Carbon caps - jam in the works?
The scientists behind this week's major studies on greenhouse warming reckon they've found an easier way for politicians first to conceptualise and then to stop human-induced climate change.
On both fronts, they say, it's better than the time-honoured, UN-endorsed approach of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".
Logic is with them on the first part of the argument; but I'm struggling with the second.
Let me backtrack a bit. This week's study by a group led from Oxford University by Myles Allen and Dave Frame - two of the young Turks of UK climate modelling, though they'll probably hate me using that appellation - concludes that what matters isn't the level at which carbon dioxide emissions are stabilised, but the total amount of the gas that humanity produces.
Their computer modelling suggests that on the timescales we're talking about - tens of years, possibly a hundred - it doesn't matter whether the emissions come in one huge splurge and then crash to zero within a few years, or whether they're much flatter over time.
All that matters is that total emissions should remain below about one trillion tonnes of carbon (3.7 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide).
That amount is likely to produce an average global warming of 2C - a threshold that more than half the world's governments do not want to cross, because they believe it would usher in dangerous climate change.
So we can either have a lot of jam today and none tomorrow, or spread it more thinly around the decades. If our generation is greedy, our children's will bear the cost; if the West hogs all the "emissions space", developing countries will be left with none.
"It treats emissions of carbon dioxide as though they're a finite resource," Dave Frame explained when he chatted with reporters on Monday, "and economists are quite comfortable with that."
If something resembling a global carbon market came into existence based on this approach, the logical conclusion is that the price of emitting carbon would increase first slowly and then with a huge rush as the trillion tonne limit approached.
Can the idea enter international negotiations and become a keystone of some future climate treaty - if not the one that's supposed to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of this year then the one that comes after Copenhagen?
Intuitively it is simple, but I would suggest there are three very big political problems. One is that as with everything connected with climate science, there are uncertainties in the sums; the model concludes that a trillion tonnes could produce as little as 1.3C or as much as 3.9C - almost double the widely accepted target.
Myles Allen says this is easier to deal with than under the stabilisation approach, because as you head towards a trillion tonnes (about 40 years away, at current rates of burning) you see physical effects on the climate which reduce the uncertainties, so telling society whether it can "safely" go beyond a trillion tonnes or whether it must pull up short.
Even so, formulating an agreement that includes this uncertainty still looks difficult, because the target would constantly be shifting.
The second problem is that the atmosphere's capacity to accept carbon emissions isn't really a finite resource like oil or gold; you can always go beyond it if you need to, just as a government that sets a limit on borrowing can always simply break the limit when a banking crisis comes along.
If countries went for more jam today, they might be looking at cutting emissions by 10% per year as the trillion tonnes figure loomed - is it not certain that at that stage, the pot of jam would find itself magically expanding?
And thirdly, the trillion tonnes approach implies that governments accept that at some stage - within decades - humanity's carbon emissions will fall to zero, or something very close to it.
For many, that will be a stark and scary thought; the idea of a "safe", stable level of emissions seems much easier to deal with emotionally.
(A related issue is that the concept only applies to carbon dioxide because of its complex relationship with the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere; so a future treaty might have to mandate stabilisation goals for them and a total cap on CO2, adding another level of complexity).
Framing the issue in these terms may make more scientific sense and may make it easier to conceptualise.
But ultimately, cutting carbon is still a matter of political will.
If governments are serious about accepting the risks of escalating emissions - as their endorsement of the IPCC reports implies - and about their commitment to preventing dangerous climate change - as their ratification of the UN climate treaty indicates - they will find ways to keep emissions within "safe" bounds.
If they are not serious, it doesn't matter how you slice up the problem - it won't be solved.
That is surely the simplest and most accurate of all conceptualisations.
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This and the related article "'Safe' climate means 'no to coal'" are yet more alarmism by the BBC based on nothing more than computer modelling. Where is the scientific evidence? With the global temperatures falling whilst CO2 increases, there is no evidence to validate these computer models. The dangerous climate change is more likely to result from the quiet sun and the cooling oceans. Then we will need all the energy we can get.
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And post #1 here is yet more denialism based on personal hope and an unreasoning blindness to anything they don't like.
Where is the evidence of global temperatures FALLING?
Now, please show your proof that this is alarmism and the more dangerous element is a quiet sun and cooling oceans.
Where is YOUR scientific evidence?
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The assertion that global temperatures is currently falling is true but intentionally misleading. There is a 7-10 year cyle of small temperature change that is well understood and we are currently in the cooling part. But this cycle if dwarfed by the huge overall increase.
http://www.anothergeek.biz/blog/2009/01/hot-air-and-global-warming.html
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Yeah_whatever:
I do like global warming. I prefer it to global cooling. What am I supposed to be denying? I believe in climate change; I want to know which direction it is likely to be moving in so that I can prepare as well as possible.
All the global temperature databases (GISS, Hadcrut, UAH, RSS) show the temperature falling this century. We've just had two cold winters (despite the Met Office forecasts), Arctic sea ice extent has recovered and Antarctic sea ice is at a very high level. Those indicators are not good.
All the alarmism for warming comes from computer models. But computer models aren't evidence.
There is plenty of historical evidence linking sunspot number with climate cycles. And there is plenty of evidence linking ocean cycles with climate cycles. Go find it for yourself; and whilst you're at it, find me the scientific evidence that validates the computer models?
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YetAnotherGeek:
I am intrigued by this 7-10 year cycle. Where can I find out about it and what causes it?
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I can see the umpteenth flamewar developing in the comments area. Is there really no way we can just discuss what Richard has actually written about?
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"There is plenty of historical evidence linking sunspot number with climate cycles. "
And there's plenty of evidence linking CO2 to climate change and temperature.
Now, the evidence of the link of sunspot cycles shows a change that is insufficient to cause the degree (no pun intended) of change seen. A maximum change , IIRC, that would be something about 0.1C.
You put a link but show no EVIDENCE that that link explains it all.
Try again.
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"All the alarmism for warming comes from computer models. But computer models aren't evidence."
Nope.
All the alarmism comes from these observed facts:
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2) CO2 has increased 40%
3) The isotopic singature change shows this extra CO2 is from fossil fuels
4) Fossil fuels don't burn themselves on the gigaton a year level
5) We do burn them on the gigaton a year level
6) climatic temperature averages have been climbing and continue to do so
NOWHERE is there a computer model in that list.
Now, show how the sunspot cycle is enough to create the observed change.
Got anything?
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"All the global temperature databases (GISS, Hadcrut, UAH, RSS) show the temperature falling this century."
And when in the 80's and 90's the temperature record showed it was going up, you were saying "It's not long enough".
Lets have a look at those figures, shall we?
Taking a five-year running average, temperatures are STILL going up.
Go on.
Do the maths yourself.
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"Is there really no way we can just discuss what Richard has actually written about?"
Not when someone keeps repeating the same tired old nonsense that there is no evidence for AGW and CO2's role in climate change.
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Yeah_whatever:
I've put no link. So what caused the Little Ice Age? CO2 changes following temperature change. There is no evidence that CO2 causes temperature change. I agree with your first 5 points, but the fact that CO2 is a GHG does not mean the effect is significant. Temperatures have been generally climbing since the little Ice Age but do not continue to climb, as the databases I referenced show.
The theory odf a correlation between sunspots, cosmis rays and cloud seeding is enough, coupled with ocean cycleas to explain temperature chnages over the last few hundred years. It's a more plausible theory than the positive water vapour feedback required for CO2 increases to be 'dangerous'.
And I didn't introduce computer models into the debate, Richard did. Without computer models we wouldn't have all the talk of 'dangerous' climate change.
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Omnologos:
As long as Richard posts alarmist stories based on climate models, then we'll have a flamewar.
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"And I didn't introduce computer models into the debate, Richard did."
You ALWAYS introduce computer models into the debate.
And "you use a computer model" doesn't mean it isn't science.
What do you think is going in to the model?
Scientific equations.
How do you think someone made the connection between sunspot and temperature changes? They did maths.
Now do you think they did maths by hand, or did they use ... A COMPUTER!!! ...
A computer model isn't proof it isn't science.
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On the "temperatures have been declining" meme:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison
From 2000 to the end of the graph, temperatures have risen.
Temperature at 2000 less than Temperature at 2007.
How is this "cooling"???
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latest, peer reviewed and published word on CO2 ability to significantly raise temepratures is here:
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy_pubs.html
you need to download the top pdf
i haven't read it yet, but it doesn't look good for the alarmists
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The problem these "Young Turks" will find in promoting these ideas to Politicians is that the Politicians have been convinced the the IPCC has spoken and that the "Science is settled". If their ideas upset the taxation apple cart they are likely to be as welcome as Christopher Monckton would be in Copenhagen.
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so there is no dispute on temperature rising / falling, here is an image from Hadley of the anomalies
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
seems to show an overall warming of around 0.4 C over 50 years, there was a peak in 1998 of around 0.7C and a current anomaly of 0.2C
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britononthem, #16, read what these young turks are saying.
They too are saying that the science is settled.
And how much tax does the UK government get from petrol and gas?
Why are they curbing spending on these to increase taxes???
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Ah, the old "There is no signal either of cooling or warming and no way to tell if there IS cooling or warming, so that must mean AGW isn't happening. Even though that isn't supported by the evidence I'm using" argument.
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"So what caused the Little Ice Age? "
So why aren't we seeing the same temperatures as happened in the LIA?
CO2 warming?
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Given the current global cooling now in its 8th year, declining ocean heat content at least in its 5th year, sea level rises which have slowed or stopped, record rising Antarctic ice extent and rapidly recovering arctic ice since the 2007 cycle minimum, a sun in a deep slumber, increasing evidence that CO2 is a harmless gas that is in reality a beneficial plant fertilizer, you would think that this alarmist approach would be ridiculed.
but there is a huge political and NGO machine and all too compliant media and carbon crusaders like Al Gore and James Hansen and literally many billions of dollars behind making carbon evil and subsidizing unwise energy and carbon control solutions.
before you post here , remember, the more comments you make, the more power you use from the energy hungry servers, the more you add to the melting ice caps. please think of the polar bears before you post on this blog.
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@yeah_whatever
Could you do me a favour, please mate?
I sometimes have difficulty in realising who's comment you refer to when you post so many times, could you include numbers in your comments for ease of reference, please?
Cheers
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Yeah_whatever:
Early days for the next Little Ice Age. It didn't happen instantly the sun went quiet. There is a lot of inertia in the earth's energy (sorry to get technical here), it's mostly stored in the oceans.
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"Given the current global cooling now in its 8th year, "
Proof, please.
Temperatures in 2000 are lower than they were in 2007
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And that graph shows that the temperatures have gone UP this century.
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Richard Black writes: "Can the idea enter international negotiations and become a keystone of some future climate treaty - if not the one that's supposed to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of this year then the one that comes after Copenhagen?
Intuitively it is simple, but I would suggest there are three very big political problems."
I fear that you have omitted another, potentially more damaging political problem -- "polluter havens"; I think if carbon becomes a marketable commodity, with allocations traded like "real" goods, there'll be nations who will sabotage the mechanism in order to allow their industries to gain advantage, quite analoguous to today's "tax havens" sabotaging the world's financial systems.
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many thanks to jr4412 for picking up the challenge.
To more or less everybody else, it would be a good start if you could have your little flamewar on any point with even a remote pertinence to the actual contents of the blog. On the other hand it's easy for me and everybody else to simply skip over anything you write...if that's your goal, you're pretty much near reaching it!!
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carbon trading suits energy companies
This was a strategy identified in an Enron memo as "good for Enron stock."
this from the huffington post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-carney/follow-the-money-in-wash_b_25017.html
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CuckooToo #28.
good link, thanks.
frightening thing is that the EU is just as compromised, they're all "in the pockets" of big business.
the media, I suggest, are no better, how else could one explain lack of coverage for micro-generation initiatives, or lack of sensible, realistic debate on nuclear vs renewables, etc, etc?
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Dear Richard, it is amazing, most comments are not about your article.
I enjoyed somewhat reading it, but I disagree with your perception.
Overall, I get your point, but maybe you are distorting somewhat about what Allen et al. communication is all about. The way I see it is that their communication is about getting the facts right and unmask attempts of authorities to just do the motions in trying to limit warming to 2C, while in fact the evidence is mounting that we will not achieve that if we continue on the current track. Basically it does not matter what CO2 reductions government promise for 2050 (they won't be there anyway to pick the pieces), what matters is the integrated CO2 we emit this century. This piece of information was missing from the public eyes in a way that it can be understood by the public at large. As you said, if we start reducing a lot by 2020 we may not have to decarbonize the whole energy production by 2050. If we reduce the emission by only 15% as proposed by Obama, then yes we have to plunge to zero around 2040 or so. It is important to publicize this and make our governments face up to the reality in front of us and make them accountable for the results, that is, be clear on what path of CO2 reduction they want to follow.
I do not understand why you complain about the uncertainty in the range of CO2 emission allowed, this is how Science operates. The obvious thing to do is take the average as the most likely true value, rather than the extreme value that suits your ideology, which is usually what the deniers do. It is the best we can do now, do you know a better way?
Cap and trade or carbon tax, this is the real issue now. I am incline to favor the Cap and trade provided it is done in a manner that works, and not in the way the EU did it, which was a sham. With a tax, it is not going to be easy to determine the rate that would guarantee a result, that is, a set annual target reduction. With Cap and trade, the idea is that business will know that they are on a climbing hill with coal and they have to find an alternative within 30 years or so, it is their prerogative to find how and at what rate.
It is a testimony to the strength of your scientific culture (in the UK) that your scientists (and journals such as Nature) are the ones that better spell out in the open how we are getting closer to a global catastrophe. The Guardian present, I find, really interesting articles as well. There is also the Tyndall institute.
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To: climateheretic #21:
Nicely put for the likes of the folks who are just observers of what is happening out here in the real world. I'll repeat it for emphasis:
"Given the current global cooling now in its 8th year, declining ocean heat content at least in its 5th year, sea level rises which have slowed or stopped, record rising Antarctic ice extent and rapidly recovering arctic ice since the 2007 cycle minimum, a sun in a deep slumber, increasing evidence that CO2 is a harmless gas that is in reality a beneficial plant fertilizer, you would think that this alarmist approach would be ridiculed".
Problem I see with those who comment that “we should be blogging about Richard's article” is that we do not believe in his opening premise. I.e.
"The scientists behind this week's major studies on greenhouse warming reckon they've found an easier way for politicians first to conceptualize and then to stop human-induced climate change".
We do not see the problem. Recent polls seem to be saying that 70% now have doubts about AGW. This is dangerous territory as we are about to see this whole shenanigan turn into a tax. We will not like it!!!!
Cheers....
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timjenvey:
You are quite right. It is difficult to make constructive comments on the article when it is built on the false premise of 'dangerous' human-induced climate change. The rest of the article is then a discussion of ways to solve a non-problem. It's not worth discussing anything beyond the false premise.
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@jr4412 #29
it'a often the case of follow the money
if you read the huffington post article you can see how many energy companies worldwide stand to benfit financially from cap and trade. I found it very interesting that the Clinton administration was involved in formulating cap and trade in conjunction with Enron (who thought co2 tax would be "good for the order books" according to an internal memo)
it also explains why a certain leading alarmist, is very keen on promoting the idea - google "10 inconvenient questions " and his name and you will see ehat i mean. i'd give you a link but i don;t think the mods would like it
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somebody mentioned flame wars and you may know i've been having a polite discussion with yeah_whatever here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/04/sometimes_on_reading_comments.html#P79371806
anybody got any comments on my calculations for the impact of CO2 warming on the atmosphere that they would like to share?
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Surely it is perfectly acceptable to mention the man's name and google it?
10 inconvenient questions Al Gore
Gets 42,000+ results from Google
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sorry, yes it is. it was the link to the article i was thinking may not be acceptable to the mods
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Sorry Richard, this just sounds like more of the same: endless debate of 'binding targets' nine out ten of the participants will then ignore. Angels on pinheads?
Governments will not meet any of these silly targets because to do so without viable alternatives would create a recession far worse than anything we are seeing now. It just won't happen.
If people got on with developing serious alternatives to fossil fuels we could continue to have an economy, secure our energy supplies and (if you are worried about it) cut carbon emissions to zero.
People are quite capable of producing large scale alternatives and the laboratory/pilot scale ideas are already here. Let's see some serious investment - Manhattan project scale - to get them moving. Once they work, they will be money earners for who ever developed them.
I'd like to see media coverage that ignored the 'target' nonsense and started pushing the serious alternatives. Why is there so little funding?
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Cuckoo Too, you seem to think you know how to read a graph, so tell me this:
What caused the jump in temperature between 1997 and 1998 on your graph?
If you can't answer that, you don't know what the graph is saying, do you.
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"anybody got any comments on my calculations for the impact of CO2 warming on the atmosphere that they would like to share?"
Yup. Your calculations are incorrect.
As explained time and time again.
The height at which the radiation can leave the planetary system (and hence stop warming the system) gets higher and higher.
And as you go higher in our atmosphere, it gets colder.
And as Stephan-Boltzman law says, energy loss through radiation is highly dependent on temperature.
So, as CO2 concentration goes up, the height at which the earth can lose the energy gets higher up, the less energy is lost to space and therefore the more energy is retained. This retention of low-grade energy is expressed as an increase in temperatures globally an on average until radiative equilibrium is reached.
Please prove this wrong if you can.
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"when it is built on the false premise of 'dangerous' human-induced climate change"
Why is it false?
You need more than a mere statement, since I can clearly state it is not false and that dangerous human induced climate change is inevitable unless we change our dependency on foreign sourced fossil fuels.
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"11. At 4:53pm on 30 Apr 2009, PAWB46 wrote:
Yeah_whatever:
I've put no link."
So you say now that there is no link between sunspots and temperatures, yes?
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"Governments will not meet any of these silly targets because to do so without viable alternatives would create a recession far worse than anything we are seeing now. It just won't happen."
Uh, photovoltaics are a viable alternative to coal-fired power stations.
You can even combine them with Wind Farms (there are quite a few out there already) and these are another viable alternative.
Better public transport will remove much of the personal CO2 from car use and less use of the car is eminently viable, since the average (AVERAGE!!!) distance travelled by car is 2 miles. That means FAR MORE than half those journeys are walkable in 30 minutes (far more because although there is no limit to the upper end of a car journey, there's very quickly a limit to the shortest travel distance for a trip: 0 miles).
And please explain why not giving away money to middle east countries (who are selling their oil at a profit, else why do it?) would cause a recession here in the UK.
Yet we have our own sunlight, our own wind and our own tides. The technology to exploit this is available in the UK. Jobs to create wind turbines would slow any recession for a few decades and we wouldn't have to give away our money to foreign powers just so we can move in our own country.
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yeah_whatever:
You don't understand much about energy density then (I assume you're not a scientist or engineer)? I suggest you read Prof David Mackay's book "Sustainable Energy without the hot air". It is freely available to download from his website or at http://www.withouthotair.com/.
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CuckooToo, yeah_whatever, et al.
the 'Climate Change' debate and CO2, surely, is only one aspect of the issue; by destroying established habitats large-scale, discharging "unusual" chemicals into both sea and air, and so on, we are inflicting damage across the spectrum.
perhaps CO2 alone is of no importance, who knows, but our relentless industrial exploitation of every environmental niche for profit is going to have consequences -- much to our and many other species' detriment.
I do not know much science, and chemistry (in school) went way above my head but I have retained one bit of knowledge: change is not ususally gradual, you add some and add some more, and then you reach some critical point and the reaction takes place suddenly - bang.
so whether the graphs show this or that is probably not material, when a certain concentration of "pollutants" has been reached, change likely will be abrupt, and we'll be "up the creek w/out paddle".
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The process of debate is alive and well....long live the debate!
Yeah_whatever post 39
I like your point...please allow me to expound a little, sir.
Thinking of an integration of the total carbon emitted rather than short term bursts and contractions seem logical. Just as the earth has a finite carrying capacity in terms of food production, makes sense that it should have carrying capacity of carbon based combustion byproducts and human species population.
Thinking of our climate/planet/solar system, as a system is appropriate. We receive heat through radiation from the sun during the day...and lose heat through radiation during the dark cycle when we face cold space. The insulating blanket of CO2 (and other atmospheric components)helps us to not lose so much of the night time captured radiant energy, but also helps to mitigate some of the daytime radiant gain. Very simplistic, but decent first order effect of one mechanism affecting our climate as we spin around daily.
Now, include a few more effects....which add to the natural daily temperature cycles, on a longer term event horizon.
- Solar output is currently at a low point...which helps stabilize our temperature gain rate at this point in time.
- Heating due to human built "heat islands" (cities)caused by higher conversion of the radiant energy to heat...(glad solar output is now low)
- the roads are much better at radiation/heat conversion than natural vegetation....and we have a bunch of them here in the USA.
- Concentration of combustion based heat(including building volume heat rejected by air conditioning) is quite noticeable in cities compared to rural areas.
- people individually produce heat....higher concentration in cities makes it noticeable....wonder about the total amount produced.
- reduced Albedo of snow yields reduced radiant reflection from particulate contamination ( can be human or natural source)results in a distributed heater melting the snow with positive feedback.
- deforestation for purposes of expanded human housing subdivision development/profit results in more heat island areas with better heat conversion efficiency.
- deforestation for the purposes of timber harvest, human housing expansion to name a few....reduces the surface area of living carbon sinks (trees).
Now combine these effects with the better insulated atmosphere...and we can expect some higher temperatures.(unless there is an increase of volcanic activity....or terra forming interference to increase upper atmospheric reflectivity) The synergistic combinations result in some undesirable positive feedback mechanisms. The level of detail is admittedly simplistic, but hopefully all can start to see a picture forming.
Commitment to launching satellites to gather data to more fully comprehend climate condition is admirable and necessary to quantify the situation. It may validate the climate models or instruct where model tweaks are needed. Models of an interactive system as complex as our system must be tough, as there must be surprise feedback mechanisms we have never even imagined. This basic research is what has propelled us forward as a species....and will also moving forward.
Point of fact is we humans expand our activities based on the boundary constraints of our environment/economy/available land/etc to the point where negative feedback mechanisms limit our ability to expand. These feedback mechanisms are both known and unknown to humans and may have "interesting" effects on our quality of life as we have come to know it.
We know that environmental negative feedbacks affect the food production rate with some (arbitrary) economic linkage. If we believe the numbers, the magnitude of the negative feedback is on the order of 4-5 Trillion dollars annually. I believe attaching the magnitude to an arbitrary (non gold backed) currency value is potentially fraught with error...but assume it can be normalized for inflation/deflation. (Not sure if this feedback encompasses water evaporation/climatology effects...but let's say it is all encompassing for argument's sake.)
If we accept the premise that Carbon cap and trade can be done effectively, it will induce a negative economic feedback mechanism into the system which should help to minimize both rate of consumption of carbon based fuels and the more devastating negative feedback mechanisms on human species (food shortages,economic collapse,etc).
Looking at a different possible root of the problem being actually human population related, Carbon cap and trade would actually help sustain human population growth rate longer in time. I have to wonder if human population growth rate is long term sustainable...maybe not. Maybe the best intentioned human intervention actually has negative repercussions not well comprehended.
Considering the current repercussions caused by governments fiddling with the financial system a number of years back, maybe we should not count on the governments to do the right thing for us in the environmental arena in either magnitude or correctness. It may behoove us as good stewards of our earth to do more to stimulate change on a grass roots level. We can really make a difference if we take steps together which cause no harm and promote sustainable behavior. Maybe the governments would then have a "paradigm shift".....HMMMMMM!
Peace Out!
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PAWB46 hilariously opines :"You don't understand much about energy density then (I assume you're not a scientist or engineer)?"
You assume wrong.
What leads you to this erroneous conclusion?
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Burghermeister:
"Commitment to launching satellites to gather data to more fully comprehend climate condition is admirable and necessary to quantify the situation."
Been going on for some time now.
I forget the name, but a satellite is out there and been taking pictures of the earth in various wavelengths and comparing the brightness (equivalent to temperature as per radiation laws) over time.
The earth is dimmer and hence cooler at 15 micron wavelength now than it was when the satellite was first launched.
And, since there is a consistent causation, the correlation between CO2 and climate average temperatures is accounted for with some 25% left over that is correlated with things like eruptions, solar cycles and other elements modelled and accounted for in modern global climate models.
Causation implies there will be a correlation. If there is no correlation then you've missed something.
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jr4412, the problem that you're having with the graph is because Cuckoo Too is presenting it in a context that is false.
Consider this: if concentration means "parts per million" then run this thought experiment:
Take a box, put only CO2 in it. This is now 1,000,000 ppm. So it should have from Cuckoo Too's attempted interpretation of Beers law near complete opacity.
Now put some O2 in it.
Now the concentration is, say, 500,000 ppm. This should, again by Cuckoo Too's misapplication of the law make it more transparent.
Despite O2 being transparent to IR.
How can O2 affect IR photons when IR photons do not interact with it?
You can derive Beers Law from considering the gas similarly to the way Daley's Law of Partial Pressure works: treat them individually.
So what you get is a certain density of CO2 (grams per litre) which is ALSO called "Concentration" (See how Cuckoo Too is trying to lead you astray?). That then has a certain possibility of a photon passing through being intercepted. And an interception removes the photon from consideration.
And that chance occurs each time it passes a molecule, with the same chance of interception each time.
Now, instead of counting each particle, you can work out how many you need to pass to get a 50-50 chance of the photon being intercepted. If that's, say 1,000, then when a linear displacement of 1,000 times the average distance between particles is passed, you've got a 50-50 chance of interception.
The mean separation between particles depends on the number of particles and the size of the volume those particles are in.
Density. Or concentration (in grammes per litre sense, not ppm sense).
