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vrooomie at 23:57 PM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
rab, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll likely know, and understand, that as concerned scientists and amateurs here, alike, we sometimes get *very* frustrated with the deliberate and IMHO, venal attempts by the misinformers to...well, misinform. I myself have gone off, half-cocked at someone who utilized some given denialists' meme, only to be pulled up by the person at whom I was lashing out. Please accept my apologies for any slight I may have imparted by suggeting the link I did. I think I speak for all the regular contributors here when I say we have no agenda, beyond that of trying to sound the alarm--yes, what is going is alarming--about what is an increasingly worrisome future we ALL share, utterly irrespective of political stripe, nationality,or ethnicity. We truly are all in the same sinking boat: Some are bailing, whilst others deliberately add water to the vessel: That's crazy-making, and sometimes, we all fall victim to the frustration. Thanks for your reasoned and rational response to that frustration. -
mspelto at 21:46 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Well put, and of course now there is 2012 data to be analyzed. It is clear as I compile the chapter on Mountain Glaciers for BAMS 2012 due in three weeks, that 2012 will join 2011, and every other year since 1990, as a negative mass balance year. The glacier monitoring that has been done has proved more accurate than Jacobs (2012) for the Himalaya- as noted here at SKS As Mark has indicated the story is the same retreat, and typically new lake formation or expansion as you look Glacier by Glacier, it just gets worse. -
Tony Noerpel at 21:19 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Dana good article but chriskoz has a point. Even Richard Feynman used "trick" to describe a mathematical technique in his Lectures in Physics. I looked up trick synonyms and came up with concealment as being pretty descriptive, as in concealing 90% of the data. Tony -
bvangerven at 20:36 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Renewables currently also take fossil fuel to build, and that’s exactly why an global carbon tax is needed. Randomly distributing emission rights to whoever needs to emit CO2 for whatever reason will never help to get climate change under control. When a worldwide carbon tax is introduced, IF renewables use fossil energy in some way – during building, or for transportation etc, they will be penalized as well by the carbon tax. As it should be. It truly levels the field. The result: the cheapest electricity = the most carbon-neutral electricity. -
Tom Curtis at 19:04 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
BF @31, the most outlandish "scientific" claims in the global warming debate have always come from deniers; and as they get a pass from critical scrutiny, both by themselves and the media, there has been no let up in the absurdities. -
Tom Curtis at 19:03 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Jim Baird @30, whoever was the original source of the mistake, I think you will find that 10 million square kilometers us just approximately 3.85 million square miles. Proper form also requires that if you cut and paste text, you enclose the quote in inverted commas, and provide a link to the source. -
ranyl at 18:36 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Sorry correction, "I'm saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc...." Should be, "I'm not saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc...." -
ranyl at 18:33 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"I wonder if you have reliable information to support these claims in relation to renewables? To take a couple of your examples: birds?! As opposed to the impact of domestic cats (orders of magnitude bigger impact). Toxic waste? As opposed to coal/nuclear. Mining? You're kidding, right? Fossil fuel extraction is done how? Warming the atmosphere? How?" Yes, I see cats kill birds, so it is just fine to put wind turbines up as many as possible cos something kills more of them, and cats kill small birds whereas wind turbines kill top predator raptors which as I'm sure you're aware means eco-system derrangement so a higher overall biodiversity impact per bird killed by a long way. I do not adovcate coal, gas, oil or nuclear, all have far to many deep enviromental problems and none are sustainable, as I say " Stop using fossil fuesl now or kill of humanity?2 so is a lame argument to put unless you thought I was advocating fossil fuels. As for mining well no I'm not kidding where does all that iron, copper, rare metals, zinc, aluminium, and all the things that go into solar panels, I woudl suggest you look up solar panels and environmental toxicity in google. As bats well in a recent in Scotland small scale wind turbines reudced bat activity by 50%. Also there is lots very good evidence showing how wind turbines warm and dry the atmosphere in their locality, rather daft to put so many in wet old Texas really, and of course change the atmosphere here and the knock effects expand, and keep in mind to supply the power humans actually use would take removing all the powr out of the wind. And again there is no carbon to spend on wind turbines etc, and pay back false accounting by EROI or whatever are we have to stop using fossil fuels full stop asap, therefore what payback exactly if we don't use fossil fuels? Renewables are a carbon cost now to provide a certain amount of intermittently generated electricty into the future, and remember the carbon costs is not just the panel or turbine it si getting it there, all the extra grid needed and so on and so on. I'm saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc.... Again we have no carbon to spend and this budget cannot be blown, therefore for me I want to spend as little carbon as we can as wisely as we can, therefore I would want to have some renewable power and use the one that gives the most KWh out for carbon spent in so long as the wider environmental implications aren't too large. However again there is no carbon therefore this amount of aditional renewables would be very small indeed if we actually start taking this situation seriously, and to reiterate again renewables do not save carbon they are a carbon cost to give an amount of electricity and they have significant enviromental impacts all of them! -
