It’s important to point out that a really statist, tyrannical approach to climate stabilization would be to create a new agency with broad powers to micromanage industry and transportation. The actual solutions that have been proposed–carbon taxes or cap-and-trade–use the power of the market to accomplish the same end more efficiently and at lower cost.
Note, also, that in 1969 and 1970, respectively, Budyko in the USSR and Sellers in the US simultaneously discovered the runaway glaciation effect. A drop in illumination of 2% or less might cause a snowball Earth in their energy-balance models. This was believed for over a decade, and Hart (1978) used it to constrain “continuously habitable zones” around stars to a very narrow range (0.958-1.004 AUs for the sun), implying that Earthlike planets were few and far between.
It wasn’t until 1981 that Walker, Hays and Kasting pointed out the existence of the carbonate-silicate cycle, which stabilizes Earth’s climate against illumination changes, or temperature excursions of any kind (though it failed for the three episodes of snowball Earth we’ve actually experienced). We know now that creating runaway glaciation takes very special circumstances which we’re just not anywhere near on present-day Earth.
Jiminmplssays
#391 AvdB
Let’s be fair and cost out wind power using the same methodology as for nuclear. In addition to the “overnight” construction costs, you have to include costs for financing, land acquisition, transmission upgrades, operation and maintenance, decommissioning costs, etc. I’d have to search to find the data, but I’ve seen estimates of an all-in, non-levelized cost at $2-2.5k per kW for well-sited, land-based wind farms at 25% efficiency.
This is FAR below projected costs for new nuclear power plants in the US. The buildout is also MUCH faster.
I personally don’t take an extremist position. IMO, the Chinese nuclear program makes sense for China. I generally support both the relicensing and upgrading of US reactors. I can even see the need for a handful of new reactors in the southeast, even though the cost will be excessive.
4th generation nuclear may change the game entirely, but that is a long way off.
I tried to post a list of articles about GCRs, but got smacked by the spam filter again. Other web sites manage to avoid spam without this kind of infuriating, pain-in-the-ass, guess-and-try-again maze for the user to get through. Why not just have the user answer a question a bot wouldn’t get, like “Which would you use to put out a fire? Water or gasoline?” Have a hundred such questions and ask them at random.
I apologize. I didn’t know that. No offense intended.
AlanBsays
I’d very much large to see a fuller defense of “hide the decline.”
The standard attack (e.g., Palin’s editorial) is that Jones’s data showed a decline in global temps, which he “hid” by using other “manipulated” data. And the standard defense is: the tree rings exhibit the divergence problem, so Jones, in accordance with precedent, “hid” them with instrument data and disclosed what he had done.
We know that the standard attack is wrong (obviously, global temps did not decline 1961-1998)–but the standard defense has some holes, too.
First hole: We say that the rings diverge from true temps beginning in 1961, but how do we KNOW this? Yes, we know they diverge from global temps, but how do we know that they really diverge from regional temps? My understanding is that the instrument record for that region is quite weak, especially in the post-Soviet era.
Second hole: A recurring refrain is that what’s important is global trends, not regional trends, and, of course, that’s true. The tree rings are regional, but, when they diverge, he replaces them with global data. Is this quite kosher? Shouldn’t he have replaced them with regional temps and, if they’re no good, just not do it at all? What, really, is the justification for replacing regional data with global data if we keep saying that regional trends and global trends can be quite different?
Third hole: There’s a lot of back & forth about Jone’s disclosure of what he did. Since most of us can’t get to the Nature paper, this is a bit of a black hole, and it’s tending toward a he-said-she-said argument. Did he disclose in the paper exactly what he had done, or not? Did he show both datasets (as Mann apparently did), or did he simply replace the tree rings with instruments post-1961?
A good post covering these issues (and anything else that comes to mind) would be really helpful.
In a natural deglaciation, with the Earth warming from changes in the distribution of sunlight (Milankovic Cucles), the oceans have lower solubility for carbon dioxide, so it degasses CO2 and warms the Earth further. In the present warming, the CO2 is not coming from the ocean, but mainly from burning fossil fuels–we can tell from the radioisotope signature of the new CO2.
mommycalledsays
Alwaysearching #360
Indeed your are correct IF there were only a single anecdotal report it would be “very unscientific and anecdotal”. Unfortunately that is not the case. Ask
any one who has been on meteorological field campaigns
in Africa or South America and you will here the same story repeated over and over again. My own field campaign experiences in Africa mirror Ray’s. You don’t need to go to Africa or South America to hear the same stories. Talk to families in upstate New York or Wisconsin who have had their farms over many generations
Vincent van der Goessays
RE: post 369 by David Miller
“Hansen suggests that there is enough carbon in those sources [coal, tar sands and shales] to assure the Venus effect.”
