when all this heat comes from nowhere! Did someone leave the fridge door open?

    The Arctic Ice melting at unprecedented rates is a symptom. Not a cause. It can only be due to excess heat accumulating on Earth. I wonder what the mechanism could be. Could it be the lack of Unicorns or pirates?

    Some say it is due to 'natural' forces. All very glib until there is no real mechanism behind what is observed.

    There is a well known cause and it is the increase in the greenhouse gas called CO2.

    We even have people saying that a 'simple' animation can be done in a few minutes by some script kiddie.

    Apart from the realistic three dimensional look of the animation. The POV lighting with moving shadows make it look far more natural.

    I reckon Leonardo Da Vinci knocked up the Mona Lisa in one afternoon. It took far longer to paint her.

    Bert

     

    Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed font size.
  6. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    I assume Terranova means:

    PART X – SKEPTICS AND DENIERS OF GLOBAL WARMING

    PART XI - SPECIFIC DECLARATIONS AGAINST CLIMATE SCIENCE AND CLIMATE SCIENTISTS

     (all caps in the original)

    These sections (which I haven't read myself) deal with the climate wars and rebutting  misinformation. It seems to me that students learning about climate change need to be exposed to this discussion. 

    I would think that biology students in the USA would benefit hugely from learning about the creationists and their tactics. Particularly so, if those students end up teaching biology in schools in certain states. If what Terranova reports is correct, it's a pity that that sort of material is not included in college textbooks, given that many schoolboards are supportive of teaching nonsense like Intelligent Design.

  7. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Terranova,

    What are you talking about?  What are "Sections 10 and 11"?  What in them is not objective?

  8. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    I have a BS and MS degree in Biology and I am currently pursuing a second MS degree in Environmental Systems and Engineering.  Not one of my textbooks has chapters like those listed in Sections 10 and 11.  My science textbooks stick to what is known. Even my evolution textbook doesn't delve into the tactics of creationists and intelligent design supporters. 

    A science books should stick to the facts and allow the user to come to their own conclusions.  Sections 10 and 11 show a clear bias on the authors' part that I suspect permeates the entire book.  Science should be objective.  I am not saying that this book is not objective, because I have not been able to read anything other than the sample.  But, I doubt many, if any, colleges with pick this up.  Sections 10 and 11 may well be well written, but they should perhaps stand on their own.

    Moderator Response: We are all entitled to our opinions. My opinion is that your evolution textbook should have sections on creationism and its major threat to the science curriculum throughout the more conservative parts of the USA and elsewhere. This should be an essential part of any evolution curriculum! That's my opinion.
  9. PMO Pest Control: Scientists

    There is an excellent recent article in the Globe and Mail Censorship is alive and well in Canada – just ask government scientists ("Oh wait, you can’t ask them, because they’ve got duct tape over their mouths...." )

    The newspaper article refers to a thorough, documented study done by University of Victoria lawyers PDF

    The study is preceded by a letter asking Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner of Canada to investigate the federal government's actions

  10. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #6

    John, "emissions" is misspelled in this line: "45% cut in emmissions allowance proposed."

    Moderator Response: [DB] Spelling issues resolved.
  11. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    Wow. When someone brought up that API opinion poll I was suspicious of it but I couldn't find the questions to check. I wouldn't have believed that it could be as blatantly biased as that. At least now if ever anyone quotes the results in support of their argument you have definitive proof that they are not genuinely sceptical.

  12. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    chriskoz@6

    Thanks. That was very helpful.

  13. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Chris,

    Thanks for the interesting links.  As expected, the situation is complicated.  

  14. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    JoeT@5,

    Let's consident an example:

    Say, you want to buy 100kg of gasoline.

    1. If from conventional oil: EROI 25:1 -> they need to produce 104kg and burn 4kg of it (assuming the process is self bootstrapping at 100% efficiency) in order to sell you 100kg -> their emissions + youres emissions from 104kg of gasoline burning
    2. If from tar sands: EROI 5:1 -> they procude 120kg and burn 20 -> their emissions + youres emissions from 120kg of gasoline burning

    So the emission difference is 120 - 104 = 16 which is 16/104 = 15% of the conventional emissions.