BF8201 at 18:26 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I think recent scrutiny of climate science has forced the more outlandish claims to be reigned in and the science is actually much more responsible now. -
Jim Baird at 17:56 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
jimb - 26. Of course you are correct. Took quote directly from their paper http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/otec/vol/vol8-4-1.htm Would assume they slipped the million in there by error. The 26.8C is right per http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Chris.html -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:32 PM on 1 February 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
The "Academic Advisory Council" is full of important-sounding people
It is a blatant appeal to authority, based on the titles and academic qualifications of the members of the Council. The same, tired old horses getting flogged by the same, tired old contrarians. The trouble is, one has to have had some exposure to the topic to be able to spot the usual suspects in such a line-up. -
JasonB at 16:53 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl, The Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for wind and even PV is fine — within a short period of time (about six months for wind, 2-3 years for PV) both have repaid the energy invested in creating them and from that point on they are a net contributor to reducing emissions, even if they were originally created using the dirtiest coal power around. There are fossil fuels that are being exploited now (e.g. bitumen tar sands, shale oil) that have lower EROEI figures than PV and recent US oil imports have a lower EROEI than wind! chriskoz, I don't like suggestions that breakthroughs are "needed" for renewables to be viable. There are many other ways of storing energy, some even quite cost-effective and efficient, and I think over time they will simply keep improving incrementally as they have been doing. One of the best forms of "storage" is simply not burning the fossil fuel that you would have otherwise — coupling intermittent renewables with e.g. gas turbines (or low-load diesel generators, for smaller installations). A penny saved is worth more than a penny earned, as they say. Since cumulative emissions are what we really need to worry about, reducing the rate at which we burn fossil fuels gives us more time to improve technology and find other solutions. Coupling solar and wind with gas-powered backup can be a better option than not deploying renewables while we wait for all the problems that will occur as they reach higher penetrations to be solved. -
chriskoz at 16:18 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl@25, You may not realise that the building of all those renewables (i.e. PV panels, windmills) does not necessarily require to burn fossil fuels to get energy. If we have some significant energy from the existing renewable infrastructure to boot with, the infrastructure can start expanding itself without need for "external energy". The only problem to solve, as skywatcher@27 noticed, is the energy storage. The solution must be as simple as the miraculous energy within a barrel of petroleum that we've been given for free 100y ago. Batteries (part of your rant) are not good solution because they require lots of non-renewable materials for in relation to their lifetimes. Another break-through solution is needed... -
JasonB at 15:35 PM on 1 February 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
It's very hard to read that GWPF PDF without getting very angry at the blatant distortions and misrepresentations. I also can't help noticing two things: 1. The description of "Dr Matt Ridley" on page 1 and his own description of his expertise stand in stark contrast to the kindergarten-level logical fallacies and misunderstandings of the science. 2. The "Academic Advisory Council" is full of important-sounding people (at least to those who are unfamiliar with its members), yet practically all of his references are to dubious blog postings rather than any peer-reviewed scientific papers that his esteemed colleagues might have written. For example, what's the point of that Advisory Council if he's going to rely on prematurely reported, significantly flawed and unpublished papers by ex-TV weathermen to prove his point? -
chriskoz at 15:35 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Good article, dana, as usual. I only object your use of the word "trick" to describe the deceitful cherry picking by deniers. Because, alongside, they have widely broadcast the phrase "Mike's trick", so as it stuck to all minds, and we almost automatically know what it means. Simplistic/ignorant minds (as the deniers often happen to be) may confuse those two meanings. So, for the deniers' actions, a separate term (e.g. "deceitful cheating") would better be used. -
Elmo at 12:34 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Contrarians don't need no stinkin' facts. -
skywatcher at 12:00 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Ranyl, I have my doubts about your renewables paragraph above:Not to mention of course the large environmental impacts of renewables as well, bats, birds, warming the atmosphere, toxic waste, rare earth metals, batteries, mining, and so on and so on..