So in the first cm, there's a 50% chance of interception. If it doesn't get intercepted in that first cm (50% chance) then the chance of an interception in the next cm is likewise 50% (since the gas is uniformly distributed). And so on.
So, draw a graph of cm vs intensity (1 at the source) and you get:
cm Fraction
1 1/2
2 1/4
3 1/8
4 1/16
Look familiar? It should to Cuckoo Too.
Now what happens if you increase the number of particles in the box? The mean distance between particles reduce. This is an increase in concentration and means that where before you passed 1cm to get a 50-50 chance of interception, now 1000 times the mean distance is shorter and you have, say, 0.9cm to get a 50-50 interception.
Therefore the depth of medium which you can see to is reduced.
So the energy released by the system to space comes from a higher level in our atmosphere when we increase CO2 concentrations.
And a higher level in the atmosphere is colder.
Now, why does our sun shine brightly but our earth doesn't? Because the sun is hotter.
So when you cool a body, it shines less brightly.
So the earth shines less brightly if we increase CO2 levels.
And if it is shining less brightly, it is letting go of less energy.
But if the energy coming in is the same, that means that incoming energy is less than outgoing energy.
And so the earth must warm.
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@yeah_whatever #38
What caused the jump in temperature between 1997 and 1998 on your graph?
it's not my graph and if all you want me to do is read the graph and tell you what caused the jump in temperature, then i would have to say there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions from that graph
what's your point?
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re #49.
So you don't know what caused it? Does that mean that there is some inherent variability and that whatever caused the drop in temperature from 1998 to 1999 could have depressed the temperatures between 2007 and 2008? If so, then there is not a 0.25C increase in temperature, there is a greater increase in temperature that a temporary variable and unsustained change in temperature has hidden from view.
By not knowing what caused that change between 1997 and 1998, you have shown you cannot prove there is a change in global average temperatures of 0.25C from that graph.
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42. At 10:53am on 01 May 2009, yeah_whatever
Did you even read my comment (37)??
I'm calling for the implementation of viable alternatives to fossil fuels, not targets without solutions.
That's the same thing you are saying in your 'criticism' (apart you presenting the same old non-starter 'alternatives' - windmills, solar cells, walk to work etc etc rather than viable ones)
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yeah_whatever #48.
thank you for trying, I sort of can see what you're saying but haven't the schooling or the knowledge, really.
my concern simply is one of reaching a certain saturation point, you know. say you add salt to water, it dissolves, add more, still dissolves, add more, saturation, no more uptake. I guess that is my simpleton way of thinking about the air we breathe and the (industrial) effluents we discharge into it.
and until we reach that "saturation" point, graphs, statistics, etc., will used by both sides, I think, to bolster their respective arguments; to me that's simply "fiddling while Rome burns".
I agree with (and understand!) #42 though.
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Yeah_whatever:
If you think wind, solar and tidal energy are viable alternatives to coal, then you really aren't what you claim to be. And the costs of these low energy density sources of power are horrendous. Give me coal and nuclear. You pay for useless wind.
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re #51 "I'm calling for the implementation of viable alternatives to fossil fuels, not targets without solutions."
Uh, they ARE viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Saying "photovoltaics can replace coal fired power stations" is not a target without a solution. At *worst* it is a solution without a target, but that would rather be implied by saying "replacing coal-fired power station": target to replace the power output volume.
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@yeah_whatever #50
So you don't know what caused it? (the peak in temperature in 97/98)
That's not what you asked. You said:
you seem to think you know how to read a graph, so tell me this:
What caused the jump in temperature between 1997 and 1998 on your graph?
and i answered there was insufficient evidence from the graph to draw a conclusion.
(the answer you are looking for is the very strong El Nino)
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That may not be what I asked, Cuckoo Too (55), but it is what you said.
You don't know what caused the temperature to change between those years.
And If that was caused by an El Nino, what happens when there's a La Nina?
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PAWB says: "If you think wind, solar and tidal energy are viable alternatives to coal, then you really aren't what you claim to be. "
They are viable alternatives to coal.
Why do you say they are not?
How many Joules of fossil fuels are burned to get a Joule out of a coal-fired power station? You have to mine the stuff out. You have to transfer it to the place you have your station.
Wind blows to you. Sunlight falls on you. No mining cost, no transportation cost.
Wind power costs 11p per kWh. Nuclear costs 15p per kWh.
Energy density is a red herring.
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yeah_whatever @#57:
Your numbers are pie-in-the sky. Wind power is subsidised by more than 50% and still the developers howl they can't afford to build wind farms. Coal and nuclear are much cheaper than expensive wind and the latest designs do not need subsidising. How can intermittent wind replace baseload and depatchable nuclear and coal? Every technical report on the subject says you have to maintain at least 90% of the conventional plants for when there is not enough wind. The average capacity factor of most wind farms is in the range 25% to 30%. You can't run a modern society part-time. Get real!
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yeah_whatever @#57:
Energy density is not a red herring. Any engineer or physicist will tell you that the worst thing you could imagine as a source of power is one of low energy density. There is nothing worse than wind energy due to the low density of air and the low wind speed, hence the low kinetic energy. The only thing worse than wind is solar at night. The reason that wind turbines are huge (now up to 100m diameter blades) is because of the low energy density of the wind, and even then, they only produce a maximum of 3MW, and for most of the time they produce less than 1MW. They really are pathetic objects and symbols of man's stupidity.
People learned centuries ago that water had a greater energy density than wind and switched wherever they could. Then they discovered that the energy density of coal was about 1 million times better and switched to coal (and oil and gas). Then they discovered that uranium was another million times better than coal and introduced nuclear power.
So don't try and tell me energy density is a red herring.
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PAWB, your numbers are incorrect. They are also one-sided. How much is oil subsidised? How much is nuclear subsidised?
Nuclear subsidies were touted to be removed in the US and the nuclear lobby said that if these subsidies were taken away then there would be no more nuclear power stations created since they would not be profitable enough to warrant investment.
The average capacity of a wind farm doesn't matter. Build more. That's why wind power costs 11p per kWh: the need to build over-capacity. If it weren't for that, wind power would cost nearer 4p per kWh.
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54. At 2:01pm on 01 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote
"....Uh, they ARE viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Saying "photovoltaics can replace coal fired power stations" is not a target without a solution."
===============================
Man, is that a joke? Have you any idea how much it would cost to run a whole country with a real economy on joke technology like photovoltaic cells? Particularly if we are talking about a climate like the UK.
You have actually given a wonderful example of why we have never ending targets, but no real progress. So long as you boys stick to this sort of non-starter ideas, nothing is going to happen.
I'm talking about serious solutions that can run a modern economy not toy technology that can barely run my kettle to boil a cup of tea.
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"Every technical report on the subject says you have to maintain at least 90% of the conventional plants for when there is not enough wind."
you will be able to say why it must be 90% then.
And since Nordic countries are in a more needy situation for heating and lighting than the UK and, if anything, have a better standard of living, why can we not halve our use of CO2 production processes? They produce half what we in the UK per head of population.
Doing so would mean, even if your incorrect assertion of only 10% of our energy can EVER be retrieved by renewables, that we would have 10% from wind, 10% from solar and only have 30% to get from fossil fuels.
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PAWB46 #58, #59.
correct if I'm wrong but aren't wind, solar and geo-thermal all of the kind where you do not have to provide fuel? is the cost of providing fuel taken into account when you compare with nuclear, coal, gas, etc?
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"Have you any idea how much it would cost to run a whole country with a real economy on joke technology like photovoltaic cells?"
Photovoltaics are not a joke technology. Where do you get an idea like that?
Of course, this explains why you dismiss summarily ANY idea of photovoltaics, it does leave the question of WHY you have that particular idea embedded in your psyche.
Did you have a bad experience with silicon wafers in the past?
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report telling us that wind power is a disaster and hasn't replaced a single coal power plant:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
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yeah_whatever:
Ever heard of capacity credit? Read the book I recommended at http://www.withouthotair.com/.
jr1442: Everything is taken into account. The fuel may be free, but it is only there part of the time.
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How then does that change the fact that we are using more and more wind power?
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Or that the US alone produces 100GW by wind power alone:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-wind-power.html
All your fact tells us is that we are using more power rather than reducing it.
This doesn't prove Wind power cannot power our needs. Do you think it does?
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64. At 4:08pm on 01 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
"...Photovoltaics are not a joke technology. Where do you get an idea like that?...."
========================
I get an idea like that from a little problem called short days and cold nights in the winter time. It happens every year at these latitudes.
Funnily enough I have relative who has fallen for this eco stuff. He has most of one side of his roof covered in cells. (Obviously that's just the south side, for some reason the north side doesn't work so well)
I keep asking him when he will be disconnecting from the national electricity grid that I pay for. Strangely, he is unwilling to do so.
Seems like he wants some of my evil electricity on those long, cold, winter nights. Personally I would cut him off from the grid whether he wants it or not, just to bring him back to his senses.
I understand that these black things on just his one roof are so cheap he will have finished paying for them in about 10-12 years time....but not if he keeps having to pay for loads of my electricity in the winter time.
Now that's what I mean by joke technology.
I want something that powers a modern country, not gives us an economy like Zimbabwe.
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Uh, re 66, how does "not being there all the time" work? Are there days where there are no winds anywhere in the UK?
I doubt it.
So why does it "not being there all the time" cause the price to go up from nil to something???
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jon, when you say:
"I understand that these black things on just his one roof are so cheap he will have finished paying for them in about 10-12 years time....but not if he keeps having to pay for loads of my electricity in the winter time."
You are incorrect.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219
It's 2-5 years.
And what's the payback time for double glazing? Or a conservatory?
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yeah_whatever at #67:
I'm not sure I know to whom you are responding. But what you say makes no sense.
You seem to have little understanding of power and energy. The US does not produce 100GW of wind power. It may have an installed wind capacity of 100GW. But on average it probably only produces about 30GWh/h of elctrical energy. Understand?
Wind power cannot meet our needs. I can't understand how you could think it can. Ever seen stationary wind turbines? They're a regular sight. About as much use as photovoltaics at night.
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@yeah_whatever #69
Uh, re 66, how does "not being there all the time" work? Are there days where there are no winds anywhere in the UK?
yes, of course there are and they tend to occur during cold days in january - check it for yourself
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yeah_whatever @69:
You may doubt it, but the facts are that there are periods when the winds across the whole of the UK are below the cut-in wind speeds of all turbines and the total output of all turnines is zero. Similar periods of zero power have been experienced in germany from over 20,000 turbines of installed capacity nearly 24GW. It's caused by large high pressure systems settling over northern Europe. Check out the facts for Germany at http://reisi.iset.uni-kassel.de/pls/w3reisiwebdad/www_reisi_page_new.show_page?lang=en
You should base what you say on facts, not your opinions.
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When was the last time the entire UK was becalmed? And was that when there was a high pressure system sitting on us? That means there were clear skies.
Great for photovoltaics.
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"The US does not produce 100GW of wind power. It may have an installed wind capacity of 100GW. But on average it probably only produces about 30GWh/h of elctrical energy. Understand?"
What I understand is that by saying "probably" you don't know.
And even if it was only 30GW that is enough for 20 coal fired power stations.
So how can you say that wind power has NEVER replaced coal fired power stations? If it hadn't been for the 100GW of wind power in the US, they would have needed another 20-60 coal fired power stations.
Understand?
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Yeah_Whatever
You make pretty clear analogies...are you in education?
#48
Your analogy regarding collisions for a given concentration is easy to understand....in reality maybe more of a probability density function based on temperature, concentration,and the like. No? (I read this from your use of the words "chance" of collision)
Makes sense from my IR thermography observations....if the externally measured Earth temperature is known then you get the true emitted radiation from Earth coming out of our atmosphere per unit of input energy.
Here is a simplified algorithm to see if we should panic.... ;-))
During daytime.....
Measure/characterize solar radiation by wavelength... outside atmosphere, transmitted through atmosphere and incident on the surface, and measure earth system average temperature. Now the atmospheric attenuation can be calculated on a macro level by wavelength. (We've characterized input energy received and converted to heat.) To really do it right, need to have radiated loss during the day...but there are a lot of picky little details.
Measure how much energy Escapes at night...
Measure system radiated Energy flux during darkness (radiometer external to atmosphere), Measure surface emitted radiation, Measure radiation reflected back into the atmosphere. With accurate surface temperature, cold space temperature (outside atmosphere), and the energy
measurements.....the atmospheric energy attenuation can be calculated by band.
This experiment should tell us if atmospheric loss is greater or less giving an indication of whether the warmer temperatures are due to solar drive variability and/or atmospheric retention of heat if we focus on long wave IR band results.
We also can predict the temperature of our planet system for different solar input drive with true different atmospheric attenuation.
Assuming the job has been done well, we know the correct level of concern we should have once the solar energy output returns to normal...yes?
(We hope no panic is necessary.)
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70. At 5:16pm on 01 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
"...It's 2-5 years...." (Payback time for photovoltaic cells on house roof)
========================
At what latitude? In what climate? - I look out my window to thick cloud.
Here's another example of the photovoltaic cell joke. I keep asking him if he could turn on an electric kettle (2-3kw) without having to turn his lights off. He's not sure. Looks like no cocoa to go bed unless you want to do it by candle light. (Or he uses the electricity from the electric grid I'm paying for.)
Oddly enough he does not have an electric kettle and boils his water on the gas cooker. I wonder why?
Obviously it's just a bit of a laugh when one guy is doing it (and he is still connected to the proper electric supply) but to try doing it with the whole of a modern country - with nothing to fall back on - would be crazy. Every winter night we all sit in the dark????
Excuse me if I ask for some serious solutions.
(Which I think exist and need bringing to mass scale)
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"76. At 6:06pm on 01 May 2009, Burghermeister wrote:
Yeah_Whatever
You make pretty clear analogies...are you in education?"
No, I'd like to be, since it's the only way I'd get back into doing physics rather than IT suppport :-(
It's not easy and with today's "Think of the Children!!!" mania it's worse if you're a bloke.
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john, #77 You DO know that light will penetrate cloud cover, don't you. This is why it is darker at night (when there is NO sun) than it is on even the darkest cloudy day.
Please prove that it is 11-12 years. I've shown a study that shows differently. I could show a dozen more.
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PS (re 77) you keep asking WHO?
Anecdote != data.
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79. At 6:27pm on 01 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
"john, #77 You DO know that light will penetrate cloud cover, don't you. This is why it is darker at night (when there is NO sun) than it is on even the darkest cloudy day."
====================================
I'm reassured, this is the kind of science it is based on.
Obviously his photocells work on a cloudy day - just not so well. The output plummets in the absence of strong light. So does the money saved.
10-12 years? Based on how long it will take him personally to recoup the cost, based on what he is saving. And I don't think that counts the things he has given up nor the things like the kettle where he is now transferring the cost to gas.
Let's see the studies based on real homes in the UK, not projections based on data from some Californian desert. I'd like to see the data audited or replicated by people who have no financial or political interest in selling these things.
Unfortunately you are still missing the basic point. All this is just funny when it is one house, and that house is still connected to a proper electric supply. Do it with a whole country, with no serious alternative source, and we end up in the dark.
Other posters are telling you the same thing about your windmills.
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yeah_whatever 74 & 75:
The UK is regularly becalmed; don't you ever see the synoptic charts on telly? What use ar the photovoltaics on a winless night (ever noticed how the wind drops in the evening)? There is plenty of information out there. Go find it (hint: one example is look at the ROCS on NETA).
I say 'probably' about the US wind power, because I haven't studied the US wind performance in detail; but 30% is a generous capacity factor to assume.
You still don't get it do you? When the wind blows the coal-fired power stations operate in standby (spinning reserve) burning fuel needlessly waiting for the wind to fall. When the wind dies, all the coal-fired power stations spring into action. They can't afford to shut any of them down because they know they'll be needed when the wind dies. Same thing in Germany and Denmark. It's all documented; go find out all about it and stop posting non-sense.
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Yeah_whatever and Jon112uk
I see you both defending the positions that the energy should come from this or that....one strongly supporting renewables and efficiency. The other position is strongly for conventional sources. (Although with a
mention of some new technologies ready for commercialization.)
The truth is, a well functioning grid needs a balance of multiple energy sources and consumers. Renewables need to be part of the mix, but they need to have a stabilizing elements accompanying them to not destabilize the grid. Wind needs electric vehicles or other storage elements accepting available off-peak capacity profile of wind generation.
Solar capacity profile fits nicely with air conditioning demand profile of modern buildings, other peak demand users. If those buildings are well designed, they need much less cooling and heating than the older technology buildings without sufficient focus on sustainability. Our society is rotten with examples of poorly done buildings with few constraints since energy was so cheap. Whether the energy is cheap or not, we should burn it sparingly and responsibly.
There is a PV system article in Home Power magazine which described conditions much like yours in Northern California with a marine haze climate. Despite this, the system performed well...maybe 10% less power than an ideal location, but still not too bad.
One other point in your discussion, efficiency, was brought up. This is really the necessary link needed to move to renewables. If you try to run an inefficient home/appliances/lights.....on renewables the cost is crazy expensive.
Someone made the comment about subsidies needed for renewables to be viable. Coal and oil are subsidized here in US and if they would level the playing field, it would make renewables much more attractive. I am not saying to pay another tax on renewables....just pull the support (or share the support) on fossil sources.
We have been burning fossil fuel sources since time immortal, and it is time to start moving toward increasing the mix of renewable sources supplying energy to our grids. We need to have baseload, so until we get nuclear fusion worked out...it is nuclear fission, fossil, deep well Geothermal.
Think outside the box for a second....how efficient is the grid system as currently configured? Centralized energy generation is at best 35% thermodynamically efficient, and has 5 to 8% grid loss delivering that energy to the demand points. Change how we do that by building a more distributed system which incorporates co-generation and renewable sources. Change the thinking for heavens sake.
We here in the US are re-wiring the grid to pull the wind energy generated to demand points with EHV 765kV grid. Should help some.
This is still on the centralized mentality slant, but at least a step to grab something other than a super tanker to supply energy. We need to do
much better in efficiency since we are the leading offender of over consumption of energy. China is catching up...but only since we shipped manufacturing off shore for them to assume that role...and they are in the process of building up their society as we did here. (I hope they do not make the same mistakes we both made)
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You miss out that PAWB and pals think that only 10% can come from renewables.
Which is arrant nonsense.
We can EASILY solve half of our energy needs by cutting down on waste. Norway do it. We can too.
50% of our needs from renewable sources will be easy to manage. And, not having to buy Russian controlled gas or Muslim controlled petrol or Australian controlled coal or African controlled Uranium means we will do wonders for our trade deficit.
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83. At 7:22pm on 01 May 2009, Burghermeister
That's not so different from what I am thinking.
I'm all in favour of realistic non-fossil fuel energy. I don't believe trying to run an entire country (UK) on wind and solar is realistic - we would end up in the dark on a bad day.
Some of the 'environmentalists' just haven't grasped this and aren't acknowledging what you are refering to as 'baseload'
I would still like to see some really heavy research and investment to bring some existing ideas into mass use. Example...turbines in tidal flows: demonstrated on a small scale, highly predictable, capable of contributing significant amounts of energy. We have a lot of tidal flows in the UK. There are others, but the obsession with targets and windmills is getting in the way.
If we have realistic, non-fossil fuel, energy sources then we don't need targets. People will just choose to use them.
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Yeah_whatever #84
I guess the mentality of the Norwegians is different than our societies right now. For some reason they appreciate the cost effectiveness of efficiency. It really costs less to implement that to lessen consumption cost than the cost of building new generation facilities. When efficiency results in less trade deficit, is a sustainable solution both economically and in terms of energy.
The utilities here in Michigan primarily use coal as an energy source to generate our baseload power (70%). That results in $20Bln leaving our state alone...and they wonder why the economy is in terrible shape here. We should be spending much less now that the manufacturing of automobiles is WAY DOWN. Their fixed operating costs have not decreased, so that must mean we are going to get hammered with a power rate increase.
They have started to buy wind power as mandated now to supplement power consumption. They are also implementing efficiency measures to increase supply to demand margin....or they will start having rolling blackouts like California. Cost less for them to implement since they can use federal incentives to do.
As PAWB46 points out...the baseload stations have to remain in standby for stability in absence of good energy storage and presence of source variability. One thing they did in Massachusetts was a huge gravity storage system to deal with peak to non-peak supply balancing. Pumped up a lake during off peak time when power was cheaper...and released the water to spin generators during peak demand period. They had no renewables to pump it up, was just a demand balancing measure using conventionally generated power and was profitable. The scale of it and time to build it was a major undertaking, but that is another way to deal with the variability of wind, in addition to electric vehicles and battery storage.
There are other storage systems in the process of development to smooth out the variability of renewable sources which many object to. A properly designed and implemented system should take care of this much more efficiently than having baseload generators sitting on standby. We are in a transition phase and that can be a little bumpy, but it is not acceptable to do nothing as the easy approach. We must forge onward!!! (carefully)
Smart grid demand balancing with intelligent power consumption devices will allow technology to balance the system. (Hope Microsoft doesn't write the embedded system control code or we will have to do security patches every day.)
smart Grid control should give them a little system margin breathing room until such time as efficiency measures,grid energy storage, renewables,.... can be implemented. I am a strong proponent of a unified approach to this, so that there are not a thousand bandages piled on as a solution.
I also agree with Jon112UK that wave power is another virtually untapped resource and pilot plants are also under construction on the coast here and in Canada. That would seem to make a lot of sense for the UK with abundant coastline perimeter. Each country and region has different available resources which they can capitalize on. It seems like wind farms are increasingly done by the utility companies here due to the cost and looming carbon penalties. They know the days are numbered for profitable operations based on fossil baseload generation so it is time for them to monopolize another technology. (sorry, pessimistic)
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Fair enough, Burghermeister, but you forget one really important bonus for wind in your seeming requirement that wind power be nefarious.
A wind farm can coexist with a agricultural farm.
Motorways have miles of wasted barren land either side. Wind turbines and photovoltaics have little to no impact on the looks of the area or its wildlife.
In much the same way, office car parks can use photovoltaics over their car parking spaces
a) to charge up the plug-in electric cars
b) to operate the business
c) in times of plenty, sell back to the grid
Loss of habitat: nil.
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#87 Yeah_whatever
Not saying wind power is nefarious...far from it. Nefarious has evil connotations by definition. The system integration considerations must include balance..to realize optimum performance benefits of renewables integrated into the power generation/transmission/distribution/use system. That is key consideration and must be guiding principles to achieve systemic efficiency and performance stability.
Agreed, those land policy use considerations offer good choices to site renewable sources.
I totally concur that point of use site generation can have benefits for the applications cited with no loss of habitat or aesthetic degradation if properly integrated in site design.
Net metering options are somewhat random here in US, but any excess power should in principle be sold back and distributed to others who have a deficit situation. That mindset is much better for the overall good of the society since the losses from central generation site to end user result in much more wasted energy considering the afore cited thermodynamic losses and transmission/distribution losses, from earlier post,than do distributed generation/local usage scenarios.
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Cap and Trade - Jim Hansen - go to:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
(see Apr 24/09 letter to the Australian Government; "Australia, the United States and Global Warming")
Excerpt:
"Still, we cannot let polite discourse cloud the fact that the cap-and-trade approach favored by governments and special interests does not have a snowballs chance in Hades of achieving a carbon reduction path consistent with the path dictated by science.
It seems that we need a three-point strategy:
(1) Open dialogue with governments re needed policy actions. We will not move rapidly to the era beyond fossil fuels (emissions) as long as (subsidized) fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. Myths about economically inefficient cap-and-trade must be exposed. And the public will not allow a sufficient carbon price unless the carbon fee is returned 100% to the public.
(2) Increased public pressure. Peaceful public protests are growing they seem to be essential to counter the influence of special interests on policy-makers.
(3) The courts. They have a longer view and should recognize our legal obligation to preserve property belonging to future generations, under any reasonable common law. Founders of the American democracy considered this legal obligation to be self-evident, as do most cultures."
- Dr. James Hansen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen
- Manysummits -
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people telling us how good wind power is but nobody seems to have picked up on the danish experience:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
Denmark, the worlds most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind powers unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
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re: 88.
Why meter it? If it's paying off by reducing use, unless you're a seriously net producer of electricity, just give it back.
It's not like you'll miss the 33p a week you get for selling back 5% of your production average. Especially compared to you having reduced your electric bill by 95%.
Penny-pinching sometimes isn't worth it.
It's why people tip "what change they have" or "round up to a dollar/pund" rather than work out exactly what 10% is and add it on.
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As I read back through some of the earlier posts on this blog I see sacred cows interfering with humanity's potential prosperity.
#90
What technology or technologies do you support as a viable solution? I feel you have good input to offer. Please do....
We must not cling to untenable positions that renewables don't work because they do not replace baseload generation capacity. This is comparing apples and oranges at the current state of storage technology which will soon contribute to grid stability. Truth is, we don't have all the hooks in the grid to make renewables work optimally. Saying that wind is not compatible with baseload generation demand is a foregone conclusion at this point...and may be in the foreseeable future. That does not make it a bad thing or not worth pursuing.
I suspect wind is actually a decent source, and chosen as a highly viable prospect for several reasons. Historical familiarity and job creation in non-exportable manufacturing of machines for use in relatively close proximity to point of manufacture are likely the reasons wind was chosen as a major source. There are certainly other sources which are suitable with their own merits and applications. Choose the right technology for the right aspect of grid customer demand or fit a demand solution to another problem (electric vehicles for instance) to create a balanced system which does not require higher fossil baseload capacity usage to stabilize variability. Storage technology is being developed to balance wind power availability with customer demand schedule. Balance is a key requirement in system implementation.
I go back to my earlier position that an optimized implementation solution is required to correctly integrate all sources into the grid.