    That 15% is the ideal minimum with a rather simplistic if not silly assumption of 100% efficiency at the refinery. In the real world, due to that efficiency being below 100% and likely the tar sand mining operations sourcing  their energy insitu bootstrapping from the "dirtier tar sand", therefore less evnironmentally friendly to start with, the actual figure of 20% more emissions sounds reasonable.

  15. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    A question. From Oil Sands Mining Uses Up Almost As Much Energy As It Produces, there are two quotes:

    The average "energy returned on investment," or EROI, for conventional oil is roughly 25:1... Tar sands retrieved by surface mining has an EROI of only about 5:1

    When the entire life cycle of the fuels is considered—including production, transportation and burning the final product— the greenhouse gas differential between conventional oil and tar sands oil is about 20 percent.

    How is it that these two quotes are not in contradiction to each other, so that there is a factor of 5 in terms of EROI and only 20% in terms of CO2 emission?

     

  16. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    Speaking of "Forward on Climate", the San Diego Forward on Climate rally featured a genuine "boots on the ice" climate-scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Severinghaus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.


    Here are a couple of video clips of his remarks -- shaky video, not a great vantage point,  but the sound quality isn't too bad:

    Video clip #1

    Video clip #2


    In a sane world, Fox News, talk-radio hosts etc. would have Dr. Severinghaus on speed-dial.

  17. Geologic Time and Climate Change Science

    The analogies mentioned may offer a sense for the large-scale but at expense of the small scale which disappears into imperception. To deal with this, i highlight the smaller scale with a length analogy where a year corresponds to 1cm... a millenium would be 1m, a million years 1km, and a billion years 1000km.

    So, our 20cm of polluting dominance tail our few meters of civilisations and come at the end of our species' few kilometres of life that stretch onto a continental-scale backdrop.

    I like it for easily differentiating orders of magnitude and reflecting the evolution time-scales and i'm pretty pleased that my primary-school nieces like it.

  18. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8

    The very first commenter to the first (AUS FF exports) article said:

    As the Premier of NSW said, don't ask him about the effects of climate change when the state is busy being hit with record floods and fire damage...

    That's something remarkable, becaues I don't consider Barry O'Farrell as silly as the quote would indicate. Does anyone know more of that and can provide a context?

    BTW, I notice all of the articles quoted this week are bad news: FF export increasing, monsoons shifting, tech troubles implementing solar panels etc. I have an impression we making no progress at all in combatting GW as there is not a single piece of positive news about it...

  19. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Michael, for the sake of simplity, I was only looking at winter wheat, because that is a common crop through those states; so, other crops might do better where it is too hot for wheat.  Also, precipitation varies more east-west than north-south.  Those numbers were from memory and they may not be exact; I pulled the numbers originally from the NASS USDA site, for example, this write-up on Kansas.  Where precipitation is lacking, irrigation from the Ogalla is used (see the crop circles from Google Earth - those are pivot irrigation plots), which is a problem of another topic.  I don't know about soil conditions north to south, but I suspect that isn't a simple conversation either..

    As you can see from the yield by county map, there is kind of a window, east-west and north-south, of conditions where wheat is grown.  If you are wondering why there is not more wheat grown in eastern Kansas (where I live); it is because there is enough rain to grow other crops which yield higher profits per acre.  Soil conditions should be a factor, but then, soil conditions are also a function of precipitation and temperature over time.  The situation is more complicated by the fact that the timing of the precipitation also matters to yields, and I expect that will change as well.  I did a quick Google Scholar search on temperature and yield, and got some hits that might answer your questions better, but hard to tell quickly which articles best represent the state of the science.  I can tell you first-hand that crops, particularly corn, were withering in the heat last summer; lots of fields were total losses.  Pretty sure there are robust findings which demonstrate that more days above some temperature (95 F, 100 F?) reduce yields measureably.