I had no clue that things could possibly get out of control that badly. Could you please give me a reference? Thanks.
Eric: Adjusting data is things Engineers do to try and make something workable. It is NOT science and definitely NOT mathematics.
BPL: If astronomers want to know the local radial velocity of distant galaxies, should they adjust the figures by subtracting the cosmological red shift component, or would that NOT be science and definitely NOT mathematics? If economists want to know the actual growth rate in industrial investment over the years, should they deflate the figures by an inflation measure to get constant dollars, or would that NOT be science and definitely NOT mathematics? In short, do you know what you’re talking about?
I did find these original, popular press reports, however, from both Time and Newsweek. Please re-read them. I would suggest that these articles below are not easily dismissed as “myth” and it does appear that, in the 1970’s, there was a scientific consensus about a coming ice age.
I suggest that you re-re-read them and look carefully for any predictions from scientists. When you do that, you won’t actually find any, because there aren’t any. They’re all talking about how cold it already is and what will happen if it stays cold. But neither article has any scientists explicitly predicting that it will stay cold or get colder.
(Newsweek does say that “The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” But it’s not clear what “these predictions” actually are, and there’s no information on where they came from or who made them. The preceding text deals mostly with food production and contains no actual predictions.)
In brief, Lu’s physics is good but his climatology is incompetent.
Anne van der Bomsays
Suggestion for an article on RC.
There is much ado about the temperature datasets lately, but what about other weather parameters that meteorological organisations routinely gather like humidity, pressure, wind speed, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility.
Are these being processed too by CRU/GISS et al? What is their value?
The Wonderersays
I’d be interested to see a posting on the state-of-the-art of climate monitoring, what projects are planned, and even more interesting given an administration that might be more supportive, what projects are proposed, and which of those would be most beneficial.
Jim Ryansays
I have a brief question about the ‘divergence problem’ regards the tree ring proxy temps compared with the instrumental record since 1960. Is it true to say that because of this observation (the divergence), and in spite of a good correlation between 1850 and 1960, we cannot conclude that this relationship has been constant throughout the last thousand years i.e. pre 1850 (pre-instrumentation). In other words because of divergence since 1960 how can we know there wasn’t divergence between proxy tree ring temps and actual temps at different time periods over the last millenium? The suggestion is that the reconstruction of past proxy temps based on tree ring data are undermined and therefore there is no reliable temp record in the thousand years before modern instrumentation.
Am I right in concluding that there are many other methods to estimate proxy temps, and which are consistent with or indeed validate the tree ring proxy temp record over this period and that ultimately the extrapolation of the relationship from 1850 to 1960 to the thousands years or so pre-1860 is a valid one?
#431 & “My idea for a topic to discuss is ‘the great AGW Debate’ I would bill it as a *completely* unmoderated event where scientists, ‘alarmists,’ and ‘deniers’ alike can try and contribute to the discussion.”
I have an even better idea. People interested in really knowing the established science should either trust the scientists here, or read the peer-review literature (including the IPCC AR4, which is based on peer-review articles). Now, as has become painfully obvious, peer-review is a necessary, but not a sufficient cause in establishing scientific facts, but if you read enough peer-review articles about AGW, you will quickly see where the vast bulk of the science is stacking up. You can get email alerts re climate change topics by going to http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/alerts/main & signing up. You will have access to abstracts, and those articles you can’t get, you can either view at your local university library, or purchase — it’s been an invaluable resource for my own research. However, fair warning, scientists are extremely conservative, and their articles don’t get published if the evidence doesn’t back their claims with 95% confidence. (Would you accept a doctor’s diagnosis that he/she was only 94% confident your lump was cancerous, so come back next year to see if it could get up to 95% so they could be sure and operate?)
So there’s an even a better method, which I used well-before the first peer-reviewed studies started coming out in 1995 with 95% confidence in AGW. That is Pascal’s wager between the 2 wrong choices — (1) What if the scientists are wrong and AGW is not happening, but you mitigate it anyway. Well, since I was able to reduce my GHG emissions more than 60% by becoming energy/resource efficient/conservative, reducing-reusing-recycling & going on alt energy cost-effectively, saving money, without lowering my living standard (and since the U.S. can reduce 75% without lowering productivity — see http://www.natcap.org & http://www.rmi.org — then not only is the no loss, but there is even a gain, plus it mitigates many other problems (environmental, military, taxes, etc).
