Here are the questions Tony Jones could have asked if only he or his billion-dollar organization had the time to use the Internet. Is he a journalist or an activist pretending to be one?
And how much does Jones get paid by the taxpayer for allowing McKibben a free pass to say things that are easily shown to be false? The ABC wants to keep that a secret. It wants your money, but not your opinion.
The full transcript is on the ABC site, I’ve selected parts below. (My cost to the taxpayer: $0).
“Stop investing in carbon intense industries”
TONY JONES: Let’s start with the statement most frequently used by climate change sceptics: the planet has stopped warming since 1998 and started to cool, actually cool, since 2003. True or false?
[Tony Jones is offering a blatantly false position for McKibben to knock over…. skeptics most frequently point out that there has been no significant warming (there are 350 million google results for that compared to 10 million for global cooling since 2003). The UK Met office, and the head of the IPCC say the same thing. The issue that matters is the “pause” that the models didn’t predict. In 2008 NOAA said that pauses of 15 years or more didn’t fit with climate simulations (so if it went longer, we would know models are wrong). The umpire here is awarding a free kick to start the game. – Jo]
BILL MCKIBBEN: Completely false. The data is unfortunately abundantly clear here. Not only is the air temperature continuing to go up, but a whole slew of studies in recent months have shown that in fact the rate of warming in the oceans is accelerating….
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: Bill, you say air temperatures are still warming but records from all five major datasets show no significant warming for a decade and a half. That’s RSS, UAH, Hadley in the UK, NCDC in the US, and NASA GISS. Even the UK Met Office and Rajendra Pachauri agree.*
And when you talk about the ocean, isn’t it true that the new ARGO system which started in 2003, and finally measures ocean temperatures accurately for the first time, has not found much warming at all, indeed it’s found nothing like what the models predicted it would find, and the small amount that has occurred could be statistical noise. And there is, in this short record, no sign of acceleration even though China has been pouring out record levels of CO2.
The warming of the oceans is nothing like the predictions of the models. (With the priviso here, that the error bars are so large they’re practically marked in “white”). The models are exaggerating.
BILL MCKIBBEN: …We’ve barely – we’re not even quite raised the temperature a degree so far and look what we’ve done. I mean, 80 per cent of the summer sea ice in the Arctic is now missing, the oceans are 30 per cent more acidic than they were 40 years ago, and because warm air holds more water vapour than cold, we’ve loaded the dice for drought and for flood which y’all in Australia have seen more than your share of in recent years.
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: Yet Antarctic sea ice has hit record highs. Ocean pH measurements are even more uncertain that ones on ocean temperature. A “30%” range on a logarithmic scale is not as significant as it sounds, especially when ocean pH varies naturally by that much each day in some places, and many corals and fish seem quite capable of adapting. As far as drought and flood go, Australia has always had both, there were waves of 50-plus temperatures right across Australia in the 1800’s. Most climate scientists admit there is no concrete evidence at all that current floods and droughts or storms are on the increase, let alone that it’s caused by CO2?
What caused these 50+ days in the 1800’s? Not CO2.
TONY JONES: Let’s just look at that figure though. 1998 was pretty much the planet’s hottest year, at least some argue that it was, since accurate temperature recordings were done. It appears there was a spike in that year, a spike in the temperature and since then temperatures have actually gone down?
BILL MCKIBBEN: No, temperatures haven’t gone down. The last decade was the warmest by far on record. 1998 was a very strong El Nino year and so it set a new record, a record we’ve now broken twice by small margins, but in general the pace of climate change continues unabated….
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: But when all the major land databases don’t show any warming, and the ocean warming is too small to be sure it is significant, what are basing your “unabated” claim on?
TONY JONES: Is the clear picture that you’re painting, was that muddied somewhat by the new research from the team of Global Change researchers published this week in Nature Geoscience that the rate of global warming is actually slowing…
BILL MCKIBBEN: It’s hopeful news in that they say the odds of warming at the very upper end of the scale are less than some had feared. Let’s hope that’s true. It really would be one of the first breaks we’ve caught from physics, but as they say in the thing – in their paper, it makes no difference to the plight of the planet. Two degrees where we’re going to clearly go well past on our current path is utter catastrophe. Really one degree is utter catastrophe. How many more summers do you really want like the one you just had?
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: But one degree is hardly an utter catastrophe, surely? Don’t many studies show that more people die in cold waves than in heat waves? Cold is deadly. One millenia ago, people in Europe coped with temperatures that were very much like today’s but without modern machinery, electronics, cars, or airconditioning.
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: (part II): And speaking of that hot angry summer we just had, isn’t it true that the University of Huntsville Alabama satellite records tell a completely different story, suggesting that this summer Australian temperatures were not unusual at all? The BOM results are based on a black box method that is unpublished and rely on averaging temperatures across thousands of square kilometers. Satellites cover the entire continent day and night.
UAH Satellite records cover the entire continent day and night and show the summer of 2013 was very ordinary.
TONY JONES: Yeah, I suppose if you say “caught a break from science”, does that actually give us more time to get our acts together as a planet and for the countries around the world to actually seek some sort of unified action? …
BILL MCKIBBEN: No, it doesn’t give us any more time. We’re still under the gun. What it does do I think is allow those who are working on these issues some reason for a little bitta hope. Frankly, the level of despair has been enormous and correctly so; we’re losing this fight….
(Jones does weakly ok on this, but could have done so much better…)
TONY JONES: Yeah, I mean, I guess the point is you say yourself “do the math” and the question arise out this new research is: has the math changed?
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: Bill, if the warming is delayed significantly, and the Nature paper was suggesting the effect was 30% less than previous best estimates, the math has changed. Maths where 2 = 3 isn’t appropriate here, surely? If we have more time, that must make a big difference to decisions we make now. We have time to get the research right before we act.
BILL MCKIBBEN: No, I don’t think the math’s really changed at all. What we were saying when we did that – and this is math that’s been validated by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency and lots of others – what we were saying was that the fossil fuel companies have in their reserves five times as much carbon as would be necessary to take us past two degrees. So it’s not even close. It’s not like we’re in some place, as we would say in this country, in the same ballpark. These companies, their business plan is by any measure not compatible with a working future for this planet. Once you know that math, and it comes from a team of financial analysts in the UK about a year ago – once you know it then you know that if we don’t make big changes soon, the end of this story is essentially written. Our job is to rewrite it, and, you know, we’re beginning to build that movement in Australia and around the world that can stand up to the richest industry we’ve ever seen.
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: Bill, you demonize them, but coal power produces the cheapest and most reliable electricity in this country. Is it realistic to ask people to go without electricity to avoid a global temperature rise that is measured in one-hundreths of a degree?
As for the size of the coal industry — globally the renewables investment industry reached a quarter of a trillion dollars, carbon trading reached 176 billion dollars annual turnover. Government subsidies for renewables reached $70 billion annually. These are industries that depend almost entirely on the idea that CO2 is dangerous, and subsidies from bureaucrats. Don’t these vested interests have influence too?
TONY JONES: Let’s move on because you – and really it’s on that topic – you’ve been campaigning hard for educational and religious institutions, for city and state governments and other institutions that, as you say, serve the public good, to stop investing in fossil fuel companies. Stop. To disinvest. Take their money out if they are investing in them. How many companies have actually done that, have taken your advice?
BILL MCKIBBEN: Well, we have a list of 200 companies that we’d like people to divest from, the biggest carbon reserves in the world. So far, early days, but a wide variety of American institutions have begun to divest. Five colleges and universities so far, 10 city governments including Seattle and San Francisco. Yesterday came news that the cemetery of the City of Santa Monica in California had decided to divest its holdings, so even the dead are getting in on this act. In Australia, I was remarkably cheered to see that the Uniting Church in a big part of the country had decided to sell its coal stocks. I think that’s a brave move in a country where coal barons are as powerful as they are there.
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: If Australia produces less coal, won’t China just buy its coal from Indonesia or Russia instead, pushing up the price of coal? And won’t it be the poorest people in the world who will suffer the most? Aren’t you helping to hurt those who already face grinding poverty? [And when McGibben counters that climate change “will hurt them more than unaffordable electricity”, Jones could bring us back to the fact that the models appear to be wrong, the only warming he can find is statistically insignificant and highly uncertain in the deep ocean, so how sure are we really that the projections are right? Skeptics have been asking for three years for evidence that the assumptions the models are based on are correct, and you still can’t provide any?]
TONY JONES: The new boss of the Australian Coal Association, Nikki Williams, gave a speech in Sydney last night in which he bitterly complained that some of the country’s most successful and profitable businesses, particularly their own coal industry, were being targeted by activists like yourself and that the climate change debate has spawned, as she called it, a new morality of industrial sabotage, extremism hiding behind laudable green goals. Do you think she might have had you in mind?
BILL MCKIBBEN: Perhaps, although I’m afraid I’m not a very confident saboteur. Our only monkey wrench we want to throw in the works is this mathematical one, this scientific one…
WHAT TONY JONES COULD HAVE ASKED: Bill, you’re asking people to punish a key productive industry in Australia, one providing funds for the government and shareholders, jobs for thousands, and a product we all need. There is no reliable alternative source of baseload power here unless we look at nuclear energy. If you succeed it may well hurt the poorest of the poor in the world more than it will help them. That’s a serious risk. And yet you make out you are only tossing “maths” and “science” in to the system, and it’s a math where 2 = 3 and we make major sacrifices to change the worlds temperature by a fraction of a degree if that?
* McKibben claims “air temperature (is) continuing to go up”. However, four of the five air temperature datasets show weak non-significant cooling averaging 0.04C per decade since January 2003 (RSS, HadCrut4, GISTEMP, and NCDC). Throw UAH into the mix, and the average cooling trend from the big five is only 0.02C per decade, well below the basic one-sigma significance level of 0.05C. But air temperature certainly isn’t “continuing to go up”.
More information:
- Big Green Machine – GE makes $21 billion a year on “clean energy”
- Renewable energy is a $250 billion dollar industry that makes about 3% of our electricity
- Wind farms — are 96% useless, and cost 150 times more than necessary for what they do
- Government burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and wild claims of “fossil fuel subsidies” debunked
- Wind Farms: Turbines break like match-sticks in medium waves, and their capacity is “overestimated”
- Lessons in wasting money: Use more wind and solar and… emit just as much CO2
- Upgrade coal power and cut 15% of emissions. Where is the Green applause?
Poor old “weepy bill”
He’ll be stuck in the 90’s like a broken record nobody wanted to buy or hear. 🙁
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Seriously – I know you just use that bogus Argo vs models graph just to annoy me. Admit it.
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Even if it was kosher, how come the graph used here starts at a different, and higher, data point than that used here: http://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/dr-evans%E2%80%9Dclimate-models-are-violently-at-odds-with-reality%E2%80%9D/
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Mighty conceited of you Matt Like you are the only one to annoy here?
So which graph do you like better the one that shows divergence or the one that shows divergence?
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When there known climate cycles of longer period than the period used in this comparison, we know the comparison is not apt.
When we know the Argo data extends further than shown here, we know to be sceptical.
There can’t often be much justification for using a shorter sequence of data when a longer one is available.
——————————
I repeat, the full ARGO contingent didn’t start til mid 2003, the full 2000m depth wasn’t accurately recorded until 2005. At the moment each buoy covers a huge slab of ocean, it’s barely enough as it is. Energy accumulated since 2003 can’t be created or destroy, or measured with equipment 50 years in the past. Either quadrillions of joules are missing or it’s hidden in the error bars (the ARGO team think the error bars are small).
You weren’t too “skeptical” of the climate models, or error bars on the old XBT and buckets. – Jo
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Matt,
There is an extra year or two’s data and the y-axis is in joules
in the older graph and is in temperature in the newer graph.
