A comment from Tel late last year was so surgically cutting, it’s worthy of it’s own post. Un-Skeptical Science was trying to explain why climate sensitivity is high. The post includes formula’s and fancy graphs, and looks authoritative — yet underlying everything are errors of reasoning that nullify all the points that rest upon them. Things like assumptions about linearity (which means more or less, they make the mistake of assuming that all forcings and feedbacks operate at similar ratios and strengths when the planet is an iceball as they do when Earth hits a rare warm phase). An unmeasureable variable is the telltale signature of a fudge-factor. It is what you make of it. Fits better in a course analyzing postmodernistic intertexuality of Swahili neo-linguists.
Guest Post by Tel
This “Skeptical Science” post is an excellent choice to show how little credibility there is in the whole feedback house of cards:
It’s important to note that the surface temperature change is proportional to the sensitivity and radiative forcing (in W m-2), regardless of the source of the energy imbalance. The climate sensitivity to different radiative forcings differs depending on the efficacy of the forcing, but the climate is not significantly more sensitive to other radiative forcings besides greenhouse gases.
So sensitivity is all the same regardless of the forcing, but at the same time, it might be different thanks to an “efficacy” which means whatever you want it to mean, in order for everything to have the same sensitivity. Hmmmm, right I think I’ve got it. So what are the units of “efficacy”? Oh, it doesn’t have any units, it is unitless because all factors are scaled relative to CO2 forcing… except we have some of those forcings being solar radiation, others being a gas, and others as particulate matter. What sort of unitless scaling factor can relate particulate counts to solar radiation? Why, CO2 of course! Is that the LOG of CO2 vs the LOG of solar radiation (presumably giving an answer in decibels)? Maybe it is the small signal gain based on the first derivative about some arbitrary operating point? Who knows, who cares, just blurt some numbers on the table, no one is about to check any of this.
In other words, if you argue that the Earth has a low climate sensitivity to CO2, you are also arguing for a low climate sensitivity to other influences such as solar irradiance, orbital changes, and volcanic emissions.
Unless you happen to argue for different “efficacy” factors, in which case you get any result you feel like getting.
In fact, as shown in Figure 1, the climate is less sensitive to changes in solar activity than greenhouse gases.
So some forcings are more equal than others, makes sense. Solidarnosk comrade, we will outlast them.
Thus when arguing for low climate sensitivity, it becomes difficult to explain past climate changes. For example, between glacial and interglacial periods, the planet’s average temperature changes on the order of 6°C (more like 8-10°C in the Antarctic). If the climate sensitivity is low, for example due to increasing low-lying cloud cover reflecting more sunlight as a response to global warming, then how can these large past climate changes be explained?
Well, the easiest way to explain it would be that the system is nonlinear so there’s no reason to presume sensitivity is the same as it was during the last glaciation. But with all of these excellent “efficacy” fudge factors (all of which probably are also nonlinear) we could comfortably explain anything at all. Really. So let’s go over those units again 
People write learned papers about this $#!+ such as the following:
We use a global climate model to compare the effectiveness of many climate forcing agents for producing climate change. We find a substantial range in the “efficacy” of different forcings, where the efficacy is the global temperature response per unit forcing relative to the response to CO2 forcing.
You heard it, “per unit of forcing”. Under the IPCC system of units, forcing is a fundamental unit and well established property of all matter (a bit like mass, but only special people can measure it). The units of forcing are CO2’s. By gum, what I can’t understand is why I ever sat through high school science.
That would surely be more entertaining than Skeptical Science! 🙂
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Every branch of science calls those input variations which upset the nominal (quasi-)equilibrium “perturbations”. To those odd-bods it’s a “forcing”.
It’s almost like those hysterical believers don’t have any (other) ken of science.
And/or they are deliberately introducing obfuscatory terminology to wall off their world from wider scrutiny.
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Bernd Felsche @2: And/or they are deliberately introducing obfuscatory terminology to wall off their world from wider scrutiny.
No, they are just being good postmodern post normal scientists. They are certain that certainty is impossible. They are convinced that there are absolutely no absolutes. They know knowledge cannot be obtained. Because of that, they and their fellow “scientists” can recite any kind of word sounding noise and pretend they are saying something. Their ultimate defense is “you can’t prove me wrong.”
Interestingly, they are right on that last point. Since they have said nothing about reality, there is nothing to be shown to be in contradiction to reality. Their assertions are outside the realm of right and wrong and exist only in their world of arbitrary fantasy. They are not connected to reality enough to be wrong. They are nothing but meaningless jabberwocky.
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If you change the energy in the climate, you expect the temperatures to change. Different factors change the energy in different places: sunlight heats the surface and the entire atmosphere, including the stratosphere, and some of that energy goes right back out to space. Greenhouse gases warm the lower atmosphere and cool the stratosphere by keeping energy in (a cooling stratosphere is the real sign of greenhouse warming, not a tropospheric hot spot). Albedo changes reflect shortwave energy before it even becomes thermal energy. It would be really foolish to expect these to have equal effects.
Think about your house – you put the same number of BTU’s into it, but there will be a difference in final temperatures between depending on whether you’re warming the basement, warming the attic, or running forced air into the living room. Different heating patterns have different efficacies?
Figuring out actual sensitivity isn’t easy – but it’s not a made up fudge factor. There’s an explanation here, section 2.8 in particular, with lots of references to people who’ve actually put some work into this.
The rest of this blog post is an Argument from Personal Incredulity – “It’s complicated, it can’t be true!”, leading into the claims that (a) climate sensitivity is low, and we’re going to be fine (no evidence presented) and (b) climate sensitivity to forcings is non-linear (to explain why the first argument doesn’t fit historic data in any shape or form).
Sigh.
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KR: #4
Hello,
I made a couple of statements on the previous post, and then asked you a question, which you did not answer, presumably because you had gone off-line by the time my comment appeared.
My question to you was:
Perhaps you would care to answer that question here?
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Remarkable stuff indeed. The sloppiest slop of sloppy science – good enough for the media though. As a partial antidote, or at least a break, from such silliness here are some wise words from a real scientist:
‘What is happening with regards to the climate hypothesis today is that profound and far-reaching conclusions are being based on pure suspicions. That’s religion, and not science. There are also many other well-founded hypotheses on climate dynamics that allow completely other conclusions to be drawn. But strangely, they are being massively suppressed – simply because they don’t accommodate the political concept of rescuing the planet. That’s propaganda, manipulation, suppression of the freedom of expression and demagoguery. As ‘an educated citizen of former communist East Germany’, I’m experiencing grand déjà-vu.’ Prof. Knut Löschke,
See: http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/10/german-physicist-slams-climate-science-says-climate-politics-is-grand-deja-vu-of-communist-east-germany/
or: http://oekowatch.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/357-professor-knut-loeschke-wir-saegen-gerade-den-ast-ab-auf-dem-wir-sitzen
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This strikes me again of religious zealots wanting to believe the unbelievable and trying to convince others of their own stance by any means. THese people have lost all ability to reason and will never be able to even begin to understand any argument presented to them by others. Even trying to listen to others would go against all they stand for and all they have learned to believe in, being hyped along by the high priests of AGW. High priests who see these gullible peasants as tools to achieve what they were after all along; taking control over the masses and then plundering them of vast amounts of money in order to pay for their own grandiose political schemes. The only way to stop this behemoth that has already been created is by political means, not by reasoning and arguing. Helmuth Schmit, the previous German Chancellor, called for proper investigation into the IPCC. Exposing this club in that manner will hopefully drive a wedge in the group of cheerleaders standing at the sidelines. Cheerleaders that consist mostly of national weather bureaus of the western world. The New Zealand initiative of suing NIWA will probably harm the AGW zealots more then all the arguing in the world.
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Lionel Griffith: #3
That phenomena is not confined to Climate Science. You have only to look at all of the “specialised terminology” that has been introduced to the language through Computer Science and Information Science.
You might argue that all branches of science have their own taxonomy and ontology, and that would be true. But the more established “hard” sciences, such as Physics and Chemistry for example, have their own specialised terminology defined by a series of seminal works, each of which describes and names a concept within the area of study. That is what underpins the literature, and gives the means of access for “outsiders”.
I have been searching for these seminal works in climate science, and are finding it very difficult to find clear definitions for some of the terms that are frequently used in scientific papers. As you get close to understanding the concept behind a word, is seems to shape-shift into something else. A classic example being the morphing of “Global Warming” into “Climate Change” following the Copenhagen Conference.
It is all incredibly sloppy, and to the point where only the “insiders” could know the “meaning du jour”.
Definitions of words must be read in the context of how and where they are used – that is exactly the footprint of propaganda. Whether the use of propaganda techniques is intended or not, is immaterial.
I am reminded of the lines written by Lewis Carroll:
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John Shade: #6
I think it is fair to say that the European-based NGO’s received a large influx of members following the reunification of Germany.
These members grew up in a Socialist/Communist economy, and knew precisely how to work the system, and how to move themselves into positions of influence and power within various organisations. They are relatively young, ambitious, passionate, educated, and capable of thriving in a non-democratic environment. In a lot of ways, they would see themselves as being the new world order.
No wonder then, that Prof. Löschke has a feelings of déjà-vu.
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Rereke Whakaaro @ 5
I departed that thread when it descended into what were almost entirely ad hominem remarks. I find being labeled things like “fungus” somewhat amusing, but mostly sad – to me an ad hominem remark indicates that the person making it has nothing of worth to say, or they would present that instead.
As to reviewers? I honestly have no idea what your list would consist of. Most journals, such as here, attempt to maintain reviewer anonymity. Where are you obtaining your data?
If you are leading into a claim that the majority of reviewers are working together to block outside ideas, a conspiracy theory, I’ll note that I find such claims as convincing as ad hominems. I’ve worked in and around academia most of my life, and the idea that the herd of cats making up the sciences could be directed in any one direction is rather silly. Especially when good science and facts will inevitably win out over unsupported claims.
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Rereke @8,
Remember that, “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”
Their great fall is getting closer and closer and…
Jabberwocky may delight children but adults eventually realize they’re being fed drivel. And don’t say it — I know that not everyone does eventually get it. But the tide is changing as the skeptical view (the right one) is put in front of more and more people.
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KR,
you may be right about that herd of cats. But there are other forces at work here as well. Please read the article in the New Yorker. That explains better then I can what could be the (part) blame for this AGW madness and the way people believe scientists have been conning them.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
“The truth wears off”
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Jannes Kleintje @ 12
Interesting article! A burst of positive results, then tapering off? I would suspect a combination of confirmation bias (finding what you’re looking for), publication bias, and small data sets in initial publications.
I would definitely not suspect the universe was changing it’s mind, invalidating previous results, though – that seems to be what the author of the article leaned towards. That seems a bit back-pattingly solipsistic to me.
Keep in mind that global warming was predicted about 150 years ago; it’s not a new idea.
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Herein lies the problem.
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‘Keep in mind that global warming was predicted about 150 years ago; it’s not a new idea.’
I wish I could recall the book and author- both out of Ancient Greece- in which the complaint is raised that ‘the climate is changing.’
So Yes. ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ The climate was changing in their day; it changed during the Dark Ages; it changed during the WMP, it is changing now, it will be changing again in centuries, millenia, billenia to come.
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Here is the definitive evidence that proves the climate sensitivity to an increase in atmospheric CO2 is zero:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
There is no greenhouse effect as promulgated by the IPCC scientists, on either Venus or Earth. This data (from October 1991) obviously has been available to scientists like James Hansen, lead IPCC climate scientist and premier believer in the greenhouse effect, for nearly 20 years. I, on the other hand, did my clear and simple analysis within hours of finding the data on the internet (I give a link to the data in my article). Anyone who studies this analysis and does not agree that the Venus/Earth data proves there is NO greenhouse effect, is either a non-scientist who should not be judging the matter, or a scientist deluded by an unquestioning belief in the current “consensus”, which I do not hesitate (simply as a competent scientist) to call incompetent dogma. I have submitted the analysis in a letter to “Physics Today” (on Feb. 7, 2011), but have received no response, no doubt because like every other scientific institution and the media (in my experience to date), it has been suborned by an unquestioning, and worthless, faith in current supposed consensus. This definitive evidence is being widely and actively ignored and/or suppressed. The only competent scientific response to this analysis of the Venus/Earth data (once one has checked my numbers, as a scientist should do) should be immediate agreement, and amazement that it was not confronted and generally accepted soon after the Venus data became available. Until you see this analysis highlighted in all the science magazines and the mainstream media (with credit given to me, an unknown, independent physicist who came only late to the climate debate), know that all the discussion and debate over climate sensitivity is wrong-headed, and denied by the overwhelming evidence of two detailed planetary atmospheres.
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KR
You’ve worked in and around academia most of your life so you should relish debunking the Ten Major Failures of Consensus Science
It’s broken into two parts and the second part is here
Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow writes:
We all look forward to your response(s)
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KR: #10
I did not notice the ad hominem attack, or the fact that that you were departing in disgust. In the circumstances, am surprised you have returned. I am not sure I would have been so generous.
As you rightly point out, most journals attempt to maintain reviewer “anonymity”, in that they do not actively publish lists of reviewers.
However, in the past thirty years or so, the world has moved from a situation where information was hidden until it was formally published, to a situation where it is usually available to a determined researcher unless it is proactively controlled, and security measures put in place.
Fortunately for my purposes, the more traditional media, and formal publishers, have not realised the full implications of that shift. And even if they did, they would not be able to stop the inevitable “chatter” in the blogosphere, and references that are made in passing in press releases, et cetera. They are not hard to find if you know how and where to look, and you have a high tolerance for tedium, and in some cases bombast.
So, I do not think I implied that I was leading to any claim of a conspiracy, or even to any other particular conclusion. In fact I am surprised at your leap to such an assumption based on the evidence as presented.