Generation source viability requires correct implementation into a complex system, not just slapping it in and hoping for the best. (That is the real grail we need to chase...optimum system integration) We should apply problem solving techniques to address shortcomings in the system (this is actually in process) which enable other new technologies to contribute energy to our lives.
As far as economic viability...don't forget that the fossil sources, which generate the baseload requirements, are heavily subsidized and really destructive/toxic to extract. Takes energy to extract/transport these fuels to point of us as well. Does that mean we can drop them here and now? (Nope!) Does that mean we cling to what we know works like drowning rats? (Nope!) We must forge on using our gray matter for research/development/implementation of solutions to affect positive change for support of our species.
Unless we have the intestinal fortitude to forge a new path, nothing will get better....and take a look at China as an example of how bad things can be. Apply the boundary conditions of high population density/inefficient energy usage/inability to see another way forward and the US/UK/OZ may end up at this same endpoint. The interesting thing about China is that although they are building many fossil fuel source baseload stations to deal with the short term demand, they are simultaneously installing renewable power elements for medium and long term considerations.
The gem of truth is we have a choice to make,improve our fossil usage demand through efficiency improvements. It is the least cost solution to make a first step in a migration path to improve our future. The sooner we make this course correction, the more gradual/less painful the process. Make no mistake, there is always change required....that is the one "constant condition" in the whole system tending toward maximum entropy.
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#91
The metering is just a way to maximize ROI for those who invest in the generation technology. Technology to intelligently control capacity and demand is soon to arrive and I suppose a rounding strategy is something which could be programmed into the metering device for simplicity of billing. I tend to view technology from a technical perspective of what is possible to implement...the curse of the engineering mind.
I guess a view of rounding up or considering it a tip is not a bad thing....for the greater good of society.
Thanks for the perspective shift....
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@Burghermeister
nuclear
always there, reliable. ok there may be problems with quantities, which is why we need to build now
anybody remember stoern? shame, that seems to have gone nowhere
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In reply to yeah_whatever:
I broadly agree with all your calculations but you missed one important point - convection.
Space will remain cold, so if temperature near the earth increases the temperature gradient steepens and so convection will increase. If you add water evaporation at low altitudes and condensation at higher altitudes you have a very efficient cooling system.
Greenhouses work by stopping convection not by preventing heat radiation.
Could you insulate a house by adding a few parts per million of CO2 to the loft?
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#94 Cuckootoo
Yep, that has to be a part of the mix...prefer fusion if they ever crack that nut. Pilot projects going up to learn more should help answer some unknowns.
Fission could be managed better than currently done...better new reactors and maybe reprocessing tired rods in breeders makes more sense than burying in the ground. Burying makes no more sense than creating mountains of buried trash to make ski hills secondary benefit). We will figure out how to do it more sustainably. That is the key to it all.
Time to design/build/commission reactors is long, but you are right...better get started soon before we crash into the wall and are in shortage situation. They are also expensive...but that is kind of artificial. If we need things, they get done.
Looking at all technologies from a life cycle cost to own/operate in far/deep reaching manner gives the true picture needed to make intelligent decisions which technologies have merit and for what applications.
Efficiency improvements for buildings and a whack of other items is moving forward with the ASHRAE/LEED/DOE efficiency standards shooting for net zero energy buildings 2020 or 2030. That gives a realistic migration pace to follow an improvement path, and gives engineers a carrot to chase. This should help relieve some of the energy demand side so there is less pressure on the supply side to build so many plants. Manufacturing efficiency improvements have a huge magnitude opportunity stream. Although the arguments go that the cost is too large...they ultimately benefit if the life cycle cost approach is used.
That is the level of thinking needed to fairly evaluate things.
The good news is things are constantly improving for the better in new technologies so the demand situation will not be as dire if we have the will to innovate/implement.
In all my rhetoric I realize that I never addressed Richard's question of whether carbon caps will jam up the works. They are nothing more than an official motivation to coerce change. They have the potential to cause lax performance and only meet the minimum requirements. If they are a moving target which increases efficiency requirements over time, could be a good thing. There should be a carrot and stick approach with some flexibility to allow time to implement efficiency measures, but if there is not demonstrative proof of progress...the stick comes out.
Allowing big emitters to slide and only buy their credits from people doing the right thing is really of limited value, since the magnitude of even small improvements by the biggies is large in magnitude.
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"95. At 1:37pm on 02 May 2009, zzzzzzed wrote:
I broadly agree with all your calculations but you missed one important point - convection."
How does convection get the energy out of the earth system?
Does it convect into the aether???
Greenhouses stop IR leaving. Where do you get the idea that it doesn't?
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This discussion seems to be evolving along very useful lines.
In #96 Burghermeaister writes:
"In all my rhetoric I realize that I never addressed Richard's question of whether carbon caps will jam up the works. They are nothing more than an official motivation to coerce change. They have the potential to cause lax performance and only meet the minimum requirements. If they are a moving target which increases efficiency requirements over time, could be a good thing. There should be a carrot and stick approach with some flexibility to allow time to implement efficiency measures, but if there is not demonstrative proof of progress...the stick comes out."
I would like to point out that Dr. James Hansen is more categorical, and I post some of his testimony below my remarks here.
In one of my many sorties out of the oilpatch, I was a stockbroker for a year. And I was a 'small business' founder and owner - I took some economics in university, a bit of law; I have worked on the west coast turning trees into pulp, I have led small mountineering expeditions, etc... I say all this merely to indicate that I have first hand experience with more than science.
In the end, its people!
All successful politicians know this. Now we must learn this too, those of us with a more technical bent, and a desire to actually change things, as opposed to simply discuss things, or perhaps with a view which will produce certain results, i.e., win a battle, but in the final analysis, lose the war!
One of the few to recognize this is also one of our most prominent scientists - a good mind is obviously a good mind.
Summary:
"The root cause is our failure to make polluting fossil fuel energy more expensive than clean energy." (James Hansen)
Here's what Dr. Hansen had to say, in full, in his "Opening Oral Statement" to Congress on February 25, 2009:
Opening Oral Statement
"We have a planet in peril. The President recognizes this. The situation is clear. Evidence from Earths history and ongoing climate changes reveal that the dangerous level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is much less than once believed. The safe level is no higher than 350 parts
per million, probably less, and we just passed 385 ppm.
Climate change threatens everyone, especially our children and grandchildren, the young and the unborn, who will bear the full brunt through no fault of their own.
It is clear that we cannot burn all fossil fuels, releasing the waste products into the air, without handing our children a situation in which amplifying feedbacks begin to run out of their control, with severe consequences for nature and humanity.
We must face the truth. We cannot burn all of the coal, let alone unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil shale, unless the combustion products are all captured and disposed of, which is implausible.
The Obama administration has taken steps that may lead to improved vehicle efficiencies and reduced coal use. These actions are necessary and important. But they will be effective only if we address the root cause of the problem.
The root cause is our failure to make polluting fossil fuel energy more expensive than clean energy. We must put a price, a rising price, on carbon emissions. There are two competing ways to achieve that price:
One is Tax & 100% Dividend tax carbon emissions, but give all of the money back to the public on a per capita basis.
For example, lets start with a tax large enough to affect purchasing decisions: a carbon tax that adds $1 to the price of a gallon of gas. Thats a carbon price of about $115 per ton of CO2. That tax rate
yields $670B per year. We return 100% of that money to the public. Each adult legal resident gets one share, which is $3000 per year, $250 per month deposited in their bank account. Half shares for each child up to a maximum of two children per family. So a tax rate of $115 per ton yields a dividend of $9000 per year for a family with two children, $750 per month. The family with carbon footprint less than average makes money their dividend exceeds their tax. This tax gives a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure. It spurs the economy. It spurs innovation. This path can take us to the era beyond fossil fuels, leave most remaining coal in the ground, and avoid the need to go to extreme environments to find every drop of oil. We must move beyond fossil fuels anyhow. Why not do it sooner, for the benefit of our children? Not to do so, knowing the consequences, is immoral.
The tax rate likely must increase in time, but when gas hits $4 per gallon again most of that $4 will stay in the United States, as dividends. Our vehicles will not need as many gallons. We will be well
on the way to energy independence.
The alternative to carbon tax and 100% dividend is Tax & Trade, foisted on the public under the pseudonym Cap & Trade. A cap increases the price of energy, as a tax does. It is wrong and disingenuous to try to hide the fact that Cap is a tax.
Other characteristics of the cap approach: (1) unpredictable price volatility, (2) it makes millionaires on Wall Street and other trading floors at public expense, (3) it is an invitation to blackmail by utilities that threaten blackout coming to gain increased emission permits, (4) it has overhead costs and complexities, inviting lobbyists and delaying implementation.
The biggest problem with Cap Tax is that it will not solve the problem. The public will soon learn that it is a tax. And because there is no dividend, the public will revolt before the Cap Tax is large enough to transform society. There is no way that the Cap Tax can get us back to 350 ppm CO2.
We need a tax with 100% dividend to transform our energy systems and rapidly move us beyond fossil fuels. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we cannot let the special interests win this fight."
- Dr. James Hansen
see "Carbon Tax & 100% Dividend vs. Tax & Trade*"
at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
- Manysummits -
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47. wrote: Burghermeister:Causation implies there will be a correlation. If there is no correlation then you've missed something.
Check out my correlations and paper on the changes in the Earth's magnetic field and climate change. Startling correlations, may even be a cause, comments welcomed. If I'm right forget carbon. Note the graph is in 5 year intervals and will not show the current downturn in temperatures.
http://tinyurl.com/c9o7q9
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So oldgifford, what's the causation of that correlation?
Causation implies correlation.
If you have a causation, then you can measure your correlation and check your causation is true.
But you seem to have worked that one backward...
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PS oldgofford, you can't forget carbon.
Your causation has to explain why it counters the effect of CO2 and results in double the effect itself.
E.g.
If you have four apples and I add one and someone says "I added another" but you find that you only have five apples, then you would be asking the second person "did you take away any apples?" since you know that after I added an apple, you should have five and if someone else says they added an apple, if they are telling the truth, you should now have six.
If you only have five, either they didn't add an apple, or they took one already there away.
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PPS it won't show the recent downturn in temperatures since there hasn't been a recent downturn in the temperatures.
I mean, there's no need to make up reasons, is there.
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Now I'll tell you what I think about 'cap and trade'.
I think it's a no go - and I'll tell you why.
Business, big business, is not opposed.
In its modern guise, the large corporation, or multinational, is beholden only to its shareholders, by law. This must change. We will have to rewrite the charters under which the modern corporatio operates, and place the common interest above all else.
Since the assasination of John F. Kennedy and his brother, and of Martin Luther King Jr., I have watched with increasing dismay and disbelief as we, the people, bought houses for profit, not as a home for our children, as we, the people, have espoused the profit motive in virtually everything we say and do. We look for bargains at malls - and malls are a prime design specification of the condition of our souls. Born and bred and trained to shop, and park our cars, because we have forgotten how to walk. There's an epitath.
Farley Mowat put it well and succinctly:
"Humanity is visiting a desolation upon the world. We already bear primary responsibility for the extermination of more than 100,000 fellow species. During the next few decades, that collasal massacre may well be doubled or trebled. Death is running amok on the Earth, but especially in the sea."
- form "Sea Sick", by Alanna Mitchell, 2009 (back cover)
The modern corporation will take us to the cleaners, yet again, with this scheme. How many global financial meltdowns will it take to wake you up? General Motors is bankrupt, and nationalized, Chrysler the same, soon. Who do you think is picking up the bill?
Do you seriously imagine that the split personalities which are virtually all, I say again, all corporate managers and executives, do you think they are bankrupt? It's us, we the people, morally and financially destroyed, because we have forgotten to think with our hearts.
My seven years in the mountains were a revelation - I can never return to that wasteland which is modern society.
And if we don't get a hold of ourselves, none of us will escape the trap which is reasoned debate. They are better at cunning and deception than we, the people. We have only one advantage, our numbers, and our plain and simple likes and dislikes. Children, air to breathe, water to drink, a wish to be free.
Enough of this - stop voting with your wallets. You have a heart, even yet - USE IT!
- Manysummits -
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You're right Richard, it is political will or more accurately 'wills'. There has to be a sustained implementation of policies that reduces CO2 emissions now and in the future. I think accurate accounting is going to be so vague as to be almost pointless (since, as you say the target can be arbitrarily shifted). The only way forward is a sea change in attitude that says let's start making changes now (not just setting targets) in the hope that the message gets through and significant changes are made in the future (next 10 years anyway).
I really don't know what will convince the monckton fan club, maybe it's best to just ignore them and hope they get bored. who knows? but whilst their view is commonplace and still reported in the mainstream press (booker is a prime example) then this really is going to be an uphill battle.
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yeah_whatever @97:
You're kidding surely?
Convection transports some of the energy received from the sun to the upper atmosphere, from where greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and water vapour) radiate that energy in the form of IR to space (i.e. the greenhouse gases are partially responsible for cooling the earth.
And surely you don't think glass in a greenhouse stops IR. Ever seen an external IR image of a house? Why do we use double-glazing? Hint - conduction. No, the glass in a greenhouse stops convection. Open the windows and out goes the heat. If glass stopped IR, would you trust a mercury thermometer?
I thought I read somewhere above that you were a physicist!
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@104 et al:
No , the issue is , until the MSM ( and the BBC in particular)start reporting all sides of the argument, including Monkton , Anthony Watts , Steve McIntyre and others the hysteria about CO2 will go on .
This quote sums up the BBC:
"People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago",
Jeremy Paxman
Media Guardian, Jan 31st, 2007
But not just the BBC, the New York Times has just been caught with its pants down.
As always , I will close with the question , where is the signal for CO2's influence on temperature other than a computer model ?
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manysummits @89 &98:
Why do you quote James Hansen, that well-known ex-scientist who seems to have lost all signs of rational behaviour? The guy should have retired years ago before he got into politics and started telling people that coal-trains were deathh-trains and that it was right to commit criminal damage in the UK. The guy has completely lost his marbles. Maybe it's because he can see his life's work unravelling before his eyes; the world continues to ignore his dire warnings and starts to cool; the arctic and antarctic icesheets are growing; none of his mythical tipping points have been reached etc etc. He daren't retire, even though he's well past it, since all the skeletons (his adjusted GISS data for example) will come tumbling out of the cupboard.
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Ok, would you like the BBC to report on this?
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/moncktons-artful-graph/
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PAWB, are you seriously suggesting that the reason why CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas is because there's no glass enclosing the earth's atmosphere????
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"Why do we use double-glazing? Hint - conduction. No, the glass in a greenhouse stops convection. Open the windows and out goes the heat. If glass stopped IR, would you trust a mercury thermometer?"
And glass stops IR.
The glass in a thermometer is used because it's easy to shape and transparent.
How do you think a greenhouse stays at less than the ignition point of silica if it didn't let HEAT CONDUCT THROUGH??? It does the same to the thermometer.
But there's no conduction into space. There's no convection.
Only radiation.
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You ask
"As always , I will close with the question , where is the signal for CO2's influence on temperature other than a computer model ?"
But you never listen.
Night time temperature averages are going up quicker than daytime averages.
This cannot be due to the sun, since there is an entire planet in the way.
This cannot be due to convection, since it had to be far, far quicker to stop the midday earth rising to 6000K and so night times should be frozen.
This can be CO2.
And is.
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To PAWB46 #107, and CuckooToo:
Just like old times!
Obviously I admire James Hansen's courage - obviously you do not.
I see both yourself and Cuckootoo are alive and well, despite the repeated beatings you both have been subjected to this last little while.
I have to admire your tenacity.
There is no point in discussing science with either of you, I have satisfied myself on that point several blogs ago.
But I am wondering what both of you think about my post #103, about my views, not James Hansen's, on cap and trade?
With the United States Environmental Protection Agency about to declare CO2 a polutant, something has got to give somewhere.
President Obama has promised unprecedented spending on science, and since we are all effectively bankrupt, why not? At least that will pay off in the end.
Perhaps it will occur to more than a few that loans and leverage are not quite up to the job at hand.
- Manysummits -
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yeah_whatever @ 109, 110, 111:
You're the one who fails to read what others write.
I didn't say CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas. Read my comment 105 again.
You say "And glass stops IR". Where do you get your nonsense ideas from? You have to apply special coatings to glass to stop IR.
I told you glass also conducts heat and yet you reply "How do you think a greenhouse stays at less than the ignition point of silica if it didn't let HEAT CONDUCT THROUGH??? It does the same to the thermometer." You obviously don't read properly or you deliberately ignore what's written. Which is it?
I also said "Convection transports some of the energy received from the sun to the upper atmosphere, from where greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and water vapour) radiate that energy in the form of IR to space (i.e. the greenhouse gases are partially responsible for cooling the earth." and yet you come back with "But there's no conduction into space. There's no convection. Only radiation." Again you haven't understood what I said (deliberately or otherwise).
In your response to toughNeilHyde (106) you state at "This cannot be due to convection, since it had to be far, far quicker to stop the midday earth rising to 6000K and so night times should be frozen." So is the moon, with no CO2, at 6000K at midday? Where DO you get your "facts"? And I have noticed that where I live, it is frozen at night if there is low humidity and no clouds to hold the heat in.
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manysummits @112:
What courage does james hansen have. He has run NASA GISS as his personal fifdom for over 20 years with political backing, and with political backing it does not take courage to tell the world how to behave.
I haven't seen any signs of CuckooTwo and I taking any beatings. We have just responded to the mistaken beliefs of others.
I agree with some of your statements at 103. We ordinary people have been badly betrayed by corruption and greed in big business and politics. Corruption and greed in politics and big business seem to go hand-in-hand; and the media goes along with it, because they make their money following that line. The democratic process has failed us the UK and in Europe. We are lied to endlessly by politicians and the media, but what can we ordinary citizens do about it?
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Here's a little help for PAWB46 and pals.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/05/crank_howto.php
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PAWB opines:
"We ordinary people have been badly betrayed by corruption and greed in big business and politics. Corruption and greed in politics and big business seem to go hand-in-hand;"
No mention of science in there.
So do you have any connection that stands up to any sort of test that shows AGW is incorrect?
You haven't so far.
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"So is the moon, with no CO2, at 6000K at midday?"
No, because there is only radiation. Maximum surface temperature 123C. Minimum -233.
Our maximum is less than 123C because of convection. The difference in the minimum is the blanketing of the greenhouse gases s.
But did you miss your entire junior school physics courses? When they explained how you can lose heat, did they not say whilst you were at school (you *were* in school, weren't you? It doesn't look like it from what you post here):
1) Conduction
2) Convection
3) Radiation
?
Did you miss when they described what a thermos flask is? Or did you never wonder why they silvered the interior container? Silver is quite a good CONDUCTOR of heat.
You have no grasp whatsoever of the system you are talking about. Either that or you are deliberately lying to push a political point that suits your objective. You complain of political corruption but you are as bad as any I've seen in the public eye.
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A simple point:
Convection and conduction cannot keep heat IN unless you create boundaries.
We have no glass roof over our atmosphere and so the only thing that can reduce lost energy to space is to retard radiative losses.
Why else do we not have -233C nights on earth? Our distance from the sun is the same as the moon...
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yeah_whatever:
You still cannot read.
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Here's how a review can be faked
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/
But it is a lot easier to fake 10 papers in 1,000 than to fake 800 in a thousand.
So are there more papers showing the science and proofs of AGW or papers showing science and proof of AGW's falsity?
And who gets more money to spend as they like:
Side 1:
Trillion-dollar companies who only have to spend on themselves and shareholders and whose internal spending can be claimed commercial in confidence in its entirety.
Side 2:
Trillion-dollar governments who have to pay for healthcare, foreign aid, education, military budgets and who have to put up with FOIA requests.
Who has more to lose?
Side 1:
Trillion-dollar companies whose product is going to be unwanted if AGW is accepted.
Side 2:
Trillion-dollar governments who will lose the 90% tax from oil, the backhanders from oil industry, the retirement Directorships and who can get those same things from non-oil-industry business whether AGW is accepted as right or wrong.
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Governments need to go focus on the causes of man's CO2 - fossil fuels. we need a clean environmental neutral fuel to replace fossil fuel, a fuel that can be generated by an electrolyser using just reneweable energy and water, and that is compatible with today's engines and infrastructure; namely hydrogen. Hydrogen powered cars and generators give off no harmful emission, the gas can be burn't and it can decarbonise all sectors of our economy. Critically, as a fuel it is store of energy, an allows energy generated by a wind turbine at 3am to be used when ever we need it. Energy storage as a clean fuel IS the only current answer to carbon reduction.
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PAWB46 you cannot think.
You won't attempt to do any science on your hypotheses because you're afraid that they won't work out.
You just trot out the same tired old arguments and lie, lie, lie your way to idiocy.
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# 100. At 5:13pm on 02 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
So oldgifford, what's the causation of that correlation?
If you read the paper you will see the suggested causes, but unfortunately until someone can vary the Earth's magnetic field and measure the temperature change I cannot say it is the cause.
# 101. At 5:18pm on 02 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
PS oldgofford, you can't forget carbon.
Your causation has to explain why it counters the effect of CO2 and results in double the effect itself.
When I researched the paper I found lots of propositions that CO2 was causing the large increase in temperatures, however I could not find any correlations that made sense, for instance as CO2 kept increasing we still saw large decreases in temperature, and I also found lots of scientific papers by distinguished scientists that put forward scientific arguments why CO2 could not be the cause of the massive increases in temperature.
# 102. At 5:43pm on 02 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
PPS it won't show the recent downturn in temperatures since there hasn't been a recent downturn in the temperatures.
I find this statement perplexing, if you look at
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
there is a distinctive downturn from the peak, how long it will last is open to a lot of debate.
I see lot of criticism, and unfortunately abuse, of the anti carbon minded scientists however I have not found any meaningful correlation between CO2 and climate unless I am missing something. Sure if the theory that lots of CO2 increases temperature is correct we should be seeing a continuing increase in temperature year on year not ups and downs.
Where are the greenhouse gas signatures in the atmosphere that should be there is if the theories are correct?
If you want to make comment on my paper, please read it, and note I do say correlation does not imply causation. Again, please show me an experiment we can perform to show that any suggested cause of climate change does have an effect. Computer predictions are just that predictions, they are not the result of an defined experiment that produces results.
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yeah_whatever #120.
you ask "Who has more to lose?"
in the spirit of a "nitpicking crank" my answer is:
not the corporation, not the government, but rather all of humanity, and loads of other species too.
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#98 Manysummits
Your time in the mountains gives you a clarity of purpose and truth that cuts through all the noise. We must be careful to look for the faint outline of truth in all the noise that is presented each day as news events. The truth is in there...the spin distorts it.
I like the Carbon Tax with 100% benefit approach as all have skin in the game and they reap what they sow. If the sow well (responsible carbon usage) they reap well.
I agree that the carbon cap is in effect a tax in sheep's clothing...which can be more easily corrupted and manipulated for the benefit of the few on Wall St. We don't want that again with a different skin on it...same animal.
All of the negative characteristics of carbon caps listed are very plausible. It is time for us to recognize that we threaten the very empires which dole out power. If we consumers reduce demand, the empire must shrink if they maintain constant overhead cost percentage. Emperors like to avoid ceding power.
The tax and 100% dividend scenario is what I have in mind. It gives sufficient value to carbon to positively affect change and increases over time. Which is what other current taxes do...just that the path they take back to the people is circuitous and lossy. There is a necessary and sufficient motivation for participation by all in the program since they all either benefit or struggle. It is involvement of all people necessary to achieve positive carbon social change (of attitude and behavior).
I saw a very good picture in Germany a few years ago when I was there in the transportation sector. They have an interesting combination of personal transport by auto,public transport, walking, biking...
The reason for the variety was partly due to the taxes on personal transport were a progressive tax scale designed to promote responsible carbon consumption. The base taxes on petrol are fairly stiff, and they put a responsibility factor on top of that which is based on automobile fuel efficiency and engine displacement. The resulting vehicle mix is much different than the system in the US where the boundary constraints are near nil. I find it interesting to observe the average vehicle size change when traveling to Canada from the US. US has much bigger vehicles for the sake of nothing...ok, trucks are needed for work reasons...but not to give on person a ride.
Large SUV's are nothing more than a show of ability to consume. It was amazing the kind of paradigm shift that resulted from $4.50/gallon gasoline here last year. People really woke up... They are zombies again now that energy prices are cheap again. The main negative is the way our system has evolved over the past 30 years in cheap energy and so much greed that we have eaten up much useful land to build developments of McMansions so we have the privilege of getting in our guzzling monsters...and enjoy the beauty of traffic jams with one person per monstrous guzzling behemoth. The cost of that success will be tough to pay and tough to reconfigure for sustainability.
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To jr4412 # 124:
I'll second your remark:
"not the corporation, not the government, but rather all of humanity, and loads of other species too."
To PAWB46 #114: You wrote:
"The democratic process has failed us the UK and in Europe. We are lied to endlessly by politicians and the media, but what can we ordinary citizens do about it?"
Well, I don't think the democratic process has failed us, rather, I think we the people have failed the democratic process.
Democracy depends ultimately on the people - and if the people are well informed and involved in their government, all will be well.
But we have been involved in personal aggrandizement of various sorts for decades now, perhaps much longer than that. We are a young species, just barely out of the trees, and so what we have done is not surprising.
But faced with environmental Armageddon, we will be forced, by necessity, not by the words of a few, to shape up or ship out.
You claim to disagree with AGW. Put that away for awhile, the answers will be evident soon enough.
Think instead about the documented devastation that is our world, in our time. The ongoing destruction of the world ocean fishery, the absolute trampling of the face of nature by our sheer numbers. How much farm and grazing land do you think we can convert to urbane condominium use and golf courses before the food runs out?
This is a simple equation.
- Manysummits -
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manysummits #126.