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What a fine eye you have mattyb; cast it over this please; I am so anxious for some informed feedback.
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You have been busy.
KK 🙂
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There is a part 2; best recent use of data or papers against AGW.
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David is using the newest data. Look, I’m really sorry Matt. All that faith you had for all those years. It’s tough finding out you were wrong. My sympathies. Perhaps you could form a support group …
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you seemed to cope ok with the transition.
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True, but as a scientist, when the data didn’t fit, what else could I do?
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I’d give you ten thumbs up if I could, just because you are being Honest, whereas mattie… say, where are the other blind mice, anyway? I haven’t seen them much lately, just mattie.
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Jo, I will send you one of my big hammers, it makes square data fit round models.
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He has a support group Jo, it’s called the government. He’s probably a bit miffed that they seem to be on the way out. He’s probably searching for a new high horse as we speak.
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As is pointed out by Carlo Cipolla, humanity is not getting more stupid, it’s just that the truly stupid (including those with PhDs) are increasingly assuming positions of influence, so it is no surprise to see Jones and McKibben dancing in tune.
Definition: ‘A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.’
The end-game is far from amusing, though.
THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
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THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
I agree – stupid people are really dangerous
I hadn’t read your linked paper before. My own rule has long been formulated as: “Just when I think I’ve seen the true depth of human stupidity, someone comes along to show I’m wrong”
🙂 🙂
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I believe it was Frank Zappa (he of rock guitar and ‘Mothers of Invention’ fame) who once said that the greatest force in the universe is stupidity.
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Rick, “‘A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.’”. Thats just gold. I’ve seen that in spades.
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Aren’t too many people now able to make a living from being stupid though ?
If someone will pay our money to fund the stupidity of some PhDs, who’s being stupid ?
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I have maintained for a long time that we could ditch a whole heap of useless legislation and pass a law that says “It is illegal to be stupid.”
There are far too many laws and regulations that exist to cope with the common stupidity of people.
When it comes to stupid PhDs, one of the problems is that many have been raised in an era of post-modernism where it is possible to believe two completely diametrically opposing things at the same time.
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Re: repealing lots of laws and making stupidity a crime…
All we need to do is repeal those laws and then ALSO repeal the subsidies and welfare protections granted to the broad collective known as the “victim industry”.
That would allow the law of natural consequences to take over (re-assert itself), and behaviour modification would become evident shortly thereafter.
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Bill McKibben is an eco loon with a vested interest in alarmism. His whole carer is based on it.
He is also a hypocrite:
Sitting in front of his nice stack of fire wood
Loves petroleum products
Likes burning things
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“There is no reliable alternative source of baseload power here unless we look at nuclear energy. If you succeed it may well hurt the poorest of the poor in the world more than it will help them.”
It’s already hurting the pensioners who can’t afford winter heating because of skyrocketing power bills due to Green initiatives!!
Tony Jones is a disgrace – he’s not qualified to ask questions on climate and climate change as he is not educated on the subject. In fact I’m seriously asking myself exactly what qualifications does Tony Jones have to ask anyone anything!
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This is past serious, and very real. An old chap who volunteers with me told me he knows a number of pensioners who have disconnected power because it’s too expensive. Lucky it doesn’t get too cold up here. Apparently they get help from Salvos, Vinnies, meals on wheels, and go bed early.
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Deaths from cold
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Who the heck is Bill Mckibben?
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As Backslider said he’s an “eco loon” and I would add “of the highest order”
Also known as “weepy Bill Mckibben” from this outlandish story, BUT WARNING only read it if you haven’t just eaten or have a tolerance for self righteous green religions (yes it’s that bad!)
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/12/14/205167/bill-mckibben-at-copenhagen-i-went-to-church-and-cried-then-i-got-back-to-work/
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Look up 350.org ( I believe)… and prepare to laugh in disgust at the stupidity it contains.
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From the 350.org website:
With these kind of loonies, its only a matter of time for some real violence….
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About two years ago, some environmental group was going to chain themselves to bulldozers at one of Wyoming’s mines to show solidarity and bring attention to themselves. It wasn’t very long before they decided that would not be a good idea and moved the protest somewhere else. Talk is cheap–action is scary. They pick safe places to protest away from where people work and rely on fossil fuels to feed their families. They do have some sense of self-preservation.
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So do rats.
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That’s redundant.
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McKibben and Cook, like peas in a pod …
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I wonder if Tony Jones was part of the 40% ABC journalists intending to vote for the Greens?
It was a response from a very small sample, and perhaps many were, or felt, intimidated by the Groupthink, but there certainly seems to be a number of committed Greens directing the way that the subject is presented. A last gasp effort to try and stop the Greens losing parliamentary influence?
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The Media
Our local newspaper, to its’ great credit, has published an opinion piece on Sea Level by Bob Carter.
He recently visited Newcastle to attend a Lakeside meeting of people affected by the Councils crazy self serving actions on Climate Change.
This Council has a large “Climate” associated budget and the necessary “employees” to staff it.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1522356/opinion-citys-sea-level-plans-dont-hold-water/?cs=308
Take a look at the warmer Trolls spewing out their Science.
It is alarming that such organized insanity is present in our society and that they are free to mislead and deceive for the sake of money.
They are obviously organized and desperate.
KK 🙂
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.
Kinky Keith,
Amazing responses from the Green vandals that want to save the world from CO2?
9 out of 16 responses are below.
They all quote authority garbage like:
1. Proper scientists (and reporters for that matter) reference their sources of information
2. The science is solid, go to any Australian university and they will explain it to you.
3. What peer reviewed, climate science articles has Professor bob Carter written this century?
4. The science on global warming is settled and we cannot afford not to take action.
5. So now the Newcastle Herald is paying the Heartland institute for blogs?
6. you just stick your head back in the sand and go watch the bolt show
7. Man made global warming is accepted by NASA (google climate nasa)
8. The people with vested interests in this debate is our $50billion coal industry and the oil companies of the world.
9. “Institute of Public Affairs” + “International Climate Science Coalition” = Astroturfing
Well no science here at all, just anger in the fact that this was published. Exactly the same as Lateline above. But notice the change in the anger level, we are threatening their scam.
It will end sooner than later, as the CAGW parasites realise they are on the wrong boat.
It will get very ugly once we start taking away their Gravy Train money that they have lived off all their life. They have saved nothing, and hopefully invested their super in Tim Flannery’s Geothermal projects.
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We may be on to something here
“we are threatening their scam. ”
KK 🙂
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Even gee Aye has said good bye and thrown in the leaf.
They are all abandoning ship.
What’s going on. Where’s Julia; does she know this is happening?
KK 🙂
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what are you on about?
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Omidog
You’re still here!
KK 🙂
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My leaf throwing was satirical, although losing a leaf at this time of year is imposed by biology
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Amongst all the drivel, Bill McGibbon did make one truthful comment about the alarmist movement:
“and correctly so; we’re losing this fight…”
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Actually, it’s the cold air that holds the most vapour.
Cooling of wet air will produce a clear sky, heating of wet air will produce clouds and rain.
But of course you’ll have droughts and floods any way. Only, with McKibben’s “fact” there would be drought where there now is flood and vice versa.
Just imagine what the impact on the desert Antarctica would be…
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That manbearpig spends a lot of time hiding in the ocean these days, doesn’t he!
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This thing about an alleged 30% change in acidity of the oceans is my latest gripe.
The number of Hydrogen Ions may have increased by 30% but the acidity is the DEFINED as the logarithm of that number and has changed by one decimal point maybe.
Why do these people feel they can be so free and easy with such things?
Is it OK if I decide to talk about the exponent of a value rather than the value itself when I am discussing some other physical measure?
My companies profits went up 5% this year but that does not sound very impressive so I defined my new measure of ‘profittiness’ as being the exponent (base 10) and hey presto!
Profittiness has increased by a ‘factor’ of 11.22 !!!!
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Please tell me where exactly the oceans are acidic AT ALL.
This is yet another alarmist misuse of the English language.
“ACID”… oh my, oh my! All the fish will burn!!!
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.
Even CAGW is stupid in ROYAL circles, not yet,
In the UK Prince Charles is raising questions along the lines of GAIA Bill McKibben:
This from the Sunday Times,
And this from the Guardian surprise, surprise,
The world is slowly changing away from the eco-loons.
Charlie doesn’t understand:
“The energy situation in Britain has gotten steadily worse. The wind turbines are failing to produce reliable energy, and, therefore, must be backed by fossil energy in spinning reserve. Meanwhile, Britain’s North Sea gas is running out.“
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As President of WWF, Charles is well identified by his Greenista views. He is more than well insulated from any inconvenience that might arise from the implementation of these views. Conceivably, he embodies the ‘armchair’ approach.
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“The full transcript is on the ABC site, I’ve selected parts below. (My cost to the taxpayer: $0).”
$0.00 🙂
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I can cope with my taxes paying for the broadcast interview – but I’m dammed if I need to pay for all those rehearsal hours.
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O/T _ More nonsense on solar thermal power. – 30,000 homes my arse!
The oil-rich state of Abu Dhabi has officially opened the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant.
Shams 1 – which means ‘the sun’ in Arabic – uses advanced parabolic trough technology to harness the light from over 250,000 mirrors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21830846
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Oh, nyuk nyuk nyuk!
I know it’s off the main topic, but what I have here is just a reply to that.
I love sites like Joanne’s here because so many people leave so much information to chase up, and then explain for all of you.
Don’t you just wish Australia had the foresight to construct something like this wonderful new Concentrating Solar Power Plant, the, umm, way of the future.
This plant has a 100MW capacity. The solar troughs, long lines of curved mirrors that follow the Sun’s movement across the sky. At the focal point of those curved mirrors is a pipe containing the thermal material compound. The heat makes this compound molten and the heat from this molten material boils water to steam to drive a traditional turbine/generator complex, probably 2 X 50MW units.
The total power is 100MW.
However, the total power it delivers to the grid for actual consumption is 210GWH per year. What this equates to is a Capacity Factor of 24% on a yearly basis. This equates to an equivalent daily power generation for five and three quarter hours.
This plant cost $600 Million.
Bayswater delivers that same yearly total from this plant in 3 days and 7 hours, with all 4 units running.
Almost 6 hours a day for power delivery. Wonder what we do for the other 18 hours.
Tony.
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Plus Tony – they need a gas power plant to preheat the thermal material compound plus they have vehicles fitted with brushes that clean the solar reflectors everyday. I’m currently living in Dubai and believe me the dust is everywhere. Don’t leave your doors open else you’ll have to dust your house completely.
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I’m pretty sure I know what they do: pump more oil, smile a smug smile and count their money.
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Shine torches at the mirrors?
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http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/1/the-greens-agenda-in-their-own-words
The toxic Greens have made progress haven’t they? The Tony Jones / Bill McKibben interview appears little more than Greenist marketing, courtesy of the Australian Taxpayer. Reading Jo’s transcript serves only to highlight the mutual hand holding confirmation bias to me.
Tony Jones is conveniently disingenuous, the perfect counterpoint to permit McKibben the room to vomit forth.
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Tony
This is a link to the similar solar power plant outside Seville in southern Spain, where the sun shines ~225 days per year.
If you do the maths, it cost around $415 million to build and provides 110GWh/year, so that’s $3.77 per kWh of generating power.
So depreciate over 20 years, that’s only $0.19/kWh, which is only three times the current wholesale price of Electricity in Spain, but that does not take into account the cost of capital and operating costs, which probably adds another $0.04-0.05/kWh.
So this wonderful edifice (built in a valley where there is often a lot of morning mist) has an effective cost of electricity almost four times the national wholesale rate.
Not surprisingly, this was a once off attempt to demonstrate green credentials.