I too have worked in and around academia for most of my working life, and I am aware that academics are as human as anybody else. And like most other professionals, apart from Lawyers, academics are often not trained to recognise extrinsic factors when they occur. But as you say, “good science and facts will inevitably win out over unsupported claims”, even in spite of the odd digression down the occasional dead-end.
However, now that I hope to have convinced you that I have no ulterior motive, other than curiosity, would you care to answer my question?
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O/T again – but I think this is important stuff:
When it comes to “carbon-pricing” the Beyond Zero Emissions fanatics are a dangerous think tank (which does a lot of group think, but not much rational thinking). They have been written up in the SMH now:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/electric-dreams-must-step-off-the-gas-20110311-1br4j.html
I shall cut to the chase because the juicy bits are at the end of the article:
They mention in the foreword of their Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan that renewables, which they propose for 100% of Australia’s electricity generation, are currently FOUR times more expensive than the cheapest coal-fired generators. I don’t know about you lot, but I don’t think I want to pay $1,000 every electricity bill cycle.
These wonderful renewables generators aren’t cheap to build, mind you, they want Australia to fork out $370 billion (yes BILLION) over the next ten years to achieve it. That’s over $16,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country … and you thought the NBN was expensive. They want you to spend the equivalent of an NBN every year for the next ten years.
Not only that, by the end of the ten years every single energy-intensive industry in Australia would be closed down.
No wonder WA Greens member Scott Ludlum will be attending their presentation in Perth. This is the kind of lunacy you would expect the Greens to support.
Just a reminder that the meeting is on tomorrow night at the Perth Town Hall on the corner of Barrack and Hay streets (the old town hall, not the new council building):
http://sen.asn.au/events
I plan to be there to ask some pointed questions if allowed.
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This creates a number of questions, Bulldust.
Combat pushes for a high carbon price. What is in it for him? How is his bank account going to benefit from this high price on carbon? In what way is he connected to the money makers within these schemes? And where exactly will the money be going to?
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Jo, why does your home page come up just about all scrambled up? Or are you working on it?
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KR:
At #15 on the previous “ten second guide thread” thread at
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/03/new-here-the-ten-second-guide-to-the-world-of-skeptics/
you posted a falsehood.
At #158 in that thread I pointed out that you had posted a blatant falsehood which is plain daft because it defeats your own argument whether or not it is true.
I demanded an apology for your having posted the falsehood and posed you a question pertaining to your assertion. You have not responded to either of these very reasonable demands.
Now, at #10 in this thread, you have posted more nonsense that is almost as silly as your previous post.
Please reply to my reasonable demands concerning your earlier post and then we can deal with the twaddle you have posted in this thread. There is no point in dealing with your present nonsense until you have apologised for your previous post because your failure to provide the apology demonstrates that your posts are dishonest and, therefore, should be ignored and not addressed.
Richard
PS To save you the effort of finding my response to your previous post I copy it below. It was this:
Richard S Courtney:
March 12th, 2011 at 12:50 am
KR:
I write to refute your nonsense at #15 where you write:
No! That is a falsehood, and if it were true then the absence of the ‘hot spot’ would still be a disproof of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis.
The ‘hot spot’ is a unique effect of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This is clearly stated in the most recent report of the Scientific Working Group (WG1) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The matter is explained in Chapter 9 of their Fourth Report (AR4). The entire Chapter can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
The explanation is spelt out in 9.2.2 of the Chapter which is titled “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of the Response to Different Forcings and their Uncertainties” and is at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
The explanation is summarised by Figure 9.1 of that Section. Its title is
Only Figures 9.1(c) and 9.1(f) show the ‘hot spot’. So, according to the IPCC,
1.
the ‘hot spot’ is a unique ‘fingerprint’ of warming from “well-mixed greenhouse gases”(see Figure 9.1 (c))
and
2.
the warming from “well-mixed greenhouse gases” is so strong an effect that it overwhelms the combined effects of all other forcings ”(see Figure 9.1 (f)).
But the ‘hot spot’ is missing.
It has not been detected by the independent measurements from radiosondes on weather balloons conducted since 1958 or by the microwave sounding units mounted on satelites since 1979. Please note that the IPCC Figure 9.1 provides estimates for the period from 1890 to 1999 but more than 80% of the increase in “well-mixed greenhouse gases” was after 1940 so the measurements should have detected a greater ‘hot spot’ than was predicted by the IPCC.
You wrongly assert that
But the ‘hot spot’ is missing.
So which is it?
(i) As the IPCC asserts, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates no discernible warming from “well-mixed greenhouse gases”
Or
(ii) As you assert, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates no discernible warming from any cause including “well-mixed greenhouse gases”.
Please apologise for your falsehood and answer the question.
Richard
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Jannes Kleintje @ 20:
I wouldn’t go looking for conspiracies where stupidity and ideology provide ample explanation. When it comes to tomorrow night, and assuming they let questions/statements from the audience, I plan to stick to the facts. Heck, I plan to stick to what the authors of the ZCA say in their own publications and news articles … I intend to hoist them by their own petards. That should provide more than enough ammunition.
It is telling that Alannah McTiernan is going to be there … is she planning to try and run for the Greens? She failed as a Labor contender at the Fed level.
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Still find it hard to believe the small concentrations of CO2 (refuse to use the single word carbon) have the effect on climate as ‘predicted’. It is said that CO2 was 280ppm before industrialisation and could reach 560ppm. Notice that is exactly double. It is still small. I may have used this analogy before so forgive me. But if a sibling of yours won $1 million in Lotto and offered you $280 as a generous gesture you might complain. But if he/she said they would double it to $560 would you the be satisfied? I think not. The amount is so insignificant as to be an insult and a slap in the face. But if the scientists are right and the ‘science is settled’ I wish they would take the next step and explain it to the general public in deeper terms. They needn’t go into everything and “dazzle” us with science, but they should be able to explain it far better than Al Gore’s mellow dramatic over rated hotch potch. I saw his movie on TV again and the CO2 from 2005 was expected to rise to 2050 upwards in a perfectly vertical line…right up the Y axis…no movement along the X axis. Incredible!
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Rereke Whakaaro @8:
I agree that there is a lot of jabberwocky in all academic disciplines. The purpose of much of it is in fact to freeze out the uninitiated and to intimidate newcomers. All too often, the insiders use the jabberwocky with no more ability to define their terms than an outsider. I know because I have asked a few of them.
This inability is largely because they have bought into the post modern post normal science psychosis. They have lost all ability to identify and define with any precision or clarity. The practitioners feel that if enough insiders breath the same air, smell the same, and make the same sound, they are protected from that mystery called REALITY. In effect, they have turned off their minds and have turned it into an echo changer.
The soft sciences fell into that swamp long before the hard sciences but now too much of the hard sciences in it up to their eyeballs. Particularly the so called theoretical or “pure” sciences by which it is meant there is absolutely no connection to reality or practical application. They believe it is a “higher” level of knowledge. The instant that the smallest speck of reality or practical application is discovered, it is no longer “pure”. The so called information technology is no exception.
My opinion is that most of it is not even good BS. This opinion is in context of my having graduate level training in more hard and soft ologies than fingers on one hand and having made a living being a professional software engineer (self trained) for over 40 years.
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Scrambled home page.
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Lionell Griffith: #25
I do not believe it! For once we totally agree on something, even if it is only to agree on the lack of something.
I might go and open something cold, fizzy, and alcoholic to celebrate.
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Lionelll, Rereke
When the bullshit levels rise the gap between great minds lessens!
Hongi’s all round!
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KR mentions Argument from Personal Incredulity – “It’s complicated, it can’t be true!”
Perhaps he has a point however; life experience tends to show us that while sometimes the truth is initially hidden. Once it is revealed it takes luminescence of its own and is difficult to hide again. The average person’s response to seeing the truth is “Huh – why hasn’t anyone noticed that before”
It could be said that the longer the truth is exposed the more self-evident and simpler it becomes in the eyes of the beholder.
Lies on the other hand tend to work exactly the opposite, the more you try to perpetuate them, the more complicated they become.
As every toddler who has ever raided a cookie jar finds out. An initial simple denial becomes increasingly complicated, as they try to explain the toddler sized fingerprints on the lid of the jar, and the chocolate crumbs around their mouth.
If almost all of the warming is supposed to be caused by water vapor, with carbon dioxide merely the trigger
The people who promote the runaway global warming theory have the difficulty of explaining why
A: If this is true why has this not happen before when carbon dioxide was at higher levels?
B: If current levels of warming herald a dangerous disaster looming how do they explain that Greenland has been demonstrably warmer in the relatively recent past, as demonstrated by the Viking settlements being revealed under the ice sheets.
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Richard S Courtney: #22
I suspect that is why you will be unlikely to get a reply or an apology on the matter.
As Lionell [at #25] points out: “They believe [theirs] is a ‘higher’ level of knowledge. The instant that the smallest speck of reality or practical application is discovered, it is no longer ‘pure’.”
You may well have sullied their vision of the world by citing empirical evidence.
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Treeman: #28
Hmm, double entendre … ?
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Treeman @ 17
Can’t say that I’ll be able to scribble off sufficient replies here, as those are a lot of issues, and I won’t claim to be an expert in all these fields, but – You wrote, quoting J. D’Aleo:
1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
Well, current warming is at 0.15-0.17C/decade (UAH being an outlier at 0.13C/decade), which is about an order of magnitude faster than anything in the last half million years. The PETM event warmed at 0.003C/decade, to a total of 6C, and had some serious effects on life at the time.
2. Global warming is not GLOBAL
Uh, what? That’s just silly – every temperature record including UAH is showing it. The Northern hemisphere has more land (with less thermal mass), and shows faster warming, but the whole planet is warming.
3. Winters would grow increasingly warm
4. The entire Northern Hemisphere would experience less snow and snowcover
The last few years have shown increasingly shorter winters. Snow extent at peak of winter are not really measures of warming – they’ve been heavier because we have 4-5% more water in the atmosphere, and because the warmer Arctic is diverting cold air further south. But spring is coming earlier and earlier, fall lasting longer and longer, winters are shorter. 90% of plants in my area (Maryland, USA) are sprouting sooner than they were 30 years ago – cherry trees are 5 and 7 days earlier for the two major species.
5. The arctic oscillation (AO) would become increasingly positive, aiding in the warming
No idea, no opinion. I had not heard that this was a majority view, however.
6. Global warming would lead to a permanent or semi-permanent El Nino
Definitely not a consensus view. I will note that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), however, has shifted to almost entirely positive, which has had some severe effects on Australia.
7. Atmosphere will warm faster than surface (because that is where the heat trapping gases are).
Tropospheric measurements are indeed rather, um, sketchy. Radiosondes have some severe calibration problems, and the satellite records may be at issue because the depth of field resolution for them may result in stratospheric contamination of tropospheric results.
Short term results mostly indicate tropospheric warming (Trenberth 2006, Santer 2005), the issue is how the long term trend looks.
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (John Christy of UAH is a co-author) concluded that discrepancies are most likely measurement uncertainty, rather than a mismatch between modeled physics, radiosonde, and satellite indications. But I’ll agree, it’s not strongly established.
Stratospheric cooling, on the other hand, is. And the only forcing that would cause that is greenhouse gases.
8. Record highs and heat waves are increasing
From what I’ve seen, and the data I’ve run into, yes they are. Europe has had 3-4 major ones in the last decade.
9. Sea levels are rising at an increasing, alarming rate
I would like a few more years (5?) on the ARGO floats, plus some more benthic (deep sea, below 700 meters) measurements to really establish this. Steric sea rise (thermal expansion, as we have a reasonable idea how much water goes into the oceans) matches what we expect. XBT (expendable dropped thermometers) have serious calibration issues, and every paper I see has a somewhat different look on that – from wildly rising to kinda rising, albeit at a faster rate (~2.3mm/year) than it used to (~1.2mm/year in the early 1800’s).
I would say more to come on this subject.
10. Droughts and floods will worsen
I haven’t seen data to the contrary (lots of statistical noise in this), but I suspect that another 5-10 years of data will either confirm or deny this prediction.
—-
Oofda. Lots of different fields, different questions. Some (sea rise rate, tropospheric temps) are still a bit under-determined, some (ENSO stopping?) sound like minority opinions when they were made, but most of these effects actually are observed.
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Tried to respond to treeman, which includes an answer to Richard S Courtney – I’m not seeing it showing at the moment… it might have been too long?
—
Rereke Whakaaro – I will apologize, I lack precognition on others arguments and shouldn’t have made assumptions.
I have no idea what the distribution you have found among publicly acknowledged reviewers would be. What have you found?
(I have dug it up from the Spam folder) CTS
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Hope you guys watched Laurie Oakes on Ch9… at least he was starting to put the hard word on Greg Combet (Mr zero charisma) about energy prices under an ETS. The clips of Obama actually doing some straight talking saying electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket was something Greg had no answer for. He must have said “pollution” about 50 times. These liars simply don’t get it.
I suggest one of the slogans for any protest should be:
Carbon is NOT pollution
or simply
Carbon =/= pollution
Though with the current level of mathematical illiteracy in Australia the latter might not work.
10
KR there is no “moderating” of comments here unlike at RealClimate or SkepticalScience where non CAGW commments get boreholed. Your comment probably got stuck in the spam filter … happens to everyone from time to time.
The only thing that will get comments here edited or deleted is blatant abuse or excessive use of words like “denier” for obvious reasons. Unlike the ABC we do not think using Holocaust associations is acceptible behaviour. The ABC is less, shall we say, restrained.
10
This is an honest way to communicate ETS policy (the Obama clip mentioned earlier):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
10
ad @ 26
I had that problem with WUWT – I finally traced it down to a virus that was following my net usage – once I cleared it the problem went away.
FYI I have nop problem with Jo’s Home Page.