     

  20. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    This textbook is on my shopping list. Being a physicist (though retired) with some specialty in hyperfinestructure spectroscopy and astronomy (and of course computer science) I still had to struggle with the basics of climate science ... It took me several years and and I had the impression of beginning a physics (and math) curriculum again ... And still I have the "holes" mentioned here.


    What I am doing is giving lectures to the general (mostly lay) public and younger people ... and this is only possible with a sane background in the basics and of course the political issues (in particular here in Germany and Europe).

    I collected original peer-reviewed literature (incl. IPCC-reports) ... which sums up now to some Gigabytes of "pdf"s and data (like HITRAN) ... And I bought some books like R.T.Pierrehumbert's "Principles of Planetary Climate", Stamnes' book and Liou's book on radiative transfer (RT) ... Also doing some programming within the "python"-field ..

    I would like to emphasize the standpoint that not only one book is necessary - you have to have several plus the above mentioned literature ...  And as a teacher you have to invest a lot of time for preparation of the lectures ... What I actually was missing at the start of my "venture" was a book on how to "meander" through the topic(s) .. I hope to get this guide after having bought the mentioned volume ...

    Although it might now be a bit late ... :)

    Moderator Response: [rockytom] I hope "Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis" by Farmer and Cook will make the meandering through the climate science basics much easier. It was written with beginning students and instructors in mind no matter their background or experience.
  21. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    To Rockytom at 5....perhaps I could submit a lead post on the fact that molecular motion persists at absolute zero, disorder persists at absolute zero, and the likely importance of this fact to the relative evaporation rates of oxygen 18 versus 16? But I do not know if such a specialized physics post would be of interest here.

    Moderator Response: [rockytom]My email address is rockytom09@gmail.com and I will look forward to your comments, which will be off-topic to this thread. For things deemed of interest to SkS readers, with your permission I will post here. Thanks for your interest!
  22. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    To Rockytom at 5....Is it possible for me to get your e mail address and do it that way?

    I have communicated with John Cook in the past and he therefore knows my e mail address and could give it to you. You could then e mail me and I can proceed.

  23. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    I find the observation that Kansas' average wheat yield is lower than Texas very interesting.  Does anyone have references to peer reviewed papers that shows this is due to the heat in Texas and not soil, water or other causes?  This must be covered in the peer reviewed literature. I agree with Chris G that since we are already close to 1C what should we expect the averaqge yield to be in Kansas in the coming decade?

  24. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    John Brookes:

    Having some idea of how climate science works is probably essential, even for non-science students. This should allow them to steer clear of misinformation and manufactured doubt. It would also be a corrective to the kind of climate "science" classes being taught by, TIm Patterson & Tom Harris at Carleton University over the last few years.

  25. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    jyushchyshyn:

    Anyone could claim "stopping fossil fuel development X will not stop global warming" and be correct for any single fossil fuel development.

    However, if such an excuse is allowed to stand for the aggregate of fossil fuel developments under consideration, then we will have failed to achieve any sort of decarbonisation whatsoever.

    Suffice to say, such an unproductive course of action is unwise.

  26. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    I take a great interest in climate change, but I have not studied it.  I am willing to live with holes in my basic knowledge, but someone who studies this at university should not have such holes.  Not in the basics.  

    A unit on climate science should be taught to students who are already well versed in physics and maths.  In the Australian university system, this would be at the second year level.  It would provide a great opportunity for students to apply their physics and maths skills. And a textbook that covers the basics of climate science at that level would be a major asset.  

    Of course you could teach a version of climate science to non-science students, but while such students would get a good appreciation, I don't really see the point, as they would not have the foundations on which to build - so it would only be a superficial understanding.

  27. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Hi Rockytom at 5,

     

    I am not an SKS author, in that I have not yet authored a lead post.