I suppose the economics would make sense in a world without hydrocarbons, but as fracking becomes ever more popular, especially in a reluctant European Union, this solar power plant will just be a monument to the crass stupidity of smug greenie whims.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1393879/Gemasolar-Power-Plant-The-worlds-solar-power-station-generates-electricity-NIGHT.html
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Meanwhile, back home,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/solar-price-rise-to-end-power-divide/story-fn59niix-1226650277855
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Greebo, my third law of Acquisition is “never get any money from the Gubmint as sooner or later you will have to give it back”.
And I can’t help feeling sorry for the millions of Aussies who have fallen for this Clap trap /sarc off
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As you can see from Greebo’s link, this is an article you have to Login to view. However, take the link, then highlight the title, copy and paste that into your search engine and the whole listed article will come up on that page, and it should be the third or fourth article down that list.
The frightening thing here is that the average electricity consumer who does not have rooftop panels is paying up to $300 a year additional on top of their electricity bills to pay for those who do have the rooftop panels, and that amount is around 15 to 17% of the average electricity bill.
Now, while the overall number of homes with panels in place is increasing and has broken through a million of them, the actual power returned to the grids is minute by comparison.
However, what is actually happening is that those large scale plants are now encountering problems. The power retailers are forced by legislation to purchase the returned power not consumed by the residence, so this power has to have priority. Because the grid has to have enough power to cover actual consumption this returned power is over and above what is already being consumed, so it serves no purpose, because it is not being used. However, retailers are still forced to buy it. If there was no compulsion, those retailers would never purchase that power, because they have to pay the FIT, anything up to 44 cents per KWH, power they can only then onsell at retail, around 24 cents per KWH, considering power from coal fired plants costs the retailers around 4 to 6 cents per KWH. (CO2 tax included)
So now retailers are not purchasing that power from coal fired sources, because they are already paying an exorbitant cost for the rooftop power returned that is not used. I know it sounds a little incongruous, but it is what is actually happening. Grids, instead of running with plenty in reserve over and above consumption are now being run at the absolute barest maximum.
What is happening now is that those large coal fired plants are having to run their plants inefficiently, just cycling them on ready reserve running procedures, waiting for demand to increase, the Sun to set, and then running them back up to full power. This takes time, and those inefficiencies actually mean that more coal is burned, hence greater CO2 emissions than if they were to run at optimum all the time.
So, what is happening is that this is making the costs greater for those coal fired plants and they now have less power to sell to the grids to recover those costs from, hence driving up the cost of that coal fired power, and here don’t you renewable supporters say ‘told you so’, because it is barely 1 cent per KWH overall.
All of this is what is causing power prices to go up, with the added concern (if you think like that) of actually increasing CO2 emissions.
So rooftop solar power is causing two lots of power cost hikes.
It will get to the stage where bean counters will begin to say, “Just turn the plant off”, instead of keeping it running uneconomically, and then, when the time comes when power is needed, there will be none, because these plants do not fire up to maximum in anything close to a short time.
So, what happens then is that the grid controllers have to find power from sources that are designed to deliver power quickly, those gas fired plants, and these are more expensive to operate. Now, instead of running (as designed) for three maybe four hours a day, to cover for those coal fired plants, they now have to run even longer, spiking the price even further, in fact sometimes exponentially, as seen last Friday in Sth Australia.
So now, rooftop solar power has caused ANOTHER price hike in power costs.
The frightening thing from a related article in The Australian is the following quote.
This will never happen. Batteries will always be expensive, and this is not just something like a AA Battery. These are expensive deep cycle batteries with up to 5 day capability in them. The power the residence consumes has to less than the power that the batteries are capable of delivering. There is NO technology for them to ever become cheap. Then, as with all batteries, they need to be replaced every 5 to 7 years.
Rooftop solar power, you know, “Free from the Sun”, is an expense we ALL pay for just to support an economic decision from those who can actually afford to have it.
Tony.
80
Tony, a penny for your thoughts. Consider the critical mass of consumers required to exit the base grid on their expensive delusional dream to render the grid economically unsustainable?
I read somewhere that within a couple of years 30% of the people in Glasgow would be unable to afford their power bills. So they start to burn the furniture in the time honoured tradition, and before they take to the streets and seek bureaucrats for further fuel, the power companies have lost 30% of their consumers.
Surely, the supply demand equation requires the prices to collapse in order to retain market functionality?
20
Sorry, forgot about the pay wall.
00
Depopulation agenda?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298246/UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected–experts-say-final-toll-horrendous.html#ixzz2UDP0op6L
“The elderly are useless eaters.”– Henry Kissinger, quoted in the book The Final Days
(You might like to check out the Haig-Kissinger depopulation policy.)
[typo fixed]
20
‘Depopulation’ as most will know here, is a key Greenist agenda item. Rating humanity in solely ecological terms and at the same level as a nematode, tree or rock pool, Humanity in current humbers is a scourge on Gaia, to wit:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/1/the-greens-agenda-in-their-own-words
30
At 89, I wonder if he’s changed his tune. Or, like most people of power, does he not consider it shoul apply to him?
10
Question to Bill: If CO2 is at the same level all over the planet and the Main climate driver as you claim,then Why is the Temperature not the same near the ocean vs Inland?
51
That first question in this post is rhetorical, right?
20
Mr Jones is too stupid to know he is stupid.
51
[…] JO NOVA BLOG Tony Jones lets Bill McKibben get away with barking nonsense “Really one degree is utter catastrophe” May 24th, 2013 http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/tony-jones-lets-bill-mckibben-get-away-with-barking-nonsense-really… […]
30
On one hand when you see the sound & vision bites of the some religious leaders yelling & spitting “hellfire” & consider what it does at the extreme end & compare it to the stellar efforts of the Tony Jones’ of the world, the desired end of building a passion (fear & anger) fuelled, partially ignorant support base in the masses is the same.
Personally I completely gave up on Tony Jones & the ABC when M England, fully prepared & miked up (how convenient), jumped to his feet & shut down Nic Minchen in the panel after the “I can change your mind about Climate Change” dog & pony show.
40
a misleading headline:
25 May: Australian: Lauren Wilson: Greens plan to lower power bills by $250
HOUSEHOLD electricity costs could drop by up to $250 a year under a Greens plan to establish a new independent body to drive down energy use during peak periods…
But the minor party’s plan was immediately rejected by the Energy Supply Association of Australia, which challenged the need for additional regulation in the energy sector…
It would also back minimum prices electricity retailers would be compelled to pay households that generate solar power, and design a new National Energy Efficiency Scheme…
But ESAA chief executive Matthew Warren said Australian taxpayers did not need “to pay for another government agency and more regulations to bring power prices down”. “We just need to fix current distortions in the market by introducing fairer pricing.”
Mr Warren said that while paying more for electricity from solar panels would be welcome for solar owners, it would push up power bills for everyone else.
Clean Energy Council chief executive David Green said it was important to “deal with the problem of peak electricity demand”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/greens-plan-to-lower-power-bills-by-250/story-fn59niix-1226650235248
00
Well that’s full of alarm bells:
Just what we need, “The Power Police” to tell us what we can and cannot do.
Yes folks, power rationing is well and truly on its way.
40
reuters point carbon continues to shill for “fixing” the market:
Opposition turning to compromise in CO2 backloading debate
LONDON, May 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Opposition among European lawmakers to a plan to prop-up slumping EU carbon prices may be easing after a senior MEP previously opposed to the measure said he was seeking to compromise with his party and others to help get it through the bloc’s parliament…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2387366
EU carbon gains 5 pct on market fix optimism
LONDON, May 24 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon permits rose 5 percent on Friday on the back of fresh optimism that the EU will succeed in its plan to boost prices by withholding supply, traders said…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2387471?&ref=searchlist
00
TonyfromOz – your comments please!
23 May: Bloomberg: James Paton: Australian Venture OneWind Plans $2 Billion in Power Projects
OneWind Australia, a venture backed by private equity fund Denham Capital Management LP, expects the first of as much as $2 billion in wind farms it plans in the country to start operating by 2015.
OneWind is developing five wind projects in New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland states, Managing Director Michael Toke said yesterday in an interview in Sydney. The wind farms would have a combined capacity of as much as 1,000 megawatts, with the 100-megawatt Glen Innes plant in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, expected to be first, he said.
OneWind is also studying wind and diesel hybrid projects in Australia at sites that aren’t connected to the electricity grid and will consider expansion in regions including Europe, Toke said. The venture plans to take advantage of the declining cost of wind power in Australia and the country’s policy to get 20 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2020…
Electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm in Australia at a cost of A$80 ($77) per megawatt hour, compared with A$143 a megawatt hour from a new coal-fired power plant or A$116 from a new station powered by natural gas when the cost of carbon emissions is included, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report published in January…
***The wind projects, which may cost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion if they’re all built, will need to reach power-supply agreements, Toke said…
Shenhua Group Corp., China’s biggest coal producer, and Hydro Tasmania could jointly invest A$1.6 billion by the end of the decade to build Australian wind farms, Hydro Tasmania said in April.
Denham, a $7.3 billion U.S. fund focused on mining and energy, agreed to invest $75 million in the portfolio of Australian wind power projects under development, joining with Enersis Group’s Australian unit, National Power and Kato Capital Pty to form OneWind, the company said this month…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-23/australian-venture-onewind-plans-2-billion-in-power-projects.html
10
“which may cost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion if they’re all built, will need to reach power-supply agreements,”
1. They haven’t even costed the plants, so they are at a very early stage.
2. ‘If they are built”. That is a very big IF.
3. “will need to reach power-supply agreements” Right, and their chances in 2 years time. What’s the chinese for Buckley’s and None?
Lastly I would point out that those cost figures are completely stupid. The only way they could reach that figure for new coal fired technology is by assumptions all running their way. A quick calculation shows that at 90% CF, coal at $150 a tonne AND a carbon tax at $25, with a selling price of $143 a MWh, that new coal fired plant would pay for itself in less than 2 years.
The carbon tax won’t last. The news from Europe that from now on the EU will concentrate on getting cheaper electricity is the death nell of “renewable” energy. They have had to change tack because of threats from large manufacturers that they would move their production to the cheaper electricity in the USA.
10
I want to know how they arrive at that new coal fired power plant having to charge $143 per MWH for the electricity it generates.
Traditionally, coal fired power has generated its electricity for around 3 cents per KWH, which equates to $30 per MWH.
Even with the current CO2 Tax of that $25 per tonne, coal fired power is still managing a little under 6 cents per KWH or $60 per KWH.
The recovery price for everything to do with a power plant is based on the electricity it has to sell over the life of the plant, and in the case of coal, that comes in at the construction cost, the cost of the coal, and now the added cost of the CO2 tax.
So then, let’s look at a typical new coal fired power plant costing that $143 per MWH just to break even (which equates to 14.3 cents per KWH).
Doing the maths for a large scale 2000MW plant, and let’s run it at around a relatively low 80% CF, and the plant lasts the typical 50 years.
It will generate a total of 701.3TWH. Now, selling that at break even of $143 per MWH that means the total money raised from the sale of the electricity comes in at $100.283 BILLION.
The coal at Graeme’s cost of $150 per ton comes in $37.5 Billion.
The plant will cost around $4.5 Billion to construct, and here I’m going top end for cost.
There’s $42 Billion.
That leaves us with a remainder of $58 Billion, spread over the 50 years, or $1.16 Billion a year.
Even with exorbitant other costs of whatever, then someone will be making a monstrously huge profit out of this. Either that or the original figure of $143 is vastly inflated.
I’ll bet the operators of Bayswater would drool at the thought of a profit that huge on a yearly basis, and wouldn’t there be screams of blue bloody murder if that was the case.
All costs, as with all plant types for these costing purposes are worked out in today’s dollars.
And, if that cost comes in at that $143 per MWH, that’s wholesale sold to the grid. Just imagine what they will be charging for retail electricity.