"How much farm and grazing land do you think we can convert to urbane condominium use and golf courses.."
the UK is a particulary good example of this. here people are "allergic" to living in blocks of flats, everybody has to have their "own" house. ridiculous! and, we're drowning in golf courses. sigh..
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Not good enough 0ldglifford.
You've made the assertion that the magnetic field is causing the changes. Prove them.
Has your "paper" even been peer reviewed?
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"Computer predictions are just that predictions"
And what are they using to manage this prediction?
If you jump off a tall building, I predict you will fall down.
Why are you so set on "prediction" being somehow wrong?
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To jr4412 #127:
You know, we three live in a large apartment complex, with a pool, hot tub and sauna, and right next to two large food stores, a library etc.
We have the advantage of numbers (pool, tennis court,..., where my son has learned to swim entirely on his own, and ride his bike), and the disadvantage(?) of not being a suburbanite. As I have lived here now for some eight years, sold my condo a long time ago to continue climbing, you can see by action, not words, where I stand. We don't even have a car (last two and a half years).
There are costs to all of this - social and family ostracization among them, but the costs are in my opinion outweighed by the advantages. Few are willing to be first, but many are willing to be first to be second, springs to mind. It is our artists(?) lot to try this new way, and to, in the words of JFK, "let the chips fall where they may."
- ManyArtists -
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"I find this statement perplexing, if you look at
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
there is a distinctive downturn from the peak"
Well, yes. That is the definition of a peak.
Look at 1898. There's a peak. And guess what? After the peak, there's a turn down.
Did that stop it getting hotter?
You are looking at that graph and mistaking WEATHER for CLIMATE.
Deliberately.
But the question is, why are you lying?
You project a capability and you've done statistics. Yet in all your graphs, you never put error bars on them. In "analysing" that graph, you don't put your assertion to statistical test.
Why?
Because you know you're wrong but you will not (cannot?) admit it.
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To Burghermeister #125:
Thank you for your encouragement and support, and for your assessment of the carbon tax and 100% dividend. I always look forward to your thoughts.
You know, co-dependence has gotten a bad rap these last decades, and I think this is not justified. It is thought a personal weakness, but is more properly an Achilles Heel of a high civilization, something we should all be aware of, but cannot circumvent.
I think we are all co-dependent these days. I depend on your engineering and technical expertise, for example. I do not even pretend to understand the compexities of your energy grid and system, but I believe you do, and I would like to see you in charge of one of our large governmental agencies, implementing it. Of course that may not be your passion, but I put it forward as a means of displaying our interdependence.
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man ia a piece of the continent, a part of the main..."
- John Donne, 1573-1631 (Devotions, XII)
Personally, I thnk we can be both co-dependent and independent, and at the same time. The pre-Socratic Greeks, some at least, believed in arete, or personal excellence, a duty to self (Robert Pirsig - "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"). I think we individuals can strive after this on a day to day basis - to become more and more well-rounded, generalists.
At the same time, we can exercise our particular competence to make a living, and contribute to the common good, the interests of all. I am very much a believer that "They also serve who only stand and wait" (John Milton).
It seems to me that what matters is not what job you have or even do not have, but rather the way you handle either - the passion, or life force, you bring to the fore, in time of trouble, or in time of plenty.
May I indulge my passion for expression, for the spoken or written word, one more time, and quote from John Steinbeck's "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights"?
"Somewhere in the world there is defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some are made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally well over defeat and victory."
- Merlin
And now - to await the awakening of my little son - Manysummits -
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#126 Manysummits wrote
"Think instead about the documented devastation that is our world, in our time. The ongoing destruction of the world ocean fishery, the absolute trampling of the face of nature by our sheer numbers. How much farm and grazing land do you think we can convert to urbane condominium use and golf courses before the food runs out?"
We have a case of this on steroids in the US....although not as bad as in the 60s...but unacceptable. Michigan has the highest number of golf courses per state in the country. Great for tourism, but hardly a green sustainable solution....and to get to these havens of "natures beauty" we have to haul up the highways at 85mph in huge SUVs because that is the only acceptable configuration to haul boats, campers with air conditioning and all the other trapping of progress with us into the wilderness. Then all the trash, pollution, and trampling that we produce in the process of enjoying the beauty of nature adds to the joy of being masters of our destiny. That destiny looks of questionable goodness...at that point, it would be a more sustainable solution to stay at home and watch it on the big plasma theaters in the McMansion. At least it would do less harm to the environment overall than the other string of activities.
Those are the bits of truth that are often lost on many people...and we need to think about the effects of it for the integrity of our planet. We need to start making progress a step by step...each of us changing course to leave the world a better place instead of consuming it like locusts....as we have done for a long time.
The other interesting observation from the tour through Germany was that they controlled urban growth as well and place farms growing food, hops, and other items close to their point of use. The effect of locally grown produce is huge in terms of feeding the people, creating an awareness of where food actually comes from, and creating less pollution moving it great distances due to poor planning (like we have done in the US anyway..) The villages even integrate pharmacies and other necessities in such proximity that they can be walked or bike to...AMAZING CONCEPT!!!
Many positives obviously can result from how the society is configured. As fuel increases in cost, it may drive a reconfiguration for sustainability sake. I sure hope we start to think about the future generations success and the value of the world we leave to them instead of the strong focus on profit and consumption for the present generations.
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re #123 "Where are the greenhouse gas signatures in the atmosphere that should be there is if the theories are correct?"
I refer you to #111.
Sufficiently earlier than your post to have been read by you if you were bothered.
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yeah-whatever - i really admire your stamina! i think you'll find your standard, common or garden moncktonite is unlikely to read what you point out let alone accept it. the issue is not that the information isn;t there or that they cant find it, but that they are extremely motivated (for one reason or another) to reject it - all of it.
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Burghermeister - I think a lot of the difference between Europe and the USA is down to history (and subsequently the politics). On continental Europe we've spent so many centuries beating each other up (because it's crowded and the borders never counted for much) that we have eventually given up and decided to just try to get on with each other (hence the growth of socialism). In the USA on the other hand it has been a a couple of centuries of unrestricted growth into the wilderness and only now are you starting to realise that problems are not solved by riding out of town or having a shoot-out (both simplifications but I think maybe a grain of truth).
There's so much about the USA I admire but I find this visceral hatred of anything that may amount to socialism very worrying. Socialist policies (with a small 's') can provide many of the solutions to the current issues but I'm convinced the USA has to be a major player and that's just not feasible at the moment, imo.
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I haven't noticed much attention to the conclusions of the report Richard was referring to...
This week's study ... concludes that what matters isn't the level at which carbon dioxide emissions are stabilised, but the total amount of the gas that humanity produces"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm
If that is true; then we are not just struggling to slow down by put the carbon brakes on but have a brick wall looming ahead. As Richard says "For many, that will be a stark and scary thought...".
Do those who accept AGW as fact also accept this result?
All the best; davblo2
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rossglory #136.
insightful, well put.
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re 137, do you accept it? Why do you ask the question, since it makes no sense. If you agree with AGW then the amount of CO2 is a problem. Why do you ask if it is otherwise?
What this paper is trying to say is that the current ideology isn't going to work. What is currently happening is that the politicians are getting together, agreeing that they will reduce their CO2 amounts to "90% of the 1990 emission levels by 2020".
This doesn't, however, stopping them from increasing their emissions to 150% of current levels by 2015.
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re 123 again: "When I researched the paper I found lots of propositions that CO2 was causing the large increase in temperatures, however I could not find any correlations that made sense"
Well, there is more CO2 in the atmosphere in 2007 than there was in 1847. There is a higher global temperature in 2007 than in 1847.
Since you want to conflate weather with climate and just pick start/end points, there is your correlation.
Whilst you're doing your correlation, check the error on any one year estimate from the mean. Standard statistical analysis.
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yeah_whatever #139: "Why do you ask the question, since it makes no sense"
Well I thought it did make sense.
As I understand it, many who accept AGW also think that the aim of reducing co2 emissions is to get them down to a "safe" level, and then to keep them low continuously.
The report said "no" there is no safe level; it's the total that counts.
I thought that conclusion might be open to debate.
All the best; davblo2
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"The report said "no" there is no safe level; it's the total that counts."
Please show me where it says there is no safe level.
How I explained the paper was broadly correct.
And unless you remove the rest of the atmosphere, the total varies with the concentration, so are equivalent.
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To davblo2 #137: (Total CO2 less than 1 trillion Gt C)
Yes, I think it makes sense. I actually have a printout of the carbon emissions year by year fro 1751 to 2007 in my binder, in metric tons of carbon emitted. That has to be multiplied by a factor of 3.7 to convert to metric tons CO2. I've been meaning to add them up, by hand calculator, to get a real feel for this, but have been otherwise engaged. I think I'll start this morning on the bus.
If you read James Hansen's reports carefully, you will see that he is advocating pretty much the same that this report is saying - we have to leave especially, the coal and non-conventional oil sources in the ground. He sees as virtually unstoppable the burning of our conventional oil reserves.
And he is emphatic in stating that CO2 emissions must not only be reduced, or stabilized, but in fact the CO2 in our atmosphere must go into decline, until 350 ppmv or less. If you think about what that actually means - you will be getting a feel for the true magnitude of the situation we are all collectively in!
I haven't done the calculations yet, but if you think about it, the current political proposals for curbing emissions are laughably inadequate. At least I'd like to laugh, but I am finding not even a smile upon my face as I write this.
George Monbiot is on the right track with his 90 to 95 % reductions in CO2, a figure which astounds politicians, I imagine, and is to them laughable, but I don't see them laughing either, as they too have children.
Jacques Cousteau said:
"The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps a hundred years."
Since he died in 1997, we must admire his prescience, and look with a certain amount of horror on the antics of our politicians and AGW naysayers.
- Manysummits, Calgary -
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PS
"I thought that conclusion might be open to debate."
Then why ask "If you believe in AGW, is this right?" That isn't a debate, it's a question. A leading one at that.
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yeah_whatever #142 "Please show me where it says there is no safe level"
Richard refers to...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm
In that report there is a quote...
"To avoid dangerous climate change, we will have to limit the total amount of carbon we inject into the atmosphere, not just the emission rate in any given year,"
That's total from back when we started not just per year.
It implies there is no safe continuous rate -emission c02/year.
When the total hits the limit the only safe emission rate is zero.
Richard also stated this...
"This week's study ... concludes that what matters isn't the level at which carbon dioxide emissions are stabilised, but the total amount of the gas that humanity produces"
Not sure what you don't understand.
All the best; davblo2
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yeah_whatever #142 "Please show me where it says there is no safe level."
Another quote from the report...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm
'Some greenhouse gases, such as methane, have a definable lifetime in the atmosphere, meaning that stabilising emissions makes sense; but, said Dr Allen, CO2 "doesn't behave like that". '
...suggesting that stabilising emissions for co2 doesn't make sense, which means no safe limit.
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yeah_whatever #144 'Then why ask "If you believe in AGW, is this right?" That isn't a debate, it's a question. A leading one at that.'
Not sure why you've twisting my words.
I said in #137...
"Do those who accept AGW as fact also accept this result?"
(a) It *was* a question (what's the problem with that?)
(b) I was addressing my question to those who accept AGW in order to leave the others (denialists you call them?) out of it.
(c) The question asks what pro AGW people think (ie is there any debate) about the prospect of "no safe limit" (as per the report) as opposed to there being a notional safe limit.
All the best; davblo2
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To manysummits #143;
Thanks for the response! Let us know you results.
To yeah_whatever #general re my #137
manysummits clearly understood what I meant (see #143); maybe you read rather too hastily.
All the best; davblo2
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Why ask what a SECTION of what other people think? Why not ask "what do you think of this" rather than "what do people who believe AGW think"? Why did you not put your perception of the paper down?
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RE: 145
"In that report there is a quote...
"To avoid dangerous climate change, we will have to limit the total amount of carbon we inject into the atmosphere, not just the emission rate in any given year,""
This doesn't say there is no safe level.
And 10^12 kg of CO2 in an atmosphere weighing 5x10^18kg is different from "480ppm" how?
This paper is not gainsaying AGW nor the limits. It is warning against thinking you can counter the change later rather than today.
What controversy are you trying to manufacture here?
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yeah_whatever #149, "Why ask what a SECTION of what other people think?"
Beacuse anyone who does not accept AGW will not really be involved and I wanted to avoid the kind of pro/anti response which often gets sparked off. I didn't expect this kind of grilling. I you don't like the question then why did you respond at all?
"Why did you not put your perception of the paper down?"
I thought the report sounded reasonable; but I thought some of the experts here might have more informed opinions. Yours would have been appreciated, if you have one.
All the best; davlo2
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Does the BBC want to give some time to "The Other Side"?
To be honest, when they say stuff like this:
http://www.heartland.org/full/24881/Great_Is_Truth_and_Mighty_Above_All_Things.html
you rather suspect that their fluffers would rather not!!!
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re 151.
1) I responded wanting to know what controversy you're trying to create with you leading question (there's a reason why they are discouraged when the truth is being sought)
2) I already told you: the paper isn't saying anything about AGW. It's discussing how politicians cannot safely assume that "10 years down the line, we will have reduced CO2" will be good enough. NAFF ALL to do with AGW.
It doesn't change AGW it doesn't say it doesn't exist and it doesn't say anything other than how AGW ought to be approached in combating it.
So stop trying to manufacture a controversy. Unlike the few knee-jerk responses right at the beginning where people who think AGW is a political creation by nefarious forces in government jump straight to the conclusion that anything saying the government is doing something wrong MUST be talking against AGW.
See post #16 for an example.
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Re: #150 "It is warning against thinking you can counter the change later rather than today."
It is doing more than that, it is saying that you can't undo what you've done. It says the co2 is accumulating and to keep it below the estimated threshold for disaster we would eventually have to stop co2 emissions completely. Which means there would be no safe level of emissions (above zero).
I don't think people had looked at it that way before, which is why Richard said...
'On both fronts, they say, it's better than the time-honoured, UN-endorsed approach of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".'
Because (according to the report) there is no "level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system", at least on a long term basis.
And then Richard's comment 'For many, that will be a stark and scary thought; the idea of a "safe", stable level of emissions seems much easier to deal with emotionally'
Which is where I came in , because I think many people are still dealing with the idea of a "safe" stable level; which (according to the report) doesn't exist.
Hence a point of controversy; (which I didn't manufacture myself).
All the best; dablo2
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"It is doing more than that, it is saying that you can't undo what you've done. It says the co2 is accumulating and to keep it below the estimated threshold for disaster we would eventually have to stop co2 emissions completely. Which means there would be no safe level of emissions (above zero)."
Uh, the considered threshold for disaster is figured 450-500ppm. Currently ~390ppm.
Lets see: 500 years average time to start to reduce by geologic processes. That makes 60-110 over 500 years. Maybe .1-.2 ppm increase per year.
Is 0.1 greater than zero?
Ah, looks like your statement is wrong.
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Re: #155
So you reckon that geological processes will accommodate continuous emissions by us at the rate of 0.1 to 0.2 ppm per year; and thereby constitute a "safe" level. (Not sure where the 500 years came from thougth).
Thanks for your contribution.
All the best, davblo2
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128. At 3:08pm on 03 May 2009, yeah_whatever wrote:
Not good enough 0ldglifford.
You've made the assertion that the magnetic field is causing the changes. Prove them.
Has your "paper" even been peer reviewed?
I did not make the assertion that the magnetic field is causing the changes I noted the correlation and suggested some mechanisms. I cannot prove it in the same way no one has proved CO2 has caused the climate changes we have seen, and in the same way almost no one can prove their climate theories. Proof means being independently to reproduce an experiment with the same results.
It could be of course, that the climate is varying the rotation of the earth and that the inner core is not able to respond quickly so one gets the pole drifts following the climate, but the pole drift theories do not suggest this.
So yeah_whatever please post the proof that CO2 is responsible for our climate changes, not just the theories backed up by correlations or the computer predictions that so far have not been correct, but proof that can be independently verified. Im sure we would all be please to see this.
And yes the paper was peer reviewed and no I don't know who the reviewer was. I regularly see the comments that the reviewer couldnt be very good from someone who opposes a theory and its usually from those who have never had a paper published.
Here is an excerpt from one rejection I had when the paper used a slightly different mechanism but I could not supply statistics to backup the mechanism.
Reviewer #1: This is an interesting addition to the growing list of
proposed alternatives to the greenhouse model for the current episode of
global warming. Indeed, so far as this reviewer is aware a link between
oceanic iron and the Earth's magnetic field has not previously been
proposed in this or any other context. Nevertheless I am afraid I have to
recommend rejection, not because the proposal is unfamiliar or far-fetched but because the case has not been made convincingly.
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yeah_whatever #155 "Uh, the considered threshold for disaster is figured 450-500ppm. Currently ~390ppm. Lets see: 500 years average time to start to reduce by geologic processes. That makes 60-110 over 500 years. Maybe .1-.2 ppm increase per year."
Thinking about it; that doesn't make any sense at all.
Ok, if at 390 ppm now, ramping up att 0.2 ppm/year, after 500 years gives 490 ppm. After that time just how much will "geological processes" have removed? Will it have removed more or less than the 100 ppm put in over the 500 years?
Where is the evidence to support your "safe level" of emissions of 0.1 to 0.2 ppm/yr?
All the best; davblo2
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#117Yeah Whatever
Wrote:
"But did you miss your entire junior school physics courses? When they explained how you can lose heat, did they not say whilst you were at school (you *were* in school, weren't you? It doesn't look like it from what you post here):
1) Conduction
2) Convection
3) Radiation
?
Did you miss when they described what a thermos flask is? Or did you never wonder why they silvered the interior container? Silver is quite a good CONDUCTOR of heat."
I just wanted to lend a little clarification to that above.
The basic modes of heat transfer....SPOT ON!
Thermos analogy needs a little clarification:
Surrounding the liquid of the really good Thermos jugs are glass which has a vacuum pulled between two layers of glass. Vacuum gives a near perfect insulator canceling conduction and convection mechanisms, and the glass is a good insulator against bypass thermal conduction. That leaves only one mechanism left....radiation. The REASON the silver coating is applied (shiny side in) is to deal with radiation. The silver has a high reflectivity (low emissivity). Now thinking of further improvement of the thermos bottle, since the glass has a small thermal conduction still...putting a shiny coating on the outside glass surface would have low emissivity against radiating the amount of heat conducted to the outer glass surface. A material which stayed shiny would be imperative (Platinum, gold....) to maintain low emissivity.
All the best, Burghermeister
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@manysummits #112
I see both yourself and Cuckootoo are alive and well, despite the repeated beatings you both have been subjected to this last little while.
I have to admire your tenacity.
There is no point in discussing science with either of you, I have satisfied myself on that point several blogs ago.
With all due respect, manysummits, I think the reason you have given up discussing the science is because you and others are the true climate deniers. You deny climate changes, except with your AGW mantra, and you are unable to answer simple questions. I would hold my hands up, say i was wrong and come over to the AGW side if you can answer the following question with links to any peer reviewed paper that has not been refuted by more up to date papers:
Can you prove adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer?
Please point to the empirical evidence to support your answer.
Please also bear in mind the following:
1 Weather ballons have tried to find the IPCC's AGW signature without success (refer Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR4 for details of the expected signature and location. The IPCC are pretty clear about this)
2 Temperatures peaked in 1998 (El Nino) and have since dropped, although I acknowledge it is too soon to know if this is a discernable trend or a temporary blip
3 CO2 is already doing as much warming as CO2 can (despite yeah_whatevers protestations)
4 The ice cores show CO2 levels rise around 800 years after temperature rise (perhaps it is just possible that the MWP is the cause of rising CO2 levels? Just conjecture, i have not read any papers to suggest this is the case)
All of the above do not suggest AGW. The above suggests something else causes the warming.
Now, yeah_whatever and, I assume others, will make statements like "man pumps out 20b tonnes CO2 every year, CO2 has risen, therefore mans CO2 emissions must be the cause", but that is not proof, that is merely conjecture with no empirical proof. The climate scientists models tell us there will be a hotspot, where the signature of AGW will be found, but Hadleys HadAT2 radiosonde observations simply has not been able to find any significant warming. The only conclusions that can possibly be drawn from this is either AGW is false or the computer models have got it wrong. Which is it to be?
Yeah_whatever will then say the temperature trend since 1979 or whenever has been up and that is true, but again there is no proof that this is caused by man and remember temperatures have dropped since 2001, even though CO2 is still rising. Yeah_whatever may even claim the cooling is just natural variation, but even natural variation is caused by something and, whatever the cause of natural variation, it has to be more important that CO2, doesn't it?
Yeah_whatever will then try to argue that CO2 isn't doing as much warming as it is able to, but you can go to the University of Chicago and input risind CO2 levels for yourself and see the insignificant affect adding CO2 to the atmosphere has on rising temperatures, because CO2 absorbs infrared light logarithmically, which means diminishing returns for each additional molecule of CO2. If CO2 added significant warming, why wasn't the prehistoric temperatures much higher than they actually were? Water vapour is a far more important GHG than CO2. You see in the lab it is easy to prove that CO2 is a dangerous GHG, but in the real world we have convection, radiation, clouds, orbits, cycles, plants and animals, magnetic pull of the sun, moon, planets etc. If adding more CO2 to the atmosphere really mattered, wouldn't we see it in the ice cores?
Yeah_whatever will then say ok, the ice cores show there is an 800 year lag between temperature rise and CO2 rise, but even if CO2 doesn't start warming, CO2 amplfies it, but surely if CO2 was a major cause of rising temperature, we would have experienced runaway greenhouse warming in the ice core record? Something stops this, doesn't it? Something more important than CO2.
Now yeah_whatever will try to convince everybody that i am lying and i don't know what i am talking about, but he never, ever links to any real, empirical proof that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes the world to warm up, and neither does any of your heroes.
Some people will say "better to be safe than sorry", but remember every dollar spent on solving a non-existant problem, is one less dollar spent on solving real problems like lack of clean drinking water and cancer.
Go ahead, answer my very simple question:
Can you prove adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer?
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#136 RossGlory
wrote:
"In the USA on the other hand it has been a a couple of centuries of unrestricted growth into the wilderness and only now are you starting to realise that problems are not solved by riding out of town or having a shoot-out (both simplifications but I think maybe a grain of truth).
There's so much about the USA I admire but I find this visceral hatred of anything that may amount to socialism very worrying. Socialist policies (with a small 's') can provide many of the solutions to the current issues but I'm convinced the USA has to be a major player and that's just not feasible at the moment, imo."
We have had an interesting ramp up phase...the riding out of town and shoot outs still go on here. What a bunch of baby mentality it all is.
We have not evolved to a higher plane of working things out yet. I have realized (after quite a few years trying to do better) that we are not all that different and it's much better to find common ground than divisive behavior which only strokes egos.
The expansionist city planning has taken so much energy to construct so far and by the time (if) we realize things need to be more sustainable and de/re-constructed, the total amount of energy consumed will daunt even China's build up I fear. If we leave it in the current unsustainable configuration, big time waste keeping it going. Will it change with the wave of a politician's pen? (will take big pressure or a long time for the minds and society to change)
Many_summits shared input of connectedness and interconnection. It is actually a level of maturity/evolution that is generally not embraced by the average "Joe Six Pack". We have been brainwashed by the advertising machine that being the "Marlboro Man" is the ultimate necessary level of evolution to co-exist.
For the visceral hatred (or fear) of socialism....
In general....VERY true. With all of our illusions of freedoms foisted on us by the machine, what do we have to show for it at the end of the day? Health Care? Good social safety nets? (Nope, just ask the unemployed) I am actually quite shocked how little protectionist rhetoric has emerged from US given politicians trying to appease all the unemployed and disadvantaged people in their precincts.
We need to have the circumspect intelligence to honestly look at all the ills which we befell upon ourselves, and have the courage to fix the root problems. Those solutions are more of an integrated (some call it socialist) approach which considers the good of all, instead of trying to artificially maintain an unsustainable McMansionist philosophy of life quality. The individual and systemic is starting to show strains on the fabric of life in the US....not like May Day in Germany, but hopefully it gets better soon.
Peace!
Burghermeister
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Burghermeister #159
Thankyou for replying to yeah_whatever. I think his #117 was addressed to me. I was going to reply to him but decided it was pointless. I was going to reply that I have a PhD in physics and spent a long career in heat transfer so didn't really need to go back to "junior school physics". I'm still not sure why he thinks there is an analogy between the silver coating on the glass of a vacuum flask and the top of the atmosphere from where a lot of IR radiation to space occurs (apart from that in the atmospheric window). I think he is still one of the believers in the atmosphere behaving like a greenhouse! He thinks the glass does not transmit IR rather than prevent convection.
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the whole "greenhouse effect" analogy is complete wrong.
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CuckooToo #163
You know that, I know that, intelligent people know that. But the government doesn't know that. They have a nice explanation ("infra-red heat energy from the ground is partly reflected by the glass, and some is trapped inside the greenhouse") and picture at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/about/g-effect.htm. I've told them it is false analogy, but have they changed it? Of course not.
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another thought:
we know CO2 levels in medieval times were much lower than now, so what caused the MWP?
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@pawb46
link doesn't work - perhaps they listened to you at last?
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#169 Cuckootoo
You sir, obviously have done a lot of reading and have a strong belief like many on both sides of the issue. I believe there must be some greenhouse effect as we do not have the extreme variation seen on other places like the moon. Whether this is predominantly due to CO2, methane, water vapor....is still a source of interesting debate.
To all others vigorously engaged in the debate:
I am not steadfastly defending a point for the sake of defending a point and would prefer to put some interesting links out for people to consider and check into..... Keep digging on both sides of the issue as this is the source of true learning, which is something we all need more of to keep our minds busy.