(2) OTOH, if the scientists are right and AGW is happening, but we fail to mitigate, then the result will be not only losing out on all the great savings and economy strengthening from mitigating, but a dying hell on earth, and a much hotter place than a globally warmed world for all eternity.
So, take your pick. I personally chose (1) way back in 1990, well before scientific confidence was established — and so did Pope John Paul II and other mainstream churches.
Another quick and dirty method to decipher which scientists are telling the truth is this (bec I do know some scientists engage in fraud — some Formaldehyde Institute scientists even went to prison for falsifying science that revealed the harmful health effects of formaldehyde): If the scientists are finding things that big biz (e.g. Exxon) doesn’t like, the findings will likely be accurate. If, however, they are finding things that big biz likes, be skeptical, be very skeptical.
Or, you could go to http://www.ExxonSecrets.com to see about various orgs and persons, and whether they are funded by Exxon, and if so, don’t trust their science. But of course that will only give you a partial list — there’s also King Coal and other industries that could be funding the fraudulent science and spokepersons.
When I heard something fishy re environmentalists being neo-pagans — the old neo-pagan strawman argument — on EWTN (the Catholic TV channel), I looked up the spokesperson’s Action Institute on ExxonSecrets, and found them funded by Exxon. Case closed.
Edward Greischsays
453Jiminmpls: Nuclear power is the cheapest there is. See my previous post and http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com
The final electric rate is 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour, delivered for nuclear.
Batteries are not included for your wind power. Adding batteries adds $10,000.00 per household per year to wind power.
From: Jim Jones at hyperionpowergeneration.com
To:
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: $.05 to .06 per KWh
Assume HPM costs $30M and plant side doubles it:
$60M divided by 25,000kw = $2,400/kw
$2,400/kw divided by 5 years = $480/KWyr
$480/KWyr divided by 8760 hours = $.0547945/KWhr (Call it 5 and half cents per KWhr)
OR
$60M divided by 20,000 homes = $3,000/home
$3,000/home divided by 5 years = $600/home/year
$600/home/year divided by 12 months = $50/home/month (How’s that for an electric bill?)
Lynn Vincentnathansays
Sorry, that’s Acton Institute, not Action Institute (my last paragraph above)
In other words because of divergence since 1960 how can we know there wasn’t divergence between proxy tree ring temps and actual temps at different time periods over the last millenium?
Hank Roberts’ reference (467) is good, but here’s another Skeptical Science post that answers your question directly:
“New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag”.
We already got it that those who don’t belong to your AGW church are “denialists”. And yeah , snowstorms right after Copenhagen – that joke is right back on you.
David Millersays
Vincent van der Goes in #460 asks about Hansen and the Venus Syndrome:
Given the solar constant that we have today, how large a forcing must be maintained to cause runaway global warming? Our model blows up before the oceans boil, but it suggests that perhaps runaway conditions could occur with added forcing as small as 10-20 W/m2.
and on 24:
There may have been times in the Earth’s history when CO2 was as high as 4000 ppm without causing a runaway greenhouse effect. But the solar irradiance was less at that time.
What is different about the human-made forcing is the rapidity at which we are increasing it, on the time scale of a century or a few centuries. It does not provide enough time for negative feedbacks, such as changes in the weathering rate, to be a major factor.
There is also a danger that humans could cause the release of methane hydrates, perhaps more rapidly than in some of the cases in the geologic record.
In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty.
Jim Ryansays
Chris and Hank,
Thanks very much for the feedback. Perfect answers.
The ‘divergence’ issue and tree ring proxies emerges frequently in ‘sceptic’ circles. Extraordinary how these people focus on one piece of data, usually decontextualised, and ignore everything else. Without a doubt many of these co-called skeptics are not motivated by genuine scientific scepticism but rather by socio-political considerations.
I have an interest in evolutionary biology lmyself but ‘creationist’ inspired misrepresentation and disinformation in regrad to this discipline pales by comparison to what climate scientists have had to witness over the last couple of decades. Truly unprecedented, the age of reason and enlightenment seems as distant as ever. Nevertheless the climate scientists on this site and elsewhere shall remain a beacon of light.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the illegitimates grind you down!
Another anonymous post from a person that can’t tell the difference between signal and noise. Or weather and climate:
– Weather (short term variability like snow, rain, sun, wind) and
– Climate (30+ years of trends with identified attribution).