I wonder if you have reliable information to support these claims in relation to renewables? To take a couple of your examples: birds?! As opposed to the impact of domestic cats (orders of magnitude bigger impact). Toxic waste? As opposed to coal/nuclear. Mining? You're kidding, right? Fossil fuel extraction is done how? Warming the atmosphere? How? You might have a point about rare earths, but it depends on the specific technology - it's a much bigger issue for computing/telecommunications. And certainly on batteries - energy storage is the single biggest challenge... Solve that and we can produce all the renewable energy we ever need in favourable spots on the planet! I would much prefer to use carbon budget now to help transfer energy generation away from merely burning carbon - a vastly better use of that bit of CO2 release... -
Tom Curtis at 11:07 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
rab @6 I apologize for my imputation. Never-the-less, Skeptical Science should not second guess the presentation of data from scientific papers. If the scientists themselves, along with the editor (and presumably the reviewers) are happy with the presentation of data, we, as amateurs, should not be changing that presentation except in the face of a compelling reason to do so. And indeed, as changing the presentation requires obtaining the data either from the authors, or by digitizing, and then reprocessing it; time constraints provide a compelling reason to not do so. In this case there is no compelling reason. The ratio of warm records to cold records only falls to 0.5 or below in six out of 131 years of data; the last time being in 1922. It only falls to around 0.33 once, in 1907, and never falls to 0.25. The last time it was 1, or below was 1965, following the Mount Agung volcanic eruption. The last time it was below 2 was at the time of the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption. The five year mean has never fallen to 0.5, not fallen below 1 since 1922, and bit fallen below 2 since 1967. Given how little of the data falls below a ratio of 1, and how little below that ratio it falls, there is no gain in complicating the interpretation of the data by adopting any but a linear scale. -
jimb at 10:49 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
re Jim Baird @ 24- I don't think that 10 million square kilometres is approximately 3 square miles. -
curiousd at 10:35 AM on 1 February 201316 ^ more years of global warming
Another thought about the effect of the AMO on C.S.....There is the article by Booth,et al in Nature Letter, vol 484, April 2012, pp 228 - 232. (Probably already appeared on SKS, though not sure..) They do a simulation which attributes about 70 % of that peak in the global temperature record in 1940s to the effect of Aerosols. For sure, if they are right, then the transient C.S. goes back up considerable. -
rab at 09:54 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
@Tom "But I guess that would be the point, wouldn't it!" No it's absolutely not the point! You apparently don't know me, so please do not jump to conclusions. I'm one of Skeptical Science's biggest fans. Just trying to help. One fair way is to have a linear scale above 1 and the reciprocal, but also linear below 1. But that's mathematically ugly. Is it better if I give my complete name? Let's be civil, OK? --rick baartman -
ranyl at 08:15 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"It almost certainly wouldn't work anyway because it's too late - but people who know this, and who know about amplifying feedbacks, have a moral obligation to state the truth - only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption." Tend to agree. Also we have no carbon budget so not sure where all the carbon to build all these renewables is coming from, blow this carbon budget and it is blown! Not to mention of course the large environmental impacts of renewables as well, bats, birds, warming the atmosphere, toxic waste, rare earth metals, batteries, mining, and so on and so on.. Power down massively or kill off humanity and lots of the biosphere to boot? Stop using fossil fuesl now or kill of humanity? Stop exploiting and over indulging in everything or kill off humanity? Stop having cars or kill off humanity? Stop waging war or kill off humanity? Stop manufacturing arms or kill of humanity? The carbon budget really is this tight. 350ppm still gives a 50:50% chance of 2C and look what 0.7C is doing. Permafrost tipped, Arctic tipped, Amazon getting dryer, carbon sinks are reducing, waters are warming, ice is melting rapidly, albedo affect is strong, and yet some are saying spend loads of carbon to build loads and loads of renewables despite the very large environmental and carbon costs they have? The choice really is power down or kill of humanity? Anyway it seems most feel that killing off humanity is the best choice or that is what their actions say anyway. Don't fly or kill off humanity.. The choice is ours, but of course not having a car or not being able to fly, would mean taking away basic human freedoms, despite the facts that these have existed for less than 1% of the time of human existence and therefore it seems to kill off humanity is the choice humanity is making, with eyes wide open even if the majority of humanity is in denial, that climate change is now, right now and a direct threat to us all wherever we live! -