Bulldust – that zero emissions project is a greenie wet dream – give them heaps from me please 🙂
10
fudging involved here too:
12 March: Australian: Hedley Thomas: Stakes are high in the flood blame game
AT first blush the Brisbane flood in January was widely seen as the result of intense, unusual and prolonged rainfall on sodden catchments in southeast Queensland. It rained. We flooded. End of story.
This simplistic and convenient categorisation of the flood as a natural disaster suited the Queensland government, with the Lazarus-like political comeback of Premier Anna Bligh for her strong leadership and communications skills amid the inundation of thousands of homes and businesses in Brisbane.
It suited SEQWater, the bureaucracy charged with operating the state’s water grid and the Wivenhoe Dam. It suited many in the media as sentimental campaigns promoting the goodwill of Queenslanders in helping each other in a crisis replaced rigorous analysis of why the flood happened and whether the population of Australia’s third-largest city had been treated like mugs.
It suited the military chief picked by Bligh to run reconstruction efforts, Major General Mick Slater, who fired an early offensive shot across the media’s bows with his warning not to “become divisive”; and then, in a line from the censorship handbook, warned that “over-analysing and looking for different lines and angles can be amplified by the media and cause negative impacts in the community”.
The categorisation also suited proponents of climate change, who could point to prior warnings about the threat of more extreme weather events caused by global warming, notwithstanding the advice that there would also be significantly reduced rainfall…
The reaction to global warming concerns is also in play, given the evidence that government and policy planners were conditioned in the drought to believe the region would not see high rainfall as often, so the higher priority of the dam was to store water for urban supply rather than have reserve capacity to mitigate floods.
From a former prime minister to climate change proponents and sceptics, to the shareholders of leading insurance companies, the hapless residents of submerged properties and millions of unaffected citizens who are up for a flood levy, everyone has skin in the Brisbane flood blame game…
“Victims of the floods are being denied the right to appear at the inquiry and ask legitimate questions of those people who made decisions that had major impacts on their families or their businesses,” says state Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek. “This is not the way the Patel inquiry operated. This is not the way the Victorian bushfire inquiry operated. Victims in Victoria were granted leave to appear.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/stakes-are-high-in-the-flood-blame-game/story-e6frgd0x-1226019958797
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Richard S Courtney @ 22
Please see my post (which made it out of the spam filter, finally) at @32, point #7.
Researching this, I found at least one rather amusing item – over time, as the radiosondes have improved, there’s at least a little bias due to shrinking thermistors. The older, bigger ones got more sunlight, warming them, biasing older records higher.
Sigh. Radiosondes have just not been consistent…
10
KR: #32
That is pretty much the same question I was asking you.
I have some interesting results – well interesting to me, at any rate – and was looking for a way to corroborate what I believe the data is telling me.
So, given the exercise I am undertaking, and our subsequent discussion, how many names do you think that I will finally have on my list?
10
KR
You clearly did not take time to refer to the detail in Parts 1 and 2 or your replies would have been quite different.
Rereke
No double entendre intended, High fives in retrospect more appropriate than Maori greeting!
10
Treeman @ 41
The data shows otherwise:
Image here…
Those are global numbers, not regional.
10
Rereke Whakaaro @ 40
And as I’ve said, I have no idea, as I have not attempted such a compilation (if it can even be done in the presence of anonymous reviewers).
Again, what have you found?
10
Replying to KR’s post # 42,
Your use of a chart that is blatantly false,is pathetic.
Why are you using Skepticalscience blog as your source? It is deliberately misleading and incorrect.John Cook’s blog is not a reliable place to go for credible climate science information.
Here is a far better link,where separate charts from many sources are charted.Where gasp!,you can go to the original temperature data link source,used to create the charts from.:
http://climate4you.com/Text/Climate4you%20January%202011.pdf
They show that the decade from 2001-2010 is a cooling trend.
10
Sunsettommy @ 44
Here’s some data:
GISS
HADCRUT
GHCN vs. HADCRUT
Sorry I don’t have charts for the RSS and UAH as well, having some trouble with those links.
But they all do line up and agree, some slightly different offsets due to correction assumptions but the same trends=.
—
Now as to 2000-2010 as a “cooling trend” – temps have not risen much in the last decade, and I won’t claim otherwise. But given past temperature variability and the statistics of a significant trend, we’re warming at >0.9999 significance over a 30 year period.
10 years is too short a time frame, as I stated when discussing ocean heat content above. 30 years is sufficient to average out variations such as ENSO, AO, IOD, etc. I suspect we’re looking at a ‘bobble’ in temperatures, but I would happily be proven wrong! We need more data for that, though…
10
Bulldust @ 35
I completely understand – I suspect it just got caught in the spam filter for a while due to various word choices, although I try to be respectful. I’m glad it made it through, though (whew!) – I spent the better part of an hour on it.
10
KR: #43
Now it is my turn to apologise – I did not fully appreciate, that you truly had no idea at all.
I am not prepared to tell you what I have found, for several reasons. One, it is still ongoing research which may prove to be extremely interesting, or it may prove to be nothing at all; two, I am still seeking some form of validation or rebuttal for my current hypotheses, but to discuss them now could conceivably reduce my ability to get reasonable evidence to do that; and three, I do not comply with demands made in bold type-face – it is a principle of mine.
But thank you for the discussion, I will now leave you in peace.
10
Rereke Whakaaro @ 47
Entirely reasonable! I will look forward to your data and conclusions when you are at the appropriate point to present them. I didn’t mean to be pushy – I seriously have no idea as to the reviewer distribution, and just had no answer or information for you on the topic.
10
Treeman: #41
It wasn’t the Hongi I was referring to – very cultural that – depending on the amount of kariki eaten before-hand.
It was the level of bullshit between Lionell and myself that you might have been referring to by way of a double entendre.
But no matter …
10
Replying to post # 45,
“But they all do line up and agree, some slightly different offsets due to correction assumptions but the same trends.”
your own separate links you posted,does not support your own absurd claim.Why did you ignore the obvious differences that were conclusively shown in the link I posted? They showed different trends vividly in the charts in the link.
I do not think you looked in my Climate4you link at all.Or you would not be making a new “foot in the mouth” reply you did in post #45.
Here I will try another angle to get past your amazing inability to see the obvious differences:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/uah/from:2001/plot/rss/from:2001/plot/gistemp/from:2001
As you should be able to see.GISS is much warmer than the others.
They do NOT line up and agree.What ever gave you that silly idea?
10
But KR what about a rate of warming of 10C in 10 years after the end of the younger Dryas?
A rate of natural warming of 1C a year for 10 years 11,500 years ago looks fairly impressive compared to 0.7C in the last 100 years after a natural recovery from a very cold part of the Holocene called the LIA.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data4.html
Positive IOD’s were much worse earlier last century than today, easily proven if you need the info sent?
10
Sunsettommy @ 50
I have looked at charts such as the one you linked (thank you, by the way, WoodForTrees is a useful site that i have referred to in the past, and I recommend it to everyone).
There are some major differences between the various records, but they fall into the categories of offsets. The reference “zero” times are different, instrument calibrations and corrections are different, UAH assumes Arctic data is the global average value where GISS treats it as the average of nearby-Arctic stations, etc.
But if you look at the rise and fall of the various temperature records, when they go up and down, the temperature anomaly, they match up. If you take all those records and give them the same average value, you’ll see they’re tracking in almost lockstep.
If I have a thermometer in the basement and one in the attic, they won’t give the identical readings. I wouldn’t expect them to! But they will show similar rises and falls in value as I play with the thermostat – the changes, the anomalies, will track. The same applies here.
10
Neville @ 51
The Younger Dryas was indeed nasty, although from the data I’ve seen it appears to have been a regional rather than global event – the thermohaline circulation may have shut down, really trashing local climate accordingly. Not that anyone’s completely certain – that was a long time ago, and not all the evidence agrees.
I would not like to see the Gulf Stream shut down, for example. But that’s a distribution of heat, not total amount change, and although England would have truly abysmal weather as a result, globally averaged temps wouldn’t change much.
—
As to the IOD – I’ll readily admit that it’s not my primary topic. I live in the Eastern US, and am more affected by (and informed about) Atlantic issues than Pacific. I’ll point out that the ENSO (the topic of that particular question) is still cycling, as most people thought, though.
Can you point me at some IOD information?
10
KR here is that info on the IOD from 1880 to 2009 UNSW.
BOM says there was an extra negative IOD in 1996 as well, but look at the gap from 1880 to 1915 (25 years ) with zero neg IODs.
Also note 6 + IODs during that same period, then go forward and include 1996 and 2010 and your argument falls in a heap.
Note the strong neg IODs in 1916/ 1917 and 73/ 74, when we had monster floods in tne MDB.
http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/indian-ocean-drought/
10
Neville @ 54
Thanks! I did see that “The study notes that the IOD has been in its positive or neutral phase since 1992, the longest period of its kind since records began in the late 19th Century.” – that was what I was referring to.
Seriously annoying (and expensive, etc.) when distant weather patterns affect the local area.
We’re starting to get that here, with the rain belt moving. Looks like the Southern US is going to dry out more than a little, and coffee prices (waaa!) will be going up…
10
KR Southern Australia has been drying out for at least 5,000 years and we’re at a low point at present like earlier periods during that time.
The earlier Holocene from say 11,000 to 5,000 was much wetter again in Southern Australia.
You can pause video of De Deckker’s 20 year study to see graph for last 5,000 years at 8 mins 40 sec ? or so.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1848641.htm
10
KR if you had to make a living farming in the MDB in the last 100+ years which half century would you choose to live in?
Remember with anomoly graph zero is average rainfall and 1900 (1895 to 1900 as well btw ) to 1948 the 15 year moving line doesn’t even reach the average, but on average or above ( mostly )for at least next 46 years. It’s chalk and cheese.
Of course 2010 highest rainfall on record.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=mdb&season=0112&ave_yr=15
BTW select Australian graph and anomoly below for nearly first 70 years then strong reversal.
10
KR dropped out earlier because the discussion was too thoughtful. Why are you back now?
Did you read the paper I posted?:
10
Ah good, I see KR is here, so since he is one of the better AGW disciples we may get an interesting conversation going. Rather than dance all over the place what say we keep it within the confines of the thread topic, which is: are all forcings equal to paraphrase Tel’s excellent point.
RC, as AGW central, establishes a covenient base point to discuss this topic:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/
As can be seen, they equate 2XCO2 with a 2 % increase in soalr forcing. This is obviously astounding since increases in CO2 have any forcing effect constrained by Beers Law which produces the logarithmic decline so that there are diminshing returns in respect of extra heating for all additional CO2; how can solar forcing be so prescribed? Well, obviously it can’t and there immediately is a difference in the linearity, or lack thereof, between the 2 major forcing agents recognised by the IPCC.
The jest becomes richer when we look at solar main sequence increases in output; the sun over history increases its average energy output 4% every BILLION years; so what RC is suggesting is that 2XCO2 is eqaul to 500 million years of solar main sequence evolution!
Lest RC be entirely blamed for this stunning conclusion blame [or credit, KR may tell us which] should also be laid at our good friend Jimmy hansen’s feet:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha07600n
There is a final twist in this sorry tale and George explains it better than me in his forlorn attempt to educate Yesbut/luke:
“The point is that 341.5 W/m^2 of incident power from the Sun heats the surface to 287K (384.7 W/m^2 of radiated power) for a net gain of 384.7/341.5 = 1.1, while the IPCC, and by proxy you, claim that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing from CO2 absorption causes a 3C rise in the surface temperature. If you add 3C to 287 and convert to power, the Earth’s surface emits 401.1 W/m^2, which is an increase of 16.4 W/m^2. This means that the IPCC claim of gain, relative to power from CO2 forcing, is 16.4/3.7 = 4.43, which is about 4x higher than solar forcing.”
By this reckoning 2XCO2 = an 8% increase in solar energy. There is a word in the language which describes AGW; it is agnotology.
10
KR (32) says:
The T trend c.1910 – c.1940 was exactly the same rate (0.15°C), when human CO2 emissions could not possibly have been a factor.
A cursory glance at the GISP2 reconstruction shows many periods in the last 10,000 years alone, when the temperature has risen and fallen at similar rates.
Similarly, the previous brief interglacial periods show similar trends and higher temperatures than this.
The Eocene Thermal Maximum came and went, but was preceded by similarly warm periods, in fact for most of the earth’s geological past.
To try to draw a comparison between the rate of recent modest warming since 1980 with that during a 20 million year period some 35 million years ago is frankly absurd.
10
KR mega centuries long droughts have occured naturally in western nth America’s past and wiped out civilizations much further south as well, all known in the paleo record.
We’ve had periods of the PDO locked into strong negatives and positives for centuries from 1,000 to say 1600+.
The period of natural CC from 1000 to 1330 BP must have been a terrible time to live on your west coast and of course massive rainfall/flooding across much of eastern Australia, plus super cyclones as well.
Click on the 2 PDO graphs on right on Wiki page to see past 100+ years and past 1,000 years as well.
BTW I can count the neg IODs from 1880 to 1915 and they are definitely not there, but plenty of positives.
Of course add in neg IOD’s for 1996 ( BOM says a neg.)and 2010 and from 1950 to 2010 we have 9 negatives and 8 pos.
1880 to 1950 6 negatives and 12 positives and graphs I sent show s much higher rainfall as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation
10
Obviously the TROLL “KR” is the alp(australian LIERS PARTY) Stooge on duty today.
Tell us “KR”, how much do they pay you for Sunday Shifts???
Maybe it is based on how many Vacuous and Fallacous post you can produce.
Interesting how YOU and this “mattB” seem to take alternate shifts.
Unless of course you are both the same individual!
(I find your repetitive unwarranted attacks unproductive.Future similar comments will be sent to the pending bin)) CTS
10
Climate change religion is a bit like the Catholic priest – you have to take what they say as gospel because it is anathema to study the books for yourself.