No, that $143 is bogus, a purposeful inflation in an attempt to make wind power look somehow cheaper.
Tony.
10
thanx TonyfromOz.
00
Thanks Tony;
I went back and looked at that link again and saw that the cost of wind is claimed to be $M2 per MW capacity.
I assumed when I read it first, that they were referring to the temporary drop in cost because most wind turbine producers are in financial trouble and have dropped their prices to try and remain in business.
Yet, assuming the cost of installation runs at 33% of the capital cost – consistent with figures from the UK and Europe – the cost of turbines is listed at $1333 per MW capacity. That capacity figure is pure fiction as the more likely capacity factor is 20-25%, so the real capital cost for the same output as a new coal fired station is $8 billion.
Further, with the aid of a spreadsheet: wind makes a LOSS at $80 per MWh (over a real lifetime of 14 years).
at $100 per MWh it returns 0.007% p.a. (hardly a great investment)
at $125 per MWh it returns 1.8% p.a.
at $143 per MWh it returns 3.1% p.a.
Coal at overloaded costs (80% CF + $150 per ton coal + $25 carbon tax) returns 36.8% p.a.
Coal at $60 per MWh and no carbon tax returns 11.0% p.a.
I know where I would invest, and with electricity at less than half the wholesale cost of wind, and the added bonus that the emissions would be reduced to almost the same as a grid with that amount of wind.
(and for the benefit of those ignorant trolls who think that wind turbines will last 25 years at full output; the rate of return at $80 per MWh is 4.1-6.9% p.a. assuming the costs of variable output can be dumped onto conventional generation)
00
SMH today. Mike Carlton accuses the ABC of bias ! OT sorry.
20
it’s no wonder the ABC & others concentrate on the scientific claims which their audiences couldn’t possibly understand or be able to verify rather than the economic costs which we can all understand:
25 May: Australian: Sid Maher: Budget black hole feared from ‘garbage’ carbon projections
Leading economist Henry Ergas has described the budget projections as “garbage” and opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt has warned the government is exposed to a $6 billion black hole.
The attack is based on an explanation in the budget papers from Treasury that “carbon prices in the budget projection years are not forecasts of carbon prices”.
Instead they represent a straight line drawn between market prices in 2014-15 (about $5.60) to the $38 projection contained in Treasury modelling for the government’s initial carbon scheme…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/budget-black-hole-feared-from-garbage-carbon-projections/story-fnhi8df6-1226650232818
10
O/T – finally they are starting to get onto this solar panel scam but of course the Greens are in there muddying the waters with their crazy dreams of renewable energy.
“AUSTRALIA’S one million rooftop solar households could be forced to pay new fixed charges to help recover billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and make electricity prices fairer for all consumers.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/solar-price-rise-to-end-power-divide/story-fn59niix-1226650277855
20
TONY JONES: Let’s start with the statement most frequently used by climate change sceptics: the planet has stopped warming since 1998 and started to cool, actually cool, since 2003. True or false?
Jo: [Tony Jones is offering a blatantly false position for McKibben to knock over…. skeptics most frequently point out that there has been no significant warming…..]
But how long before the cooling is significant?
RSS Trend 2003 – 2013: -0.066 ±0.409 °C/decade (2σ)
HadSST2 2003 – 2013:-
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadsst2gl/from:2003/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2003/trend
Upper Pacific OHC:-
2003.875 4.680
2004.875 3.905
2005.875 3.291
2006.875 4.023
2007.875 2.933
2008.875 3.769
2009.875 3.374
2010.875 2.007
2011.875 3.505
2012.875 2.858
The planet has stopped warming since 1998 and started to cool, actually cool, since 2003. True or false?
True.
50
True?
30
The temperature of the troposphere does not represent the “planet” in terms of temperature or energy in the Earth system. Given that the oceans contain far more energy than the troposphere, it would sure make sense to take the broadest measure of energy gain or loss of the greatest depth of the ocean you could reliably measure. Currently that’s down to about 2000m. If you want the most accurate view of whether not the planet has been warming, and what the causes and effects are, these are the four charts that really matter:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/the-four-charts-that-really-matter.html
The earth continues to warm and has been for decades. The thousands of times more energy in the oceans and far greater thermal inertia make it the best metric for measuring the long-term effects of the long-term forcing from GH gases. Trying to gauge “global” warming from the relatively low energy and low thermal inertia of the troposphere is nonsensical.
210
Trying to gauge “global warming” from only ten years worth of data is idiotic.
60
Backslider said:
I agree, and hence the 4 charts or metrics that I use go back 30+ years, here:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/the-four-charts-that-really-matter.html
Collectively, both in terms of heat storage and thermal inertia, the ocean and cryosphere represents a far better metric than the fickle tropophere, but you want to look as deep into the ocean and as far back as we have reliable data. Here’s a great article on this:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/oceans-continue-to-warm-especially-the-deeps/
If anything we see the Earth, as a system has accelerated in energy storage in the past 10 years, which makes sense since we are in the cool phase of the PDO, and less heat is flowing from ocean to atmosphere on average.
00
Trying to gauge “global warming” from only 30 something years worth of data is idiotic.
00
Fickle?…. Oh yes, that’s right…. you guys could not find the missing heat….
00
Right sonny. That’s 2003…. which brings us back to my first point.
00
.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Ocean Warming?
Really?
.
How?
40
So long, and thanks for all the fish. I wonder where the Yanks will hide their subs, now that the thermocline is a thing of the past. Has anyone told Tom Clancy?
10
.
I posted the reply to R Gates, quoted below, at the link provided by R Gates.
It lasted nearly 60 minutes before being deleted.
The MODS comment was (complete with spelling errors):
[Please, take it to the best Sceince Blog in the Universe. This is the Arctic Sea Ice Blog. N.]
.
I figured this was a close to the “best sceince blog in the universe” (whatever that is) that I would be likely to find, so I have reposted it here.
21
Them said:
“The whole CAGW nonsense is predicated on the idea that anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are heating the ATMOSPHERE.”
——
No, that is incorrect sir. Strictly speaking, the physics of AGW tells us that the Earth, as system, will retain more energy as GH gases increase. It actually does not ascribe exactly where in that system the energy will be stored. Thinking that it must be the atmosphere is a rather simplistic understanding of the energy flow of the Earth system.
12
.
Sorry R Gates.
After 20 plus years of the IPCC, the CSIRO, BoM, the UN, the Royal Society, the MeT, CRU, the Hadley Centre, NASA GISS, NOAA and others, assuring us it was ALL about the atmosphere, it is a bit late for you to come in and try and change the meme. The meme for 20 plus years has been “atmospheric global warming” caused by CO2.
As an interesting aside, don’t you think it’s fascinating that we can be having this conversation here, while over at the site you originally linked to, all contrary comment is banned?
20
Themm,
I don’t care about what the meme is related to Earth’s energy imbalance. What I care about is the science and the facts and the truth. It is never too late to understand the truth as long as you have an open mind.
10
A couple of questions for you Gates. And lets assume the ocean depths have warmed due to AGW.
* What is the average temperature of the water at 2000m?
* What evidence do you have that this body of water will increase in temperature as it rises to the surface?
31
Baa, it is not the temperature of the water AT 2000m that matters, but the heat gain or retention of the ocean integrated from the surface down to 2000m that is being measured by the thousands of ARGO floats worldwide. The best estimate is about 0.5 x 10^22 joules per year increase over the past 30+ years. And while this might only result in a temperature increase in the ocean of a few thousandth of a degree, because of the vastly higher heat capacity of water, this kind of heat released to the atmosphere can bring several degrees of warming.
12
.
All that be that as it may be.
You STILL haven’t explained how heat from the atmosphere gets into, and “heats up” the ocean, in direct contravention of the KNOWN transfer of energy FROM the oceans, TO the atmosphere.
As an interesting aside, don’t you think it’s fascinating that we can be having this conversation here, while over at the site you originally linked to, all contrary comment is banned?
10
Sorry, but the ARGO buoys have not been with us for 30 years…. did you miss my first point?
20
Backslider, since the oceans are so much slower in reacting we will have to wait much more than 30 years to detect a trend in hydroclimate change don’t you think?
I wonder if Mr.Gates can tell us what the lag time for atmosphere to deep ocean heat is?
I wonder too, if Mr. Gates knows which of the ARGO floats will be thrown out for reading too cold in the next round of paper writing?
10
Exactly!
00
Backslider,
The ARGO floats are much better at measuring ocean heat content than previous methods, but, contrary to some common misperceptions, the data prior to ARGO, while having less coverage and greater uncertainty, is not completely worthless. With a reasonable (certainly greater than 80%) degree of certainty we can be confident that the global ocean down to 2000m has been adding on average about 0.5 x 10^22 joules of energy per year for the past 30+ years.
00
How is the 80% certainty calculated?
00
Sheri,
I actual said greater than 80%, and the methods involve looking a both data and doing a reanalysis of past data from various sources. Here’s an excellent article on the research behind all this:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/oceans-continue-to-warm-especially-the-deeps/
Highly recommended to those who really want to understand what is happening to our oceans.
00
You know, if I asked an engineer to build me a bridge and he told me that “there is a greater than 80% chance that it won’t fall down”, do you think I would ask him to build it?
Yet here you are, on the same terms, telling the World that we must stop burning coal, push up the price of fuel to the point that people cannot afford it, that we must suffer thousands of people dying from cold etc. etc. etc.
DO you REALLY think that the cycles of the oceans are less than 30 years? Puhleese, get a life!
00
Just for the record…I never mentioned coal in any my posts.
00
Oh right. So you think that burning coal is a good thing…. do tell.
How about you answer the question:
00
Gates, see my reply at #37
00
So Mr Gates, you’ve admitted that the energy in the troposphere is “thousands of times less” than the oceans, so how can this tiny amount of energy (relatively speaking) then cause the warming of the oceans, which once again (in case you missed it) is several orders of magnitude greater? Especially when LWIR doesn’t penetrate the surface few microns of the ocean surface anyway, by what possible mechanism can this magical energy magnification process occur? Does the inherent contradiction in what you’ve just stated not seem obvious to you?
41
Winston,
While I agree with everything you say, it wouldn’t really matter if down-welling LWIR could penetrate to the bottom of the ocean, through the millions of years of sediment at the bottom, and ten miles into the bedrock below to boot.
NET energy transfer can only be one way. Either the oceans are NET contributors of heat energy FROM the oceans TO the atmosphere, and the oceans WARM the atmosphere, or oceans are NET beneficiaries of heat energy FROM the atmosphere TO the oceans, and the atmosphere is WARMING the oceans.
The two are mutually exclusive – only one can be correct. And since the known, observed, and measured effect is that oceans LOSE heat TO the atmosphere (via evaporation mostly, plus conduction), WARMING the atmosphere in the process, the whole “the missing heat is in the oceans” argument by Gates and others, is a load of bovine excrement.
21
Winston,
I am not trying to insult you, but you misunderstand the nature of the GH gas effect on oceans. GH gases don’t force more energy into the ocean from the atmosphere as the net flow is always from ocean to atmosphere, but rather, they slow the rate of flow of energy between ocean and space. This is, in a very simplistic way, no different than putting on a jacket on a cold day. The jacket does not force more energy into your body from the jacket, but rather, alters the thermal gradient between your body and the cold air outside the jacket, reducing the rate of flow.
11
No dispute there. But you are trying to account for “missing heat” from the atmosphere. Greater minds than you have claimed this “missing heat” has been “transmitted” into the oceans.
Putting that aside, how does it make any difference to the debate? A “slowing of the rate of flow of energy from the ocean to the atmosphere” would have absolutely nothing to do with “missing” heat in the atmosphere in the first place.