Albatross at 03:21 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
On a related note, Donat has a new paper out with numerous co-authors from around the globe. They used an updated version of HadEX (a collation and analysis of the gridded land-based dataset of indices of temperature and precipitation extremes). Here is a key passage form their abstract: "Results showed widespread significant changes in temperature extremes consistent with warming, especially for those indices derived from daily minimum temperature over the whole 110 years of record but with stronger trends in more recent decades. Seasonal results showed significant warming in all seasons but more so in the colder months. Precipitation indices also showed widespread and significant trends, but the changes were much more spatially heterogeneous compared with temperature changes. However, results indicated more areas with significant increasing trends in extreme precipitation amounts, intensity and frequency than areas with decreasing trends." Yet more evidence indicating that we are in for tough times ahead. -
Photon Wrangler at 03:14 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
The NASA GISS video of the shifting distribution pattern of temperatures is fascinating. Not only is the whole thing obviously -- and perilously -- shifting to the right, towards positive temperature anomalies, but it seems that curve is also flattening. There's just less and less time spent in the middle. Even the "new normal" is becoming less normal. I'll try to find time to read the paper behind it, but can someone here answer: Is the "flattening" of the curve a consequence of changing temperature? In other words, if we do manage to stabilize climate at say, 2.5 degrees warmer, and it holds there for a while, will the peak of the curve perk back up? If so, that's a least one bright spot. The new normal may not be fun, but at least it could be consistently not fun. -
dana1981 at 02:36 AM on 1 February 2013Esper Millennial Cooling in Context
Thanks tmac, image fixed. -
Jim Baird at 02:15 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Permafrost and icecap melting is hastened by the movement of ocean heat from the tropics towards the poles by tropical storms. “Earth's poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet because of energy in the atmosphere that is carried to the poles through large weather systems.” NASA- What's causing the poles to warm faster than the rest of Earth? A paper entitled: "Artificial Upwelling for Environmental Enhancement" by a group from the University of Hawaii and Florida Atlantic University pointed out, ”The prospect of global climate warming will only mean more intense and frequent hurricanes, as they do not form in the North Atlantic when the monthly mean temperature is less than 26.8C over a minimum area of about 10 million square kilometers (approximately 3 square miles). Hurricanes form in these warmer waters and dissipate when incurring a temperature drop of 2C. Thus, if a mechanism can be found to lower the temperature of the ocean surface in those areas of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans where hurricanes/typhoons are normally generated, it is possible that the frequency or severity of them can be minimized, if not entirely eliminated.” As was suggested in this paper and by Ray Schmitt, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "Assessing the potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion(OTEC)", OTEC could provide this benefit. -
tmac57 at 01:18 AM on 1 February 2013Esper Millennial Cooling in Context
Dana-the link to Fig. 1 is broken.Heads up -
vrooomie at 01:06 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Bernard J, I've sent your words, in #19 to an Aussie friend of mine, who is *consumed* with hatred of Julia Gillard, and who has switched to the Liberal Party, in order to help Tony Abbott take over the reins of power. I'm saddened beyond words, but also agree that likely, we are going to kill a majority of ourselves off before learning. Oh, well...we will have tried, like J. P.McMurty in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." Maybe, at the point we've "extinctified" 90% of us off, perhaps one of the survivors, those who listened to the scientists, will be able to toss the sink through the wall of denial.... -