Here are sites for you to use for some extended research:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/personnel/personnel.html
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Cool molecular models (CO2 and others):
http://www.rkm.com.au/ANIMATIONS/carbon-dioxide-global-warming.html
Nice graphic showing Energy Absorption/reflection by the Climate/earth system :http://www.crystalinks.com/greenhouseffect.html
A particularly broad reaching link from American Institute of Physics
with lots of sub link paths : http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
(You should like all the science based factoids herein.)
Basics school material, but interesting :
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7h.html
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1998/es202/l13.html
Wonder if Jim Hansen worked with this guy ;-))) :
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-the-greenhouse-effect/
Enjoy!
Burghermeister
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getting back to Richards subject carbon caps etc, here is an interesting article:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325899798635675&kw=al,gore from the Investors Business Daily
follow the money? ;)
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CuckooToo:
Cut and paste into into your browser. Perhaps it's the dot at the end that's the problem.
Nobody can fully explain the MWP (because our knowledge of the climate is so incomplete). That's why Mann et al had to eliminate the MWP in their hockey stick. If it could occur then, it can occur today without any help from CO2. Of course, since the hockey stick was debunked, they've tried to prove the MWP was only a local effect. But that effort has failed. There is no hoop thorough which the alarmists won't jump to try and say it has to be human emitted CO2. The worst is 'because we have no other explanation for the recent warming, it has to be CO2'. Of course if they refuse to consider the sun as a cause of warming, or ocean currents releasing heat and force computer models to create warming with positive feedback, then that is the false conclusion you get.
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@Burghermeister #167
I believe there must be some greenhouse effect
of course there is, and i don't think any right thinking person thinks otherwise, but it's a question of significance and I can see no real empirical evidence to suggest CO2 is a significant cause of warming
i will check out your links - thanks for those, it's always worthwhile considering other viewpoints
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@pawb46
the link worked! i needed to take away the dot as you said
LMAO!
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Burghermeister #167
Roy Spencer's explanation of the earth's atmosphere is good, but is not totally correct. He says "the Earths surface does not radiatively cool directly to outer space, but to the layer of air above it". That statement is not correct since there is a band of IR frequencies (the atmospheric window) through which IR is transmitted directly from the surface to space. In that band there are no GHGs which absorb and transmit the frequencies. Depending who you believe, about 20-25% of the outgoing IR goes throught the atmospheric window.
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The big problem with the idea of limiting emissions to a trillion tonnes is that people have tendency to spend now and pay later. Or drive along the motorway at high speed and brake too late.
Plus, any idea of holding it as a barrier to avoid hitting will require extremely tough legislation, although improved renewables and other methods will make it easier in the future.
As for the greenhouse effect analogy, it is a perfectly good analogy, spoilt only by people who don't understand it is an analogy, or insist that analogies are the real things they are analogous to.
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#170 Cuckootoo
I am happy to share in the discovery process hope others on here will enjoy them as well. That is part of the process and hopefully makes for a good online society who participates in the debate.
You are correct in significance comment...each component/mechanism has a role. The proper question is level of significance. I tend to think in systemic terms rather than on individual contributors, but to be fair to Richard....we are responding to a different question in many cases than he posed. That said, it seems this is the natural course for debates...random and circuitous.
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#172 PAWB
Being in IR thermography, this aspect really is of interest....although not significant to the localized horizon of interest for my pictures. But still of great interest to feed my insatiable appetite for more and diverse knowledge.
Thank goodness there is a "bypass mechanism" to let some of the heat out..hopefully the secondary and tertiary mechanisms of release of stored GHG's (permafrost,etc) don't strike too rapidly and give us even more to debate.
We need to control that in our sphere of influence, make strides to expand that circle for the greater good, and leave the world a little better than we found it.
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PAWB "He says "the Earths surface does not radiatively cool directly to outer space, but to the layer of air above it"."
It doesn't.
Not where the atmosphere is opaque.
Isn;t one of your creeds (and Cuckoo Too's) that there can't be any effect because the atmosphere is opaque and therefore adding more CO2 can't make it any more opaque?
That is only true outside that IR window, within it, the atmosphere is not opaque.
So you use that simplification yourself.
Why then nitpick when Richard used it???
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"but it's a question of significance and I can see no real empirical evidence to suggest CO2 is a significant cause of warming"
Because you apparently will not accept ANY empirical evidence that isn't another earth with less or more CO2.
There is plenty. Arrhenius will show you.
You can do the statistical correlation and the MATHS that show this effect.
But will you accept them?
No.
Dunno why.
Section 8, probly.
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"That's why Mann et al had to eliminate the MWP in their hockey stick. If it could occur then, it can occur today without any help from CO2."
Uh, but we DO have the CO2 here.
So why is the same thing happening and the earth system ignoring the extra CO2?
Please explain why adding 40% CO2 will not cause ~1.1C of warming like it has in the past and yet "some unknown process" will and also undo the 1.1C warming you got in the past from CO2.
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"# 167. At 7:28pm on 04 May 2009, Burghermeister wrote:
#169 Cuckootoo
You sir, obviously have done a lot of reading "
Only when it suits his purposes.
He won't read your links.
Trust me.
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"They have a nice explanation ("infra-red heat energy from the ground is partly reflected by the glass, and some is trapped inside the greenhouse")"
Actually, that wording is used in a Gerlich "paper" produced by the Science And Public Policy Institute (a shill organisation for ExxonMobil et al).
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
contains the original.
Section 2 is the start of it.
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"Can you prove adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer?"
Yes.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Shows how you can do it yourself.
And the result of this will be around a three degree rise for every doubling in CO2 when all feedbacks that have operated in the past are taken into account.
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"but you can go to the University of Chicago and input risind CO2 levels for yourself and see the insignificant affect adding CO2 to the atmosphere has on rising temperatures, because CO2 absorbs infrared light logarithmically, which means diminishing returns for each additional molecule of CO2."
Now put in 20 Billion tons of CO2.
That's not an insignificant change.
Why do you insist on continuing that claptrap?
You even admit yourself that significant increase in CO2 will create significant changes in temperature.
You keep hopping on "if you add an insignificant amount of CO2 you get an insignificant warming" but leave off the "insignificant" off the CO2 part.
Why?
Deliberate obfuscation and a pathological need to mislead others.
Dunno why, though.
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No the reason (CT #160) is that you don't listen. EVER.
You keep spouting the same old lies again and again. hoping that this time you will be heard and believed.
Well adding a significant level of CO2 (40% extra IS SIGNIFICANT) will warm the earth greatly.
Yet you STILL yibber on about how adding CO2 is logarithmic (so is a % increase, so they cancel out, idiot) so therefore adding CO2 will cause an insignificant change in temperature.
Well, only if you add an insignificant amount of CO2.
We aren't.
Yet you keep on bleating and yammering that tired old creed.
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yeah_whatever #176
As usual, your post doesn't make sense.
What is the 'It' that doesn't?
I don't have any creed.
I have not said that there can't be any effect (I presume you mean from adding CO2, but you don't make clear what you are talking about). The absorbance of the CO2 column is high (>2000), so the effect of adding more CO2 is due to line broadening (the logarithmic effect). But if the lines are close together, or overlap with lines of some other GHG such as water vapour, then the effect of line broadening is reduced.
What is only true outside the IR window (what is the IR window?)?
What simplification have I used myself?
What have I nitpicked that Richard used?
I wish you wouldn't comment in riddles!
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re 164.
ACtually that bit about reflection is in a Gerlich & Tscheuschner puff piece. You won't find it in the IPCC report. Nor in any of the papers included in its collection.
In fact only you and your pals have said that it can't be global warming because a greenhouse keeps convection in (what happens above the greenhouse, when it gets warm?), so it seems only the denialists want to keep "greenhouse" as an absolute rather than an analogy.
So if you can, please show us where the politicians or the IPCC say that the heat is kept in by reflection.
Go on.
Or will that expose your conspiracy to the light of open discussion?
If the facts aren't on your side, bang on the table.
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yeah_whatever #178
More of your inexplicable riddles:
What evidence do you have for a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise? All ice-core data show temperature rises causing CO2 increases followed by temperature falls leading to CO2 falls. There has not to my knowledge been evidence of CO2 change causing temperature change. Please show me the evidence as I am very interested in this.
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@manysummits
see what i mean about yeah_whatever? Shouts a lot, calls everybody a liar, but can't come up with a single piece of real evidence
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"I have not said that there can't be any effect (I presume you mean from adding CO2,"
Cuckoo Too does explicitly.
And you do, else why do you say that the MWP could have happened for "some reason" and that it could be happening now? If that "other reason" were in effect, then the 40% extra CO2 would have caused even more warming unless you're implying that the 40% gain in CO2 doesn't warm the planet. Which you've just said you don't believe.
So why did you say that we could be having a MWP here? If we do, we know what is causing it: 40% extra CO2.
"I wish you wouldn't comment in riddles!"
I wish you'd find a consistent argument rather than pass ones about that don't work together. I wish you wouldn't "forget" what you said if it gets called on.
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re 185 it was a mistype, it was Roy (Spencer) but there's no edit facility.
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yeah_whatever #185:
You seem to be getting more irrational (with talk of conspiracies) in your comments and accusations.
What I quoted about reflection is from DEFRA (i.e the government's advisers in the civil service). I haven't mentioned Gerlich & Teuschner as I couldn't understand all their paper. I haven't mentioned the IPCC, so why are you asking me to show you where they say heat is kept in by reflection.
I suggest you re-read what you have posted and see who is getting upset and banging on the table.
Just one simple question. Do you believe that the DEFRA greenhouse analogy with its refection of IR and no mention of convection is a good analogy to the atmosphere where free convection occurs (and latent heat is important) and GHGs act by absorbing and emitting IR radiation, not reflecting it?
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"What evidence do you have for a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise?"
The evidence of CO2 correlation to temperatures in the historical temperature proxies.
In the measurements, in other words.
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@yeah_whatever #188
"I have not said that there can't be any effect (I presume you mean from adding CO2,"
Cuckoo Too does explicitly.
That is simply not true.
I have stated additional CO2 causes an insignificant amount of warming.
Please show where I have stated explicitly that CO2 cannot have any effect
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See what I mean about Cuckoo Too? #187. "He can't come up with a single piece of evidence".
Only because he refuses to accept as evidence any evidence supplied unless it says AGW doesn't exist.
Here's some maths for the loon:
log (1.4)-log (1.0) = 0.14 - 0 = 0.14
log (14) -log (10) = 1.14 - 1 = 0.14
Look, the sensitivity is logarithmic, but 40% growth still shows the same difference!!!
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re 190, please show the link to the DEFRA site that you say you quoted from.
PS "We are lied to endlessly by politicians and the media, but what can we ordinary citizens do about it?"
Seems to be pretty paranoid. It's a quote from you PAWB.
Then again, you do seem to forget what you said as soon as someone asks you about it.
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re #192
on point 160 you say that the change on adding CO2 is insignificant.
The difference between insignificant and zero is insignificant. By definition.
You don't seem to be able to read what you posted.
Are you ill?
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yeah_whatever #191
When I ask "What evidence do you have for a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise?", you say "The evidence of CO2 correlation to temperatures in the historical temperature proxies. In the measurements, in other words."
I am explicitly here asking you for the evidence and the measurements, not a statement from you that there is evidence.
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"Do you believe that the DEFRA greenhouse analogy with its refection of IR and no mention of convection is a good analogy to the atmosphere where free convection occurs (and latent heat is important) and GHGs act by absorbing and emitting IR radiation, not reflecting it?"
I beleive it is a good analogy.
After all, the greenhouse would get warm and cause convection above it. There's plenty of free convection inside it too. Steam on the panes of glass show that phase changes and latent heat is important in greenhouses as well.
You see an analogy doesn't mean "it IS a greenhouse". It means it is LIKE a greenhouse.
Why? do you have a problem with it?
If so, maybe you can show the maths that show it wrong.
May I point you to post #117 again:
Moon Maximum surface temperature 123C. Minimum -233.
Our maximum is less than 123C because of convection. The difference in the minimum is the blanketing of the greenhouse gases.
Or do you not read posts?
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"I am explicitly here asking you for the evidence and the measurements, not a statement from you that there is evidence."
And I am explicitly telling you where the evidence is.
This site does not have suitable MathML markup for use and the use of links is highly suspect, since any one can cause a "this has been sent to the moderators" and all links are lost.
The evidence is there.
Either look for it, look for rebuttals on it, or accept it.
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yeah_whatever #194
I posted the link to the DEFRA site at #164. But especially for you, here it is again: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/about/g-effect.htm
I stand by my statement that we are lied to by politicians and the media and I don't think it makes me paranoid. Don't tell me you believe everything you are told by politicians or get from the media? I recall that an opinion poll result was that most people said politicians were the least trustworthy group of people. We must all be paranoid except you.
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yeah_whatever #198
So you won't enlighten us with the evidence?
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PS i #190 you state that there is no reflection in a real atmosphere like there is in a greenhouse.
This is in contradiction of your own post in #105 where you demand that glass doesn't affect IR.
You also use IR rather than 15 microns, thereby including the IR window.
Which is again contradicting your post #172 where you decry the omission of this detail in discussion of IR actions in the atmosphere.
Can you please show a little less bipolar disorder here?
Thanks.
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Uh, the context of that is a short picture.
And it is in some sense correct.
When an IR photon is intercepted, it will be, if lucky, emitted before a collision. However, the residency time of the energy in CO2 is much higher than the average time between collisions.
Being in an excited state, the molecule will undergo an inelastic collision and some other molecule will have more energy than they had before.
This will then re-radiate but since it is not stimulated by a coincident radiation field (cf laser stimulation) this radiation will be within the full 360 degrees of a full sphere. Therefore 50% it will go further on, 50% it will be directed back to the ground.
Now, when something is going in one direction then it is going back, what do we call that?
Reflection.
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yeah_whatever #197
If you are, or claim to be, a physicist and think the analogy between a greenhouse and the atmosphere is a "good analogy", then there is no hope for you. What does maths have to do with it. You don't use maths to compare chalk with cheese. And what does the moon have to do with the analogy between a greenhouse and our atmosphere?
It seems you're the one who doesn't read posts if you missed my earlier link to the DEFRA website.
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"Don't tell me you believe everything you are told by politicians or get from the media? "
I don't.
I work out what I know and see if the story is consistent. If it is consistent then what I do know will inform what I don't know as to its veracity.
Yet the denialist creed is not to build an alternative explanation, it's to stop AGW being the explanation. There is no consistency, vast areas are errant nonsense and they were spouted too by Politicians and the Media (why do you link to the NYT or the Australian rags when they state something that puts doubt on AGW if you don't believe ANYTHING any politician or media outlet says?).
You disbelieve any media or politician that doesn't confirm your presupposed outcome.
That you blame me of it is merely a classic case of projection.
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re 200 I already did.
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re 203, why is it a bad analogy?
You state that with nothing to support it.
No wonder you have no hope for me: I will not share in your delusion.
Are things warmer in a greenhouse than outside it?
How? It retains heat preferentially. It lets it in but doesn't want to let it out.
And if some gases are transparent to visible light that the sun's energy is predominantly in but the earth lets it out in the IR where the gases are opaque, then it too is letting the heat in but doesn't want to let it out.
Why the confusion? Do you not like easy to comprehend analogies? Do they make your life of hiding the truth and muddying the waters more difficult?
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"And what does the moon have to do with the analogy between a greenhouse and our atmosphere?"
The moon has no atmosphere.
Therefore radiative processes only exist.
But it is at the distance of the earth, so the insolation energy per unit area is equivalent.
But it has a much hotter day and much much MUCH colder night than we do.
What could cause that???
The atmosphere we have and the moon does not.
But if it was convection only active, then it must be quite slow else the earth daytime would be a lot colder. But convection can only make heat leave. It can't make it hang around for longer.
So what is causing the -233 C moon night to become nearly 230C warmer for us? Convection can't stop it.
Greenhouse gasses. Ones that trap the heat within the atmosphere and impede its progress out.
That would do it.
But I suppose that analogy is too clear for you. You'd like something a little easier to confuse people with.
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Oh may I quote what you quoted in #164:
"infra-red heat energy from the ground is partly reflected by the glass, and some is trapped inside the greenhouse"
Now I'll quote the link:
"Some of the energy from the sun is trapped inside our atmosphere as it is reflected back from the earth towards space.This natural process is called the greenhouse effect, as the atmosphere acts like the glass walls of a greenhouse, which allows the sun's rays to enter but keeps the heat in."
Please check the wording.
Your quote doesn't exist in the text you said you quoted from.
It says that there is reflection of radiation from the earth into space.
That isn't your quote and are you saying that Kirchoff's law is incorrect???
It says like the glass walls of a greenhouse.
That isn't your quote either. And are you denying glasshouses have glass in them? Are there no glass glasshouses now or ever? If so how did they get their name???
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To davblo2 #148:
Ok - here's the bus ride calculations on emissions. A note first - the source for my numbers is:
"Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center"
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Gregg Marland, Bob Andres, Tom Boden
It includes CO2 emissions from Fossil-Fuel burning, Cement manufacture, and Gas flaring; 1751 to 2005; and the report is dated August 26, 2008.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
If anyone knows of a better database, or one with numbers right up to present, I'd appreciate knowing?
All figures in the report are in millions of metric tons of Carbon (not carbon dioxide) Multiply by 3.7 to convert tons of Carbon to tons of carbon dioxide.
I've double checked all calculations, but they were done by hand on a HP15C:
First, I found it a worthwhile exercise, doing this by hand - I'd recommend this as an exercise to anyone!
Total emissions 1751 through 2005: 321,080 x 10^6 (million) metric tons of Carbon = 321.080 Gt C (~ 321 giga tons of carbon = ~ one third trillion tons of Carbon)
If you then estimate current emissions at say 8 Gt C for 2006/07/08/09, you end up with ~ 350 Gt C to date.
The Richard Black report given as a link in post #148 says quite explicitly that it took 250 years to burn the first half trillion metric tons of Carbon (500 Gt), and that under current projections it will only take another forty years to burn the next half trillion (500 Gt)(quoted from Dr. Allen I believe)
I don't have the "Nature" article, so I'm just going by the quote in that posted link, but there seems to be something amiss here, namely about 150 Gt of Carbon. If you estimate about ten Gt C per year from now on, then we could burn up 500 Gt C in fifty years or less, depending on the increase in emissions. This is just a back of the envelope calculation.
But the missing 150 Gt of Carbon seems an inordinate amount to lose. Perhaps someone who has that "Nature" article can clarify, or point me, and perhaps all of us, to a different database for Carbon emissions, or otherwise clarify the numbers?
I understand there are two related articles in that Nature publication - a reference to which "Nature" volume and date would be most helpful.
To davblo2 and jr4412:
It would be a good idea I think, once we clarify the numbers and the database, to include this database (correct one) in our "Mayday Declaration", and perhaps also the world glacier database.
- Manysummits, Calgary -
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I thought it might be interesting to catch up on the debate here. Unfortunately it seems to be a climate-themed version of "Groundhog Day".
It would be nice to see some discussion of Richard's piece rather than the same old story repeated ad infinitum.
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yeah_whatever #208
You say:
'Oh may I quote what you quoted in #164:
"infra-red heat energy from the ground is partly reflected by the glass, and some is trapped inside the greenhouse"
....Please check the wording.
Your quote doesn't exist in the text you said you quoted from.'
Well I've gone back to the DEFRA site that I lnked to and there are the words I quoted. They are in white on a blue background against a red arrow coming out of a greenhouse.
I can't spell it out any clearer for you. If you can't read, that is your problem, not mine.
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Yeah_whatever:
I have asked you for the evidence several times: "What evidence do you have for a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise?"
You refuse to give it here.
So if you have the evidence that a 40% increase in CO2 has caused a 1.1C rise in temperature (unaided by other phenomena), then why not let the IPCC know. In their next SPM they will be able to write that "All of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is certainly due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations" rather than just most of it being very likely (>90% probability of occurrence - but based on 'expert judgement' and model results).
You could even get a Nobel Prize.
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For yeah_whatever's and others benefit (a pdf so i will try to link in a follow up post to make things easier):
Google - "The Past and Future of Climate" by David Archibald. In this presentation, Archibald uses the Modtran calculator (claimed by RealClimate to be incorrect use of Modtran, but then they would claim that wouldn't they?).
Go to page 16 and you will see the logarithmic effect of adding CO2 to the atmosphere (figure 17).
Quote: The effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is logarithmic and thus climate sensitivity decreases with increasing concentration. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide has a greater temperature effect than the next 400 ppm.
Now , will you please present clear evidence to show this is incorrect and i don't mean rhetotic or name calling
Name calling is immature and does nothing to enhance credibility or quality of your argument
next post will be a pdf to the actual document so you can read it for yourself
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
found a link that links to the pdf:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=102
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
So strange you do it again.
Cuckoo Too, please read this again:
log (1.4)-log (1.0) = 0.14 - 0 = 0.14
log (14) -log (10) = 1.14 - 1 = 0.14
A 40% increase from very little has the same effect as a 40% increase from a lot.
We have increased the CO2 content of the earth's atmosphere 40%. If we double it (increase by 100%) which will mean a CO2 content of 560ppm, that will give the same jump in effect as the change from 20ppm to 40ppm.
Look at how big that change is on that graph! HUGE!!!!
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re 212 I have given it to you several times.
You merely refuse to accept the proofs in a method that
a) this blog will accept
b) that you use yourself when you deign to respond to a request for proof
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yeah_whatever #218;
Give it to me again please.
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simon-swede #210 "It would be nice to see some discussion of Richard's piece rather than the same old story repeated ad infinitum."
I tried yesterday; see #137 to #158. I did get a reply from manysummits which is well worth reading at #143, but then I got blasted non-stop by yeah_whatever; and during the evening got swamped by the "when is a greenhouse not a greenhouse" gang.
I'd still be interested to hear whether anyone has any more information to cast light on the question of "safe stable emission level". The report Richard used to kick off his article...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm
...suggested that when we reach a certain level of "total emission to-date" the only "safe" level will be effectively zero.
And as Richard said... "For many, that will be a stark and scary thought".
It was for me anyway.
All the best; davblo2
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Well Davblo, zero NET emission would be safe. If the system then screws up we know it wasn't our fault.
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re: 219 I give to to you one more time:
"What evidence do you have for a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise?"
The evidence of CO2 correlation to temperatures in the historical temperature proxies.
In the measurements, in other words.
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I am unconvinced that the proposal to cap total emissions rather than rates is an obviously easier approach to communicating the basis for establishing a policy. In addition it seems to me that the difficulty lies not so much in accepting the reason for establishing limititations however these might be formulated, but rather the political difficulties inherent to the changes to the status quo that meaningful limitations would imply.
A further complication emerges when looking at the detail of the Allen et al paper described by Richard, when it becomes clear that the authors are suggesting a policy that involves combining a limiting rate on some emissions and a total cap on others. The concluding sentence in the paper by Allen et al states "A simpler policy framework might therefore be to limit emission rates of shorter-lived agents to avoid dangerous rates of warming and to use the concept of CWC (*) to limit cumulative emissions of CO2 (and other very long-lived agents) to avoid a dangerous total warming commitment."
(* CWC being "Cumulative Warming Commitment")
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Yeah_whatever and all "actively engaged" debaters...
Very good to include the posts references to which you are responding....since the threading of response to posts and rebuttals are difficult to follow otherwise.
Check some of the links I posted in #167, and think carefully about the mechanisms of the "greenhouse" model. There must be a variety of mechanisms at play...not all attributed to one or the other constituent individually. Certainly a complex atmosphere composed of multiple greenhouse constituent components must have varying levels of significance with respect to magnitude and response time. There must be reflection components of the total atmosphere out and in by different constituent atmospheric components, of the total received energy flux. I have seen consistent representation of partial absorption and partial reflection in many reputable scientific articles. (Makes sense no?)
A summation of each contribution of reflection in/out of the system would seem to show the significance of each component in the overall system response. Each contributes it's own portion of the total...and I believe viewing in this framework maybe helps frame discussions more clearly/objectively.
Consider also the timeframes of response since this is a dynamic system....convection by moisture transport has a much shorter response time than say CO2 which tends to accumulate and hang around much longer in the atmosphere until the carbon sink mechanisms (trees,ocean,...) can absorb it. Think in terms of a system of partial differential equations...should make it easier to wrap you brain around each.
The logaritmic effect of CO2 may all be well behaved during some set of system boundary/operating conditions....but what happens when you hit tipping points where other mechanisms of release overwhelm the system with releases of other stored reserves....like say melting of permafrost? Maybe another mechanism of concern is the ability of the ocean to absorb CO2 and what rate of uptake is possible as the system becomes more acidic...relative to the rate of emission. There may be a whole host of other effects which result in some sort of significant inflection point(s) in the system response. Some of which will be anticipated....and others which may be surprising.
We certainly keep the blog activity moving along, and civil discourse would indeed helps our case be made without being perceived as ranting or flaming....and perhaps encourages others to participate in thoughtful and clear ways.
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simon_swede #223 "I am unconvinced that the proposal to cap total emissions rather than rates is an obviously easier approach to communicating the basis for establishing a policy."
Surely the question is not so much whether it is easier, but whether it is essential to avoid disaster. What the politicians do isn't going to affect reality. Either it's "total emissions" that are relevant or it's "emission rate" that counts.
All the best; davblo2
PS I found the Allens et all paper...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08019.html
...and can see the summary but can't get the whole thing.
You have a subscription or is there another way?
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re 223. that's why the writers of the paper said what they said.
They know that based on past results that saying you'll do twice the cutback later rather than a smaller cutback earlier means you won't do the cutback.
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yeah_whatever #222
Cone on, admit it, you don't have any evidence to show that "a 40% increase in the past causing a ~1.1C temperature rise". If you had you'd want to share it with everybody.