YOU are the guy who has to account for the “missing (atmospheric) heat”.
As an interesting aside, don’t you think it’s fascinating that we can be having this conversation here, while over at the site you originally linked to, all contrary comment is banned?
10
” A “slowing of the rate of flow of energy from the ocean to the atmosphere” would have absolutely nothing to do with “missing” heat in the atmosphere in the first place”
—
Of course it would. At any given time some 30% or more of the energy in the troposphere comes directly from the oceans. If that flow decreases just a bit, the troposphere shows a cooling. But the rate of flow into the oceans would not be affected (which is mainly from solar shortwave). We see this most dramatically during the ENSO cycle, as the oceans release more net energy to the atmosphere during El Niño and less net energy during La Niña.
11
Shortwave from the Sun cannot heat land and water.
AGWScienceFiction has excised the direct heat, thermal infrared aka longwave infrared from its Greenhouse Effect Illusion energy budget, and replaced it with this fantasy that:
“shortwaves from the Sun heat the Earth’s surface and longwave infrared from the Sun can’t get through an invisible unknown to science barrier at TOA which stops the great thermal energy from the Sun in transfer by radiation, or, the millions of degrees centigrade Sun produces insignificant amounts of longwave infrared because the temperature of the Sun has been back calculated by the planckians to the 300 mile atmosphere of visible light”
Someone, has played a very big joke on you.
You have no heat from the Sun at all in your AGW/CAGW world.
So who created this fictional world where its ‘Earth’ is heated by shortwaves and it doesn’t get any direct heat from the Sun?
The direct heat from the Sun is longwave infrared, aka thermal infrared, aka radiant heat. It is what we on the other side of the looking glass feel as heat, as we feel it radiating out from a camp fire.
Shortwaves from the Sun work on the electronic transition level which are incapable of moving the whole molecule of matter into vibration, which is what it physically takes to heat up matter.
How much longer are you going to continue spreading this barking nonsense as if it is real world physics?
00
Myrrh said:
——
Please don’t tell me you have a college degree.
00
Please don’t tell me you have a college degree.
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates)thinks carbon dioxide and oxygen and nitrogen are ideal gases and thinks the Sun’s shortwave heats land and oceans, shows how dumbed down college education is now, assuming of course that The Skeptical Warmist aka R. Gates got his information from the current education system, and hasn’t the real traditional physics on these under his belt, as still taught to some..
The AGW Greenhouse Effect Illusion is completely comprised of fake fisics, the tweaking of real physics in sleights of hand deceptions, magic tricks.
That these nonsense properties and processes are now standard in general education should scare those who care about science. That this isn’t discussed, brushed under the carpet perhaps because of some perceived sense of embarrassment, is contributing to the dumbing down of science basics among the general population.
The Sun’s shortwaves cannot physically, in the real physical world around us, heat up matter – they are too small and work on the titchy electronic transition level.
AGWScienceFiction has put this in place of the real radiant heat we get from the Sun which we feel as heat, we can’t feel shortwaves, this real heat is longwave infrared aka thermal infrared and it has been taken out of the cartoon energy budget of the Greenhouse Effect Illusion so that any real world measurements of downwelling longwave infrared can be attributed to the fictional “backradiation from greenhouse gases”.
What is funny, for those with real physics basics so The Skeptical Warmist aka R. Gates might also be amused, is how this missing real heat from the Sun is deemed non-existant..
There’s the CAGW original which proposes an imaginary unknown to traditional physics “invisible barrier like the glass of a greenhouse preventing the direct longwave infrared heat from the Sun entering at TOA”, and the AGW version which says “the Sun produces insignificant amounts of longwave infrared and we get insignificant of insignificant”. These last are particularly amusing, they have calculated the heat of Sun from the planckian cartoon basing this on the 300 mile wide circle of visible light atmosphere around the Sun, so say “the Sun is 6,000°C”.
So the great Illusion Greenhouse Effect is created in a world which has no direct heat from the Sun..
..what climate are they arguing about?
01
R. Gates
May 26, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Myrrh said:
“Shortwave from the Sun cannot heat land and water.
——
Please don’t tell me you have a college degree.
——————————————————————————–
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates)thinks carbon dioxide and oxygen and nitrogen are ideal gases and thinks the Sun’s shortwave heats land and oceans, shows how dumbed down college education is now, assuming of course that The Skeptical Warmist aka R. Gates got his information from the current education system, and hasn’t the real traditional physics on these under his belt, as still taught to some..
The AGW Greenhouse Effect Illusion is completely comprised of fake fisics, the tweaking of real physics in sleights of hand deceptions, magic tricks.
That these nonsense properties and processes are now standard in general education should scare those who care about science. That this isn’t discussed, brushed under the carpet perhaps because of some perceived sense of embarrassment, is contributing to the dumbing down of science basics among the general population.
The Sun’s shortwaves cannot physically, in the real physical world around us, heat up matter – they are too small and work on the titchy electronic transition level.
AGWScienceFiction has put this in place of the real radiant heat we get from the Sun which we feel as heat, we can’t feel shortwaves, this real heat is longwave infrared aka thermal infrared and it has been taken out of the cartoon energy budget of the Greenhouse Effect Illusion so that any real world measurements of downwelling longwave infrared can be attributed to the fictional “backradiation from greenhouse gases”.
What is funny, for those with real physics basics so The Skeptical Warmist aka R. Gates might also be amused, is how this missing real heat from the Sun is deemed non-existant..
There’s the CAGW original which proposes an imaginary unknown to traditional physics “invisible barrier like the glass of a greenhouse preventing the direct longwave infrared heat from the Sun entering at TOA”, and the AGW version which says “the Sun produces insignificant amounts of longwave infrared and we get insignificant of insignificant”. These last are particularly amusing, they have calculated the heat of Sun from the planckian cartoon basing this on the 300 mile wide circle of visible light atmosphere around the Sun, so say “the Sun is 6,000°C”.
So the great Illusion Greenhouse Effect is created in a world which has no direct heat from the Sun..
..what climate are they arguing about?
01
So, Mr Gates, what you are saying is that CO2 makes the troposphere warmer so that the oceans would give off heat (ie.through evaporation) LESS, leading to the oceans gaining heat! You MUST be joking. Surely.
I think eventually if you tie yourself in enough intellectual knots you can eventually asphyxiate yourself.
02
Winston,
See my reply to a similar point above.
11
Trying to gauge catastrophic global warming from the inconceivably large thermal inertia of the global water mass is titanically nonsensical.
The onus lies upon you to quantify your ‘aquatic’ hypothesis that it reflect your alleged aquatic warming due to the fraction of CO2 attributed solely to anthropogenic sources.
By way of help, it is estimated that there are 1,338,000,000 km3 water in the Oceans, containing 96.5% of the Earth’s water.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleoceans.html
BTW. No models (well, except for perhaps the truly pulchritudinous variety) or modeled data permitted.
Off hand, given the billion or so km3 of Ocean water, and the what, 2 – 3/10’s of a degree warming in question (since 1960), I’m fascinated to see your causal association and evidence thereof.
31
Well, dickwit, there’s clearly something other than CO2 going on then.
Screw it, I’ve had enough of these people.
03
.
Further to my post at 31.2.2 above, I just posted the following at R Gates link in response to the MOD:
Be interesting to see how long it lasts.
32
Themm,
Neven runs a very tight ship, and makes people strictly stick to the science and the issues, which I admire. Your statements such as “load of bunkum” is not helpful. If you want to talk physics and the actual reasons why the oceans are getting the lions share of the heat being retained by the Earth system from increasing GH gases, then I’m sure Neven would not delete you, but “load of bunkum” isn’t going to make it.
12
From said blog: “I can’t have this blog poisoned, just like elsewhere, by the misinformed nonsense of folks who have already made their minds up that Arctic sea ice loss is natural and/or nothing to worry about.” As if said blogger has not “already made up his mind?
So-called “science” blogs define facts and then exclude anyone who won’t use the “facts”. That’s not science, that’s propaganda.
10
.
My post, and its deletion, are now recorded.
I’ll leave it up to the blogosphere to decide who are the rationalists, and who are the book-burning neo-Nazis.
The fact that we can only have this exchange here, on a Skeptical site, and NOT on the site of your original post, where ALL dissension from the groupthink is banned, is telling.
And you people wonder why you are losing the battle for hearts and minds.
20
.
A “load of bunkum” is a “load of bunkum”.
.
No matter how much you polish a turd, it is STILL a turd.
“Missing heat” from the atmosphere CANNOT be “finding” its way into the oceans. You have said so yourself.
So where is the “missing” atmospheric heat from the “continuing CO2 global warming”?
.
As an interesting aside, don’t you think it’s fascinating that we can be having this conversation here, while over at the site you originally linked to, all contrary comment is banned?
11
Themm,
You still have your basic physics wrong. Missing heat from the atmosphere (whatever that means) would not find its way to the ocean, but rather would never make its way to the atmosphere from the ocean. When you put a jacket on, it does not force heat into your body, but rather prevents heat from flowing as readily from your body to the cold air outside. This is just basic thermodynamics whether you believe in AGW or not.
02
And what mechanism constrains the ocean from evaporating? A jacket traps air between the body and the layers of material forming the jacket to constrain heat loss being converted away. CO2 OTOH doesn’t constrain loss of heat via evaporation in any way, because that is precisely what your fellow travelers state that increased evaporation makes more water vapour which then further enhances CO2’s Greenhouse effect and leads to increased warming.
You can’t have it both ways and have it enhance evaporation and reduce heat loss, because you haven’t shown any mechanism as to how the atmosphere heats the ocean or slows it’s heat loss either, and a warmer atmosphere actually only enhances heat loss to the atmosphere in direct proportion to it.
So once again please show how Trenberth’s missing heat gets into the ocean. It is a fiction used to explain away an inconsistency in modeling, nothing more.
20
Winston said:
00
Certainly if the atmospheric CO2 and other GH gases got extremely thick, the oceans would warm enough to evaporate, and Earth would be much like it’s sister planet Venus, as much of the water would be lost to space. This would require some extreme event however, and the current rate of eruption of the human carbon volcano is not enough to cause such an evaporation of the ocean, and there isn’t really enough GH gases in the permafrost, methane clathrates, or oil and gas reserves to get us there. But burning all that and releasing all of it would make things pretty warm– probably back to Miocene conditions. Toasty!
00
Mr gates.
No doubt you have heard of the Space Shuttle.
It has a special surface or at least early re-entry space vehicles did.
I think early space ships had a surface designed to remove heat from the space craft by ablation.
A surface made of balsa end grain was presented to the atmosphere and when this became hot, of course, the balsa being Carbon Positive, caught fire.
Normally this would heat the space craft, but the balsa was arranged so that as it caught fire it also fell away and took the heat with it.
As long as the re entry went to plan there was some balsa left when the craft had reached terminal velocity in the atmosphere and all was well.
Now.
When the wind blows over the ocean it entrains some water from the ocean surfaces and turns it to gas.
This process requires Latent Heat of vaporisation which s taken from
a. The air?
b. The ocean supporting the water that was evaporated
or
c. Both?
Help me
KK 🙂
ps
The reason for the preamble was just to get you into a frame of mind where you could think sequentially about problems. You seem to be having trouble with that.
21
It would be a fair question to ask your host of this blog why she would not use the largest metric of ocean warming possible over the past 10 years, namely the global ocean 0-2000 meters from 2003-2012 in her opening chart? If getting to the real dynamics and truth of what is happening to the energy of the whole Earth system is what we want, why choose some selected ocean basin down to a selected depth?
Answer: when you measure the whole ocean across the whole planet as deep as the ARGO floats are accurately measuring, it tells us that the Earth as a system is gaining energy, and this gain far outweighs (by thousands of times) the comparatively fickle and feeble temperture fluctuations of the troposphere.