bvangerven at 00:57 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I have recently read an interesting book – “Revolutie met Recht”. It is also available in English: “Revolution Justified” written by Roger Cox, a dutch lawyer. Although it describes the situation from a European perspective, I think it is interesting for everyone. Cox basically claims: democracy has failed. The largest multinational corporations (many of which belong to the fossil fuel industry) have an income that is bigger than the income of many nations, and therefore they also represent a bigger power than nations. This causes governments to become dependent on multinationals. Governments should represent the people who voted for them, but instead they only defend the interests of multinational corporations. Therefore, we must give up all hope that international politics will ever result in binding agreements to fight climate change. Instead, we should turn to the law. Governments have received the mandate from the public to defend the population against internal and external threats, and there is no bigger threat than climate change– perhaps it is even the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. We should sue our governments if they don’t take appropriate actions to protect their citizens. Whereas in the media the impression is given that the climate debate is not decided yet, in a lawsuit the scientific evidence is all that counts. In court, the IPCC is considered the ultimate authority on climate science. There is more than enough legal basis to win such a lawsuit. -
vrooomie at 23:52 PM on 31 January 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
rab, may I suggest reading this? The Y-Axis of Evil -
Tom Curtis at 21:44 PM on 31 January 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
If only I had a dollar for every time Skeptical Science was accused of bias for faithfully reproducing a graph from a paper under discussion (in this case our figure 1, which is to say, Comou et al's figure 5), I'ld be rich. In this particular instance, I cannot help but notice that the recommended solution (a log plot) is less easy for the general public to understand, and has the effect of deflating the very large ratios of heat to cold records seen at the end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty first century. But I guess that would be the point, wouldn't it! -
rab at 16:05 PM on 31 January 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
Plotting Figure 1 as you've done leaves you open to the charge that the graph unfairly emphasizes heat records over cold ones. For example, a ratio of 1/2 is as much of an effect on the cold side as a ratio of 2 is on the warm side. But 1/2 barely shows up whereas 2 looks like a big effect. To get round this, the vertical axis should be a log plot. -
curiousd at 15:38 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
This may be pushing the no political comments policy, but IMO, in the U.S. there will be effective action once things get bad enough (hopefully dust bowlism of the American Midwest will suffice) that permanently installed "World War Two Type Rules" for climate change action will be invoked. I will stop at severely rationing what is for most people a vacation luxury - round trip intercontinental jet flights. There is a long laundry list of such actions that would be necessary, but are no more draconian than done during WW2. There is already a flicker of this....the folks whose ocean view of Cape Cod would be terribly marred by windmills may now have to deal. See http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/wind-farm-faa/index.html -
Bernard J. at 13:36 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Dagold. There was a TV advertisement broadcast in Australia back in the 1990s (or perhaps earlier) where a grandfather and his small grandson are walking into the middle distance on a barren plain, and the grandson says something to the effect of "grandpa, what happened to all the trees?", to which the grandfather responds with "when I was a lad we had these things called forests...". He followed with a description of the animals that lived in the forests, and I seem to recall the boy asking why the forests were allowed to be destroyed. At the end there was the inevitable message from the NGO that commissioned the ad, but I have to admit that the tail end of the content escapes me at the moment. Perhaps someone here has a better recollection of the piece, and might even be able to locate the video itself. I'd be interested to actually see it again, and it would probably be a good template for your project. -
dana1981 at 13:28 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome
Yes, sparse OHC data are a challenge. It's interesting that for example when Levitus et al. (2012) came out, climate contrarians were saying the error bars were too small and OHC data are still highly uncertain. Now suddenly they seem to think the uncertainties are inconsequential. In his new 'ten tests' document, Matt Ridley said that aerosols and ocean heat uptake "are now well understood". My jaw nearly hit the floor when I read that. Personally I'm more comfortable with paleoclimate-based sensitivity estimates, the main problem there being that feedbacks in different climate states may not be the same, as I mentioned in this post. And of course there are significant uncertainties in forcing and temperature data further back in time, but the results always seem to be fairly consistent (PALAEOSENS being the latest example). -
Bernard J. at 13:27 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
gws at #13:Utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption will make sure that we drastically lower our consumption and population. The former requires preemptive action, history teaches us that the latter is more likely to become true.