Your much repeated statement "The evidence of CO2 correlation to temperatures in the historical temperature proxies. In the measurements, in other words" is not evidence. It is a statement, pure and simple. The Vostok measurements don't support your statement. What measurements do?
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Hi davblo2!
The comment about whether it is an easier approach to communicate stems both from Richard's piece (where he opens with "scientists ... reckon they've found an easier way for politicians first to conceptualise and then to stop human-induced climate change.") and from the article and commentary that appeared in that issue of Nature.
But as I noted, the paper by Allen et al also suggests that an effective a policy would put limits to emission rates for some GHG and and limits to total emissions for other GHG.
I don't have a problem with accepting that a policy based on differential restictions depending on the GHG is likely to be more effective and have a stronger scientific basis. Indeed to me it seems sensible! I do have difficulty in seeing how it will be easier for politicians to conceptualise and communicate such a differentiated policy, as the authors argue.
As to your question, I have the good fortune to have access to an on-line subscription to Nature via my institution.
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davblo2 #220
Most of us agree (and that includes IPCC) that increased concentration of CO2 has a logarithmically diminishing effect on the surface temperature. Thus any level of CO2 is safe unless there is some positive feedback mechanism that kicks in. The IPCC says increased water vapour is such a positive feedback mechanism as it is another GHG. Others say increased water vapour results in more cloud formation which is a net negative feedback mechanism as it has a high albedo. Historical evidence (Vostok ice core data) shows that temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. So the evidence says that the overall feedback is negative.
I have seen no evidence to support the net positive feedback mechanism. Runaway warming appears to be an artifact of climate models, which just make the arbitrary assumption of positive feedback. It's all buried in the IPCC reports.
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simon-swede #228 "The comment about whether it is an easier approach to communicate stems both from Richard's piece..."
Yes understand what you mean. I'm afraid I bypassed those thoughts in favour of worrying about the underlying basis of the "total vs rate" idea. I too don't see that it helps the political wrangling; if anything it just seems to show proposed measures as being hopelessly misguided.
Re: subscription.. lucky you.
All the best; davblo2
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"I have seen no evidence to support the net positive feedback mechanism."
Because you exclude from evidence anything that would prove a net positive feedback.
Like, for example, Venus.
If there was a net negative feedback mechanism, then Venus would not have the runaway greenhouse effect.
If you do the calculations on a simple single column model of the earth's atmosphere you get a net positive. And that's "model" in the same sense as the Bohr model of the atom, before you get started.
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PAWB46 #229 "...logarithmically diminishing effect..."
Just a quick reaction...
As I understand it you hearing is also logarithmicly sensitive to sound intensity; but it doesn't mean you can't be deafenned by loud noise.
All the best; davblo2
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re 227 yes I do.
You can find it too if you look and you can even get it from the data publicly available. If I put a link to an IPCC report on it, you'd exclude it stating that it was merely because it was IPCC.
So you don't believe climate scientists, so any link I give you would be wasted effort.
You can look at the historical data and run a statistical analysis on the correlation between CO2 and temperature and the degree of correlation and the strength thereof would include CO2-induced feedback and show something like a 3 degree warming per doubling of CO2, it being less than 5% likely that a sensitivity of less than 2C per doubling would explain the correlations.
And before you start with "correlation is not causation",
a) how else can you use your data alone (which is all you will accept: no computer modelling is allowed by you) without using correlation analysis?
b) There is a causation: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This would lead to a correlation and finding one is confirmation that your causation is valid from the data alone. To go further you need a computer model to calculate the effects that are not conducive to analytical solutions and must be solved numerically.
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Re 222:
"Either it's "total emissions" that are relevant or it's "emission rate" that counts."
False dichotomy.
If you emit 10 billion tons per year, you will get a trillion tons after a century.
If you want to say below a trillion tons, don't emit 10 billion tons per year for a century.
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To davblo2 re: Nature article on total CO2 emissions:
I must have put too many equal signs and such in my 'referred' post above.
So I'll try again:
My bus calaculations, double checked, from Oakridge Laboratory, 1751 through 2005, for total Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture, and gas flaring are as follows:
Through 2005: 321 giga tonnes Carbon
Add 8 Gt per year for each of 2006/07/08/09: 353 Gt C to date (metric)
That's roughly one third of a trillion tonnes of Carbon.
Yet the Apr 30 Nature article says we have burned one half a trillion tonnes to date.
So I'm missing about 150 Gt of Carbon, a not insignificant amount.
What database are the Myers group using for Carbon burning? I'd like to know, and I don't have the article either. To burn a further 500 Gt in the next 40 years (by 2050), would require an average of 12.5 Gt per year, certainly possible with business as usual.
I see in the Oak Ridge database no mention of land use CO2 contributions, de-forestation etc...??
The brick wall concept has merit in that brick wall analogies appear to more attention grabbing than the alternatives.
Geologically, 300 years is virtually instantaneous, more like a bolide impact or perhaps an extremely rare flood basalt event. In that sense, I agree with the Meyers article - it doesn't matter the rate in human terms, it's the total that counts - I think that is right on - a very useful way of looking at it.
To jr4412 also: I think we should take pains to obtain several of the articles in the Apr 30 Nature edition, and include this thinking in our Mayday Declaration??
- Manysummits, Calgary -
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PAWB42 #229 again "Thus any level of CO2 is safe "
Logarithmic doesn't imply vanishing...
It just means multiplying the cause gives addition to the effect.
Cause: 1, 10, 100, 1000
Effect: 0, 1, 2, 3
How can any level be safe?
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"Most of us agree (and that includes IPCC) that increased concentration of CO2 has a logarithmically diminishing effect on the surface temperature."
Oh dear. So wrong.
If you get 3C warming per doubling and the human habitable region shrinks to half if you get 6C of warming and that we cannot live on half the land area, then a quadrupling of CO2 would means the end of our lives.
And a doubling leading to the same linear response IS logarithmic.
Log(2) is as far above log(1) as log(4) is above log(2). And log(8) is as far above log(4) as log(4) is above log(2). And so on.
And no need for a posititive feedback. In fact, a positive feedback unless it is exponential changes nothing, since 2 times x compared with 2 times 2 x is the same difference logarithmically.
Did you take maths beyond junior school AT ALL?
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To davblo2 and jr4412 re 'Myers' article:
Since that last post worked I'll try another:
The United States Geological Survey gives world volcanic emissions of CO2 from all volcanoes, including the mid-ocean ridge vents, as:
130 to 230 million tonnes CO2 per year.
That equates to 35 to 63 million tonnes of Carbon (divide by 3.7)per year, on average. Let's use 50 million tonnes of Carbon per year for the following comparisons:
In trying to find a useful way of digesting those Oakridge figures, here is what I've come up with:
In 1751 - we burned one (1) million tonnes of Carbon
1849 - the first year we burned 50 million tonnes of Carbon in a single year (i.e., we matched the world volcanic output)
1899 - one order of magnitude greater - we burned 507 million tonnes that year.
1977 - we are another order of magnitude greater - burning 5,029 million tonnes of Carbon that year.
2009 - say 9 Gt of Carbon (9,000 million tonnes) for this year - that's one hundred and eighty (180) times the average world yearly volcanic emissions, orange to oranges.
Conclusion: We are a Force of Nature
- Manysummits, Calgary - Terraformer
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manysummits #235 & #238 (Uranium?)
Good stuff, well explained. Thanks; davblo2
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Greenhouses and analogies:
You are being led down the garden path by use of the red herring.
Gilbert N. Plass, emminent physicist, 1959 July Scientific American article "Carbon Dioxide and Climate", used the greenhouse analogy to desribe AGW. It is as valid now as it was then, but all analalogies suffer from being proxies.
But make no mistake, PAWB46 is a physicist, and understands the analogy quite as well as anyone on Earth - he is just running you around in circles.
- Manysummits -
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re 240 are you sure he's a physicist? He's not asked (as any physicist does) what are the error bars on a least-squares fit to noisy data.
It was the thing drilled into me from 13 years on in my school physics class. And if you submitted a lab report without error bars (and how you arrived at them) you could lose half your marks, even if the result was right.
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For those who are sceptical that CO2 plays an insignificant part in global warming, here are the approximate figures for the logarithmic scale of CO2 absorption of infrared light. This is the curve that is accepted by both sides in the debate, so it must be correct, yes?
ppm temperature rise degrees C
20 1.53
40 1.53 + 0.33 = 1.86
60 1.86 + 0.19 = 2.05
80 2.05 + 0.13 = 2.24
100 2.24 + 0.10 = 2.34
Do you see whats happening here? Dont take my word for it or anybody elses word, check it for yourself. I have provided links in posts further up. Click on my name to see the evidence for yourself.
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greenhouse effect from wiki:
The term "greenhouse effect" can be a source of confusion as actual greenhouses do not function by the same mechanism the atmosphere does. Various materials at times imply incorrectly that they do, or do not make the distinction between the processes of radiation and convection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
so it is wrong to imagine the earth works like a green house
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yeah_whatever #241:
Why would I ask "what are the error bars on a least-squares fit to noisy data"? You refuse to show me the noisy data.
Manysummits #240:
Comparing the atmosphere to a greenhouse is a very poor analogy. The physical processes are so disimilar.
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re 242.
Here's two things for you:
ONE:
log(40)-log(20) = 0.3 -> 1.86
log (80) - log(40) = 0.3 -> 0.38
So how can you hold the belief that a change to temperature is proportional to the log of the concentration AND hold that that graph shows this when it evidently shows no correlation between logarithm of the concentration and the change in temperature?
Now when something doesn't match your expectation, you turn around and say it must unequivocally be wrong. At least you do on anything that says AGW is right.
Yet you do not do so here? The only difference is that this opinion piece says AGW is wrong.
TWO:
That Beers law is how to relate the intensity of a beam passing through an opaque medium will change. This is NOT how the temperature of the earth changes when CO2 concentration changes.
Why do you insist on using it in a place it doesn't apply to?
I bet you think it takes no energy to hold a weight at arms length since by Newton's Laws:
E=Fd
(force times distance is equal to the energy)
and that since you are holding the weight still, distance is zero therefore no energy is expended when holding it up.
And please explain Cuckoo Too (who has gotten so many things wrong in the last thread and responded with "I don't know what they mean, take it up with the site that posted them!" thereby showing he didn't do any comprehension there) how you derive that temperature change graph.
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For those who will read and try their understanding (therefore not PAWB or Cuckoo Too) the problem with their model is that it ignores the fact that a warmer airmass will radiate back to earth.
It is applying an effect that explains transmission through the entire level to only one place: The Earth's surface. But the atmosphere has a temperature too. And it has to radiate out to space through that thick medium or back to earth through the much thinner layer. Guess where that heat goes...
And what happens to a body with a warmer body next to it? It is hotter than it would be if that body were not warmed.
The next layer up gets warmed by the lower layer of air and some of the earth, the proportion being more slanted toward the atmospheric layer one down and radiates up to the next layer above and down to the earth and the layer of atmosphere below it.
That layer is warmed by the earth even less, the first layer of air a little and the next layer of air that exists just below it more.
And so on until you get to the top of the atmosphere where there is no impediment.
This is a radiative balance model.
And is what Cuckoo Too is avoiding talking about because he wants you to believe his half-truth rather than the full truth.
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@yeah_whatever
i've pointed to links and described the reasons why i think MMGW is false
just point me to a link, or tell me what to google if the mods won't allow the link, that shows empirical proof that CO2 causes significant warming in the atmosphere and i promise i will go away and read it, come back with comments or admit defeat
how's that for a deal?
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re 232. An analogy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy
"Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. In a narrower sense, analogy is an inference or an argument from one particular to another particular, as opposed to deduction, induction, and abduction, where at least one of the premises or the conclusion is general."
Therefore it is wrong to take the greenhouse ANALOGY as anything other than an analogy.
Ergo, Cuckoo Too is right: he's wrong in treating the greenhouse analogy the way he's doing so.
He leaves out as usual that it is correct to use it as an analogy, though.
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re 244: you have never once shown your error bars or asked of any graph showing a reduction from peak as to the error bars or the statistical significance of that lower figure.
Not once.
Therefore I will not waste my time laboriously working out how to show in plain text the data and workings. You can do so yourself if you're a physicist. You can get the data on past temperatures over the last 600,000 years very easily. Likewise CO2 data for that period.
If someone has pointed you to an IPCC link, you've rejected it with "they aren't using science" so why bother giving you a link if I have to spend 20 days working out what sort of link you will accept?
I have given you the location of the evidence. You can work it out yourself. Several people have.
You could even work your own radiative transfer equation if you wished.
You don't want to. You want me to do that work and then you'll reject it summarily.
Well, I've given you the information. If you refuse to accept, that's your fault, not mine.
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the thing i really don't understand is why you feel the need to insult everybody who doesn't agree with you
i've pointed to where i believe the evidence lies in many posts, so everybody can check it for themselves and tell me where i am wrong.
Point to the evidence if you have any to show you are right, don't just shout a lot
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what is wrong in asking for real evidence before we spend trillions of dollars anyway?
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"i've pointed to links and described the reasons why i think MMGW is false"
And when you've been told why you're wrong, you refuse to either rebut the rebuttal or even read it.
Just because you ***think*** AGW is false, doesn't make you right.
Just because you've found links that say AGW is false doesn't make you or them right.
Even though they disagree with each other: one opinion piece you linked to said that H2O was a bigger factor, which cannot be true if your log scaling is correct, since H2O would have insignificant effect.
That they disagree with each other about WHY AGW is incorrect doesn't faze you, all you need is anything that says AGW is incorrect.
Again, prove me wrong with that log scale.
You have several contradictory opinions that cannot all be true and could all be wrong (since there are an infinite number of wrong answers, but the number of right answers are rather more restricted). And one is that graph you have.
BELIEF NUMBER 1:
Temperature sensitivity depends on the log of the concentration.
Which would indicate that the difference in temperature between each doubling of concentration would be the same.
BELIEF NUMBER 2:
That paper's graph is correct in its attribution of warming from increasing CO2 concentration.
Which has a different and reducing temperature change between each doubling of concentration.
Belief number 1 is inconsistent with number 2 and number 2 is inconsistent with number 1.
Yet you hold to both.
HOW????
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"That shows empirical proof that CO2 causes significant warming in the atmosphere and i promise i will go away and read it, come back with comments or admit defeat"
I did.
You even posted it yourself. A png that shows that temperatures were higher in the past and CO2 was higher with it.
If CO2 has minuscule effect beyond about 60ppm as you maintain, why the correlation?
You never went off, you never answered that query and you never shut up.
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re 252 the problem is what you define as "real evidence" can only be found by creating a new earth and fiddling with it.
We have no Slarty Bartfast available.
We have REAL evidence of CO2 being a greenhouse gas.
We have REAL evidence of warming.
We have REAL evidence that nothing else is changing enough to make that difference.
Now, can you please show any REAL EVIDENCE that any action to mitigate or reverse AGW will cost trillions? After all, Port Talbot reduced their operating costs 60% by changing their waste of energy so that their energy bill was 1/10th the original cost.
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And when you've been told why you're wrong, you refuse to either rebut the rebuttal or even read it.
I dont recall a link to a published paper. If I have missed your links, please accept my apology and repost the link
Just because you've found links that say AGW is false doesn't make you or them right
My links are to published papers
Even though they disagree with each other: one opinion piece you linked to said that H2O was a bigger factor, which cannot be true if your log scaling is correct, since H2O would have insignificant effect.
Water vapour has a larger absorption band than CO2 and responsible for around 95% of the global warming that we already have. The fact that water vapour also behaves logarithmically doesnt alter the fact that CO2 does. It just means something other than CO2 must be responsible for the warming
That graph does not show correlation, it shows 500 million years ago, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was 20 times higher than now and yet we didnt experience runaway global warming. What actually happened was we slipped into an ice age even though CO2 and temperature was much higher. So what caused the ice age? Whatever warming effect CO2 may have on the earth, it is clearly no match for whatever other climate changing forces are out there. Afterall one CO2 molecule is the same as the next, whether its source is man or natural
just post the links, please and i will take a look
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Meanwhile, back to what I said in #137...
If that (Allen et al's findings) is true; then we are not just struggling to slow down by putting the carbon brakes on but have a brick wall looming ahead.
I'm starting to see the sense in the idea that it could be an "...easier way for politicians ... to conceptualise ".
As manysummits said #235 "The brick wall concept has merit in that brick wall analogies appear to be more attention grabbing than the alternatives".
Apart from the prospect of it being fact rather than just "dressing"; I think I see possibilities in it for offering a more concrete way of presenting the issue.
Richard said "But ultimately, cutting carbon is still a matter of political will."
Given the analogies of...
"needing to cut back emission rate" being like "needing to diet" (how else do people view it?) and
"needing to cap total emissions" being like "driving towards a brick wall";
I know which I'd rather present to them.
All the best; davblo2
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well, I'll throw in my "two cents" worth of opinon at this point.
disclaimer: I've no scientic training (and probably not the brain for it either) and all the figures and calculations bandied about make my eyes glaze over.
however, scanning through the debate thus far I perceive:
1) yeah_whatever and CuckooToo are well-meaning but totally caught up in insignificant (in the final analysis) differences over details.
2) PAWB46 has a good brain and a grasp of detail but appears deliberately obtuse, unhelpful.
3) Burghermeister, davblo2, manysummits, simon_swede and others are trying to balance the debate but are largely drowned out.
4) little attention is given to other environmental changes wrought by industrial processes and policies (deforestation, acidification of the seas, etc). these large-scale changes *must* also impact on the atmospheric pollution calculations.
5) there's a lot of ego-stroking here. how does this help to address the issue of survival as a species?
finally, flame me if you must but the above are simply obervations.
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jr4412 #257: I'll second that.
#256 continued
Richard wrote...
"Even so, formulating an agreement that includes this uncertainty still looks difficult, because the target would constantly be shifting"
Uncertainty means the brick wall is shrouded in mist and we can't see it.
Even more scary (assuming you've driven in thick mist sometime).
That ought to add more weight to the cause rather than diminish it.
All the best; davblo2
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"1) yeah_whatever and CuckooToo are well-meaning but totally caught up in insignificant (in the final analysis) differences over details."
Uh, whether CO2 is affecting the temperature is kind of central.
Cuckoo Too misapplies science and rejects anything other than what he considers evidence.
Here's what I posted as to why he's misapplying his graph:
Here's what it means.
Take an empty box 1 unit cubed.
Put 100 things of CO2 in the box.
Concentration is now 100 units.
Now you could double that concentration by adding 100 more things of CO2. And the reduction would be 50% less transmission through the box.
200 / 1 = double the concentration.
OR you could squash the box so it's half as high.
100 / 0.5 = double the concentration.
So what does that mean?
Well, as I've said before, the depth of the atmosphere you have to go down to get the same extinction would halve if you double the concentration of CO2.
And that means that the radiation output of the atmosphere is much, much less.
Since reducing energy loss in a heated object warms it up, you get higher temperatures in the object.
Global Warming.
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"As manysummits said #235 "The brick wall concept has merit in that brick wall analogies appear to be more attention grabbing than the alternatives".
Apart from the prospect of it being fact rather than just "dressing"; I think I see possibilities in it for offering a more concrete way of presenting the issue."
Pun intended?
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re 255.
As were mine.
The IPCC reports:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Where you pooh-pooh them summarily, I've had to resort to writing them myself based on my knowledge of science.
Apparently you accept neither links nor explanation without links.
How open minded you are!
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"Water vapour has a larger absorption band than CO2 and responsible for around 95% of the global warming that we already have."
So the scale at which H2O reaches saturation occurs with 5% of the concentration.
So how can CO2 be limited when it hasn't reached even that of H2O when H2O isn't limited?
You are blind to your own inconsistencies since on recognising them you'd have one less reason against AGW. You cannot have that, even at the cost of your integrity.
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"They are in white on a blue background against a red arrow coming out of a greenhouse."
That is called "a powerpoint slide". It isn't meant to show great complexity. Do you think that the Politicians don't know what a powerpoint slide is? Do you think that they only read the powerpoint slide when there's an explanation with it saying what the slide does?
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yeah_whatever #259.
I implore you: read #257 in its entirety, re-read your #259, go to the kitchen and have a nice cuppa, cogitate. please!
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#260 Pun intended?
Yep I noticed that.
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jr4412 #257: I'll third davblo2's second (can one do that?) and add my own ha'penny too.
The problem I have with the constant "yes it is" / "no it isn't" exchange going on between a couple of people here is that it tends to keep on looping around without going anywhere (as far as I can tell) and meanwhile it seems to stifle attempts at other discussions.
After all this is an issue which people can engage in at multiple levels and from many different perspectives. Reading and engaging in a more wide-ranging discussion and debate strikes me as being much more exhilirating than the climate ping-pong being played out here (with apologies to any fans of real ping-pong who I may have just offended).
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simon-swede #266: I'll second that as well.
Just wait until this evening when they have even more time on their hands! Last night I didn't even dare try to break in.
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simon-swede #266.
thank you.
the problem as I see it that we are all driven into ever narrower specialisation with regard to our "field of expertise", and as a result, it becomes more difficult to see the larger picture. I know from experience how easy it is to become lost in debating a specific point, no one is immune from that, not seeing the forest for the trees is proverbial, no?
we all have to stand back at times and try and re-focus.
as for "..this is an issue which people can engage in at multiple levels and from many different perspectives", I think this is a must because (pompous words I know) survival of the species is at stake and we're running out of time.
davblo2 #258.
thanking you too, of course.
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jr4412 #264
I agree. I think he may be due for a nervous breakdown.
Me I just come back here occasionally to stir the pot a little with a few facts. Let's see, what have I done in between? Well I've had a pleasant run; I've mowed the grass in my arboretum; I've done a bit of chain-sawing (you know the Met Office let me down last winter - they said it was going to be mild, yet I reckon I burnt twice the amount of wood as normal) and I've done a bit of gardening. The sun's shining again, so now I've had a cuppa I'll go and do a bit more (the greenhouse - or shouldn't I mention that, and the polytunnel need a bit of attention). Toodle-pips and keep at it.
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PAWB46 #269.
thank you.
am not a little envious of you now, a garden with trees?
cool!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"the problem as I see it that we are all driven into ever narrower specialisation with regard to our "field of expertise", and as a result, it becomes more difficult to see the larger picture."
This presupposes that people other than yourself are too specialised.
Please explain how you attain that distinction.
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re 264. Just showing that Cuckoo Too statement that he'd read and either respond or admit he's wrong is incorrect on evidence before us.
I have no need for a cuppa and this stimulant would be counter-productive in any case.
PS given you admit that you don't understand, how do you know what's going on? Putting on a seeming of humility does not gel with your comments of superior observation.
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re 264, WHAT facts, PAWB46?
From your veryfirst post you have this:
"This and the related article "'Safe' climate means 'no to coal'" are yet more alarmism by the BBC based on nothing more than computer modelling"
Opinion is not fact.
"With the global temperatures falling whilst CO2 increases, there is no evidence to validate these computer models."
Weather is not climate, so no fact there, a lie instead.
"The dangerous climate change is more likely to result from the quiet sun and the cooling oceans."
Another opinion not fact.
And you never looked back.
No facts, opinion and at best half-truths.
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Post 271 had the references for about 30 papers all peer reviewed.
For some reason it is passed to the moderators. Likely heuristics think it spam since there is little english construction in a scientific citation.
If it refuses to appear, I'll post them separately.
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re 266, so should I let a lie sit as the last word?
You can see from Cuckoo Too's posting about his "paper" in post #242 that any failure not to counter a statement is taken as acceptance of that statement.
When he does that, there is no choice but to continue with the "no, you're wrong".
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Davblo2, Why are you obsessed with death and machine guns? Do you find the imagery compelling?
And what about that says that the science of AGW is wrong???
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yeah_whatever #272, #273.
ok, go on, pick on me..
"This presupposes that people other than yourself are too specialised."
the sentence you quote in support of this "observation" reads "..that we are all..", and therefore, includes myself.
"..given you admit that you don't understand, how do you know what's going on?"
I wrote that I have no scientific training, that does not mean I lack understanding. ;-)
"Putting on a seeming of humility does not gel with your comments of superior observation."
humility is not my strong point, as friends and family will readily attest, thank you though for acknowledging the quality of my observations.
"I have no need for a cuppa and this stimulant would be counter-productive in any case."
cool, in that case, ignore the kitchen and cuppa advice and concentrate on cogitation.
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davblo2 #277.
;-)
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Re: #278; "And what about that says that the science of AGW is wrong"
It doesn't. I didn't mean it to. I think we are on the same side, but you seem to take pot-shots at all and sundry regardless. Hence the gun analogy.
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"the sentence you quote in support of this "observation" reads "..that we are all..", and therefore, includes myself."
Now quote the whole thing.
You deem yourself able to see what others cannot.
Rather arrogant.
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@jr4412 #257
yeah_whatever and CuckooToo are well-meaning but totally caught up in insignificant (in the final analysis) differences over details
Perhaps.
You do have a point, but the way i see it, my understanding is adding more CO2 does not have a significant effect on global temperatures and therefore there is no need spend trillions of dollars to solve the problem or to curb emissions
(no hint of a flame there i hope)
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@yeah_whatever #259
Uh, whether CO2 is affecting the temperature is kind of central
Finally! Something we agree about!
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Further to #251.
Maybe cleaning up will create products that will create profit:
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22580/
I note you haven't shown why it will cost trillions still.
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re 283.
Yup, you're allowed your own opinion.
However, that opinion is not based on fact.
When an explanation of why you're applying the information wrong (and, in post 245 I gave an example of how applying a law incorrectly causes the wrong conclusion, no matter how well that law is calculated) you ignore it and pretend it never happened.
Then state it again some time later.
(note: there was no flame in that post 283, so rest assured on that score).
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yeah_whatever #282.