  28. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    jyushchyshyn,

    The bottom issue with this pipeline (also expressed by Mike Mann on his FB page) is that it will widen the bottleneck of Alberta tar sand mining operations, potentially making the operation of retrieval all of that tar sand (including EROI of only 2.9:1) economically viable. The insuing exploitation has the potential of 0.5K global warming.

    I would go further with my comment here: this is the investement fosterring more FF extraction. With every infrastructure investment like this, the longer and better it serves its purpose (i.e. the more tar sand oil it tranports) the better its economic return value. We want all investments to have the best returns. But in this case, it is in contradiction to the assertions by scientists that all high-emission FF should be left in the ground.

    The issue has nothing to do with your assertions about what OPEC nations are doing or about oil spills from tankers.

  29. Sheffield vs. Dai on Drought Changes

    On that last bit, I was possibly remembering something incorrectly.  I had thought I'd read something to the effect that Hadley Cells could be expected to expand 2-4 degrees of latitude per degree C of warming, but I haven't found that again, and the estimates of expected expansion I did find were substantially lower.  What I found was that Hadley Cells have expanded 5-8 degrees since 1979 (Seidel, et al 2008), but that, while that is greater what is expected with natural variability, that is also more than what is expected, based on GCMs, from greenhouse gas warming alone.

  30. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #1: Alberta Tar Sands, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Forward on Climate Rally

    Stopping the Keystone Pipeline will not stop global warming, nor will building it stop people from driving electric cars or installing solar panels on the homes. OPEC oil is not green. The amount of natural gas which OPEC nations flare is enough to supply the combined needs of Germany and France. And it would be good to end the threat of oil spills from oil tankers.

  31. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    actualy thughtful@4,

    You seem to imply that this single textbook is improper because "The subject is too vast, and [...] any given book will have its POV".

    Therefore you don't understand the definition of a textbook. It's not an opinion piece. It's a comprehensive review of the consensus peer reviewed science. The important studies (including those of your preference) that constitute said consensus would be refered therein for interested student to pursue. But the bottomline is, there must be a common summary of settled knowledge that any further studies are not going to change. I think that this textbook (although I haven't read it) covers just such knowledge; there is enough climagte science knowledge accumulated during 200+y to cover 500+ pages of that book. Every teacher will tell you that such book if well written if far better reference point rather than a set of "recently pulled studies".

  32. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    With respect to post 11 by William, you might be interested in my post 23 in the thread "In Wall Street Journal OP-Ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats". I include history and references on the same kind of problem in the U.S., with specific legislation documentation. I imply that power companies being forced to make a profit is the heart of much of this problem. There is an obvious solution to this impediment to renewables.

  33. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Hi Rockytom,

    I am reading carefully through the text. Since there will presumably be another edition, are you interested in suggested corrections? If so, how to do this? Clearly this blog post is not the place. I will mention only one. In chapter 1 it is stated on page 15 that "The first decade of the twentieth century was even warmer than the last decade of the twentieth century ......." You do not mean this since the 20th century extends from Jan 1, 1901 to Dec 31, 2000. You mean the twenty first century.

    This is niggling, but there are others. If you are interested in a thorough proofing from a garden variety condensed matter experimentalist and can tell me how to do this I will proceed, carefully, chapter by chapter.

    Moderator Response: [rockytom] I did catch that one and the misspelling of Barack's name. I'm sure there are others. I would appreciate a careful, objective reading such as you are suggesting and am wondering how best to receive your comments, suggestions, and corrections. This is certainly not the place. Are you an SkS author?
  34. actually thoughtful at 11:53 AM on 23 February 2013
    Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Really not buying this. A single book, even with the pedigree offered here, is simply not able to cover the breadth and depth of climate change. MUCH better to pull some recent studies then to rely on a single point of view in a single book.

    While I personally have nothing but the highest regard for John Cook and his work - this post gives the APPEARANCE of impropriety as I suspect the John Cook who founded this site is the SAME John Cook as the book author. 