With respect to effective and timely action to address human-caused global warming, I've thought for several years now that your alternative description of cause and effect is inevitable. A significant nail in the coffin will be the likely result of the Australian federal election on 14 September this year, which will result in a government that intends to reverse, by effectively a decade or two at least, action to mitigate carbon pollution. I hope that there is serious, significant, and prominent scientific input in the coming debate, although Australia's media (including much of the ABC's news outlets) doesn't want logical, objective truth - they want a story, and the best story would be to change the government. And when the climate is subsequently changed all the more for having changed government and installing a cadre of climate change denialists, the Australian media will be delighted at the inevitable smörgåsbord of climate disaster stories - up until the day that their jobs and/or their lives are affected by it... -
michael sweet at 12:46 PM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Witsend: Go comment on the thread about renewable baseline power. People who have looked seriously into this issue come to the opposite conclusion you do. Perhaps you could learn more about the available data. -
michael sweet at 12:43 PM on 31 January 2013Renewables can't provide baseload power
The Los Angeles Times had another article on solar power in Hawaii published January 2013. Apparently they get 25% of their power in some parts of Hawaii from rooftop solar. They will be the leaders in developing how to manage this type of power source. They install more solar in Hawaii because grid power is much more expensive than in the rest of the country. This article suggests that nighttime baseline is about 30% of peak daytime usage. Hawaii has trouble with surges in power due to their small grid size (each island has a separate grid). These issues would not apply to the mainland. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:59 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
dana1981 @ 16, Daniel Bailey emailed the Ridley GWPF PDF to me - thanks, Daniel. What a crock! I am an interested spectator of average intelligence, not a scientist, but even I could debunk most of what the document contains. The front cover lists the GWPF Board of Trustees and Academic Advisory Council: why am I not surprised at the rubbish they advocate? -
curiousd at 11:38 AM on 31 January 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
I am taking a different approach to digging out these two datasets myself. I have now a PNG of the version 2.5. I also have found a quote from a NOAA site to wit: "The US HCN version 2 monthly data will continue to be updated through 2012 and will be available in static form thereafter." So I will contact a public relations e mail at NOAA I found and ask for the version 2 for CONUS 2012, as per stated. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:38 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
scientists tend to invoke the "principle of least astonishment"
Whereas nature impartially invokes the principle of "cause and effect". Perhaps scientists should emphasise the most likely outcomes suggested by their research, rather than the least astonishing and not downplay the worst possible outcomes. Policy makers need accurate information, in order to increase the chances of making effective policies. The public need to be woken up, but I despair of discovering how to do this. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:12 AM on 31 January 2013Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See?
For its part, the Australian Government appears to not be genuinely concerned about the ultimate fate of the Great Barrier Reef. Simultaneously, it has expressed an intention to save the reef, whilst planning to greatly increase fossil fuel exports from sea ports adjacent to the GBR.