I'll do better than that, I re-post the whole paragraph, unedited!
"the problem as I see it that we are all driven into ever narrower specialisation with regard to our "field of expertise", and as a result, it becomes more difficult to see the larger picture. I know from experience how easy it is to become lost in debating a specific point, no one is immune from that, not seeing the forest for the trees is proverbial, no?"
now, what was that last bit, about arrogance?
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@yeah_whatever
#261
The IPCC do not write scientific reports, they write political reports. If you post a link to a published paper showing that adding more CO2 beyond current levels (or pre-industrial levels) has a significant effect on temperature then I will read it and comment.
@simon-swede #266
Believe it or not, I think you are right perhaps Richard should have a separate thread for us idiots that want to argue the science (although this thread started off with global warming, so we are not really astray). All I really want is for somebody to provide empirical proof that CO2 has the effect stated above.
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The quote I took was either:
1) You stating what you know to be the blindingly obvious
2) You don't believe that we can see it
3) Both
If it was only #1 then it's insulting the intelligence. If it includes #2 then you believe yourself of greater intellectual acuity.
And at the start of your homily:
"5) there's a lot of ego-stroking here. how does this help to address the issue of survival as a species?"
How do you tell the difference between ego stroking and truth?
CT has stated many times that temperature sensitivity to CO2 is logarithmic and has even kindly shown a list of figures that doesn't show a logarithmic sensitivity to CO2 and states this as proof of his assertion.
In what way is countering this arrant nonsense by pointing it out and proving it stroking my Ego?
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"The IPCC do not write scientific reports, they write political reports."
No, they write reports and publish real papers and then report on the result to politicians and the layman like yourself. You can see in the appendix of the IPCC report the references to the papers written that were the basis of the summary.
That is if you read them.
They are reports TO politicians, not political reports. Why do you insist on conflating the two?
"All I really want is for somebody to provide empirical proof that CO2 has the effect stated above."
Given several times before.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/technical-papers.htm
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/supporting-material.htm
(remember to look at the "References" section!!!)
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PS re 290.
Please show empirical proof that the increase of CO2 causes the change in temperature that you state it does.
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post #289 in which I thanked CuckooToo for his/her #283 has apparently been moderated out of existence.
so, to re-state, thank you CuckooToo.
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simon-swede #228: "I have the good fortune to have access to an on-line subscription to Nature via my institution."
Would you be able to help us by checking the source of the carbon burning data that Myers et al used, since you have access to the paper? If you could give us just the reference(s) then maybe we could search for the missing 150 Gt...
manysummits #209&235 "So I'm missing about 150 Gt of Carbon, a not insignificant amount. What database are the Myers group using for Carbon burning? I'd like to know, and I don't have the article either."
All the best; davblo2
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Let's get back to Cuckoo Too's graph.
What happens when CO2 concentration is 0ppm?
Hmmm.
It goes to infinity.
And BEYOND!!!
So when there is NO CO2, there is an infinite reduction in temperature.
Does this sound like it could EVER be right?
No. It cannot.
The problems are that the graph doesn't even show its workings. It just says "using the MODTRANS model..."
hang on!!! CT doesn't think a computer model is science!!! So he CAN'T believe that graph!!!
Ah, so many contradictions, no attempt at reconciling them.
But go to the man who wrote it:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/my-model-used-for-deception
He says that his model was abused and used in a way that it cannot be applied.
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re 296.
Maybe you didn't say "thank you, Cuckoo Too" that time.
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yeah_whatever #299.
you do have a good memory!
in response to #283, my original #289, addressed to CuckooToo, read "no, cool, thank you."
not, in essence, different from #296, do you concur?
if yes, why post #299, if not, please clarify.
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301 how about staying on topic?
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"how, and when, is the "..simple single column model of the earth's atmosphere.." (#231) and pertaining calculations affected by the fact that the composition of Earth's atmosphere is changing as a result of pollutants emitted?"
You do the same calculations again but with the changed composition.
This is what PAWB and Cuckoo Too avoid thinking about when they squeak "computer models aren't science". What it allows you to do is to run the simple equation with the changes in composition iterated around until there is a steady state equilibrium for that scientific equation. Then, having found that solution (which may only be possible to do numerically, rather than analytically), you can rerun for the atmosphere and put in the changes in composition for the atmosphere that would result from the change of status your last time step calculated.
That is a computer model: science written down as an equation and solved by computer.
Why some think this isn't science has not yet been unearthed.
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yeah_whatever #306.
your reply to the currently referred #304 exposes a significant flaw in (your?) thought, namely that "..do the same calculations again but with the changed composition."
I've said before, I haven't the scientific training but I do know that a changed composition (of, say, an atmosphere) will result in different reactive behaviour (basic chemistry, really).
so running the same calculations (ie. working from the same assumptions) is not likely to yield correct results.
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Yup, you don't know. (307).
What change in the composition of the atmosphere will cause a difference in reactivity? Reactivity of what?
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#308.
for example, water: pure water freezing point 0C, add salt freezing point lower. reacts (== behaves) differently. atmosphere bound to be the same, ie. add impurities/pollutants == different reaction.
however, v tiresome, too much "attitude" here of recent, bye.
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309.
OK what's adding salt to the what on a global or large-enough-to-be-seen-on-a-global-scale weather system?
How is this salt being thrown up into the air in the gigatons a year level being thrown up there?
You then move away from a specific again and into generalities. Stop it.
What impurities?
You aren't asking questions, you're trying to avoid answers. Like recently, there was a discussion about turning CO2 output from a power plant (for example) into carbon black. There is a huge market for carbon black and the current method relies on inefficient burning of methane, with the inefficiencies meaning that the heat cannot be usefully used to generate power as a byproduct.
And someone said that this was a bad idea because maybe the market for carbon black wasn't big enough to take all the carbon black being produced by this method if used universally.
For some reason they HAD to find a reason why it wouldn't work.
You're doing the same.
Why?
Ah, you're off before you have to answer questions.
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Curtesy of John McLean:
"The notion that human activity has an alarming influence on climate is based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and spurious claims about a scientific consensus. Independent scientists who question these claims are accused of being in the pay of the energy industry and of believing that the notion of man-made climate change is a conspiracy.
To the best of my knowledge, no climate conspiracy has ever existed. But another force has driven science into its present parlous state where the output of computer software is held in higher regard than observational data, where marketing spin is more important than fact and evidence, and where a trenchant defence of the notion of man-made global warming is seen as paramount. The single, pre-eminent force driving this distortion of science originates in the once-august UN.
For many years climate researchers have understood that their proposals will only be funded if they are pitched in line with government policy. Even worse, unless some aspect of their results appears to perpetuate government thinking, renewal of their funding is unlikely. Other climatologists are acutely aware of the potential consequences for their employers and their own employment prospects should they speak out in criticism of the dominant alarmist paradigm. Scientists who have criticised the hypothesis of human-caused climate change have had their funding curtailed or employment terminated.
Climate modellers have been very aware that their expensive and powerful computing facilities would be supported only if their research produced alarmist climate predictions. This notwithstanding, these models often produced results that were not in good agreement with historical data, perhaps because they poorly replicated or even omitted variations in climate.
These deficiencies and more have been papered over by reviving outdated and inaccurate research about the warming effect of carbon dioxide. The numbers still didnt add up but the inclusion of some positive feedbacks masked the problem, and the models were declared proof of a significant human influence on climate.
The peer-review process was originally a sanity check for the editors of scientific journals but has always been open to abuse by reviewers who wish to support or suppress a particular line of argument. The recent narrow focus of climate research funding has caused an outburst of scientific papers that support the IPCCs alarmist beliefs and relatively few papers that contradict it. Reviewers with vested interests suppress contradictory papers and support the official line.
Vested interests now dominate climate science. Whether climatologists, their employers and other people believe the government-approved line has become irrelevant, because they all wish to retain an income stream and whatever reputations theyve established. These people advise governments, which subsequently set policy and research funding regardless of any contradiction with observational data. Climate science is no longer an impartial truth but a slave to the yoke of politics and opportunism. If this continues, society will be the inevitable loser."
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PAWB, have you checked that John McLean isn't a scientist bought and paid for?
I note that nowhere is there any proof in that statement, just a lot of opinion.
Got anything SOLID?
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PS more evidence of the bipolar disorder:
"Independent scientists who question these claims are accused of being in the pay of the energy industry and of believing that the notion of man-made climate change is a conspiracy."
Yet right at the end:
"Vested interests now dominate climate science.... Climate science is no longer an impartial truth but a slave to the yoke of politics and opportunism. If this continues, society will be the inevitable loser."
Wow.
Complains about people saying that the nutjobs (see the link to Monkton's brainfart in #152!) are in the pay of big oil (who pays for Monkton's appearances at these conferences?) are conspiracy nuts.
Then jumps straight to a complex conspiracy theory of his own.
Classic.
ROFLMAO indeed!
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yeah_whatever:
Do you know any scientist that isn't "bought and paid for" - your words? There aren't many scientists these days who are amateurs; but there are a lot of retired scientists whose opinions are worth listening to. All tax-funded scientists have to tow the party line, other-wise no salary, no career, no research funding.
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yeah_whatever:
We all have opinions.
You have an opinion that a 40% increase in CO2 causes a ~1.1C rise in temperature. It's just an opinion of yours, because it is not based on any facts or evidence that you have.
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davblo2, # 297, asked:
Would you be able to help us by checking the source of the carbon burning data that Myers et al used, since you have access to the paper? If you could give us just the reference(s) then maybe we could search for the missing 150 Gt... manysummits #209&235 "So I'm missing about 150 Gt of Carbon, a not insignificant amount. What database are the Myers group using for Carbon burning? I'd like to know, and I don't have the article either."
I dont think you mean Myers et al, and have assumed that you mean a reference from one of the new Nature papers? (At the end of this note I also give the full references for the Nature articles.)
Well, I believe I have found the reference you mean, but I am not 100% certain.
Hope this helps!
Simon
----
Reference #40 in Allen et al (2009), which I hope is the reference you are seeking, is:
Marland, G., T.A. Boden, and R.J. Andres. 2008. Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
The link below is for Marland et al (1991) Period of Record 1751-2005:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview.html
This information can also be found at the following link:
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/GCMD_CDIAC_CO2_EMISS_MODERN.html
Marland et al (1991) note that:
Publications containing historical energy statistics make it possible to estimate fossil fuel CO2 emissions back to 1751. Etemad et al. (1991) published a summary compilation that tabulates coal, brown coal, peat, and crude oil production by nation and year. Footnotes in the Etemad et al.(1991) publication extend the energy statistics time series back to 1751. Summary compilations of fossil fuel trade were published by Mitchell (1983, 1992, 1993, 1995). Mitchell's work tabulates solid and liquid fuel imports and exports by nation and year. These pre-1950 production and trade data were digitized and CO2 emission calculations were made following the procedures discussed in Marland and Rotty (1984) and Boden et al. (1995). Further details on the contents and processing of the historical energy statistics are provided in Andres et al. (1999).
The 1950 to present CO2 emission estimates are derived primarily from energy statistics published by the United Nations (2006), using the methods of Marland and Rotty (1984). The energy statistics were compiled primarily from annual questionnaires distributed by the U.N. Statistical Office and supplemented by official national statistical publications. As stated in the introduction of the Statistical Yearbook, "in a few cases, official sources are supplemented by other sources and estimates, where these have been subjected to professional scrutiny and debate and are consistent with other independent sources." Data from the U.S. Department of Interior's Geological Survey (USGS 2007) were used to estimate CO2 emitted during cement production. Values for emissions from gas flaring were derived primarily from U.N. data but were supplemented with data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (1994), Rotty (1974), and data provided by G. Marland. Greater details about these methods are provided in Marland and Rotty (1984), Boden et al. (1995), and Andres et al. (1999).
References
Andres, R.J., D.J. Fielding, G. Marland, T.A. Boden, and N. Kumar. 1999. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel use, 1751-1950. Tellus 51B:759-65.
Boden, T.A., G. Marland, and R. J. Andres. 1995. Estimates of global, regional, and national annual CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning, hydraulic cement production, and gas flaring: 1950-1992. ORNL/CDIAC-90, NDP-30/R6. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Marland, G., and R.M. Rotty. 1984. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels: A procedure for estimation and results for 1950-82. Tellus 36(B):232-61.
Etemad, B., J. Luciani, P. Bairoch, and J.-C. Toutain. 1991. World Energy Production 1800-1985. Librarie DROZ, Switzerland.
Mitchell, B.R. 1983. International Historical Statistics: The Americas and Australasia 1750-1988. pgs. 522-525. Gale Research Company, Detroit, United States.
Mitchell, B.R. 1992. International Historical Statistics: Europe 1750-1988. pgs. 465-485. Stockton Press, New York, United States.
Mitchell, B.R. 1993. International Historical Statistics: The Americas 1750-1988. pgs. 405-414. Stockton Press, New York, United States.
Mitchell, B.R. 1995. International Historical Statistics: Africa, Asia and Oceania 1750-1988. pgs. 490-497. Stockton Press, New York, United States.
Rotty, R.M. 1974. First estimates of global flaring of natural gas. Atmospheric Environment 8:681-86.
United Nations. 2006. 2004 Energy Statistics Yearbook. United Nations Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Statistics Division, New York.
U.S. Department of Energy. 1994. International Energy Annual 1994. DOE/EIA-0219(91). Energy Information Administration, Office of Energy Markets and End Use, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Geological Survey. 2007. U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook-2004 U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia.
The full references for the two main Nature articles referred to in the blog are:
- Myles R. Allen, David J. Frame, Chris Huntingford, Chris D. Jones, Jason A. Lowe, Malte Meinshausen & Nicolai Meinshausen. 2009. Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne. Nature 458, 1163-1166 (30 April 2009)
doi:10.1038/nature08019
- Malte Meinshausen, Nicolai Meinshausen, William Hare, Sarah C. B. Raper, Katja Frieler, Reto Knutti, David J. Frame & Myles R. Allen. 2009. Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature 458, 1158-1162 (30 April 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08017
The following Commentary appeared in Nature Reports Climate Change and also may be of interest:
- Myles Allen, David Frame, Katja Frieler, William Hare, Chris Huntingford, Chris Jones, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Malte Meinshausen, Nicolai Meinshausen & Sarah Raper. 2009. The Exit Strategy. Nature Reports Climate Change. Published online: 30 April 2009 doi:10.1038/climate.2009.38
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@yeah_whatever
#292
thank you for the links - i will go away and re-read them
#293
Please show empirical proof that the increase of CO2 causes the change in temperature that you state it does
please refer to many previous answers / links
#298
do you recognise this quote from the article you linked to over at RealClimate?
...a change from 10 ppm to 20 would have about as much climate impact as a change from 1000 to 2000 ppm. So Archibald is right on this score, clearly climate is more sensitive to CO2 when levels are lower.
I've asked this question before, but i don't recall an answer, do you disagree with the guy who wrote the Modtran calculator on the University of Chicago's website.
RealClimate then go on to say:
Archibald's low-ball estimate of climate change comes not from the modtran model my server ran for him, but from his own low-ball value of the climate sensitivity.
, so you see, the only person that thinks Archibald has it wrong is you, and the argument boils down to climate sensitivity
do you agree: yes or no?
#306
as far as i can recall i have never said:
"computer models aren't science" in the context that you refer to.
What i have said is climate models are incapable of modelling something as complex as the atmosphere, a point recognised by the IPCC themselves. If I have given the impression that computers cannot give useful input to science, then I withdraw the comment - afterall an abacus is a computer. Of course computers are useful, but they are not empirical measurements and modern computers suffer from garbage in, garbage out.
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"as far as i can recall i have never said:
"computer models aren't science" in the context that you refer to."
Poor recall?
In the G20 thread you say that Beers Law was "real science" unlike a computer model.
And what proof do you have that computer models can't model something as complex as the atmosphere with 100% accuracy mean that it has no accuracy?
The Simple Harmonic Motion of a pendulum is based on an inaccurate premise: that the angle of the pendulum from vertical is proportional to the height the weight is lifted.
Oddly enough, we can still tell the time from a pendulum clock...
And if computers suffer from GIGO, that presupposes that you call what's been put in as Garbage.
Do you have any proof?
After all, a computer can be told to ad 2 and 2 together. If it comes up with 4, that means it is not garbage.
Prove that there are significant levels of garbage in the GCMs.
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And you say that there is LESS of a change at higher levels to doubling than at lower levels, therefore you claim incorrectly that a 40% increase in CO2 cannot be causing any significant warming.
YOU don't agree with that statement.
*I* have made that statement as has manysummits.
YOU have never said that you agreed to that. You say only that there is no way increasing CO2 can cause significant increase in temperatures and then used that graph to "prove" it despite the way you use that graph not showing a logarithmic relation between CO2 and temperature.
Do YOU agree that doubling the CO2 will cause significant temperature change?
YOU have not said so yet.
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re 317. the 1.1 is an approximation of the MINIMUM change possible that leads to an atmosphere that reacts to changes in the same way as the past record of temperatures react to the changes recorded for those times.
I've told you time and time again how you can do this and why telling you a link to prove it will be fruitless.
Well, prove to me that you can get away with a less than 1C change per 40% increase in CO2 and get a temperature response that agrees with the historical record over the last 600,000 years.
You could also read the IPCC reports and the papers they were reporting on to find out. You know where they are.
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yeah_whatever #322
The climate has always changed, all by itself. I don't have to prove that.
You conjecture that human emissions of CO2 have an effect that we must spend trillions to stop. You are therefore the person who has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that it is worth spending trillions to solve this alleged problem.
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YEs, and it changed due to CO2 being released from the oceans when a milankovich cycle caused SOME warming of the earth. That change in CO2 took 800 years to realise because the ocean had to warm enough deep enough to change its bulk ability to hod the CO2 it had dissolved into itself into a steady state.
But we are pumping out CO2 right now. No need to change the temperature of the seas to get it to release CO2 like last time.
And, like last time, the release of CO2 is causing global warming.
PS Please prove it will cost trillions to solve? Reducing energy use by removing wastage SAVES MONEY. Not buying a limited resource whose price is rising SAVES MONEY. Using your own resources rather than spending it on some foreighn country SAVES MONEY and INCREASES INDUSTRIAL WEALTH.
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yeah_whatever #324
More opinions of yours.
Look at the amount of our tax our government is proposing to spend on decarbonising the economy (ditto the USA, Canada, Australia ......). Billions have already been spent (wasted) on wind turbines and they have not had any significant effect on CO2 emissions (because of back-up etc). Millions wasted on bio-fuels with the predictable effect on food prices and poverty.
Gotta go and open my greenhouse window now (the sun is shining again and causing local warming) and watch the IR pouring out!
See ya later.
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yeah_whatever #324
I forgot to add that there is one thing I agree with you about. Saving money. That's why I source my own wood for fuel. That's why my house is double-glazed. That's why my loft has 30cm of insulation. That's why I cycle or run to the nearest shop or post box (the PO has gone here in the countryside - the government doesn't care about us country-bumpkins). That's why I have a greenhouse and polytunnel to grow as much food as possible. I don't think I've missed anything.
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Hi Simon Re: #318;
Thanks for taking the time and effort to give us that information.
I see you are correct. At #235 manysummits referred to Myers et al; but I guess that was a typo for Myles Allen. Glad you figured out what we really meant.
Hopefully manysummits can compare those sources with the data he has already. I'll try to take a look as well.
All the best; davblo2
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Nope, PAWB, facts.
The heat energy increase from the convergence of orbital cycles that cause the milankovich cycles is not enough to create the 2-5C temperature differences between ice age and interglacial.
Simple mathematical proof.
CO2 concentrations water can hold decreases with temperature.
Simple experiment that has been done.
CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (expressed as CO2 equivalent to account for the fact that methane is far more effective than CO2 per unit mass, so using mass would underestimate methan's contribution) causing 2-5C of warming per doubling makes up the difference.
Mathematical and statistical fact.
Nothing else changed enough to make up that difference.
Or can you give us your calculation that shows it can?
(note: just because you don't know these facts doesn't mean they are opinions).
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yeah_whatever:
You have a very blinkered idea of the physics of climate. "The heat energy increase from the convergence of orbital cycles that cause the milankovich cycles is not enough to create the 2-5C temperature differences between ice age and interglacial." So it's all "CO2 and other greenhouse gasses", which I presume includes water vapour. No stored heat effects, no albedo changes, no ocean current changes, no feedbacks, just the effect of a minute change in a not very significant GHG.
If only climate were as simple as you seem to believe.
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Yeah_whatever:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9652/logwarmingillustratedkn7.png
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Stop projecting, PAWB.
That explanation is correct.
And how do you get from
"The heat energy increase from the convergence of orbital cycles that cause the milankovich cycles is not enough to create the 2-5C temperature differences between ice age and interglacial."
to
"So it's all "CO2 and other greenhouse gasses""
???
When you quote, do you even read the quote you took???
Ice doesn't melt unless it is warmed first. Water vapour doesn't increase unless the air is warmed first. Unless there is more energy to store, the energy stores will be at an equilibrium. This is why your electric heating element doesn't melt: it gets hotter and then the rate of heat loss equals the rate of energy being pumped in. At that point, unless you increase or decrease the input or losses, the temperature of the element will stay the same.
So what can DRIVE the heating in the first place?
Increased insolation can. More solar energy changes the energy budget to a surplus. Decreasing it causes a deficit.
Adding a greenhouse gas can. More GG will retain more heat and lead to an energy budget surplus. Less GG will retain less heat and lead to an energy budget deficit.
Is your problem this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
or this:
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Argument_from_Incredulity
?
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PAWB46:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
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Logarithms explained for PAWB:
236. At 11:26am on 05 May 2009, davblo2 wrote:
PAWB42 #229 again "Thus any level of CO2 is safe "
Logarithmic doesn't imply vanishing...
It just means multiplying the cause gives addition to the effect.
Cause: 1, 10, 100, 1000
Effect: 0, 1, 2, 3
How can any level be safe?
+++++++++++
So how can doubling be ineffective? It is as effective now as it ever was.
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@yeah_whatever
#320
Poor recall?
In the G20 thread you say that Beers Law was "real science" unlike a computer model.
Im sorry, yeah_whatever, I have just checked the G20 thread and I cant see anywhere under my comments Beers Law was real science unlike a computer model. If I have, then I was wrong. I do, however, stand by my statement that computer climate models are not capable of modelling something as complex as the atmosphere.
And what proof do you have that computer models can't model something as complex as the atmosphere with 100% accuracy mean that it has no accuracy?
And if computers suffer from GIGO, that presupposes that you call what's been put in as Garbage.
Do you have any proof?
Weve gone over this so many times. The IPCC state the climate models have deficiencies, especially with clouds etc. If climate models are unable to model clouds, mostly made out of the most important
#321 / 322
Just answer my question is the statement by RealClimate about Archibald being correct, right or wrong? No lengthy essays please, just a simple yes / no will suffice and then we can move on to climate sensitivity.
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Post 529:
"Beers Law is a proven theory, not an unproven hypothesis"
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"Weve gone over this so many times. The IPCC state the climate models have deficiencies, especially with clouds etc. If climate models are unable to model clouds, mostly made out of"
And you've never yet shown that there is a significant change in the process that DEMANDS CO2 be ineffective.
Newton's Laws of Gravity are incorrect. They don't explain mercury's orbit correctly. Yet, despite this "Garbage in" we can hit a 50km target a billion miles away after a complex path involving a slingshot around several planets to pick up speed.
How does this "Garbage in" as you would describe it constitute "Garbage out"?
The results were accurate enough to get the probe to pass Enceladus. It was good enough to get a flyby of Nepture.
Go on, prove that the uncertainties are significant.
PS for people who think climate is so complex you seem damned sure of several things.
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"Archibald being correct, right or wrong? "
Wrong.
Archibald is wrong and you're wrong about Archibald being right. (If Archibald is the source of that graph you use to prove that CO2 has no effect).
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I see the climate ping-pong continues (or is it a re-run?).
Any chance, CuckooToo that you guys can follow-up on the second part of your comment #290? It would be a welcome respite...
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The problem simon is that CT demands his version of evidence.
A version of evidence he doesn't require from anyone or anything saying AGW doesn't exist.
It's rather like asking "All I want is a little peace! A little piece of Poland, a little piece of France...".
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To jr4412, davblo2... re: Trllion tonnes of Carbon;
I have the article, in color, in my binder. April 30/09 Nature. The editorial is also worth a read, and there is a three part special on the "Climate Crunch", which I will obtain today.
- Manysummits -
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Manysummits, #340
Glad you go it. Nice articles.
The reference I found (see #318) is number 40 in the paper from Allen et al. However, I should perhaps have mentioned that this reference is found in the supplementary data for the paper, not in the main article. The good news is that reference 40 is freely available at links given in my note.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Further to my posting at #318 and #341
The link to the actual 1751-2006 data set can be found at:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.html
Here also is a summary in which it is stated that:
Since 1751 approximately 329 billion tons of carbon have been released to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production. Half of these emissions have occurred since the mid 1970s. The 2006 global fossil-fuel carbon emission estimate, 8230 million metric tons of carbon, represents an all-time high and a 3.2% increase from 2005.
Globally, liquid and solid fuels accounted for 76.6% of the emissions from fossil-fuel burning and cement production in 2006. Combustion of gas fuels (e.g., natural gas) accounted for 18.5% (1521 million metric tons of carbon) of the total emissions from fossil fuels in 2006 and reflects a gradually increasing global utilization of natural gas. Emissions from cement production (348 million metric tons of carbon in 2006) have more than doubled since the mid 1970s and now represent 4.2% of global CO2 releases from fossil-fuel burning and cement production. Gas flaring, which accounted for roughly 2% of global emissions during the 1970s, now accounts for less than 1% of global fossil-fuel releases.