10
Here’s an interesting stat … if one ignores all the GHGs other than CO2, just taking CO2 emissions and a $26 per tonne tax we have:
Australia’s CO2 emisions in 2007 (1) were 374,045,000 tonnes
Tax revenue for CO2 only = 374.045 million * $26 = $9.725 billion
That’s per year every year, and increasing as emissions inevitably increase, and add a bit for good luck because the other GHGs (methane etc) would also attract charges.
You wonder why they are so keen on a “carbon price” … I give you over $10 billion reasons why.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
10
“Kevin Moore” (63),
Why not choose MUSLIMS instead of Catholics?
Do you have some issue with Catholics?
10
Jannes Kleintje@20:
I suspect that Greg Combet is simply doing what he believes is the right thing to do. Do you have any personal knowledge of him or his affairs which leads you to believe that he is using his position in the government to corruptly make money? Or are you just implying venal motives without any evidence whatsoever?
10
kr@30:
Beautiful work. Thanks.
10
John Broockes
You can’t even get the @ bit right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but inaccuracy is on par with unmeasurable fudging. Nice work!
10
KR:
You posted a falsehood on this blog; viz. your untrue assertion saying;
I requested a retraction and an apology for your having posted that falsehood which you did not provide, but on this thread you have posted more nonsense.
So, at #22 above I repeated the demand and explained it saying;
You have replied at #39 saying (in total):
THAT IS NOT AN APOLOGY FOR YOUR HAVING PRESENTED A FALSEHOOD.
Indeed, it provides additional falsehoods.
Anybody can make a mistake, and your first falsehood could have been an honest mistake.
Your failure to apologise for that falsehood either
shows you posting the falsehood was a lie
or
converts your mistaken post into a lie.
So you, Sir, are condemned by your own words as being a liar whose posts here are deliberately untrue and dishonest. Therefore, I intend to ignore your posts here and I commend all others to do the same.
Richard
10
John Brookes I know I’m wasting my time but perhaps another blogger can answer a few questions for me.
1. Why should Aussies have to suffer a tax on co2 and be slugged much higher prices for energy while we continue to increase licenses for new coalmines to increase exports of coal and therefore increase higher emissions of co2?
2.Australia’s share of the 0.01% increase of co2 in the atmosphere since 1800 is 0.0001% or one ten thousandth of 1% so how does a reduction of 5% of this help? At a cost of billions of course.
3. If the increase in global temps is 0.7C over the past century Australia’s share must be 0.009C, so how does 5% of this unmeasureable reduction help when the developing nations will be increasing their emissions at 2% per annum for the next 24 years at least? A quarter of a century at countless billions cost to us for zero return, except to export more jobs and businesses overseas.
Anyhow John or others here’s the info you’ll need to answer the questions above. Wasting my time I know.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/emissions.html
10
Richard S Courtney@69:
Time to have a cold shower mate.
10
Treeman #68.
Don’t waste your time with JB. He’s been away drinking…again!
10
Neville@70:
Yeah sure. Break it all down to itty bitty pieces and say, “Look how tiny!”.
My taxes are only an incredibly tiny fraction of the total taxation revenue in Australia, so I’m not paying them anymore. Same argument.
Of course with AGW, its slightly different. Its more like, “No one else is paying taxes, so why should I? My measly few thousand dollars comes to less than a cent per head of population, so there really is no point to me paying taxes unless everyone else does.”
So yes, Neville, you are 100% right. Unless other countries join in, there is absolutely no point to Australia cutting our emissions. The reason we are doing it is because it will be very hard to ask other countries to do anything when the first thing they will do is point to us and say, “So what are you doing?” The ultimate success or failure to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere really rests with the US, China, Japan and Europe. If they agree, then they have the collective clout to force everyone else to comply.
10
How much are you being paid to be a professional STOOGE “John Brookes”?
Is your rate higher on Sundays?
10
JB, I am confident that you will ultimately change your view about the CAGW scam.
The reasons I am confident, you can read, you obviously are looking for some reliable sources of information (why else would you visit this site?), and I occasionally witness glimpses of deductive reasoning.
I trust that you will enjoy the discovery process.
10
Dammit Percy! Can you get paid for this? Please tell me how…..
10
John that’s a part answer so thanks and I know I’m 100% right, but then what about the bi-polar dysfunction and hypocrisy?
As things stand we wreck our economy at a cost of billions but increase export tonnages of coal to emit more co2 somewhere else.
I listened ad nauseum to Rudd, Gillard , Wong, Gore, Suzuki etc tell us for years that this was the “greatest moral challenge” and most important issue of our time and yet they don’t really care do they and of course are total hypocrites?
Don’t you notice a bi-polar mental disorder in any of this?
10
John Brookes:
What Aussiecentric delusion are you suffering from? You honestly think China, India or the US are going to change their GHG emissions policies because we introduce a $10 billion a year tax?
Surely you jest… it is a gesture, and a very expensive, pointless gesture at that. Think of what this country could do with $10 billion… hospitals, police, nurses, teachers, doctors etc… instead it will be used to make a gesture.
I have a gesture for the “carbon price” … it is a binary 4 on my left hand.
10
Back to the 19th century thanks to a Carbon DIOXIDE tax based on the FRAUD of global warming!!
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/science-and-policy/backtothe19C.pdf
10
The MADNESS of an ETS based on the FRAUD of global warming……..
http://www.agvance.com.au/node/419
10
I notice that this individual “John Brookes” failes to answer the questions I posed in (74).
A typical Leftist Deflection from a STOOGE!
10
“Bulldust” (78),
Exactly!!
These other countries don’t give a rats arse what Australia does!
In fact they hope that we DO destroy our economy so that they will prosper!!
10
Percival Snodgrass @ 65
This Roman Catholic having read the Bible thru (as I was ENCOURAGED to do in my Catholic school), I can only say, THANK YOU!
10
Some people need to travel overseas. Plain fact is that it can be hard to find any news about Oz once you leave. Anyone who believes that we can browbeat, berate or cajole other countries to join us in an act of economic suicide is dangerousy deluded.
Wonder how much US news coverage Joolya really received in the US? Someone reckoned that the “ovation” was from a handful of Democrats along with their office and cleaning staff!
10
Bulldust @19
I attended the BZE presentation in Adelaide on December 3rd 2010. About 300 people were there. They were quite paranoid about “gatecrashers” (ie skeptics) and went to some lengths to make it difficult for them to ask “pointed” questions. You had to write your question on a piece of paper and hand it to people walking around the hall. Alternatively you could text it to a mobile number given out beforehand and also displayed on a balcony. Therefore all questions were vetted before going to the panel.
My notes show that I wrote down a figure of $370 MILLION as the total overall cost, not BILLION. However, I also wrote down a cost to households of $8 per week, and assuming Australia had about 9 million households, that would work out about $37 billion per year, so I must have heard it wrong.
SA Greens Senator-elect Penny Wright also spoke and proudly stated that she had been arrested in Tasmania in 1982. She talked about “incrementalism” – tinkering around the edges over climate change, and a lack of political will. She said the Greens will work with you and a carbon price was essential. It really was difficult to sit there and listen to her. Some got up and left.
I’ll await your account of the presentation with interest Bulldust.
10
I don’t think we skeptics handled this one as well as it could have been handled. I think instead of putting our thinking caps on we indulged in too much heckling and hissy fits.
One vital area where the warmist science, particularly through the predictions of its scientists, is most suspect is its very real disconnect with the sorts of weather experienced around the Earth over the last few years right up to the present.
They got it so expensively wrong here in Australia with predictions, based on their interpretation of the CO2 green house effect. That was when the east coast of the country was in a prolonged drought, and the subsequent record rainfall history is strong evidence that their loudly and publically trumpeted statements that this was a certain indication of ACC was nothing more than a wild guess. That guess ignored a long history of such weather.
During that period the warmists promised us severer and more frequent droughts. Just think about the logic of that statement. If they are more frequent what are they interspersed with? Surely a severe drought is a prolonged drought how can a severe one be a more frequent one?
That was their initial guess based on the “certain” science of “climate change”.
When the drought breaking rains came and the east coast was awash (raining heavily again Melbourne today – has hardly stopped since late spring -about 4 months on and off). Our shameless warmist scientists offered another guess along the lines of the illogical statement mentioned, with the addition of floods to the promise, “We will have more frequent and severe droughts and floods”.
What was that guess based on? The “settled” science of “climate change”.
While we have scientists with those sorts of powers of reasoning no wonder the “peasants” are rebelling here and in other countries and ACC science and its scientists are becoming a bad joke.
One could say the same about the weather events in Europe and North and South America but I’ll leave that one for the natives as I’m more familiar with our weather history.
The bottom line is that ultimately it is not about “climate”, when defined not as average weather (a sort of circular thinking process in which weather is the driver of weather) but rather about many extremely powerful regional weather drivers or variables which can adequately account for the vagaries of 21st century regional weather which is similar, if not exactly the same, to the sort of regional weather humans have been cyclically experiencing for many years before the IR. In fact for thousands of years.
That’s why the science of “climate change” of the ACC type, apart from the genuine scientific doubts about its validity, is a nonsense and is more or less irrelevant even it could get the occasional guess right.
10
Ian Hill @ 85:
The $370 billion is correct … over 10 years, which is $37 billion per year, which backs out to the $8 per household per week. Presumably that is just to build the network & generators, after which you’ll still be paying for the power.
From the sounds of it I doubt I will be able to ask pointed questions. Sounds like a controlled Al Gore-like presentation. Mustn’t question the dogma… ommmmm… ommmmm
10
Kevin Moore in #63…. *self censorship over similarities between catholic priests and professors of climate change*
10
Jo, just finished listening to Prof Bob Carter being interviewed at length on the climate change scare on Brisbane FM radio station 96.5. It was an excellent show which your readers may be interested in. Apparently a podcast is to be posted on the website tomorrow (Monday) afternoon, which maybe you could link from your blog. Site is .
10
Hi Llew
I’m new to this, so I hope this gets accepted.
I agree with your post @86, however I think we are fighting a losing battle by using science discussions.
Warmisters aren’t interested in science.
The IPCC is not a scientific organisation, it’s a political one.
That’s what frightens me the most.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
– C. S. Lewis
[This was caught in the spam trap. No idea why it was there-maybe your IP address was used by a spammer in the past. I couldn’t find the other one.] ED
10
Of all the ridiculous arguments I’ve heard about AGW.
Saying that Australia must have a carbon tax so that the rest of the world will follow us, would have to be the most ridiculous.
We are a piss ant little country at the bottom of the world, no one takes any notice of us.
We’ve tried to lead by example in agricultural trade reform for the last 40 years. The net result is, we are now on our last generation of farmers. When the current generation of farmers and farm workers (now mostly aged 50 and over) retires, there is quite literally no one to replace them.
That is how much notice the rest of the world takes of Australia’s economic and social decisions.
10
Bulldust: #78
When looking at the motivations of senior politicians, the question to ask is, “what do they plan to do, or where do they plan to go, when they stop being a senior politician?”
In other words, who are they trying to impress?
10
Wow the floodgates opened on my admonishment of the ABC for allowing Hamilton to blast away with the D word on this thread:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45004.html#comments
Some of the outrageous bloggers in response:
And
and:
My response to the latter (assuming it is posted):
10
Rereke Whakaaro @ 91:
I hear you – I have maintained for a couple years now that Kevin Rudd was merely using the Australian PMship as a stepping stone for the UN. The Foreign Minister position is a perfect launch pad for this. Remember how Ban Ki Moon used to praise Rudd? It’s probably a done deal by now.
10
John Brookes:
re. your comment at #71.
It is yet an other example of ‘warmists’ thinking their presentations of blatant falsehoods are acceptable.
Those presebntations of blatant falsehoods are only acceptable on ‘warmist’ propoganda web sites such as RealClimate and SkepticalScience. Everywhere else they are a disgrace.
But you knew that really. Didn’t you?
Richard
10
Jo,
Many times I come across in climate science a pretty graph with cherry picked numbers to try and show a pattern. These are for an extremely short period of time to the extensive time line of this planet.
Temperatures do not forecast events. Weather and seismic events are physical events generated by a physically moving planet.
Yet, any physical evidence is not counted as strictly temperatures are being followed. This will never show how physical events are created and change over time.
10
Hello all, I have said it before and will say it again. HISTORY, read it, written and geological show all we need to know. Climate changes have been sudden and slow at different times, severe weather happens and it is nothing new and not more frequent, from droughts, floods, snow and heatwaves. Sea levels have risen and recended, Greenland has been a paradise and icebox, the same with Antartica where they have found tropical plants specimens from bore holes that have been drilled, Canada also, northern areas. So really there is nothing unprecedented about the climate of the globe. One other thing i have said before, the climate of the globe is actually regional and not global because when one extreme happens in one part tyhe opposite happens elsewhere. It is all in the HISTORY.
KR, thanks for great discussions it is always good for this blog when reasonable dicussions are made and good back an forth is had. John Brookes you are still an Idiot!
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Percival Snodgrass @ 62
I would ask that you look at my post at @ 10. Argumentum ad hominem really adds nothing to the discussion.
10
For the ones who want to know, we here in the States not much of anything has been made of Julias trip here in the MSM and really have not heard much about it.
Bulldust give them HELL at the meeting. Pricing a trace gas will do nothing more than make bankers and investors rich and everyone else poorer. If things such as basic services cost much more you have less disposable income to spend so ergo the economy suffers, and why the politicians can not get that threw thier thick skulls i will never know unless it is because they stand to make a killing from it, and i believe it is the latter!
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Mark D. @ 58
If it was the one at SCIRP – yes, I read it and replied to you on that thread in that regard.