    Were I to teach climate change I would NOT use a single book - even one as fine as I am sure this one is. The subject is too vast, and as has already been noted - any given book will have its POV, and not address the more pertinent question of "what do we do about it".

    Moderator Response: [rockytom]There is no impropriety here. Indeed it is the same John Cook who co-authored the textbook with me and does a lot of other things too, such as (1)gives public and invited lectures, (2) manages this web site, (3) posts pertinent blogs from time to time, (4)is working towards a Ph.D., (5) has a family, and (6) travels widely doing a variety of things. Since when is it improper to do so many positive things for so many people?
  35. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    Thank You, Rockytom 

      I have occasionally seen in text books - perhaps as part of a preface - statements to the effect...."We recognize that all our chapters may not be capable of being included is a one semester course....etc".  But then..."  If such and such is to be emphasized, one could omit chapters W  and Y......etc"., thus giving the potential novice instructor something to go on in planning the course using Farmer and Cook. In the meantime I will do some "digging around for the cause"....We have here in Connecticut an environmental science major....I wonder, if even in that major, is there a climate change course even taught? I can also try digging around in the course offering listings of similar schools such as University of Massachusetts, and I will let you know on one of these threads what I find out.

      (David Archer runs a famous climate course from the University of Chicago for nonscience majors of course, but the kinds of students they get and the kinds of students we get at our state land grant school, especially  in the case of  non science majors, cannot be compared).

      As far as high schools are concerned, there I suspect that a serious problem is that some  instructors may fear retribution if they teach global warming.  Perhaps I can dig out something concrete in terms of data on this question, though it would have to be through an anonymously answered questionnaire and there I have to make sure I will not run into difficulty myself by trying such an approach. Finally, I would not be surprised if the problems with getting sane AGW teaching and sane AGW policy in the States might be uniquely pernicious.  Not in Connecticut, but in a large fraction of this country, we have people pushing variants of "Creationist Science" onto the high schools.  And if one really does not believe in Darwinian Natural Selection, it is most unlikely one will believe in AGW.

       

    Moderator Response: [rockytom] I agree with the possibility of "pressure" in teaching climate science. However, overwhelming scientific evidence cannot be allowed to be subverted by those who deny climate change. Scientists (and not just climate scientists) are speaking out loud and clear. It's not just Jim Hansen any more!
  36. Sheffield vs. Dai on Drought Changes

    Attempting a comment migration, copying relevant comments from another thread.

     

    ubrew12 says - The bizarre truth is that Heartland farmers in Kansas are only now in business thanks to 'Big Government'-backed farm insurance programs that tax the ordinary American to help them through their global-warming-induceddrought.


    Wheres the proof GW caused the drought?

     

    Clyde...  It's a matter of relative chance.  It's possible you'd see such an extraordinary drought without influence from global warming.  But global warming makes it much more likely that such extraordinary doughts will occur.  

    So, you kind of have two choices.  This was an extreme occurence and unlikely to occur again for a long time, or this is a function of human induced changes in theclimate system and more likely to become more frequent, or even normal.

    You choose where you're going to put your money.

     

    DSL at 23:16 PM on 22 February, 2013

    Try Johanson & Fu (2009), Clyde.  Here's the abstract (emphasis mine): 

    "Observations show that the Hadley cell has widened by about 2°–5° since 1979. This widening and the concomitant poleward displacement of the subtropical dry zones may be accompanied by large-scale drying near 30°N and 30°S. Such drying poses a risk to inhabitants of these regions who are accustomed to established rainfall patterns. Simple and comprehensive general circulation models (GCMs) indicate that the Hadley cell may widen in response to global warming, warming of the west Pacific, or polar stratospheric cooling. The combination of these factors may be responsible for the recent observations. But there is no study so far that has compared the observed widening to GCM simulations of twentieth-century climate integrated with historical changes in forcings. Here the Hadley cell widening is assessed in currentGCMs from historical simulations of the twentieth century as well as future climate projections and preindustrial control runs. The authors find that observed widening cannot be explained by natural variability. This observed widening is also significantly larger than in simulations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These results illustrate the need for further investigation into the discrepancy between the observed and simulated widening of the Hadley cell."