12
In other words, why not talk about what this chart is telling us:
02
The notion that the Ocean depths are warmed by the Sun is fanciful..
The ‘Earth System’ has at it’s centre remember ferrous core which is supposedly at millions of degrees.
Warm air stops the Ocean from losing heat so fast, but it doesn’t ‘heat’ the depths.
21
Joe V,
The core of the Earth is not at million of degrees, more like 6000C, and while some of this thermal energy no doubt makes it into ocean water, the vast majority of the energy in the ocean, all the way down to abyssal depths, comes from the sun.
00
CO2 is no Driver of climate. It can be little more than a drunk pedestrian, wandering about & getting in the way of the traffic. A temprorary distraction that will quickly be overwhelmed.
40
OT. Does calling it ‘Bio-‘mass () , justify burning down the boreal forests ?
Is it true that powering Drax will require cutting down 12,500 sq. km of mature forest every year ?
Cutting Edge. Is Logging the Environmentalist’s new friend ?
20
ook.
(Pratchett lovers will get it.)
20
Is there some purpose to this?
Or are you just trying to tell the world you are a “Discworld” fan?
.
If so, why on earth (whichever one you choose) do you think the rest of us would care one way or the other?
11
Gee, pardon me for breathing.
20
You are pardoned, but please stop.
00
Wondered what I wasn’t ‘getting’ here. The Giant ‘Drax ‘ being the largest Power Station is W. Europe, I just carelessly imagined everyone knew, it being such a fine example of Tony’s producers of that essential baseload power.
What remains of the ancient Boreal forests that one covered much of the Northern Hemisphere and are already severely depleted, is going to become the fuel source of choice for providing base load power instead of coal.
Thanks for going easy on me though guys. A new comic world is now opening up before me. I always wondered what that Pratchett guy was famous for.
10
Now you know one reason why we have the expression “eco loon”.
20
Now just imagine…. let’s say we convert all coal fired power stations to “bio fuel”….. how long do you suppose it will take for the planet to be devoid of trees?
Sheer idiocy!
How long will they be able to run Drax on “bio fuel” until what they have set aside for it runs out?
I remember the days when “greens” would chain themselves to trees to prevent them from being cut down.
20
I shouldn’t say , but theoretically wouldn’t”greenies” chained to the trees also qualify as biomass ?
20
Now you’re talken!
20
While I can have some sympathy for “greenies” chaining themselves to trees, isn’t the Green movement’s new found advocacy for burning trees, proof enough that they’ve lost the plot ?
10
On the subject of allegedly warming oceans while the trophosphere cools: how can you isolate the oceans from the atmosphere?
The oceans affect the air temperature above – as we here in the UK know very well.
Large fluctuations of sea surface temperature occur, notably off the East coast of the USA and Newfoundland, with differences of as much as ten degrees centigrade between one January and another, and nine degrees between one August and another.
Does ‘global’ actually mean anything at all in the context of variations such as this? I have to agree with Fred Singer – “the global average temperature isn’t good enough. It has to be based on geographic variation, variation with altitude, or temporal variation with much more detailed measurement.”
I think he’s talking about proper meteorology, which seems to have become rather neglected in the rush for computer models and mathematical treatments of natural phenomena around us
20
When the models don’t match it’s tempting to try beating reality into shape, so that it will.
That then leads to accepting all sorts of crazy notions, that had previously been proven nonsense, like this one, from the Economist.
Wood. The fool of the future.
Lord Monckton can relax. We’ll be allowed to burn the furniture after all.
20
Oops. That link after all:-
Wood. The fuel of the future.
10
The UK introduced a new Carbon Tax on 1st. of April.
Announced initially in 2011 it hardly rated a mention when it slipped in almost forgotten 2 years later under the guise of a ‘Carbon Price Floor’ , whatever that is.
It’s not like any old floor though. It’s an ‘escalating ‘ floor , that will rise relentlessly (& stealthily).
The sky isn’t falling. It’s the price floor rising to crush you with sky high prices.
That is why Europes largest Power Station , Drax, is switching from coal, to cutting down forests American and shipping them round the world to England , to burn when they get there.
England used up its own forests in ore-industrial homes, for cooking & ship building.
20
As a member of the ignorant tribes that read the MSM, I question why the debate has conveniently turned from atmospheric heat retention to oceanic heat retention. It seemed to appear at a time when the former was being rapidly discredited. A bit like when the specific phrase: ‘Global Warming’ morphed into the all-encompasssing phrase: ‘Climate Change’ for the same reasons.
When will these globalists stop treating us as morons that they assume will continue to swallow their constantly re-jigged and manufactured reality?
Let go of the government teat, guys. It’s all over, red rover.
10
There are a number of these alternate (or not widely publicized) theories out there. Ocean heat was always a factor, but as as long as the atmosphere was warming, why confuse people with all the details? Now that the atmosphere, in a very uncooperative fashion, stopped warming at a viable rate, the ocean heat is pulled in. I would expect there are several more “lesser known” theories waiting in the wings. It’s kind of like gambling–never show all your cards at once.
11
The ABC (and Tony Jones) like:
– AGW
– The Greens
– Expansion of state powers
– Our current PM
– The unions
– Anyone who hates the USA
– Any culture that is not western
– post-modern science
The ABC (and Tony Jones) dislike:
– industry
– successful business (an their principles)
– liberty
– the USA
– freedom of expression
– western culture (except for French food and Italian coffee)
– deductive reasoning
– documentation and evidence
So, the question for Jo is – why would you expect anything else from their ABC? If Jones demolished an AGW devotee it would be the last interview he would make at the ABC.
00
Gates said…
Of course it matters Gates. Are you forgetting what the alarmism is all about? It’s about the atmosphere warming and causing all sorts of problems.
Since the alarmists claim there is missing energy, and that this energy has gone into the oceans, two things can happen, A-) Nothing, the energy is sequestered in the deep ocean, which means there is nothing to worry about. B-) This energy will come back up at some stage and continue the warming of the atmosphere.
You didn’t answer my question, what is the T of the ocean at 2000m? The answer is simple enough to find. I suspect you didn’t bother because being a fairly intelligent bloke, you realised the folly of your “missing heat in the oceans” meme.
The temperature of the oceans at 2000m is less than 4DegC. That body of water – whenever it rises to the surface – will never ever, under no circumstances be able to heat the atmosphere which is at an average 15DegC
So, if there is heat missing, if this heat has gone into the deep ocean, there is nothing to worry about. Lets all pack up and go home.
If there is NO missing heat, then there is nothing to worry about. Lets all pack up and go home.
When activists like Trenberth try to explain away the travesty of no warming by claiming this warming has gone into the deep ocean, even sceptics err by trying to argue if heat can travel down to depths.
I’m happy to accept that heat may travel to depths without being detected. If that’s where it ends up, it’ll never ever cause a problem BECAUSE A SUBSTANCE AT 4DegC CAN NEVER EVER WARM ANOTHER SUBSTANCE AT 15DegC.
Gates, I’m happy to consider any explanation you may have as to how ocean depth at about 4degC will cause problems for the atmosphere 2000m above. Lets hear it.
20
There is also C) whereby the additional heat is advected to the most sensitive part of the planet via ocean currents, greatly affecting the sea ice, which is exactly what is happening, but make no mistake, we’ve got lots of time for B as well. See:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/ocean-heat-flux.html
01
You have absolutely no proof of this.
What is it with you alarmists and your penchant for making things up?
You are all ruining the World. YOU PEOPLE are the greatest danger to this planet.
20
Proof? Do you think that the Arctic Sea ice reaching the lowest point in over a thousand years is not proof? But of course, there’s research such as this:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110127/full/news.2011.52.html
Yes, the warmer ocean water is being advected to the polar regions. It is how the planet works.
02
Only a thousand years??
You are of course aware that the Vikings settled and farmed Greenland… which is all now permafrost. I’m certain that atmospheric temperatures where also higher.
What was the cause of that?
The truth is, you do not know what happened then, nor what is happening now.
30
P.S. – No, it is not proof at all.
10
R Gates
So let’s see if I’ve got this right and sum up your many posts here:
1) – Man ISN’T heating the atmosphere by emitting greenhouse gases and even if he was, it’s irrelevant. What’s relevant (now) is ocean heat content (OHC). The idea that the CO2 CAGW “theory” (CO2 is an ATMOSPHERIC gas) was ever about the atmosphere, is some kind of delusion shared by silly skeptics on sites like this.
2) – The “missing” atmospheric heat (aka “Trenberth’s Travesty”), which isn’t really “missing”, despite the fact that Hansen, Mann, Trenberth, the MET, NASA, BoM and the CSIRO, amongst others, are still spending squillions looking for it, DOESN’T “find its way into the oceans”, despite that being precisely what Hansen, Mann, Trenberth, the MET, NASA, BoM and the CSIRO, amongst others, all claim happens to it.
3) – Instead, the “missing” heat – which isn’t really there, acts “like a jacket” – your term – to “trap” more heat in the oceans, which is pretty nifty – sort of like Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.
4) – This “trapped” heat, which didn’t come from the atmosphere, despite that being precisely the claim of just about every published climate scientist over the past five years, snuggled in the non-existent warmth of your imaginary jacket of “missing” atmospheric heat, which isn’t really missing because it was never there in the first place, sinks – contrary to all known physics – to the very bottom of the ocean, where, regrettably, we can’t detect it.
5) – Next our parcel of non-existent, non-missing “missing” ocean heat “advects” itself, along the ocean floor, in the opposite direction to the prevailing ocean current down there, from the tropics, to the Arctic Circle.
6) – Finally our little package of non-existent, non-missing, “missing” ocean heat, comforted in its warming jacket of non-existent, non-missing “missing” atmospheric heat, comes to rest on the floor of the Arctic Ocean, where it proceeds to speed up the melting of the ice a kilometre above it on the ocean surface, thereby bringing about the end of all life on earth as we know it.
That about sum it up?
.
PS There is no point in continuing to post a link to a blog site where any deviation from groupthink is immediately deleted, then disappeared, and then the commentator is banned.
Better you stick to commenting here, where discussion, debate, and even dissent are actually encouraged. That is, after all, how civilisation progresses.
20
Nope, you still don’t have it right Themm. Humans are warming the atmosphere, but the majority of the heat is going into the ocean, and the atmosphere (which derives a great deal of its energy directly from the ocean) has much lower thermal inertia than the ocean, and will show far more variability than the ocean. GH gases alter the thermal gradient between ocean and space, just like you putting a jacket on in the winter. No energy is transferred from the jacket to you body, just like the net flow of energy on the planet is from ocean to atmosphere.
It was unfortunate that Trenberth, or whomever, coined the phrase “missing heat” as the oceans are the heat sink of the planet, containing thousands of times more energy than the atmosphere. The heat has never been missing and the planet continues to accumulate energy in perfect lock-step to the accumulation of GH gases in the atmosphere.
01
Evidence please. Not models, the empirical sort made from actual observations of what is taking place. No links to somewhere else, post it here so it can be assessed and dissected. You have a hypothesis, that is all you have until you can provide the supporting evidence.
11
Robert,
The data and basic thermodynamic theory speak for themselves. Begin here:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/the-four-charts-that-really-matter.html
And then go here:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/oceans-continue-to-warm-especially-the-deeps/
Again, the net flow of energy on this planet is from ocean to atmosphere. The oceans receive the bulk of their energy from solar SW. If the atmosphere is not warming, and the oceans are over many decades, it can only mean that on a planetary basis, oceans are giving up less energy to the atmosphere. We must keep in mind also that solar input to the oceans has not increased, and if anything has decreased just slightly over this time frame.
01
Another one who has no reading comprehension skills.
Did I not say no links to somewhere else? Post your data here. HERE. Since you can’t seem to get that why should I expect your comprehension and reasoning to be any better on your hypothesis.