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cohenite @ 59
There are lots of good explanations on the greenhouse effect all over the place – I’m not going to try a deep explanation on a blog reply.
That said, my preferred explanation (when teaching, I often will throw out 3-4 different descriptions in the hopes that one of them clicks with the students) is to look at emissivity.
The IR emissivity of the Earth’s surface is ~0.98, or 98% of that from a perfect black body. Given an average surface temp of 14°C and the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship, the surface should radiate about 390 W/m^2 of energy, which it does. Since we’re only receiving ~240 W/m^2 from the sun, you would expect the temperature to drop like a rock – we would need to be at about -18°C for the surface to radiate 240 W/m^2, which would be chilly.
But then there’s the atmosphere. If you look at the IR spectra of the Earth from a satellite, there are big dips in the thermal curve from greenhouse gases and clouds. The effective emissivity of the planet is about 0.612 as a result, not the 0.98 of the surface.
And using the Stefan-Bolzmann relationship, that means a surface temperature of 14°C will radiate about 240 W/m^2 to space, matching incoming power.
—
Now, as to the log relationship you mentioned – CO2 radiative blocking goes up as the log of concentration, about 3.7 W/m^2 per doubling, and about 1.2°C temperature change from that. Insolation changes go up linearly. Feedbacks (additional water vapor, etc.) add more.
But why does that log relationship matter? What’s critical in terms of effects on us is the change in energy.
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Richard S Courtney @ 69
I’m sorry you feel that way, Richard – I find the accusations of lying unpleasant, untrue, and rather a detriment to the discussion.
Recent work (the two papers I linked to in @32, and others) indicate short term warming of the troposphere, but there are indeed long term trend issues due to poor consistency and calibrations in radiosonde instrumentation. There is certainly room for discussion and better resolution of calibration issues there for the long term trends
The stratospheric cooling is the real sign of greenhouse gases – trapping heat in the lower atmosphere, cooling in the upper atmosphere. Solar forcings, aerosols, ozone, volcanos don’t show that differential.
And that’s what we observe – stratospheric cooling. Hmmmm…
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cohenite @ 59
I re-read your post, and in terms of focus I’ll refer you again to my post at @4. Different spatial patterns of energy added to the climate are going to have different end effects on temperature, just as the final temperature of your house will differ based on whether you put a set number of BTU’s into the basement, living room, or a poorly insulated attic. Efficacy is a real issue.
And as I linked in @4, people spend a lot of effort trying to nail down the numbers for it; it’s not an arbitrary fudge factor.
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@KR
Although I disagree with you about CAGW I must admit that you make an attempt to post intelligently and logically. Also, you avoid the use of ad hominems.
You commented:
From this link http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx that you provided:
Your statement, “It’s complicated, it can’t be true!” was a quote and yet Tel never stated that. You have employed a straw man.
Tel never stated “climate sensitivity is low, and we’re going to be fine”. Another straw man. If you wish to show that Tel’s post would lead one to logically conclude so then you must provide evidence and argue that it does. Otherwise your conclusion does not follow (non sequitur).
Your statement “climate sensitivity to forcings is non-linear (to explain why the first argument doesn’t fit historic data in any shape or form)” is vague. Which “first argument is vague and how is Tel’s statement “wrong”? Tell wrote, “Well, the easiest way to explain it would be that the system is nonlinear so there’s no reason to presume sensitivity is the same as it was during the last glaciation.” Are you arguing that the climate system is linear? Are you arguing that it is logical to assume that sensitivity was the same for the last glaciation?
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Eddy Aruda @ 103, Tel
Eddy, I think you’re correct, and that I didn’t read Tel’s initial post clearly enough. I took the section on ‘non-linear’ responses and ran too far with it. My apologies. I’ve had too many recent discussions with other people on this topic…
—
“Are you arguing that the climate system is linear? Are you arguing that it is logical to assume that sensitivity was the same for the last glaciation?”
There are definitely non-linear feedback elements involved – the ice-age transitions of albedo due to advancing/retreating ice sheets come to mind. Currently Arctic “amplification” is one of them – if the ice cap continues to shrink we can expect to see the Arctic warming much more than the tropics.
CO2 forcing direct, on the other hand, is about as straightforward a relationship as possible. Each doubling (log factor) or halving of CO2 changes energy emitted to space by ~3.7 W/m^2 over a very large range of concentrations.
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KR:
re your post at #102.
Apologise for your lie and I will then demoliosh your other falsehoods (as I did your original lie).
Richard
(I have read the comments you referred to in the other thread and then in this thread.I do not think it is worth pursuing because the person simply believes in what he wrote.You need to stop asking for apologies over and over.It is not worth it and frankly in my opinion.You are being absurd in your demands) CTS
(You have a wide open opportunity to address more deeply his errors,by posting a rebutting detailed reply.) CTS
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And the ALP(australian LIERS party) employed STOOGE comes back on shift at “March 13th, 2011 at 9:49 pm”………..
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“MattB” that is!
(When will you stop attacking him?) CTS
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Friends:
This thread is about falsehood; viz. the use of arbitrary and imagined values in calculations then asserting that the outcome of the calculations is other than mere opinion.
The entire AGW scare is built on such falsehoods: it is falsehood all the way down.
KR has come on to this blog and used the major method of propoganda promoted by the Al Gore school of climate disinformation.
This method has a series of steps.
Step 1.
State a blatant falsehood.
e.g. sea level could rise 20 feet this century, the ‘hot spot’ is not a unique ‘fingerprint’ of AGW, etc.
Step 2.
If called on the falsehood then do not agree the correction but respond with other assertions which are related to the original falsehood.
e.g. radiosondes have improved over time, satellites drift, etc.
Step 3.
If Step 2 fails to deflect from the issue of the original falsehood then provide a barrage of additional falsehoods.
e.g. “stratospheric cooling is the real sign of greenhouse gases” (it is not), “And that’s what we observe – stratospheric cooling” (the stratosphere has been warming for the last decade), etc.
Step 4.
If Step 3 fails to deflect from the issue of the original falsehood then smear the person, journal and/or organisation persisting in refuting the falsehood.
KR has provided a text book demonstration of Steps 1 to 3 and I anticipate Step 4 will soon be provided.
Richard
(I agree that he is wrong about the hotspot answers he makes.But demanding that he apologize,will not answer them.All you did was appear to be losing your temper and he can then respond with these calm replies.I quote: “I’m sorry you feel that way, Richard – I find the accusations of lying unpleasant, untrue, and rather a detriment to the discussion.” and “You’re really working the unpleasant angle, aren’t you? I haven’t lied, and hence won’t be apologizing for my post – the one linking to current work in the field. You’re entitled to your own opinion, Richard – but not your own facts.” and “I try not to do insults, Richard – I prefer to discuss data. You’re welcome to disagree, but don’t expect me to be convinced unless you present some solid data of your own.”
KR appears to be more civil and tolerant than you.That weakens your entire case against him.
I suggest that you go into overtime to make a comprehensive counterpoint instead.To show why YOU think he is spreading falsehoods.) CTS
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Grayman: #99
Go for it Bulldust … seek’em.
Definitely off topic … but:
Our Prime Minister played in a charity cricket match yesterday, to raise money for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.
He made over ten runs in his single over (I didn’t notice the exact stats), including at least two powerful fours, off the bowling of Shane Warne.
Now, you Aussies have the challenge to get your Prime Minister to better that … 🙂
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I meant to also add, that the match raised NZ$500,000.
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Richard S Courtney: #109
You are, as usual, quite right. It is almost textbook classic.
But some of us were having a bit of fun as well. I actually managed at #43 to get him to admit that he didn’t have a clue.
This was on the subject of reviewers, who in an ideal world would be anonymous; a fact that we know from the CRU emails, does not always hold true for climate science.
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Touch our money, Mr Swan, and you’re gone………
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/touch_our_money_mr_swan_and_youre_gone/
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Richard S Courtney @ 106
You’re really working the unpleasant angle, aren’t you?
I haven’t lied, and hence won’t be apologizing for my post – the one linking to current work in the field. You’re entitled to your own opinion, Richard – but not your own facts.
The tropospheric hot spot is a signature of warming, expected from all the forcings. A differential between the stratosphere and troposphere, with the stratosphere cooling relative to the troposphere, is only expected from greenhouse gases. And, as I’ve stated, we see that differential – for example in Ramaswamy 2006, Graf 1998.
And I’ll add a few more references to the ones in @32:
Titchner 2009, Sherwood 2008, and Haimberger 2008, all of whom have looked at radiosonde calibrations and conclude that, with proper accounting for things like daylight heating of the balloons, radiosonde data matches the models and supports the expected long term trend.
I try not to do insults, Richard – I prefer to discuss data. You’re welcome to disagree, but don’t expect me to be convinced unless you present some solid data of your own.
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Rereke Whakaaro @ 112
As I stated, I don’t know the distribution or number of reviewers, as most reputable journals don’t reveal who they are.
My experience with reviewing is that it ends up as a personal interaction between the editor(s) and the reviewers – with the editor attempting to find people with relevant knowledge (usually by citations in the field). Often this may include a statistician who doesn’t have domain knowledge in the science, but who can evaluate the data treatment.
Primary requirements for repeat reviewing are (a) timely responses, (b) responses that include detail about how the papers could be improved, and the amount of work required, and (c) an evaluation of how new the work is – repeats of other peoples work that don’t add new information aren’t encouraged.
Personally I think it a poor idea to reveal reviewers identities – writers treat their papers like their intellectual children, and get quite upset when criticized.
—
As to post @43, and in fact the entire conversation we’ve had – you were the one pressing me for information I clearly and repeatedly stated I did not have. If I don’t know something, I’m more than willing to admit it. I find it disappointing that you are being dismissive of that.
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Bulldust @73,
It looks like it’s the same old trolls over the ABC. I just put my oar in, as usual (copied below). I probably won’t be around to defend it, time is a rare commodity at the moment as time is a rare commodity at the moment (starting a business).
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Bulldust@93
There are those who deny that human CO2 emissions, in spite of the mountains of scientific research faithful to the IPCC charter, are a significant factor in climate variability aka as “climate change”.
The other class of deniers are those who deny, that despite the mountains of disinterested science plus the mountains of confirming weather history, natural climate variability can adequately account for post IR weather events.
10
Kr I note you’ve said nothing about MDB rainfall and IOD counts, but tell us the solution to fix the problem (?) of CAGW?
Pielke Jnr, Christy, Lomborg etc have all tried to explain the problems involved.
So here’s your chance to offer a solution to your problem.
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Neville @ 118
Sorry, I really don’t know too much about the MDB – I’m not from Australia. The IOD appears to be in a mostly positive phase, which is likely caused by wind patterns. It seems similar to the rain belt movement north of the equator, but quite frankly I don’t have the data on the IOD.
One note, though – CAGW (catastrophic AGW) isn’t anything I have stated. I think we’ll be able to adapt to changing climate; it just is going to get more and more expensive and painful as time goes on without changing emission directions.
10
From post # 144,
“The tropospheric hot spot is a signature of warming, expected from all the forcings. A differential between the stratosphere and troposphere, with the stratosphere cooling relative to the troposphere, is only expected from greenhouse gases.”
The 2007 IPCC report clearly state that “well mixed greenhouse gases” by way of modeling can cause the hotspot forcing.The charts they provide make that clear and also in the text.Richard and myself have pointed it out to you.Yet not once have you stated that the IPCC is in error or that we need better glasses to read what the IPCC says on the matter.
Does this mean you do not agree with the IPCC?
I have now put you on the spot.
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KR #101
You might like to join the current debate at Jennifer Marohasy’s site re Stefan-Boltzman, black bodies, emissivity etc. I’m sure your insights would be appreciated.
Link.
Re Sherwood 2008. Hope that wasn’t the paper where he invented the concept of “wind shear” because thermometers weren’t forthcoming with the results he wanted?
If the economic consequences of this madness wern’t so dire, I’d be prepared to leave the subject to academics but the extent to which many of them are prepared to fabricate data, obfuscate, stonewall and pervert the review system just disgusts me as a taxpaying citizen
I’d like to ask you KR, what has to happen in the world before you abandon belief in AGW? I hope you don’t attempt to reverse the burden of proof in your response.
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CTS:
You wrote this to me:
No! Absolutely not! How dare you!?
At #22 I provided a complete rebuttal of his falsehood that anybody can check with one click of a mouse.
At #69 I said to KR:
I stand by every word of that.
At #109 I pointed out and explained the method instructed in the Al FGore training courses that KR is using here.
This thread is about falsehood and, therefore, I think it very reasonable to object to KR spreading falsehoods over this thread like confetti.
Richard
10
Post # 120 was addressed to KR.
I forgot to mention,
The IPCC report shows that almost all of the forcings,are from “well mixed greenhouse gases”.All other forcings together are negligible.
This is what you are disputing.
It appears that you are not agreeing with the IPCC report on the matter.
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Mark @ 121
I looked at that link. Ouch. That fits into the category of not even wrong. I don’t think I’ll post there – anyone who accepts such junk is running a site where I cannot make a difference in the discussion.
I won’t try to “reverse the burden of proof” – but given my background in spectroscopy, energy analysis, the many lines of evidence about global warming, and quite frankly my (personal) judgement that the majority of people in any field are actually well intentioned and care about the data they produce, convincing me that AGW is false will take some fundamental shift in absorption physics, identification of a (provable) forcing outside CO2 that matches the current temperature record, or a 20-30 year downturn in temperatures.
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Sunsettommy @ 120, 123
First, as per the multiple references I’ve posted, both short term and (rather more tenuously) long term trends in tropospheric warming match the GHG models. Stratospheric cooling relative to the troposphere, the real GHG signature, is an established fact.
I don’t think I’m in disagreement.
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Richard S Courtney @ 122
Yeesh. Chill, Richard. You are, quite frankly, ranting. Post some data, and I’ll try to reply. I will not comment on continued accusatory posts in this theme.