This exactly parallels the government's approach to global warming: paying lip-service to CO₂ reductions, while pressing hard on the accelerator of fossil fuel exports. Sadly, they talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. I guess this reflects public attitudes here in Oz. Homo Stupidus stupidus. -
amhartley at 10:47 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
As a statistical decision theorist, I’m not convinced that ESLD should stop or even be reduced. The optimistic under-estimations of sea level rise, global warming, etc., identified by Brysse et al. are all exercises, albeit informal, in risk minimization (here, risk = expected loss). To explain: If one knows that an (optimistic) under-prediction of, say, 1% of the effects of climate change will result in a loss of x, whereas a (pessimistic) over-prediction of 1% will result in a loss of Ax, where A>1, then it takes a systematic under-prediction to minimize risk, & the degree of under-prediction needed depends on A. Of course, if individual climate scientists were the only ones to suffer when their predictions are wrong, then A would probably equal 1, so that they would want to report simply the most likely future effects as such. However, one could argue that the entire society will suffer more from over-predictions than from under-predictions, at least in the short- to mid-term, since over-predictions lead to those charges of “crying wolf” & thus a loss of confidence in climate science. So, ESLD might not be so bad, & might even minimize risk? -
dana1981 at 09:37 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Doug @15 - you're not missing anything good. But there will be a link in the blog post we do on the list. -
dagold at 09:01 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I am shooting a 3 minute video (having it shot by a filmmaker) in which a grandparent is apologizing to his grandchild for the planet we are leaving them (I am using as my rough baseline the potential 4C world the Pottsdam Institute/World Bank report finds is possible by the 2060s). I intend to shoot multiple videos with similar themes. (Robert Redford, for example, is a grandparent. He WILL (I declare) be in one of the vids once they catch on). The vid will be followed by a short narrated slide-show backing the dialogue with scientific findings, descriptions of the 'coming world', satellite film of Arctic ice melting, etc. If anyone would be interested in vetting the 1 page script and slideshow, please email me and I'll be glad to send it along. my email: dagold56@hotmail.com -
tamikenn57 at 08:48 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Vroomie and Shoyemore thank you for the links. -
Doug Hutcheson at 08:46 AM on 31 January 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
Martin Lack @ 13, following that link, I get "ERROR 403: Forbidden". It seems my computer is the common denominator, as others have obviously not had the problems I am having accessing this document. Sigh. -
gws at 08:13 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"... only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption." Hmmh, more like this way I guess: Utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption will make sure that we drastically lower our consumption and population. The former requires preemptive action, history teaches us that the latter is more likely to become true. -
witsend at 08:04 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
When I was in West Va for a mountaintop removal mining shutdown protest, the miners (in a very suspiciously well-organized terroristic counter-demonstration) would shout at us things like, don't like electricity? use candles! This is something deniers understand that most climate activists and scientists won't admit (and it weakens their case) which is that there really is no change that we can replace the concentrated energy of billions of years of sunlight in fossilized fuels with so-called renewable sources. It does not compute. So, since activists and scientists have been falsely promising the public that our industrial party can continue uninterrupted if only we install solar panels and wind farms, the message has been rejected...because it's just false. It almost certainly wouldn't work anyway because it's too late - but people who know this, and who know about amplifying feedbacks, have a moral obligation to state the truth - only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption. I won't hold my breath! -
gws at 07:01 AM on 31 January 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Sorry to spoil the good vibe, but if the past is anything like prologue, the next IPCC report is not likely to be strongly worded. The process does not allow for that, I think. The strong words have to come from us scientists directly, more actively than passively as has been mostly the case. In addition, people who, like my better half, don't like to hear or see doom and gloom, and the mainstream press of course, would have to finally wake up to this unprecedented challenge ... sooo, not remotely likely to happen (at least in the US). I cannot read the Oreskes&Conway article from this wireless, but I venture to say its contents may be viewed as ... "prophetic"? It is hard to "do the right thing" when you do not know what the future brings. These days it feels even harder although (because?) we do know what the future brings. Alas, I think it will get much much worse before humanity collectively works on the solution, which is why humanity will survive, but society as we know it definitely not. And as Naomi Klein wrote, that is a, if not the main reason the denier movement exists. They fight a fight against physics they cannot win, ultimately, and unequivocally, destroying along the way the very thing they care most about. Go figure.
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