    Chris G at 06:41 AM on 23 February, 2013

    ...

    the average bushels of wheat per acre for Texas is 30, Oklahoma 35, Kansas 40, Nebraska 44(?).  Not even counting an increase in extreme heat anddrought events, we are looking at somewhere in the vicinity of a 25% loss in productivity as the Kansas climate becomes more like Texas.  It's mind-boggling how they can not see this as being bad for the local economy.  But, if you ask one of our politicians, Moran for example, he will tell you he does not support a carbon tax because he believes it will hurt the economy.  (Face-palm)

    ...

    The middle of the area growing wheat in Kansas is about the 38th parallel; the middle of the area growing wheat in Texas is about the 34th parallel.  So, if we can expect climate zone shifts coinciding with Hadley cell shifts, then Kansas becomes like Texas at just over 1 degree C of warming, give or take.

    I realize it is not that simple; I'm just looking for a ballpark figure.

    Hmm, since we are approaching 1 degree already, that would mean that the current drought/heat wave is more likely the new normal rather than an exceptional event.  That's a little frightening.

  37. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Hmm, since we are approaching 1 degree already, that would mean that the current drought/heat wave is more likely the new normal rather than an exceptional event.  That's a little frightening.

  38. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Curiosity driven follow-up:

    The middle of the area growing wheat in Kansas is about the 38th parallel; the middle of the area growing wheat in Texas is about the 34th parallel.  So, if we can expect climate zone shifts coinciding with Hadley cell shifts, then Kansas becomes like Texas at just over 1 degree C of warming, give or take.

    I realize it is not that simple; I'm just looking for a ballpark figure.

  39. Philippe Chantreau at 07:57 AM on 23 February 2013
    2013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction

    All right Kevin, if I read you correctly you're saying that the 2012 happened because it's been really warm in the Arctic for years and that whenever there is small "recovery" of the se ice, it is drowned in the staggering loes of the not so food years. Makes sense.

  40. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    [rockytom] Curiousd, I know the limitations of being able to cover all significant topics in a one-semester course.  It is an even greater problem in a one-quarter course.  However, some chapters in the Farmer and Cook textbook are short and more than one could be covered in one week.  The lack of coverage on renewable energy is due to space and time limitations.  If a third volume in this series comes about (we must finish the second one before contemplating a third), its title will be "Earth's Future Climate" and will emphize renewables, statistics from current usage projected into the future, and IPCC projections for future climate as well as information published between now and then.  Thank you for your well-thought out comment and the italicized recommendation!

  41. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    ubrew, fwiw, no worries.  I confess to having had very similar thoughts as you express @1.

    Funny, I once spent what I consider wasted hours in a semester-long philosophy of mathmetics class "proving" that 1+1=2; at least, our professor declared it proved at the end of the course.  Call me crazy, but I was willing to accept that particular statement on faith, or perhaps as a tautology.  Now I'm wondering if perhaps another professor would have taught it as unprovable.

  42. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    curiousd@2: I kind of regret that post @1, in the light of day.  However, this topic has gotten so political in my country that it's difficult not, in a weakened moment, to give in to the seduction.  "Making it political" is how doubt is produced, and nowhere is that more evident than on this issue.  How do you put horns on someone as dry as a climatologist?  First paint him 'red'.  Chris G@14 seems a better guide to how political it is, in Kansas, than I am (and, as with all evil, always behind closed doors).  Clyde@4: I have no further evidence than what appears on this website.  If I remember correctly, logicians can't 'prove' that 1+1=2, so we should cut the climatologists some slack.

  43. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    In fairness, that bit on the Holcomb coal plant was done by a Democratic governor, who replaced Sebelius when she joined the Obama administration.  Sebelius had previously been opposing the plant.