10
KR
From this thread.New Here? The “ten second” guide to the world of skeptics.
I posted a reply that you have not replied.
It is found at post # 232
Could you be avoiding it because I posted a link to a convincing counterpoint written by Jo.Exploding John Cooks misleading and dishonest blog entry:
How Jo Nova doesn’t get the tropospheric hot spot
Here is Jo’s reply to John Cook’s weak blog entry.How John Cook unskeptically believes in a hotspot (that thermometers can’t find)
I has replied to your post #15 about it.Where you posted the link to that overrated and chronically misnamed skepticalscience.
Just to whet your appetite.I am going to give you a selective quote from Jo’s rebuttal to poor Johnny:
I recall that you stated something about looking at both sides of a discussion.He he he…
I am waiting to see what you can dredge up to rationalize some whopping errors.That Jo had brought up about what John Cook stated.
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John Brookes @ 66
I knew Greg very well. His training/professional background is in mining engineering. He did research work for the trade unions in Port Kembla on lead emissions from the Southern Copper smelter. He knows that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. He is doing what he is doing because if he can pull off negotiating and imposing this tax he will replace Gillard as Prime Minister. His main competition for that post is Shorten who has placed an each way bet against the carbon dioxide tax. Greg has all his wages and rent money on the tax getting up. With politicians always back the self interest horse evry time. If you are on backing him and the opportunists that are pushing the tax good luck to ya. Mug punters take those sort of odds every day in this country. Personally I am putting my hard earned on the science and facts.
10
KR:
Your lies are intolerable. Now, at #126, you have the gall to write to me:
You really are a piece of work. This is all because I did post the pertinent data and I repeated it at #22 but you have persistently refused to consider the data and have posted more lies instead.
And you have now fulfilled my prediction at #109 that you would perform ‘Step 4’ of the Al Gore method by presenting a smear (i.e. the lie that I have not presented data).
As trolls go you really are one of the most despicable it has been my misfortune to come across.
Richard
10
KR@101,103; thanks for replying; I would like your response to RC and the IPCC’s claim that 2XCO2 = a 2% [or 8%] increase in solar energy.
At 4 you say this:
“Think about your house – you put the same number of BTU’s into it, but there will be a difference in final temperatures between depending on whether you’re warming the basement, warming the attic, or running forced air into the living room. Different heating patterns have different efficacies?”
You measure energy in Joules; there is no difference in Joules in respect of where the energy comes from; your house handy hint example is confusing the issue between the forcing or source of the energy, solar and CO2, and the location where that energy is received.
In terms of the Earth’s energy balance it is irrelevant where on Earth that energy is expressed; the crucial thing is TOA balance and whether energy is being stored somewhere on Earth so as to justify the notion of an equilibrium or delayed use of that energy.
We have had a discussion about TOA energy balance and Lindzen and Choi in particular; whether there is energy stored in the abysmal ocean is also contradicted by the evidence.
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Sunsettommy @ 127
My initial response was “this is off-topic with efficacy”, but on reflection, since different forcings have different spatial distributions (and hence efficacies), it definitely is on topic.
—
(1) There’s been a lot of work on calibrating radiosondes, as they don’t match the models. Before you yell about models, keep in mind that these are based on pure physics, and I have often found that if physics contradicts your observations, it’s worth checking your measurements! Current (last 10 years) work indicates that the tropospheric hot spot does exist, and that previous calibrations of radiosonde temperatures were not well done. But I will readily note that this long term trend data is still being solidified.
(2) Recent measures (I have already posted the links, starting with @32, also @114) show tropospheric warming.
(3) Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. But the phase transition to precipitation means that WV enters/leaves the atmosphere almost strictly as a feedback, whereas long-lived GHG’s like CO2 and methane stick around.
(4) Most importantly from my point of view, although others may disagree – the stratospheric cooling differential is the true sign of greenhouse gas warming, not a tropospheric hot spot. The IPCC figures that everyone yells about are scaled according to forcing level, and hence the (rather large) forcing of GHG’s means that the image shown is very contrasty – I really wish that they had included a set of images with uniform scaling between the various forcing factors for comparison. Greenhouse gases are the only forcing that shows a stratospheric cooling relative to the troposphere, and (as per references I’ve posted in @114) we have indeed observed that. No other forcing shows that signature.
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Richard S Courtney @ 129
I have indeed read those sections of the IPCC report. I’ve repeatedly discussed the spatial distributions of various forcings, and I do not see any contradiction between my comments and the IPCC report findings – I didn’t comment because I couldn’t see an issue there. In fact, the spatial distributions of various forcings is the key issue in efficacy, the theme of this thread, and I believe I have stayed with that as much as possible, given the number of questions addressed to me since my first post.
As to the disagreement between Jo Nova and John Cook on the tropospheric hot spot, I would point you to post @131. I (based on my evaluation of the evidence) disagree with Jo.
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cohenite @ 130
2x CO2 means a 3.7 W/m^2 direct forcing in terms of energy not emitted to space. That’s about 1.5% of the 240 W/m^2 received, and translates to about 1.2C warming – at which point the Earth will again emit ~240 W/m^2 IR.
Feedbacks are expected to increase that to ~3C (+/- a bit).
—
As to spatial distribution – TOA warming (such as from the sun) has an easier time escaping to space, and hence a different efficacy than lower atmosphere GHG warming. I’ll point you again to my analogy in @4.
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KR at post # 125,
Man I am beginning to think you NEVER read that relevant section of the report.Otherwise you would see that they are specifically stating that “well mixed greenhouse gases” are the ONLY forcing capable of making that “hotspot” fingerprint in the lower Troposphere.
I quote straight from the report and hopefully post the chart you seem to never seem to see.
LINK to the CHART
It is plain that you are in conflict with the IPCC.
Here is a chart showing the no longer cooling trend of the Stratosphere:
CHART
NO cooling trend since 1993.It is flat ever since.That according to RSS,UAH and HadAT2 data.
LOL
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Sunsettommy @134
OK, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. 10 years is too short a time to make climate trend analysis. Between the ENSO, AO, IOD, and other alphabet soup, there’s a lot of inherent variability in the climate, and you cannot make a statistically significant statement about long term trends without about 30 years of data given that variability.
That said, the references I gave in @32 and @114 are showing tropospheric warming over the last 10 years, and the data does seem to indicate that there is stratospheric cooling:
Various levels of the stratosphere
I do not consider myself in contradiction to the IPCC – all the forcings, as per that chart you linked, will cause a tropospheric warming, but GHG’s are the only ones that show a relative stratospheric cooling.
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OT – The ABC Drum has dragged out another scientist to put down Nick Minchin. This guy attacks Dr Roy Spencer whom he assumes has advised Senator Minchin.
I wrote two replies – here is my second one:
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KR from post # 132,
ROFLMAO!
It is clear that you will overlook her rebuttals that destroyed his comments and apparently yours as well.
Jo showed the other charts,John deliberately omit that destroys his claim,and your too.
I do not think you read her rebuttal at all.Since what you wrote was debunked by her as well,by accident of course since you have not a freaking clue how bad you look with your typically spare replies.
To show how idiotic your replies have become.Here is a quote from HERE.That shows just how dishonest John really is:
Chart is in the link.
Jo shows that real data are not matching up with your precious models.Not even close.I just posted evidence Stratospheric cooling has stopped in the early 1990’s.It is a FLAT trend ever since.
Gosh even AGW believers are using that very same stratospheric chart I posted recently.And think it is still cooling way up there.They are willing to lie to themselves apparently to hang onto their delusions.That CO2 is the SOLE cause of the cooling.They argue that Ozone is not causing the cooling.
Pathetic!
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Sunsettommy:
With respect, I think you are wasting your time. KR clearly knows that his assertions are ciontradicted by the IPCC. But he has repeatedly demonstrated that facts roll off him like water from a duck’s back.
There can be no constructive discussion when one side ignores all fact that shows he is wrong and merely states falsehood instead; e.g. KR’s assertion that there is no contradiction between his assertions and the IPCC AR4 Chapter 9.
The troll is not worthy of your time.
Richard
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KR #115
I acknowledge your statement that you do not know the distribution or the number of reviewers.
I accept that most of the reputable journals do not reveal who the reviewers are, but I think we might diverge on the underlying motives for that “common practice”.
I am also familiar with the intent of peer review, and the practice of peer review, which are sometimes at odds with each other.
When you work in a small and specialised field you tend to know all of the other people in that field. This is even more pronounced when your specialised field actually represents a subset of a much larger organisation with diverse aims. You find you have more in common with people half a world away, than you do with the people who occupy the office down the hall. Invariably you meet up at conferences and seminars, and you get to know these people quite well. Sometime they become friends as well as colleagues.
Friends and colleagues tend to exchange “chatter” via all sorts of mediums, and they pass news to each other. And that news can sometimes be that they have been approached to act as a reviewer on a friends’ paper. Or even more interesting, they have been asked to review a contrary paper. And of course, in both cases they will agree, with the outcome that one paper may be accepted, and the other recommended for rejection.
But in this process, a common understanding – be it right or wrong – tends to come to the surface, and increasingly gains credibility, right or wrong. And this is the way in which the peer review process starts to fall down. When you have thousands of scholars and dozens of professors in a large field, the peer review process works well, but in a highly specialised field, not so much. Taken to an extreme, I could end up reviewing my own work.
The other fly in the ointment is that many authors also know the editors of the journals, and can sometimes have influence over the selection (or more to the point) rejection of reviewers who are known to hold different opinions. I know of one editor who just happens to be the son-in-law of an eminent scientist, for example.
So yes, I was pressing you for information about this subject, primarily to see if you could add further insights that I could use in my research, but also to judge how close you were to the real science, as it is practised in the real world, by the real insiders.
But, as you say, people are well intentioned, and care passionately about what they do, and there is little evidence of intentional corruption in the process. But there is significant bias, and there is “patch protection”, and there is competition for funding, and all of the other “real world” concerns. Climate Science has moved more into the realms of competitive behaviour, and away from the more traditional consultative behaviour.
I do not wish to be dismissive of our conversation, but Richard is correct in his assessment about propaganda.
You understand what you have learnt, and you believe what you choose to believe. I am not critical of that. But you came to this site as an evangelist for a cause. You will convince very few people here, especially since some of us have been at this game for a long time, and can remember “The Great Ice Age Scare” of the ’70s, which was also promulgated by many of the same people who are now arguing that we should be hiding under our beds because of a warming of half a degree Kelvin.
10
Let’s face it. KR’s mind is “made up”. Please don’t try to confuse him any further with mere facts. It isn’t worth the effort. He’ll go one for as long as you keep replying to him.
Enough is enough!
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“John Brooks”, “KR” and “MattB”,
Kindly post your bank details so that I can setup my direct debits such that you can all pay for my increased costs of living due to your Gaia Religion.
After all, it’s only fair.
Why should I pay for your Religious Beliefs!
10
KR trust me that info from BOM showing much higher rainfall in the MDB over the second half of the 20th century is genuine.
But here lies your problem the neg IOD’s are more freuent over the second half of the century as well.
Look at the BOM link and you can count 10 neg IOD’s from 1958 to 1996 and only 6 from 1880 to 1943 from the other UNSW link.
So from 1880 to 1943 there are 6 neg IOD’s i.e 63 years.
From 1958 to 2010 inclusive there are 11 neg IOD’s i.e. 62 years.
Also you haven’t answered my question—how would you fix AGW?
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/IOD/negative/
10
Sunsettommy @ 137
First and foremost, please see @135.
10 years does not a climate trend make. I’ve run the numbers, and the internal variability of climate is such that you really need 25-30 (30 is better) in order to extract a statistically significant trend, whether up, down, or unchanged.
And even then, the shorter term data as per my previous references indicates a stratospheric cooling relative to the troposphere. That matches GHG forcings (and nothing else), matches the physics of CO2 absorption (testable in a high-school lab), and the line-by-line wavelength calculations of GHG forcings.
I don’t want to wander too far afield, but observations match the physics, and unless you have alternative, provable physics that gives a different answer, I’m going to go with what works, what comes from the science.
—
I won’t be able to reply to much on this thread for a couple of days – life interferes, and I still have a day job. I’ll do my best…
10
KR@130; no buddy, you are being slippery; CO2 forcing is not just based on energy “not emitted to space”; CO2 forcing is also predicated on isotropic emissions by CO2 maintaining the photon energy intially absorbed; in that respect you may care to consider this:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/03/recycling-of-heat-in-the-atmosphere-is-impossible/comment-page-1/#comment-476522
CO2 isotropic emission is subject to MEP and therefore if a non-collisional CO2 molecule reemits it will do so at less energy than was absorbed.
Anyway when you say “2x CO2 means a 3.7 W/m^2 direct forcing” you are still avoiding that IPCC and AGW regard that as the equivalent to a 2% increase in solar energy, however you like to describe that. Again I direct you to my comment @59 and in particular to George’s calculations; that really knocks your idea of CO2 forcing and temperature consequences out the window.
10
Post # 135,
Your own link shows no cooling trend since the early 1990’s.Yet CO2 levels in the atmosphere has risen for those last 18 years.But no more cooling trend can be seen.
Has CO2 molecules gone on vacation the last two decades?
Your whine that it has to be 30 years before it is meaningful is dishonest.The charts,yours AND mine show NO COOLING TREND THE LAST 18 years!.Long enough to cast doubt about the AGW hypothesis on it.You guys keep saying is cooling,when it is not doing that anymore.That is the reality you are fighting.
The IPCC report makes it clear that only “well mixed greenhouse gases can make that “hotspot”.I showed you SEVERAL times now the actual words of the IPCC report and referred to the chart.The chart shows the “hotspot” picture only with “well mixed greenhouse gases”.Your replies to this has been in your own words.