Empirical observations. Direct proof that “especially the deeps” are warming.
You ain’t got it, so go away.
21
.
On May 25, 2013 at 11.01pm at post 31.4.2, R Gates wrote:
Then on May 26, 2013 at 2.27pm at post 38.2.1, R Gates wrote:
.
So, the NET flow of energy is FROM the ocean, TO the atmosphere.
Except, of course, when we have to account for the “missing” heat caused by humans “warming the atmosphere”.
THEN the “majority of the heat is going into the ocean”.
And all this two-way heat comes out of nothing in the first place, since the atmosphere has not warmed one zot in the last fifteen years anyway.
.
“You put your missing heat in,
You pull your missing heat out,
You put your missing heat in and shake it all about.
You do the hokey-pokey and you turn right around,
And that’s what it’s all about.”
.
The really, really scary part, R Gates, is that you actually, honestly, earnestly believe there is something vaguely akin to “science”, buried somewhere in your meandering, self-contradictory ramblings.
As do your mates over at the eco-Nazi, comment-burning blogsite you keep linking to.
10
And it really is scary. These people are truly dangerous and are harming the planet.
10
Somewhere along the line these people became convinced that a hypothesis constitutes proof of something. A hypothesis never proves anything, the experiments conducted to validate it prove something.
I just finished replacing the shocks on my vehicle. The hypothesis was that the unusual wear on my front tires was due to worn out shocks. As the shocks had never been replaced and the vehicle is 15 years old this seemed to be the most likely reason for the wear I was seeing. But it was not proof that was why the tires were showing an unusual wear pattern.
These were pressurized shocks, I pulled all 4 and of the 4 only one still had any of the pressurization remaining. That one also happened to be on the front of the vehicle.
Does this prove that was the cause of the wear? No. It is likely that it was the cause of the wear, the shocks were definitely worn out, but there are other things that could be causing or contributing to the wear. Until I get it in the shop and have the alignment checked I can’t rule that out.
A hypothesis is nothing more than an assumption. It proves nothing yet we are constantly being handed someone or others hypothesis as proof of something. Without the experiments or tests that were used to validate the hypothesis there is no proof.
People really need to be more exact in their wording when discussing “anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2” as it is not a theory, it is a hypothesis and one that continually fails the testing. The models fail, the forcings are wrong, the heat isn’t there, etc. etc.
Just because those who believe the IPCC et. al. version of it think it is a theory does not make it one. We need to keep driving that fact home until people realize it is nothing more than an unproven hypothesis.
10
Do you understand the nature of a control or governor? The last decade were the warmest decade in the temperature record. So the control knob is set at a pretty high level, and as we see from studies like this, ocean heat content has really ramped up in the last decade:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/oceans-continue-to-warm-especially-the-deeps/
The amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases dictate the rate of flow of energy from ocean to space, they don’t warm the ocean directly, the sun does that. The thermostat in your house does not warm your house, but dictates how warm your house will get. With the highest GH gas levels since the Pliocene, that thermostat is set pretty high and the oceans are responding exactly according to basic thermodynamics.
01
At no point have I contradicted myself. If you can’t follow the basic energy flows through the Earth system, it is you who might need a bit more education.
Please don’t turn your ignorance into my supposed contradictions.
11
@Gates
Steady on fella. Before you accuse others of ignorance and contradictions, lets have a look at one of your statements @ #38.2.1.1.1
According to your statement:
* There is less energy going into the oceans.
* It is the oceans that warm the atmosphere, not the other way around.
* There is less net energy flow from the oceans to the atmosphere
* That “missing” energy is sequestered in the deep ocean.
If you need someone to point out the contradiction between those statements and your position on the hypothesis that is AGW, you’re a pig ignorant ignoramus.
Can you not see that what you’re saying is that the planet, at the troposphere where we live, has been cooling? (Less transfer from ocean to atmosphere and less to ocean from sun).
Can you not see that if what you’re saying is true, and considering the fact that the ocean heat capacity is many times that of the atmosphere, then a given amount of energy will raise ocean temps by a fraction than what that given amount of energy would have raised temp of the atmosphere?
And since thermodynamics law states that a cooler object cannot warm a warmer object, then the body of water at 4DegC 2000m down from the surface will never ever be able to heat the atmosphere which is at about 15DegC.
Can you not see the above contradicts all that you’ve stood for in all the time that you’ve been blogging?
Can you not see that what you’ve stated above is essentially that we’ve got nothing to worry about in relation to AGW because seen as it’s taken 10,000 years since the last ice age for the oceans to get to an average of 4DegC, it’ll take many many more tens of thousands of years for ocean temperatures to get anywhere near that of the atmosphere, but history shows we’ll probably plunge back into an ice age long before then?
Furthermore, you’ve still not explained the mechanics of how a body of water at 4DegC 2000m below the surface will rise up, warm up as it rises and cause problems for life as we know it.
Remember, if that body of water was to rise to the surface but keep its temperature, then it can only cause a cooling of the atmosphere which is at 15DegC.
Now answer all that, show your workings and prove we’re the ignorant ones.
00
Baa said:
——
No, that’s completely wrong. The energy going into the ocean is roughly the same. It may have decreased slightly with aerosol increase and solar output being a bit weak over the past decade, but it is not significantly lower. But the retention of energy by the ocean is greater, so the oceans are gaining energy.
00
First you say:
In the same comment you then say:
You said it. So by that statement you imply “There is less energy going into the oceans” which is what Baa stated after reading what YOU stated.
So you are now claiming he is completely wrong in his statement which means you are completely wrong in your statements to which he was replying. It is called reading comprehension and I am not convinced you have any.
If the oceans receive the bulk of their energy from solar SW, AND that input has decreased slightly over this time frame, THEN there is LESS energy going into the oceans. That is the logic of your own claims.
Seems like all you really do is claims everyone else has it wrong, doesn’t understand, etc. There are some very sharp people here who have through their comments to you indicated their understanding is far better than that which you have shown.
00
@Gates who states…
You do realise that you’ve just thrashed the AGW theory backed up by the Kiehl Trenberth cartoon don’t you?
According to that cartoon, only 168Wm2 reaches the surface directly from the sun. In fact it is clearly stated in all the junk climate science books that the direct SW from the sun is enough to only raise surface temps to -18DegC and that it’s the whopping 324Wm2 of back-radiation that warms the surface to 15DegC.
So your statement “they don’t warm the ocean directly” contradicts AGW science.
Hell man, you’ve become a sceptic but are not aware of it.
Welcome to the dark side.
21
Being a skeptic (in the true sense of the word, not he narrow sense) and being a warmist are not mutually exclusive. The atmosphere could never warm the ocean, but a increasing GH gases in the atmosphere will cause the oceans to transfer heat less readily to the atmosphere. With energy input to the ocean bring primarily solar SW and pretty constant (or slightly declining) over the past 30 years, the only thing that can be happening for the oceans to gain energy is to see a lower energy flux to the atmosphere.
00
What’s the matter gates, don’t like answering questions asked of you?
I’ll now assume that you agree with my above comment, i.e. “You do realise that you’ve just thrashed the AGW theory backed up by the Kiehl Trenberth cartoon don’t you”?
Lets move on.
If the oceans are retaining the energy received via shortwave due to increases in atmospheric GHGs, does it not follow that the atmosphere must be getting cooler because solar SW doesn’t heat the atmosphere, LW from the surface does.
Therefore, IT MUST FOLLOW that more GHGs cause the oceans to warm up (less readily transferred heat you said) whilst the atmosphere will cool due to the same less transfer of heat. MORE GHGs MEAN COOLING OF THE ATMOSPHERE ACCORDING TO THE GATES THEORY.
R. GATES, the SKY DRAGON SLAYER LMFAO
I’ve wasted enough time on you Gates. Your logical fallacies and intellectual contortions has me beat.
01
IF it’s possible to be a warmist and not really wholeheartedly embrace the theory, you might be right. A warmist could believe this is the best theory available at present and still be skeptical. Or he could find the theory 51% probable. However, that would extremely rare. Those who believe in AGW generally believe it will be catastrophic and is settled science. So if you are willing to argue that the oceans are warming and we have absolutely no idea what that means beyond the fact that parts of the ocean are warming over the last measured time interval, then I suppose you could be a skeptic and a warmist. If you think there MIGHT be a problem with that heat and we should study it further to see if it is tied to humans in any way, you could be a warmist. If you go from the oceans are warming to they are not supposed to warm to the atmosphere is getting warm to it’s getting warm too fast to we’re all going to die, then, no, you cannot be a skeptic and a warmist. Skepticism requires empirical proof, not leaps in logic that are completely unfounded.
00
Baa, your knowledge of basic physics is what has you beat.
00
Hallelujah Brother!
Amen to that.
KK
00
Gates said..
And B-) was..
Gates, the temperature of water at 2000m is ALWAYS cooler than temperature of the water above at 1000m, which is cooler than water at 500m, which is cooler than water at 100m.
WHENEVER water from the deep upwells, it cools the upper levels EVERY TIME.
You need to come up with some strong evidence that an increase in temperature of deep water by fractions of a degree, well below the thermocline, will travel up and cause any sort of warming of the top layers.
Put some numbers on it Gates. Show me your work as to how deep water CAN EVER cause the water above to warm and that this extra warming will be problematic.
Gates, I’ve seen some ridiculous comments from you, but the last few here really take the cake.
50
Some questions for the McFibben, Jones et al:
Sea levels have been rising for tens of thousands of years, since the last deep ice age ended. There’s no acceleration evident today. Have you taken land subsidence into account? Have you even noticed charts of where it’s slowed?
How did the Australian Aborigine cross the oceans to get here? Maybe you should see this:
http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/objects-through-time/essays/50000-years-before-present/attachment/map-of-ice-age-aust
You seem utterly convinced that man-made CO2 (still a tiny trace gas in our atmosphere at 0.0397%) is going to burn the planet to hell tomorrow. Of course, when it comes to doomsayers, it’s always tomorrow, next week or in the future. That just continues until the next fearmongering “fad” comes along to be likewise always “predicted” in the future. Some more questions for you:
Every exhalation is around 4% CO2 (40,000ppm – atmospere now 397ppm). How is it you don’t burn your tongue in the sun when you exhale that ENORMOUS 4% of CO2?
How is it that delicate aragonite corals evolved when CO2 was some 20x higher than today?
With CO2 so much higher in the past and you expecting a LINEAR scale to CO2 heat trapping effect, why was there never a runaway greenhouse, ever?
How is it that CO2 was many times higher than today even during deep ice ages?
You understand that CO2 is necessary for photosynthesis and farmers actually pump CO2 into their greenhouses to increase yields, right?
Do you know that Viking graves in Greenland now are in permafrost – something you can’t dig without hydraulics? Vikings colonised and farmed Greenland 1000 years ago, why did they leave 300 years later?
The Little Ice Age is documented in paintings from the 1600’s where the Thames and Hudson rivers froze 10ft thick and the locals held fairs on them. Are you aware of this at all? Are you aware this was caused by the “Maunder Minimum”, a time when very few Sunspots and Solar activity occurred?
Do you remember when an imminent “ice age” was predicted in the 70’s?
Are you aware that Global temps rose sharply between 1910 and 1940, then fell sharply between the 40’s to the 70’s? Did Man have something to do with it or is my next question the answer?
Do you understand the cycles of the oceans (PDO, AMO, ENSO) and their impact from warm to cool and back again over regular decadal scales?
Why is it that in a desert, you can fry during the day and freeze at night, but not in the tropics? What magical atmospheric component is missing in a desert to cause this and therefore, is CO2 actually trapping any catastrophic heat at all? A clue – notice how the night is usually warmer when it’s overcast?