Reference
Boden, T.A., G. Marland, and R.J. Andres. 2009. Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
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"Gas flaring, which accounted for roughly 2% of global emissions during the 1970s, now accounts for less than 1% of global fossil-fuel releases."
Is that because they are using that gas rather than flaring or because they're mostly continuing exploitation of already utilised fields, so the gas is already gone?
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@yeah_whatever
#335
Post 529: "Beers Law is a proven theory, not an unproven hypothesis"
Nowhere in that post do I state Beers Law was "real science" unlike a computer model
I think you are reading into my statements, things that are clearly not there
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@yeah_whatever
#336 / 337
You make unsubstantiated claims without backing them up and forget the burden of proof is on alarmists not sceptics
Instead of stating Archibald is wrong, provide a link to a paper that shows why he is wrong
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re 346.
The scientists HAVE given proof.
You need to prove your rebuttal.
Archibald is wrong and you even gave the reason why yourself: GIGO. He used MODTRANS and used garbage figures and got garbage out.
Read the RC link to the person who wrote the code.
Meanwhile, YOU need to prove YOUR statements.
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A link to the basic science proving what I said in 336/337 et al can be found here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
Much simpler than cut n paste of 30 weblinks.
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@yeah_whatever
#339
The problem simon is that CT demands his version of evidence.
A version of evidence he doesn't require from anyone or anything saying AGW doesn't exist.
No, i've asked for any evidence that clearly proves CO2 produces significant warming. Nothing else matters.
Give a link directly to the evidence that shows CO2 causes a significant amount of warming - not an essay on how i'm wrong and your right
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Here's an explanation of what Cuckoo Too PAWB and so on are doing:
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/04/manufactroversy/
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@simon-swede
#338
you are of course correct about the ping pong - i sometimes think it would be easier to have all the responses written down, so we could each give a number instead of an answer, a bit like the old joke ;)
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PS re 346, you say:
"Instead of stating Archibald is wrong, provide a link to a paper that shows why he is wrong"
Yet in 334 tour demand was:
"Just answer my question is the statement by RealClimate about Archibald being correct, right or wrong? No lengthy essays please, just a simple yes / no will suffice and then we can move on to climate sensitivity."
Given that "Was he right or wrong?" cannot be answered by a yes or a no, I plumped for "Wrong".
Still a one word answer as your demand in 334 stated.
Yet when I answer as you required, I should have NOT used a simple answer like "yes" or "no".
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@yeah_whatever
#350
how is asking for empirical proof "manufacturing controversy"?
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"No, i've asked for any evidence that clearly proves CO2 produces significant warming. Nothing else matters."
And that evidence is in the IPCC papers.
Climate scientists whose job is to work out what the effect of CO2 on climate change have proven it. You can even download your own SCUM to play with.
And those proofs show that the past climate change can only be explained with a sensitivity of 2-5 C per doubling of CO2.
Read the papers.
Here are a few:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/213/4511/957
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1980/JC085iC10p05529.shtml
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/04/target-co2
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/the-certainty-of-uncertainty
Now you prove it is less than 2C per doubling.
There are a LOT more numbers for sensitivity above 2C per doubling than below 2C per doubling, so you need to show why it is so low.
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Yeah_whatever #344 asks:
"Gas flaring, which accounted for roughly 2% of global emissions during the 1970s, now accounts for less than 1% of global fossil-fuel releases." Is that because they are using that gas rather than flaring or because they're mostly continuing exploitation of already utilised fields, so the gas is already gone?
The short answer is I dont know in detail. A slightly longer answer is that there are a variety of reasons for the apparent reductions, including active measures to reduce flaring from some fields. The main proactive counter-measures are re-injection, gas-to-pipeline, gas-to-power, LNG, and GTL. However, in practice, these opportunities have not yet been pursued systematically in all oil producing countries. The extent to which measures to reduce flaring and venting are applied in practice varies greatly from country-to-country, field-to-field, and operator to operator.
The summary given in my note at #343 gives simply gives percentages of gas flaring as part of total fossil-fuel related carbon emissions. So a reduced percentage of the total doesnt necessarily indicate reduced amounts of emissions from flaring. However, in fact, there is also a reduction in flaring in absolute terms compared with the 1970s.
The data accessed via the link found in #343 shows that during the 1970s flaring ranged from a low of 87 million metric tonnes of carbon in 1970 to a high of 110 million metric tonnes in 1973. The average annual emission from gas flaring over the decade was a bit under 100 million metric tonnes carbon (99.4). In the last 10 years for which figures are given the range is from a low of 37 million metric tonnes of carbon in 1998 and 1999, and a high of 59 million metric tonnes of carbon in 2005 and 2006. The average over this 10 year period is just over 43 million metric tonnes of carbon per year (43.2). However gas flaring emissions have stayed the same or increased each year from 2001 onwards, from 46 to 59 million metric tonnes of carbon.
A recent World Bank fact sheet groups major gas flaring countries as follows:
Decreasers: Sixteen countries (or areas) exhibited a downward trend in gas flaring from 1995 to 2006, including Algeria, Argentina, Bolivia, Cameroon, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria, North Sea, Norway, Peru, Syria, UAE and USA (offshore).
Algeria, Libya and Syria had decreases greater than 2 BCM (BCM = billion cubic metres) since 1995.
Increasers: Twenty-two countries have an upward trend in gas flaring over the time series. This includes Azerbaijan, Chad, China, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Myanmar, Oman, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
The three countries with the largest increases are Russia (excluding Khanty-Mansiysk region) with a gain of 10 BCM, Kazakhstan (+5 BCM) and Iraq (+4 BCM).
Stable Flaring: Nine countries had largely stable gas flaring across the time series. In some cases there were ups and downs but no obvious trend. This includes Australia, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Khanty-Mansiysk (region in Russian Federation), Romania, and Trinidad.
Peak-In-The-Middle: Thirteen countries had peaks in gas flaring between the end points of the time series but nearly the same quantity of gas flaring in recent years as in the mid-1990. This includes Angola, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Colombia, Congo, Cote dIvoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Irish Sea (UK), Mexico, Tunisia, Venezuela and Vietnam.
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If you want just one link:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006.../2005GL025259.shtml
Title:
Using multiple observationally-based constraints to estimate climate sensitivity
J. D. Annan
Frontier Research Center for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Japan
J. C. Hargreaves
Frontier Research Center for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Japan
"Climate sensitivity has been subjectively estimated to be likely to lie in the range of 1.54.5°C, and this uncertainty contributes a substantial part of the total uncertainty in climate change projections over the coming century. Objective observationally-based estimates have so far failed to improve on this upper bound, with many estimates even suggesting a significant probability of climate sensitivity exceeding 6°C. In this paper, we show how it is possible to greatly reduce this uncertainty by using Bayes' Theorem to combine several independent lines of evidence. Based on some conservative assumptions regarding the value of independent estimates, we conclude that climate sensitivity is very unlikely (less than 5% probability) to exceed 4.5°C. We cannot assign a significant probability to climate sensitivity exceeding 6°C without making what appear to be wholly unrealistic exaggerations about the uncertainties involved. This represents a significant lowering of the previously-estimated bound."
And note: uses observations.
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By rejecting any proof offered.
By using a minority report as true with no verification of its veracity. By saying "these people say it's wrong, therefore it's wrong".
Read the link. It does answer your query.
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@yeah_whatever
thank you
i will read the links and papers
speak to you in a few days probably!
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CuckooToo, # 351
;-)
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One thing many Americans dont realize is how important domestic energy is to our countrys economic recovery and overall security. Currently, half of our electricity comes from coalwhich happens to be our most abundant fuel resource.
In fact, we recently kicked off the Americas Power Factuality Toura country-wide road trip in search of the people, places and technologies involved in producing cleaner, domestic electricity from coal.
We started in Wright, Wyo., at the Powder River Basin, which produces more coal than any other site in the U.S. Take the tour for yourself and see our most abundant domestic fuel at work. factuality.org
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Re 360 and how pssed off at china is America because china's coal burning is creating problems in the US (who are downwind)?
Coal is great as long as someone upwind isn't using it...
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To davbl2#327; simon-swede#s 318 & 341:
Thanks all - yes, that's the same database I am using - so we are still short approximately 150 Gt Carbon. I've looked at the Myles Allen article I now have (Nature April 2009 - "Warming caused.. trillionth tonne") I have nor dissected it yet, but I cannot find a meaningful accounting or reference for the half-triilion already burned. We may have to write the lead author.
They may be doing 'equivalent' accounting - adding deforestation, methane and other greenhouse gas amounts and adding all as Carbon equivalents???
To PAWB46 and yeah_whatever - and to All:
I think I have a breakthrough to announce! I think I've figured out why we are having such difficulty agreeing.
Yeah_whatever, you asked me a while back if I was sure PAWB46 was a physicist. At one time a long blog ago I thought maybe PAWB46 was in the employ of Big Oil.
I don't think that anymore. Let me spell things out:
1) As far as I can ascertain, PAWB46 is 63 or 64 years old, and a retired nuclear physicist, either theoretical or experimental.
2) PAWB46 - you once told me that you could care less about 'convergent lines of evidence'.
3) You have always had a problem with the robustness of the physics as per clinate science and especially models. Whe I pointed out that so did James Hansen, who considers models, including his own, the weakest part of his belief system, if I may put it that way, you were unimpressed! Why - because I was just stating what is to you obvious:
That the physics is weak.
Would that be an accurate statement?
Listening to you and yeah_whatever, and to a lesser extent, Burghermeister and others bandy physics back and forth, in what simon-swede has called 'ping-pong', I was all of a sudden struck by that great spirit we call "flash of insight'. I was trying to put myself in the shoes of the physicists/engineers on board here, and in reviewing my collected peer-reviewed articles - I suddenly felt like I had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
For example, James Hansen had stated to Bill McKibben, as reported in "A Burden Beyond Bearing" in the April 30 Nature, pgs 1091-1094, that "true climate sensitivity is 6 deg C", not 2.6 or 2.8 as used in respectively, his GISS model and Myles Allen's "Trillionth Tonnes" article.
Here's the insight - we are speaking two different languages. It's why you don't like the greenhouse analogy PAWB46 - it's a proxy - not the real thing. You are a hard science man - Yes?
All us soft scientists, geologist, paleoclimatologists, observational field men and women, if we don't have a robust model that has robust physics - we're out to lunch, as far as you are concerned - especially if we wantto spend vast quantities of your money when the physics is weak!
Bingo!
Two languages - I value convergent lines of evidence for the very reason you are blogging - the physics is weak! I need another path to the truth, all of us soft scientists do. But you don't buy it - to you we are lacking a robust quantitatve model, and if you can't model it with good physics - you're dead in the water.
It's why you admire Freeman Dyson - he thinks similarly.
Ok - what to do?????
1) Tell me if I have hit the nail on the head, number one.
2) Are you willing to study historical geology in depth, from the Hadean to the present - everything, from the evolution of the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere, through bolide impactors and possible cyclicity ther, through paleontology and glaciology - etc..., and to end up, like we soft scientists, having to use convergent lines of evidence because that's the only way to the truth????
Are you willing to do that, or are you too set in your ways - you owe us an honest answer - and I'm sure you will give it to us.
I feel so much better - signatures in the stratosphere etc...
OK, for the physicists - go for it, but in the meantime we all have decisions to make, and the convergent lines of evidence from empirical temperature records in the oceans and atmosphere, the proxy records from the ice cores and deep ocean mud cores, the dendrochronology, the varves, the O16/O18, C12/13/14, etc etc..., the mass extinction record, flood basalt provinces (big thought - the Allen article suggests it's the total amountthat may be most important, not the rate - that's always been a problem with flood basalt/greenhouse mass extinction correlations), Man I could go on for pages - well:
Enough for now - awaiting replies.
- Manysummits - it's spring here, and the leaves are just about to leap out - Calgary -
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To PAWB46:
Two analogies (I know - horrible analogies), but bear with me please, and a new acronym for your trouble:
1) Wellsite field geologist - me!
It's thirty below in the middle of January, in the middle of Saskatchewan, and the wind is blowing too hard again. We're on a drilling rig, a double. I'm standing outside on the deck with the driller, he's squeaking the handle, and we're control drilling the interval, because we're nearing a possible heavy oil zone 700 meters below.
The penetration rate is about four minutes per meter, we've got ten decs on the bit, RPM 80. I've had the derrickman set the strokes on the pump, and we've double checked the lag time from bit to surface empirically against the theoretical calculation. I'm using the empirically solid lag time.
Ok, the bit is bouncing a little, I ask the driller what he thinks, we discuss it. Bang! The bit takes off - the driller asks if I want to slow the penetration rate - NO! Hold the weight as steady as you can. One, two three, four, five , six, seven meters at 20 to 30 secs per meter - the bit starts bouncing again, then slows to five minutes per meter. Lag tome is maybe fifteen minute. I head down the stairs onto the shale shaker, where the warm drilling mud and the cuttings are flowing over the screen into the sump. Nothing special, just shale and bits of limestone. Lag time later- Bang! the smell hits you first - crude oil - then the shaker screen turns all irridescent under the floodlight - I put my hands right into the warm mud and heavy oil, the flow continues for the requisite time at full oil intensity, then starts to taper off.
Man - we've got an oil-well - no need to even log this sucker (but we will - for the record an for future exploration). The engineer is on deck now - he says - "Should I order casing?" "You bet", I say.
I phone the oil company geologist, and tell him the news if it's not a land sale well. We haven't even logged her yet. Schlumberger arrives after the well is TD'ed and there she she is, seven meters of high quality reservoir!
No physics PAWB46 - but the truth is the truth - and everyone is happy.
Convergent lines of evidence.
2) Mountaineer assesing an avalanche slope, Candian Rockies - notorious for treacherous snow pack:
This one is big, dangerous - the conditions are average though - rating today - moderate. But the angle is steep, 35 degrees, and there are gullies and trees below. Very bad runnout - if it does avalanche, all the tranceivers in the world and the fastest shovels on earth in your companions hands aren't going to get you out of a deep burial in that gully, that is if you're not killed hitting a tree first.
Thinking! Anyone who thinks he understands the physics of snow and ice is literally a 'dead man walking'. No point in a snow pit - no point to it at all.
Up high, a hard wind feature at the top of the slope - and we can get up there without exposing ourselves to danger, but it will take a good half hour, but there's a safe way down too on the other side. Our packs are heavy - lot of work! The hazard rating is tempting, it is only 'moderate.'
We climb, using the tried and true route finding gambit to circumvent the danger - only fools play Russian roulette.
Another path to the truth - the physics is weak.
OK - my new acronym for ALL:
ECS is DNL
Earth's Climate System is Drastically Non-Linear
That's what it is I think - the climate is supersensitive, and no, the models do not include them - you have to find them with soft science - with Convergent Lines of Evidence
- Manysummits, Calgary - going to play with my son -
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To PAWB46:
I forgot a convergent line of evidence on the 'driling rig' above. When I put my hands into the oil show, I scooped up representative samples of the snad that is the actual reservoir. Under A zomm 0.7 to 40 power microscope, we have mostly fine grained, well rounded sand - no visible glauconite, and it is as clean as a whistle 0- if you hadn't been on the shale shaker, looking with your own eyes, if you hadn't taken the trouble to count the entire supply of joints of drilling pipe on site before you began drilling, and the count whats, left once you hot pay dirst, you wouldn't be quite as certain of your depth below the Kelly Bushing, but you've done all this, and more, because you're a field man, and getting it right is what you do for a living.
- Manysu=mmits -
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"Hey, does anybody know a great communicator, who might level with the public, explain what is needed to break our addiction to fossil fuels, to gain energy independence, to assure a future for young people? Who would explain what is really needed, rather than hide behind future "goals" and a gimmick "cap"? Naw. Roosevelt and Churchill are dead. So is Kennedy."
- Jim Hansen
see: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ (May 5/09 - "Worshipping the Temple of Doom"
You know, I think 'yeah_whatever' is starting to get to me. Maybe he is on the right track.
To the skeptics:
Exactly what part of the 'GRACE' satellite empirical data do you not get?
The loss of 150 cubic kilometers of ice per year and increasing - what part of that is subject to debate - exactly?
What part of the instrumental temperature record do you not comprehend? I'll help you if I can - but you have to help me - what part, exactly, do you disagree with.
The pre-industrial carbon dioxide level, ~ 275/280 ppmv - where exactly do you see a problem. You think perhaps that Richard Alley, member of the US National Academy of Sciences is dumb?? Exactly how dumb? What do you think he has missed in his dumbness - rocket scientists you claim to be - exactly what?
Remember high school? Can you use a pH strip? What part of a thirty to forty percent reduction in ocean pH are you not worried about. Maybe the science is flawed - maybe there are idiots on board those ships - tell us exactly which and how many of the scientists and academies of science are the idiots?? Would You???
The world's mountain glaciers are all melting - there are reports from the field, by Lonnie Thompson and others on his team, (Lonnie also happens to be a member of the US National Academy of Sciences), continuous reports over the last thirty plus years, eyewitness reports, ice-cores, samples, photograpphs, publications in the science journals, what part exactly of those eye-witness reports do you disagree with?
The collapsing ice-shelves in the Antarctic - what exactly do you think is causing this - too many seabirds nesting perhaps - maybe a heavy boot from one of the visiting scientists? Exactly what do you think????
Question? Can you think - and exactly how do you accomplish this with a total disregard of empirical evidence? Do you need a dictionary? Look up empirical - maybe on Wikipedia? Maybe you don't know what I am saying?
Should I try another language? Exactly which language??
_ Manysummits - miffed in Calgary -
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@Manysummits
For arguments sake, lets assume everything you list is correct.
Everything you list is an effect of global warming, but these effects do not tell us the cause of global warming, i.e. not empirical evidence.
What language should you try? How about hard science?
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@manysummits
please go back and read my comment here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/04/the_scientists_behind_this_wee.html#P79512442
and then answer it
ok, i'm going back to my reading exercise set by yeah_whatever :)
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manysummits #362
Close but not too close.
Some problems with the physics, but mostly happy with it. The physics is not weak. Unfortunately, too many of the people in climate science are not physicists and use the phyics incorrectly. There seem to ba a lot of mathematicians, computer scientists, environmentalists who are 'climate scientists' but who do not understand the physics driving the climate. Ignoring the geological, long term effects, the climate is driven by energy and other effects from the sun, heat and mass transfer on earth, the earth's rotation etc etc, which to my thinking are all physics.
Not happy with the computer models; in my humble opinion they are pretty close to worthless. Reasons: they are incomplete and full of (arbitrary) assumptions; they are too course; they have not been documented, verified or validated (as far as I can tell); there is no QA; despite "the science is settled" (a phrase I hate), there are probably too many unknown unknowns as well as known unknowns.
To me evidence is also key. I must have given the wrong impression somewhere along the line. Physics is based on evidence. I do not trust a lot of the climate evidence that is presented. Who knows which global temperature dataset to trust, or which proxy reconstruction to trust? Same for CO2 concentration; which to trust?
With so many uncertainties, I am surprised that people who are sceptical of 'climate science' are dismissed as 'deniers'. I am sceptical of all the projections of 'tipping points' and 'dangerous climate change' and all other other ridiculous phrases that are thrown at us. I am certain of climate change. I just don't know which way it will go next - warmer or colder.
What I do believe is that a couple of degrees warming is better than a couple of degrees of cooling.
I don't mind analogies as long as they are reasonable. But to fool the general public into thinking that the atmosphere is like a greenhouse is just unacceptable.
I can't agree with your statement that the climate is supersensitive. It is basically stable and self-regulating on a 'short' timescale (within say the Holocene).
As far as a good communicator is concerned, there are none around these days. Richard P Feynman was the last of them and would have been ideal, but alas.....
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re 336:
The empirical evidence for CO2 warming global temperatures is in the absolute evidential FACT that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
That gas retains EM energy output from the cooler earth preferentially from the hotter sun input energy, creating an energy imbalance.
And, as the laws of thermodynamics tells us, an energy imbalance will cause a temperature change.
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PAWB46 in post 368 you state:
"Unfortunately, too many of the people in climate science are not physicists and use the phyics incorrectly."
Yet fail to say what the correct way to use it is nor where the incorrect usage is displayed.
You state:
"Ignoring the geological, long term effects, the climate is driven by energy and other effects from the sun, heat and mass transfer on earth"
Apart from the mass transfer (how does moving mass around cause the earth to heat up in any significant form? You already said you ignored geology, so mantle convection and geothermal cannot be the answer) this is what AGW is using correctly to determine the effect of anthropogenic sources of CO2 on the global climate.
CO2 doesn't create warmth, it only restricts its flow. Where does that flow come from? The sun and the earth.
Which is what you said there. IPCC already does what you say it should do. Where's the beef?
"To me evidence is also key.... Physics is based on evidence. I do not trust a lot of the climate evidence that is presented."
So you only believe evidence but don't believe any evidence.
How does this work?
This is not skepticism, this is ignorance.
Then you opine: "But to fool the general public into thinking that the atmosphere is like a greenhouse is just unacceptable."
Why?
You still have not said why, just stated it. Anyone who says it's good you don't explain you just say "I have no hope for you". That is not explanation. Evidence comes from the latin for "that which is seen". We have seen no explanation of why the greenhouse is a bad analogy.
Then you spout:
"I can't agree with your statement that the climate is supersensitive. It is basically stable and self-regulating on a 'short' timescale (within say the Holocene)."
It is basically not stable. The flip from ice age to warm interglacial can be a mere 2 degrees Celsius and rarely as much as 6 degrees Celsius. From one we have little ice all at the poles and at the other, we have ice covering most of the planet.
6 degrees at most out of nearly 300.
Sounds pretty sensitive to me.
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In reply to manysummits 365 post, what they don't get is that AGW is real.
Anything that says so is inconceivable and therefore wrong. They don't know why, so it must be something subtle and therefore missed.
They have the science the wrong way round.
Science:
Observation -> Hypothesis -> Evidence -> Theory
Deniers:
Theory -> Observation -> ??? -> Profit!
Any observation not concordant with that theory is either ignored (like when denialists say that the IPCC hide any of the problems with their theories yet here we have had CT use an IPCC report saying where they have uncertainties to "prove" that the science is completely unknown. They are mutually exclusive. Yet we see plenty of observational evidence that this is not apparently a problem for some) or labelled "wrong" with no evidence of why they know it to be wrong.
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To CuckooToo #366 and 367:
"What language should you try? How about hard science?"
- CuckooToo
Ok, thanks for your reply. I'm at least finally on the right track I think, from what you have just asked and according to PAWB46.
You want hard science to prove AGW - n'est pas?
As I tried to explain in my comments to PAWB46, and it appears they apply equally to yourself, soft science (me and most earth scientists and life scientists), has a different approach to the truth.
It might be worth while reading the late Stephen Jay Gould's books "Wonderful Life" and "Full House", if you are willing to learn the approach of soft science as opposed to hard science.
Hard science isn't that hard you know, you guys are laboring under a false assumption there. Mathematics is an invention, and the "laws of physics" are just inventions, convenient and very useful at times, like the Bible. All are inventions of man, including the Bible.
The Earth's history is a one time thing, in no real sense repeatable, or even amenable to modelling. Models are just one person's way of trying to understand better, and they are useful, at times, in this regard. They are just tools, like my geological hammer.
To PAWB46 and CuckooToo:
I see PAWB46 that you have not answered my central question - are you and CuckooToo willing to put in the time and effort to think like soft scientists, like natural historians? If you are, I predict you will inevitably be led to convergent line of evidence thinking in trying to understand - you know we're just not that smart - and nobody understands the why - which is at the heart of physics and hard science I think.
You are one invention removed from the truth if you go hard science, in my humble opinion.
Maurice Ewing, the founder of Lamont Doherty, was trained a physicist, but he soon saw the light, if I may be allowed a little humor, and turned to Earth Science, and spent his days throwing explosive charges off ships to gain empirical information.. His quest and methods gave us plate tectonics and continental drift - not his physics. You understand please I am not really disregarding the physics - seismic has a lot of physics in it - but don't delude yourself even there. What you get is really a bunch of reflective surfaces which require explaining, and eventually you need to get your hands dirty to prove it - physics never does. It's a follow up - to make you feel like you understand quantitatively - which may or may not be true.
Truly knowledge comes only from the contemplation of nature - a one time non-repeatable experiment.
I'd still like to know if you and PAWB46 are going to study historical geology in detail - maybe a reading course at a university - it will be a revelation I assure you.
- Manysummits -
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PAWB #368 - whilst it won't make any difference, I can hardly let the numerous assertions in your post go unchallenged.
In what way do climatologists and others not understand the physics affecting the climate? If you read any of the reports and papers behind the reports, you can see that they do indeed use and understand the physics well enough. I'm sure there has been the occaisional mistake, but I can't think of any off the top of my head, and certainly there are no mistakes big enough to topple the edifice you so dislike.
As for the computer models, you are wrong, and show the usual misunderstandings of them. The computer models are based on the physics, which you have already stated that you agree with. They are not perfectly accurate, but it is impossible for them to be so.
As for evidennce, again, we have exhaustively presented you and the others with the evidence. That you refuse to believe it is your problem, but meanwhile the scientists work on without you.
Deniers are called deniers because they abandon the scientific method and use non-science (eg Monckton, G&T and others). There are still some scientists fighting AGW by using scientific methods, but they are fighting a rearguard action and their position is weaker every year.
Finally, a short timescale being the Holocene shows a startling lack of concern for the simple fact that within that Holocene humans have built massive infrastructure, destroyed mountains, multiplied a thousandfold and generally changed everything to suit living in quite a narrow climate band with associated agriculture, water, sea levels, weather etc.
Furthermore it is a tribute to the science which is being carried out that we can judge how sensitive the climate is on a year by year basis, showing just how much variation occurs on such a small scale. By all means think o