  44. Why Choose One Textbook for Introductory Climate Change Science Courses?

    There is a type of couse offering with the following institutional constraints:

    1. Everything must be covered in one semester. With a week break for Thanksgiving or "Spring Break" one then has 14 weeks.

    2. Since the implications of the science are rather depressing without there being some emphasis on something that can be done, at least half of this one semester course has to be devoted to "What can be done?"  There can be strategies for teaching more than one thing at a time. Thus, the students will be barely conversant with graphs. One can show a graph of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) in the U.S. and the students will notice fuel economy improved by about 10 - 15 years after the oil embargo in the 1970s. New gas mileage requirements were put onto car manufacturers with about a 10 - 15 year deadline. The students learn about reading a graph and that government action can do good.

    3. In the U.S. the mathematical background of such students, taking the required one semester quantitative course in a large state university, will be on average terrible. One has to teach them how to convert units. Half the class cannot do this. Thus, a problem asking the students  to go from U.S. miles per gallon to European liters per 100 km will be immensely challenging, and at least half the class will miss these problems without special training.

    My favorite innovation.....A "quarter pounder" at McDonalds  is (very approximately) a newtonburger.

    I eventually gave up talking about avogadro's number or moles. To the question ....."How many atoms of carbon are in a 6 gram diamond?" a really common answer is half an atom.

    4. There are 24 chapters to Farmer and Cook, Volume 1 alone and only 14 weeks at the instructor's disposal. So far I see  in Farmer and Cook immense  thoroughness on climate but little coverage of wind power, solar power, nuclear power, or hydropower.

    But the instructor him/herself in the U.S., teaching such a course, is likely to know little  about clmate change at all. Similarly this applies in high schools. For these people, I think Farmer and Cook is the best thing going.

     

  45. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    OK, so I live in Kansas.  It pains me when these kinds of things happen, and this is not the first time.  For instance, our govenor has declared some of the best areas for wind energy to be natural reserves; thereby, short-circuiting the approval process for the company that wanted to put windmills there. I thought this was odd because he hasn't otherwise been a big supporter of conservation, but then, this is the same government that rushed the coal plant in Holcomb through the approval process in order to get it done before the new EPA mandates took effect.

    The state is predominately Republican, and agriculture is probably the largest industry.  I think we are suffering a result of Republican group-think where they simply can't connect the dots between the economy and the environment, because that would cause them to have thoughts which would be seen as being disloyal to their group.

    I mean, the average bushels of wheat per acre for Texas is 30, Oklahoma 35, Kansas 40, Nebraska 44(?).  Not even counting an increase in extreme heat and drought events, we are looking at somewhere in the vicinity of a 25% loss in productivity as the Kansas climate becomes more like Texas.  It's mind-boggling how they can not see this as being bad for the local economy.  But, if you ask one of our politicians, Moran for example, he will tell you he does not support a carbon tax because he believes it will hurt the economy.  (Face-palm)

  46. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Are we to pass on word to the constituents of Congressman Dennis Hedke that he deep down believes they should not vote since each has only one vote that will have an "insignificant impact on curving" the election?

  47. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    Clyde:

    IMO your focus on ubrew12's off-hand comment is derailing the thread.

    Drought in the US midwest is off-topic for this post. There are many other posts on Skeptical Science where attribution of dought can be - and probably already has been - pursued.

    Moderator Response: [DB] Agreed. All further replies to Clyde pertaining to drought should be placed on this thread, not here. Leave a redirect message here as appropriate. Thanks to all for your compliance in this.
  48. Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive

    Since the posts on this article have slowed, I want to add a comment regarding the construction of nuclear power plants, as an uncle of mine has a vast amount of experience in the field, having worked on many nuclear and fossil fuel-fired plants, and I have had many a chat with him over the years. As a civil engineer with expertise in all things concrete, he experienced a rather dramatic situation back in the mid-1980s, I believe, during the construction of a plant in the midwestern US, I think in Illinois.