Have you noticed that CO2 continues to climb but Global temps have flatlined for the last 17 YEARS? Why the disconnect?
Are you aware that according to well understood physical parameters, the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration and from the current level of ~397 ppm, accordingly only ~5% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas remains beyond the current level?
Do you understand that warm water outgasses CO2 – try opening a warm and a cold bottle of soda water. Do you now understand that the oceans could never become “acidic”, considering their pH ranges from 7.9 to 8.3, depending on where you measure it and, that the pH scale is also logarithmic?
How do you explain the findings of ancient tools and tree stumps under retreating glaciers?
Have you seen the geologic records that show CO2 rising AFTER temp rises by some hundreds of years?
Have you discovered Milankovitch Cycles – how the Earth has cyclical wobbles in its orbit being tugged on by other planets causing major changes in our distance from the Sun?
Have you discovered that on very regular cycles, the Earth suffers a major ice age about every 100,000 years lasting many times longer than our current interglacial? Do you think that’s connected to my previous question?
Why is it that some 90%+ of species live around the Equator?
Figures are readily available to show winters kill more people than summers – have you looked into them and why do you think retirees look forward to living in warmer climates?
Are you aware that the Arctic ice extent is now the same as the 1979 annual mean? Do you really think it’s going to be “ice free” at all this NH summer?
Are you also aware that cat 3+ cyclones making landfall in the US and tornadoes are at record lows? The NOAA has figures on that if you dare look.
Does it make sense that “climate scientists”, being largely (if not totally) government funded, need to continue blaming Man for CO2 ills since governments want to tax us on it and, if they say it’s not, they’ll lose their job?
Frankly, all of the tip-toeing, cherry-picking and completely unscientific (if not impossible) explanations I see on this site in support of AGW are truly far-fetched wonders of the age. You seem to suggest that surface winds are somehow stopping hot water from rising? Nonsense. All that rubbish and referencing to desperately try and explain-away the now 17 year warming pause.
If you get all the charts and scale them by whole degrees (something we might physically feel – maybe) then they’d be a straight line not even resembling static.
People, have a good look around and you’ll find there are more questions that require answering before spouting for certain that Man is to blame for climate change. It’s been doing it for billions of years and will continue to do so. There’s NO peer-reviewed study out there that can scientifically and unequivocally state that they can filter out Man’s warming signal from the natural noise.
If you keep believing point-blank the government and the lamestream media, you’ll look like a fool (you’re rapidly getting there) and have a lighter wallet to boot. Don’t be a puppet or a parrot to them. Remember this:
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic”.
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Well said Olaf!
That is definitely a ‘keeper’.
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“And speaking of that hot angry summer we just had”,Tony Jones could have pointed out the meteorological reasons for the 4 hottest summers on record.
Two years had extended el ninos (1998 and 1983) and two had delayed onsets of the monsoons (2013 and 1973)!
00
All this talk about climate warming………..
Just take a look at this site (too many individual links) and tell me is it normal to have winter weather in both hemispheres at the same time?
http://iceagenow.info/
12
It was 56F today here in Minnesota. One week from June mind you. That’s unseasonably cool. It’s also been a quite wet spring by comparison to recent years. The current weather around here is more in line with what it was like here in the early 70’s when I was growing up. Lets see, roughly 1973 when we moved to Florida, moved back here a few times over the years been here this time since 2009.
But lets see… 2013 – 1973 = 40. 40 years. Didn’t someone say something about cycles…
10
Yep, there’s sure solid proof…of natural variability.
01
Just as the things you are talking about are “natural variability”. Please see the link I posted below.
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I suspect this is part of why the “global warming” scam is falling apart. You can rename it climate change or extreme weather, but when people are pushing snow off their picnic tables and barbecues on Memorial Day, that “warm makes cold” nonsense really falls apart. Trying to teach people that warming the air makes your holiday barbecue a snow-covered event is just too far many to buy into.
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The death spiral will begin………..any minute now………..any minute now…………..any minute now (apologies to Homer Simpson)
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
13
Looks sort of like a sine wave to me. Aren’t those cyclical? Gee, maybe see ice is cyclical too…
00
This long-term sea ice chart is not showing a cycle but a rapid decline as the Arctic has warmed rapidly:
http://snrclimatecorner.blogspot.com/2012/08/arctic-sea-ice-extent-last-1450-years.html
11
Do warmists ever have charges that don’t look like a nosedive or a rocket launch? Really, the consistency of this highly suspect. How can every single chart produce the same results using proxies that are known to have sometimes large degrees of inaccuracy. You think this makes the theory look true–it actually makes it look faked.
(Perhaps we need to define “long term”–that’s anywhere from 100 to 100,000 years, it seems. Some of the cycles for ice say 90.000 years and in those cycles, we have no idea exactly when and what happened, just a really blurry picture.)
Again, even if the sea ice is melting rapidly, that does not prove in any way humans had anything to do with it. It melted before–and I know SkS claims “not this fast”, but again, proxies do not allow that to be verified. We cannot measure changes over very short periods using proxies and do it accurately. So even if the chart is 100% accurate (again, doubtful), it means the arctic ice is melting. That is all it means.
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Wow Sheri, you have gone a long way down the rabbit hole. It is one thing to be skeptical of extreme claims, and I am, but if you study the actual science you’d see that there is an extreme change going on in the Arctic, and pretty much every expert on the topic will tell you that it is at least partially caused by human activity. I know of not one expert on the Arctic who will tell you humans are not having an impact. Sorry if the chart is similar to other charts you’ve seen, but those are the facts.
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I have studied the actual science–from many sources. “Every expert” means nothing. Only the actual data the expert puts forth counts. And that evidence is pretty weak. I am not saying humans have no impact–but everything on the planet impacts the weather in some way. The problem is humans suddenly decided they were the driving force of climate on the planet. That’s a huge claim and it requires very, very convincing evidence. That does not include computer models and proxy data, unless those models and data tie back to the real world. Science likes to think it can know what is not really knowable and then pound that into people’s head with the expert mantra. That’s not science–that’s religion.
IF you understood science (which you obviously do not), you would understand WHY every model giving identical charts is evidence of faked data, especially when using model, proxies and statistics based on no real-world data.
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Sheri said:
Okay then, tell me the three primary proxy sources of data for seasonal Arctic Sea ice extent and discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses.
BTW, this was a real question on a real science test. So since you’ve studied the science so closely, enough to discount the actual experts, this question should be no problem for you. Here’s your chance to shine Sheri!
12
I don’t have time right now to do a comparison, etc. (I’m planting garden and going out to my acreage after that–both are time sensitive.) I will get back to this later in the week.
For now, some of the proxies I have seen in arctic ice research: marine sediment records (deep cores with slow sed rates, continental shelf cores with higher resolution), Ice-rafted sediment (which can come from icebergs and sea ice rafting–these have to be distinguished), skeletons of marine animals, driftwood, coastal plains, ice cores and historical records. I can compare and rank later, along with discussing studies that arrived at AGW through the exclusionary principle. That’s all I have time for now.
(If your adding “Dr.” was meant to intimidate, it didn’t.)
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Hello Doctor Robert Gates: Scientist MD? perhaps?
One of your earlier comments refers to : “Certainly if the atmospheric CO2 and other GH gases got extremely thick”.
There is only one thing here that is thick and it’s not the atmosphere.
You should talk to some of the other students in Year 11 who are a bit more scientifically literate and a little less obsessive.
KK
01
ps.
I should also add that I have a friend with a PhD in Psychology and outside of his very narrow band of expertise he is essentially scientifically no better than the average Joe Blow.
KK
01
You mean like your own extreme claim that 30 years of data (with 20 years of it up to 20% inaccurate and the rest likely cherry picked) proves global warming.
10
Do you know what it really means to be a skeptic? Does it mean you doubt everything and hold nothing to be true? Or does it mean that you hold certain things as provisionally true once you have enough data, and then focus your attention on looking for data that might cause you to alter or abandon those provisional truths?
11
I have told you repeatedly that your 30 years of data, 20 years of which has an error margin of 20% simply is NOT ENOUGH to draw any kind of conclusion.
I have made some very simple points in this thread, which notably you have failed to address.
Here you go Mr Gates, educate yourself:
What is really happening
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You know how it is B, when there wasn’t any statistically significant warming, Jones claimed that 15 years wasn’t long enough for that to mean anything. It’s like the weather vs climate thing you know. Warming anywhere is a sign of catastrophe but when it’s cold well that’s just weather. Similarly the time frame only matters if things aren’t going their way, then it’s not long enough to be meaningful, otherwise 10, 15, 20, 30, whatever is long enough to “prove” their point.
As I’ve said before, it is an unproven hypothesis being treated as fact. That’s all it is and all it ever will be, if they haven’t been able to prove it in 30+ years…
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Ahhh, now it’s “Doctor” Robert Gates. Nice! Your new nick is “Dr Doom”, please feel free to use it as your internet handle.
So what are you qualifications doctor? What is your area of research. Who do you work for? Please point us all to your peer reviewed papers.
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Chill Backslider, it was a joke to play off of Sheri’s claims to have studied the science.
And in regards to “Dr. Doom”, where I have said one thing about doom and gloom? I am simply stating what is happening– you seem to be filling in the blanks regarding what it all means.
11
I have a short break and checked my email. Wait a minute–if R Gates is just a guy, how do I know if he will even know if my information is correct? That’s okay–I’m writing this up for my blog and other possibly more qualified people can comment. R Gates can read it if he can understand it.
11
Please correct that to “I am simply stating what I think is happening”.
Then see my link above to get a better idea of what is actually happening.
01
Sheri,
I wil shore due my darn best ta understan wot yu write. I thank ye kindlee fer keepin it simpull fer folks like me.
10
Extreme changes in the Arctic have been going on for hundreds of millennia. After all, it’s floating ice where storms and currents alone can break it up. It’s been completely melted before in the past, not forgetting continental drift and the deep ice ages we have about every 100,000 years without fail.
If you weren’t so worried about every dribbling icicle (which is what they do anyway) you’d understand that CO2 was many times higher in the past WITH no runaway greenhouse ever AND deep ice ages to boot.
If you think it’s going to be ice free this year I suggest you get your green canoe and go for a paddle. One thing for sure is ice doesn’t melt at -35C. Don’t forget your swimming togs and sandcastle bucket.
00
Yep, been cold here and it’s almost summer.
The cycles and prior history means nothing to those pushing the “CO2 is causing…” meme, most if not all of us realize that. Gates is claiming to know what is happening, but I want to know how he knows whatever he thinks is happening isn’t normal. What are his references for “normal”, or for that matter what are any of their reference points? We have a tiny smidgen of data with regards to the working of the climate yet we constantly hear “Aha! That proves it.” when it doesn’t prove anything because the “deviation” from “normal” is pure speculation.
Getting really tired of hearing about this crap. My chemistry text has a chapter on pollution, well and good as I remember the late 60’s early 70’s and how things were. But the latest revision is now also politically correct in that the role of CO2 complete with all the bad math and flawed assumptions is a centerpiece of the chapter.
If we end up covering that chapter I will be noticeably absent until we move on to something else. The real pollutants that it covers I can study on my own, let the lemmings get the activist version of CO2 chemistry.
00
A quote from meteorologist Robin Stirling in his book ‘The Weather of Britain’:
“In a really cold spell, the air will be below freezing from the ground right up to the stratosphere.”
He also makes it clear that this results from successive layers of air chilling by mixing and conduction.
Clearly CO2 is powerless to prevent this.
00
A quote from meteorologist Robin Stirling in his book ‘The Weather of Britain’:
“In a really cold spell, the air will be below freezing from the ground right up to the stratosphere.”
He also makes it clear that this results from successive layers of air chilling by mixing and conduction.
Clearly CO2 is powerless to prevent this.
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