All the other forcings: Solar,Volcanoes,Tropospheric and Stratospheric Ozone changes,Sulphate aerosol.Make up a negligible,visible level of warm forcing.The chart shows that very well.
Why are you bullshitting me about it?
10
further example of why i no longer turn on ABC:
13 March: ABC Landline: Climate of Change – Part 2
CHRIS CLARK: What does a climate model that predicts a warmer, drier Australia mean for the greenhouse gas emissions from our soils – whether it be carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide, for example?…
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2010/s3162720.htm
we need to stop this madness now:
13 March: Australian: Dennis Shanahan: Carbon price ‘would need to be tripled’ to force change from coal-fired electricity
A CARBON tax will have to be set at $60 a tonne — three times the expected $20 tax to be set next year — to force electricity generators to switch from dirty brown coal in southeastern Australia to cleaner gas to reduce greenhouse emissions…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-price-would-need-to-be-tripled-to-force-change-from-coal-fired-electricity/story-fn59niix-1226020025233
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KR #124
Re Jen’s site.
Cop-out just as I thought. If you really think that then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to prove it with a devastating riposte, should it?
No one here disputes that the world has warmed since the 1850. Or, do you still believe in the “hockey stick”?
I note that you make no comment on the instances of professional malfeasance so you are clearly onside with this sort of behaviour.
As far as burden of proof goes, your argument is unsatisfactory as aspects of theory or hypothesis can be argued back and forth ad infinitum. Your empirical point of waiting 20-30 years is disingenuous in the extreme. “Trust me on this, I will be proved right”. Yeah, right! Incalculable economic damage will have been done by that time if the AGW agenda is forced down our throats.
We’ll all be interested to read your rebuttal of the “null hypothesis”, that is, that the temperature changes since 1850 fall within the observed range of natural variability.
In closing, Bjoern Lomborg (hardly a sceptic) has estimated that in order to achieve the year 2100 emission targets 20,000 billion dollars will need to be spent for a reduction of a fraction of a degree. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
10
Ziggy Zwitowski plays down the fears of a nuclear meltdown in Japan, and rightly so:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/even-in-earthquake-zones-nuclear-power-is-still-a-safe-option/story-fn59niix-1226020737031
Once again we see the Australian media going ridiculously apeshit over the nuclear industry despite no casualties from the reactors and possibly tens of thousands from other causes. See my shark attack analogy from a couple days ago.
Meanwhile in the real world another renewable energy generator in Australia goes bankrupt:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/clean-energy-industry-warns-of-boom-bust/story-e6frg6nf-1226020755171
Despite the abject failure of the renewable energy generators both here and overseas the Labor Government is going full steam ahead with an
advertisingeducation campaign to explain why the upcoming “carbon price” will be good for you:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-has-a-carbon-tax-ad-plan-ready-for-rollout-foi-documents-show/story-fn59niix-1226020908538
I am wondering whether a personal grassroots letterbox drop of factual information is worthwhile. Something akin to the sceptics handbook but more along economic lines explaining how the tax will REALLY impact Australians and how it will achieve nothing.
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Replying to post # 138.
I agree that he is a proven troll.
Not once has he actually contradicted the IPCC report about the “Hotspot”.We both gave him direct access to the report and even had the gall to post real quotes from the report.But since he is being an imbecile,just ignores it and drones on with his dishonest pap.It is obvious he can not answer the actual words of the IPCC report on the “hotspot”.
He also passed on the devastating rebuttal of John Cooks dishonest blog entry.Just continue to use his failed arguments.
I am doing it to expose him for it and to help lurkers who come here reading the exchanges.To see why the camp of AGW skeptics keeps growing over the years.Why we are getting more and more sarcastic with their stupid claims,that have been getting hammered in the last few years by actual published science research papers.There are so many now,that I can not keep up!
Ironically this is the very subject I have been researching to eventually post a basic report for the layman,in my forum.It is now in draft stage and getting “peer review” in the Moderator area of the forum.This thread will help me build part two of my report.Where I show the typical arguments like the ones KR present are absurd.
LOL
10
Strange I got the link to read your article from the email that skepticalscience sends me each day. With out fear or favour it lists all on-line blogs, articles and research new that day.
I do not think that their head(s) are as far up their fundaments as yours. I do further postulate you are in it as whores not honest brokers.
If you can prove me wrong I will post an apology.
John
[Prove you wrong? Ha Ha. You are the one throwing baseless ad homs and insults. There’s nothing I could say that would prove anything to you anyway. Your offer of an apology is a fake, and worthless from an anonymous insult-thrower. I work almost entirely pro bono, and since you have no evidence that I’m not (because there isn’t any) you can apologize to me.
Obviously you accept the scientific criticisms we put forward, since you can’t find fault with those. (Shame that doesn’t mean much coming from someone who can’t reason). — JN ]
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Bulldust.
One can only wonder how many senior, vulnerable folk will perish from heat and cold if the Green agenda of “renewable” power eventuates. Joolya is on record with her attitude to senior citizens. “They don’t vote for us”.
Joolya and the Greens want lots of stupid “wet-behind-the-ears” adolescents who believe that there will always be power to recharge their mobiles and iPads, run their X-boxes and other sundry items.
Any one else notice the faces smiling out of the Green posters. You’d wonder if they had finished “potty training”.
10
Greens mark the revenge of Gaia – SICK BASTARDS!!
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/greens_mark_the_revenge_of_gaia/
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Bulldust @148,
This is easy to believe when you’re thousands of miles from those troubled rectors. But it’s not so easy when you have the responsibility for dealing with the problems on the spot. The people responsible for managing the problem are definitely worried about meltdown — and have said so.
If we’re going to build these things — and we should and eventually certainly will — the people should understand what they’re all about before committing to them.
The Three Mile Island rector #2 incident in 1979 was an eye opener, a real comedy of errors and human stubbornness, except it was for real.
I’ve probably made myself unpopular for speaking my mind. But Joannenova is all about actual knowledge, not minimizing something because it’s politically expedient. 😉
10
Roy Hogue:
How about the real knowledge that more people have died from wind power in the last ten years than nuclear power, despite nuclear providing 30 times the electricity output – see references in attached article:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100079664/did-climate-change-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/
My position has nothing to do with sitting thousands of clicks away from the reactors. I would quite happily live next door to one (in Australia). Sadly the ignorant Australian electorate has been brainwashed into thinking that the evil of nuclear energy is second only to the devil.
I am not a huge proponent of nuclear due to the relative expense when compared to gas-fired electricity … but I am dead set against ignorant policy-making. Give me nuclear over most renewables any day (barring major technological breakthroughs in renewables which have not yet occured).
10
I may well be on my own here! However I find many of your post unnecessary and of little relevance to the discussion. I have enjoyed the main body of discussion on this thread, particularly the contributions of sunsettommy, cohanite, bulldust, Richard, even if he can sometimes appear to be over sensitive, as well as others among Jo’s regulars. While John Brooks comes over as a believer only because to become an unbeliever would leave him empty and frustrated, over time John is yet to post any justifiable reason for his belief other than he trust the consensus. KR has come with, from his viewpoint solid argument: he has been polite and as yet not sunk to ad homs.
If like me you have nothing to add to the scientific debate, it might be better to not post at all.
10
elsie at #24
=========
Still find it hard to believe the small concentrations of CO2 (refuse to use the single word carbon) have the effect on climate as ‘predicted’.
=========
The percentage is small sure, at 0.035%. But there is a 10000 metre thick layer of it around the earth. That adds up.
Think about clouds. In a cloud there is not much liquid water suspended in the air, but they sure do block the sunlight.
Lets do a thought experiment. Freeze out all of the CO2 in the atmosphere. You would get a layer 5mm thick. This value comes from a simple calculation: no models, no calculus, no algebra, just simple arithmetic. Now make a 5mm thick bubble of frozen CO2 around the earth 10000 metres up. It would be perfectly transparent to your eyes. But at CO2 infrared wavelengths it looks like black glass. This blocks about 20% of the heat radiation leaving the earth. Think of partly open venetian blinds as an analogy. This means the effect of CO2 is not negligible.
Lets take this further. If the thickness of the CO2 layer is increased by 40% (the cumulative amount added by humans to the atmosphere) the blockage does not increase to 20% x 1.4. It increases only very slightly. Maybe a few percent (warning: making a number up here) adding to 21%. That’s why the amount of additional heat retention in the atmosphere and oceans is hard to measure and why the temperature increase so far has been small (0.8 degrees C).
10
I’ve just posted this on Dr Roy Spencer’s site:
I just F**ked a facebook post that was stirring up about the nuclear accident in Japan with the following post:
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LazyTeenager @ 156
Could you explain to me how CO2 can be transparent at visible light frequencies yet “black glass” at InfraRed frequencies? Given that the two ranges are adjacent in the spectrum.
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jjanama@157; I hope Spencer responds to Bickmore; his article is egregious; my comment submitted to Unleashed is this:
“Professor Bickmore says he has revealed the flaws in Spencer and Braswell [2008]; in fact a more substantial critique was done by Murphy and Foster [2010] Spencer replies to Murphy and Foster here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/can-climate-feedbacks-be-diagnosed-from-satellite-data-comments-on-the-murphy-forster-2010-critique-of-spencer-braswell-2008/#comments
The substance of Spencer’s above comments were incorporated into Spencer and Braswell [2010] which Bickmore has apparently not looked at:
http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/spencer-braswell-jgr-20101.pdf
Bickmore says that Spencer achieves much lower findings for climate sensitivity than the IPCC because he “was willing to use absurd values for some of his model parameters.”
This is quite incorrect. Spencer used stock standard CERES satellite and HadCRUT radiation and temperature data; that official data was put through his model with the results compared with the output of the official AR4 coupled models; Spencer’s model gave a far better fit with the actual data.
This article is unfair and misleading. I gather Dr Spencer has been notified. I hope he responds.”
10
Also LazyTeenager @156
How much Heat/Light does Nitrogen at 78% of the atmosphere block? Or Oxygen at 20%?
or are these always invisible.
I guess that if CO2 blocks 20% of the infrared from escaping then it must also block 20% of the infrared from the sun?
10
Bulldust @ 148.
Bulldust. I have spent countless hours trawling through websites such as this one for precisely the purpose you mention above, to gather factual information that I estimate will be both understandable to the general public and effective in terms of allowing them to see that this issue of alleged CAGW and its mind-numbingly stupid “remedies” are profound issues with potentially profound consequences for ALL OF US.
In the process of my spending so much time in this effort, the practical aspects of my own life largely go to hell.
I think your suggestion is an excellent one and urgently needed, especially since we cannot rely on the bulk of the MSM as well as the fact that “the average punter” is too busy attending to the necessities of surviving, looking after the family and so on to be in a position to do the research needed to come to an accurately informed position.
Personally I would be more than happy to trudge the pavements and disseminate such information. There may be many others who feel the same.
Unfortunately, being completely untrained in the various disciplines relevant to the task, I have to rely on the information coming from more knowledgeable folk such as yourself and Jo and the many other excellent contributors to this site and others. My opinion is that you are all doing an invaluable service for society.
Keep up the great work Jo and Bulldust and everyone else who have put in so much great work on behalf of all who want to live in a sane and just word.
Cheers.
10
A good read!
What Gillard’s monster plan will achieve: 0.0007 degrees.:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_gillards_monster_plan_will_achieve_00007_degrees/
10
Gee, I get a thumbs down at #158 just for asking a question.
This is really a tough neighbourhood.
I think an honest question deserves better than just a thumbs down.
10
Roy Hogue: #153
They have flooded the pressure vessel with seawater and Boron – look like a rebuild job, but the reaction is out – no meltdown.
As far as I can make out, the reactor shut down automatically when the quake struck (i.e. inserted the control rods), so the operators switched to the standby diesel generators to keep the coolant flowing to cool the reactor down – normal procedure. Then the tsunami struck, and knocked out the diesel generators, so the coolant wasn’t flowing. So they went to plan B which was to use some portable generators but, (and this is the learning experience) the plugs on the portable generators would not fit in the sockets on the pumps! Something about different standards in the countries of supply – Oops. That was when the flooded with sea water. A little caesium-137 and iodine-131 leaked, so technically there was a radioactive leakage, but they will have both decayed and be blown to the winds by now.
The explosion was caused by a build up of hydrogen in the reactor building itself, which of course ignited as soon as it found a spark. It just blew the roof off the building, but the containment vessel was not damaged as far as I can tell.
10
Max, don’t worry about the thumbs. It’s not the neighbourhood, just a few bad eggs.
10
MaxL:N2 and O2; this shows how much the 2 gases absorb IR coming from the surface:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
10
Thanks cohenite @165
If I could also ask, what happens in the 2-4 micrometre wavelength region? Does the atmosphere stop it from entering and from exiting?
10
looks like they haven’t printed your response so far Cohenite. I do hope Dr Spencer replies – helpfully with a cohort of lawyers like you 🙂
10
Rereke, Roy Hogue and Bulldust,
Over the past 2 days we’ve been subjected to a tsunami of misinformation from the MSM regarding the reactors in Japan. That does not good at all towards solving the problem. It can actually exascerbate the problem by diverting valuable resources away from those who are solving the problem.
Fear serves the MSM by ramping up their ratings. There are others with more-inhumane motivations. The “news” media exploit these tragedies, pretending to inform, yet very few, very rarely actually inform.
On Farcebook last night, I gave up trying to calm one individual by providing an explaination of what was going on, what was being done and how the reactors work in such situations. Alas, fear had taken hold. He called me an apologist. Then he posted that he’d just heard on NewsRadio that “the core has been exposed”. I suggested that he take two Bex and go to bed; as there was no point trying to reason with the unreasonable.