    In the middle of the construction of the critical components of the plant, the government-approved supplier of the high-grade sand required for the high strength mix of concrete ran out of the approved sand (despite having supposedly proven to government inspectors that it had enough such sand in its quarry). As my uncle related the story to those of us gathered around the holiday dinner table, the ensuing delay of several months resulted in a cost overrun in the hundreds of millions of dollars, since all the workers involved in the construction operation were contractually entitled to their pay during the wait for a new source of sand to be approved.

    This was merely the biggest and most costly mistake my uncle observed. At different times he pointed out that merely pouring the concrete often involved very costly preparation work and other delays, since many variables--from the exact mix of ingredients to the ambient temperature where it was poured were specified quite exactly in order to guarantee that the concrete would meet the standards. If, for example, the weather was too hot or cold, and there was no way to warm or cool the location of the pour, concrete work had to halt, causing further delays, which in turn often caused additional cost overruns down the line.

    At other times, my uncle noted that seemingly minor mistakes or omissions in the enormously complicated plans for the phsyical buildings associated with a power plant proved quite costly. One he cited was failing to include a particular required cable bundle in the specifications which meant that a major steel beam had to be cut out and re-welded, which was nearly impossible to do while still maintaining the required tensile strength. Another happened when, out of thousands of doors spread throughout one new plant, two doors were switched on the blueprints (a sealable, submarine-style door switched places with a standard office door) and the mistake wasn't discovered till after the concrete had been poured. According to my uncle, these kinds of mistakes were rarely easy to fix--usually because of the technical challenges, but also because of the bureaucracy.

    Finally, he still laments that the industry continued to build the same basic reactor design for decades, even though better designs were on the drawing board, and then compounded this mistake (as he saw it) by instead focusing on arbitrarily changing the little things--like where to route cables or pipes or where to put offices or stairwells or windows or various control rooms, which meant that mistakes kept cropping up and that costs kept increasing, since despite using the same reactor design, his company never could say it built the same plant twice.


    I suppose my main point is that building wind farms and solar arrays is not nearly as fraught with such serious potential problems, and the costs of such projects should continue to come down as the builders of the hardware and the installers gain experience. This cost draw-down clearly won't be as quick to happen with the next generation of nuclear plants, as they are likely to experience a vast number of growing pains due to their much greater level of complexity.

  49. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables

    I hear this argument ocassionally in New Zealand where I live: that installing renewable energy systems will have an insignificant effect on the world's production of CO2.  We are a country of 4.3 million (what is the population of Kansas) and should be doing at least our proportional part in reducing the use of fossil fuels.  In fact, since we, like Kansas and the rest of the Western world use 10 times the fossil fuel per capita as the world average, we should be doing 10 times as much.  But forget all that.  Solar panels are now down to the oft quoted $1.00US per nominal watt which puts them in contention with fossil fuels.  They are economically worthwhile to install right now.  The critical factor is the legislative framework around their installation.  The crazy subsidies that Germany and some other European countries give are not necessary.  All that is needed is a system which is fair to both the small installer and the power company.  Most important the government must not try to milk the calf.

    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2009/09/german-fit-system-brilliant.html

    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2007/10/excess-energy-what-to-do.html

    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2009/11/legislation-for-electric-cars.html

  50. Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
    The authors conclude that projections of acute and chronic PDSI decline in the twenty-first century are likely an exaggerated indicator for future Great Plains drought severity. Source    Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation 7 that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles8 that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years. Source
     To be clear I'm not saying GW did or didn't cause any one drought. As already stated nobody can say for sure. I thought ubrew12 might of had some new info on the matter.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] As noted below, discussions pertaining to drought should be placed on this thread, not here. Leave a redirect message here as appropriate. Thanks to all for your compliance in this.

    Note: extensive block-quoting, as you do here, is frowned upon by the Comments Policy. Individuals here are expected to paraphrase a referent citation in their own words and include a contextual rationale as the the significance and appropriateness of the citations they furnish.

    Fixed quotation formatting.

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