“the core has been exposed” is a nominal operating mode for a boiling-water reactor. The reactor is normally submerged in a pool of water and brings the water to a boil, giving off steam. The steam is piped to a turbine which drives the generator to produce electricity. As the steam leaved, make-up water is used to maintain the level of liquid water in the containment volume. This maximises reactor output as liquid water moderates neutron flow, enhancing the fission process and hence the development of heat. (Neutrons from decay need to be slowed to facilitate more fission and a sustained chain reaction.)
When a situation arises where it’s necessary to “scram” the reactor (emergency shutdown), it’s not actually necessary to keep the core submerged. A steam void removes the water moderator from the top of the core, reducing the chain reaction initiated by decay and thereby the rate of heat development. The temperature of the core increases which could eventually lead to a meltdown.
However; even though “the core has been exposed”, there has been no breach of containment, so no uncontrolled release of radioactive material into the environment.
Meltdowns are to be avoided. For commercial reasons.
Modern western reactor designs which are remotely susceptible to meltdown are designed to cope with the meltdown without a breach of containment. The base of the containment is a “pan” with a raised centre, covered with (IIRC) boron-heavy alloys which will combine with any hot, dripping metal from the reactor core, putting a brake on the neutron flux and running off to the edge to cool and solidify (eventually) into a “ring”.
Again. No containment breach. Just an awful big mess that’ll take years to clean up.
I trust that the people who design, operate, maintain and inspect these nuclear plants know and understand a great deal more about the subject than I; and are able to put that into effect to calm the reactors and subsequently, the needlessly-frightened people of the world.
10
Bernd was that Skippy? I think I read that.
10
Bob @155 +1
10
The nuclear safety thing is quite interesting. I read a fairly comprehensive description of the safety features of the affected Japanese reactors, and I found it reassuring. It seems likely that, despite a catastrophic natural event, there will be no major disaster.
There are some people who don’t want nuclear power, no matter what. If this is based on the overall cost of nuclear power, when all parts of the nuclear cycle are taken into account, then it may be valid. But if it is based on safety, it seems misguided.
The general view here is that a warming world is (a) not our fault, and (b) not a problem if it happened, and (c) not necessarily a likely scenario. However the evidence to the contrary suggests that there is a need to look at alternative energy sources to coal and oil. Nuclear may well be part of this, and the end result of the Japanese nuclear reactor problems will provide a key indicator of the overall safety of nuclear power.
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So, I’m sitting here late at night reading the interaction with Percival Snodgrass. The trolling definitely getting worse than usual in-between some polite attempts to make rational arguments. Then this:
I’ve given Percy a wide berth up till now, only spamming a thumbs down for every link he spams here. But this post crossed the line. It’s arrogant. Arrogance(aside from ignorance of the law and everyday stupidity, I guess) is usually the basic reason why criminals get caught. This to me, is the line crossing moment.
So, long story short: I did a bit of research. But two and two together. Funny thing. Turns out Percy is a student at UEA. Yes, I’m almost positive of the county. Probably a climate change student, Percy has definately taken an ocean paleontology course.
He, yes he, is possibly posting on campus. I doubt he has been smart/careful enough to use a proxy.
So, Jo, you would do well to throw your server log in the direction of Steve McIntyre(He’s got all the UEA IP addresses). If I’m not able to come up with a name in the next few days, I’m sure the log files will lead somewhere.
I love the internet. 😉
(He has crossed MY line.I have been snipping his comments the last couple days) CTS
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David,
I think you would be better off using the measure warming delayed than reduce the temperature by hundredths of degrees.
A message that says “The carbon tax will cost 250 billion and delay the catastrophic consequences of global warming by one month” is much more effective.
Typically the cost benefit arguement from scaremongers is based on the fact that if we do nothing the costs will be some horrible number, lets say 250 billion. Where the carbon tax proposal becomes laughable is that if its proponents are to be believed, we will have to pay twice as the carbon tax just postpones the catastrophe by a month.
10
O/T sorry.
Yet another giant industrial wind farm proposed for my district in NSW. 200, 250, 300 turbines near Yass, Jugiong, Harden; another 90 now near Boorowa, Rugby, Junee, Rye Park; where does it end? Hundreds of linear kilometers of 400 ft whirling steel: rural blight.
We’re under siege here; and what the average rural citizen thinks about living in a power plant makes no difference.
There’s a high quality power grid connection near Yass so it makes sense in profiteer terms to develop every inch of EVERY SINGLE RIDGELINE in the area. There’s no end to the developer onslaught as long as there’s money to be made from the renewable energy mandates driven by the great global warming swindle. There are no grown-ups to say enough’s enough. Government has abdicated responsibility.
The grief and horror of the residents who love the high country and southwest slopes of New South Wales is real. The community division is palpable. Why should I lift a finger, or stick my neck out in times to come, for the landowners who sold out the district for a handful of silver?
The same thing is happening all along the Great Dividing Range from Cooma to Glen Innes. The councils hate the giant wind farms but they’ve been locked out of the process. The state MPs hate them too but they have no part in the process. Nobody counts apparently except the landowners who are grabbing a few coins, international corporate fraudsters who are making big money, and the green-obsessed bureaucrats in Macquarie St and Canberra. The environmental impact statements are bogus, the community consultation is bogus, the ‘future landscape imagery’ is bogus, the state-imposed and stacked ‘renewable energy committees’ are bogus, everything is bogus.
The NSW state government held an enquiry on wind farms; they found that rural voters felt “disenfranched”. Right. What comes around goes around though, so goodbye NSW Labor. For about ten years. Hope to follow suit in Canberra.
Epuron(Germany) are the developers for all the wind farm [scam] developments in the region. They do a lightweight scientific survey, some cut and paste environmental analysis and onsell the development to utilities like Origin that are under the gun of the renewable energy mandates. Why wouldn’t Epuron industrialise our mountains and ridgelines, and keep coming back and back and back? It’s not as though they care about the Australian landscape. From their point of view it’s money for nothing. Our governments, state and federal, send out the “free green money” chow call, and of course the opportunistic multinationals respond.
Sack the NSW government. Turn out for the no carbon tax demonstrations. Call for an election to oust Juliar and her cohorts. Cancel greenpower subscriptions and tell your friends and relatives to do the same. Greenpower is built on rural blight, environmental degradation and the disempowering of rural communities. Email MPs. Kill the renewable energy mandates. Eliminate the profiteers by cutting the subsidies.
The so-called ‘Greens’ are after you and your property, your rights as as a citzen, and the green places you appreciate. If you get one wind farm then assume that EVERY POSSIBLE SITE in your area (nature reserves and peripheries included) is up for grabs to anybody in the world who wants money – your money. And you probably won’t hear about it until it’s a done deal.
I’m a Labor voter who won’t be voting Labor again til they remember that they stand for the little guy and for Australia; and I’m a light green who’ll be working and voting against the Australian ‘Greens’ for a long time to come.
I hope some of the NSW hill country can be saved, but I’m not optimistic. Goodbye hills.
10
The “major disaster” has been calibrated by the Chernobyl event — a reactor without a containment vessel exploded: a nuclear power excursion (essentially a small nuclear explosion), triggered by operator error and allowed by the dangerous design of the reactor — then the carbon fuel (graphite) core burned for days, ensuring that all fuel got burnt and dispersed into the environment. Today, it is not possible to agree (beyond the 50 workers killed at the plant) how many deaths (if any) can be attributed to the accident.
There is no chance of a similar accident in Japan, as the reactors are designed with a negative reactivity coefficient to the loss of coolant (the opposite of the Chernobyl reactor), so a nuclear explosion is not possible. The problem with the Japan reactors is that nuclear fuel produces significant amounts of heat for several days after the fission reaction is shut down, due to the decay of the short half-life fission products.
The Japanese reactors have to be cooled down for several days after the nuclear reaction is shut off by active pumping of coolant through the core and heat exchangers — hence a loss of power during the cooling down period can cause the core to meltdown. This “Tiger by the Tail” design follows the industry’s early copying of the US Navy’s design of shipboard reactors, where space and weight were limited. While this simplified and speeded up the design process for commercial reactors, it was (and still is) a very bad idea to copy this vulnerability in land-based reactors where, for example, a reactor can be designed to operate at the bottom of a pool of coolant sufficient to passively handle the cool-down period.
New reactor designs (IV Generation) incorporate passive cool down mechanisms (“SCRAM and scram”) and are a much more rational approach to large nuclear power plants.
Rational discussion of these issues has always been in short supply (from both sides), and I don’t expect that to change now.
(The etymology of “SCRAM” is unclear, but every nuclear control room I’ve been in has a very large red button with these letters on it — and the general meaning is hard to miss. 😉 )
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Waffle@173:
Interestingly Percival Snodgrass appeared around the time that “Wendy” vanished. Percy posts in the same style as Wendy – lots of links, generally over the top and not on topic. I imagine that they are one and the same person.
Could Percy/Wendy be a secret double agent? Are they posting extreme climate skeptic views with the aim of discrediting skeptics?
(Good catch! They are the same person) CTS
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Thanks BobC. Very enlightening. Nuclear may well be necessary, and if safety can be assured, then only the cost over the full life cycle of a plant will decide its success or failure.
10
And I believe back again, this time posting as a freedom fighter from Scotland.
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MaxL at #160 questions
=================
I guess that if CO2 blocks 20% of the infrared from escaping then it must also block 20% of the infrared from the sun?
=================
Nup. The sun being at at a temperature of 6000 Celsius emits most of its light in the visible part of the spectrum with small percentages in the infrared and ultraviolet. On the other hand the ground being at a temperature around 20 Celsius emits most of its light in the deep deep deep infrared.
So CO2 blocks only a very small proportion of the light on the way in and a much larger proportion on the way out.
Afterall you can see the incoming Sun’s energy with your eyes, but you cannot see the outgoing infrared with your eyes. This is so even though the intensity of the incoming and outgoing light is exactly the same.
In a wild fantasy you could say that the CO2 is the opposite of your eyes; it can “see” the infrared light from the ground, but it can’t “see” the light from the Sun.
Hint: I am using a metaphor here.
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Bernd, Bulldust, Rereke,
I considered long and hard about whether to answer my critics. Now I finally feel obligated to say the following.
You get the same news I do. So you now know that the situation has gone steadily downhill since the quake. Those reactors are out of control and have been since the beginning. No one knows their actual condition or what will happen next. I think that’s an accurate summary.
Nuclear has a good safety record and if you think I was making an argument that it doesn’t or that we shouldn’t use it, you’re wrong.
Flying is safe too and you’ll probably arrive at your destination. But the one that fails is a bitch!
My position was and is that we shouldn’t panic but shouldn’t try to minimize the thing either. To assert that because nuclear in general has a good safety record, this incident in Japan will end well, is a non sequitur. The one does not follow from the other. And this is exactly what we fight against all the time. Shall we now do what we fight when others do it?
If joannenova is about anything it’s about honesty. Don’t panic. But please don’t try to minimize the thing either. As much as we all want it otherwise, it may not end well.
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Maybe someone here can explain this.
We are told that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 390ppm.
Now if we have a look at a map we see most of the land and CO2 emissions are generated in the NH and I read that it takes a long time for changes in the NH atmosphere to move into the SH.So why is there no difference between the concentration in the NH and the SH.
Surely there is more CO2 in the atmosphere over China then there is over Australia.
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Roy Hogue @ 181:
The most frightening thing I’ve heard about the reactors was that the Japanese have essentially given up trying to get them under control (WSJ, this morning, 3/16). I don’t want to be chauvinistic, but I can’t imagine this happening in the US. When an experimental breeder reactor exploded at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho in 1961, over 1000 workers were used to control and clean it up — each one was limited to 15 minutes (lifetime!) exposure in the reactor building. The Japanese are among the world leaders in robotics — why don’t they have robots available for this?
Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government is going to ask the US Military for help. I hope they don’t wait too long (and I hope the POTUS doesn’t punt — again.)
Storing the spent fuel rods in the containment dome must have seemed like a good idea, as you don’t have to transport them anywhere after removal from the core, and the security problem is taken care of. However, it appears that the limited pool of cooling water they are in (due to space constraints in the dome) is causing a major problem, as they also have to be supplied with water on a regular basis. Reactors in the US (that I know about, anyway) put the spent rods in a very deep pool outside the containment vessel, and don’t have any requirement to frequently supply more water.)
Now, apparently, the spent rods in reactor #4 (which wasn’t even running when the quake hit) are on fire and the dome breached.
This situation is starting to look like a Perfect Storm (where everything conspires to make things worse). I hope I’m wrong about this, but if not we could be looking at a very large release of radioactive material.
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Very good point! In fact, the lack of a lag between hemispheres is (more) evidence that the majority of the last 50 years’ CO2 increases are not anthropogenic.
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The latest news I can find quickly (I’m at my office) says they have gone back into the damaged plant as of Wednesday night. I try not to draw conclusions from one thing. But all taken together the situation sure looks like it’s still deteriorating.
Anyway, Bob, I hope you’re wrong about the Perfect Storm. But like Three Mile Island, they were not really prepared for what hit them.
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Seeing as this thread has become a forum for Japanese power plant reactors these links may be informative.
WNN
Venting
Brave New Climate Discussion
ANS Nuclearcafe
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LazyTeenager
May I refer you to the link provided by cohenite at 166:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Which clearly shows how CO2 only responds to (absorbs) specific frequencies within the huge IR band.
My main concern is what I consider to be an oversimplification of how CO2 responds to IR frequencies.
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Sorry, clicked Submit instead of preview.
I think your concept that CO2 can be invisible to energy from one direction and at the same time visible to energy from the opposite direction is unsupportable.
I’m quite happy that CO2 reacts in a manner to “block” certain frequencies, however I dispute your suggestion that it does so only because of the direction that the energy is supplied.
In other words, your one-way glass analogy is an oversimplification as an explanation.
So, I agree, your “wild fantasy” analogy is just that.
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