A warming of 0.7C does not mean it stops snowing in Copenhagen in the winter. You might consider as an example, say your average winter temp is minus 8C, if you warm 0.7C does that bring you above freezing? Now think hard… … … …
General:
I was answering a friend who had questions from friends this morning and I thought it was a fun line so I thought I’d share it with the thread as it seems to fit here as well:
Nice argument technique they are using… tonight’s special is Red Herring served with a Straw-man and a bottle of Whine. For dessert we have a lovely Logical Fallacy whipped into a frothy Argument From Belief to keep the conversation going.
Fred Buhlsays
I hadn’t seen coverage here in RealClimate of the new Nature paper mentioned in this link:
(Haven’t read through the above 475+ comments, so apologies if already mentioned.)
*f*
[Response: Be careful here! The sea level rise at the last interglacial may have taken hundreds or maybe thousands of years to stabilise – and so it is not correct to associate the temperature rise then and at 2100 with the sea level then and at 2100. This is basically the same issue as was discussed in the Overpeck et al (2006) paper. The key phrase is the “long-term” rise (i.e. where you would eventually get to if you stick to a 2 deg temperature rise). It is not very strong constraint on the rapidity of that rise. – gavin]
Joe Blanchardsays
Ron R.
Evidence of glaciers melting is evidence of glaciers melting and only that. No one disputes that – not even the skeptics. But it does not prove that it is caused by human activities.
[Response: True. But it completely undermines claims that the world hasn’t been warming or that the whole thing is cooked up because of the urban heat island or homogeneity adjustments. Perhaps you can inveigh upon the ‘skeptics’ to stop using those arguments? – gavin]
alway searchingsays
@459, mommycalled — No, actually. You are setting yourself up for easy denialist rebuttal. Natural regional variability is quite a bit larger than any shift explicable by climate science over the time frames in question (see AR4, various RC resources or whatever). You are being subject to confirmation bias in your sampling and what you are describing is really not remotely climate science. You and advocates for climate science like you are among the reasons that the public views this entire situation as “us said, they said”. The particular climate variables with any skill, and the particular statements these people made would need extraordinarily better vetting than your “best guess” (or Ray’s or anyone’s) to even begin to approach evidence of anything. Simply being on “our team” does not give you people a pass to undermine scientific methodology anymore than simply being an advocate for what you want gives Gore a right to play fast and loose with various things and embarrass us.
“I did find these original, popular press reports, however, from both Time and Newsweek. Please re-read them. I would suggest that these articles below are not easily dismissed as “myth” and it does appear that, in the 1970’s, there was a scientific consensus about a coming ice age.”
I would suggest reading the peer-reviewed report on the 1970s work on the global cooling:
One thing that constantly amazes me with the contrarians is that they do not have a consistent approach, which you think they might given such confident, sweeping statements. But instead we get a pick and mix from the following:
The world is not warming
The climate is changing all the time
The climate is warming but it’s nothing to do with Man
The glaciers are not retreating
The glaciers are retreating but it’s nothing to do with Man
Er, it was hotter in the past
And so on. The least thing you folks could do for yourselves is be a bit more consistent!! ;)
Cheers – John
MattInSeattlesays
Anne van der BOM:
Anne, even though your calc is an admitted first order calc, you’ve neglected the base load requirements and the regional performance of sites in the US.
At Texas’s current performance, 8T KWH of generation would require 26TW of nameplate to get power 60% of the time.
If you wanted to increase the availability to 85% and higher, which is what the companies need to give the consumer nearly >95%, you would need to multiply that by 10 to 20X. (see “Supplying baseload power….” by Archer and Jacobson.
Thus, the annual cost to transition us to all alt energy would be exceed $1T/year.
Nuclear has much better economics. There’s a reason China is deploying nuclear at the rate they are. And there’s a reason Germany is throttling back their lofty wind generation plans.
So, the figure you cite of $5T to cover the US is way too low. Also, keep in mind that states like Texas outperform states like Washington in terms of wind generation efficiency by 10X. So that figure would climb by perhaps 2-5X more if the generation had to occur in other states.
I watched in the 80’s as people argued nuclear out of existence, because they claimed alt power was right around the corner. And here we are again. Same claims, same fuzzy math. Since the 80’s, we’ve pumped out 50GT of CO2. Much could have been avoided if we’d taken the path of France.
John Masonsays
(oops – not post #476 any more – I was referring to the one by Joe Blanchard, replied to by Gavin. Cheers – John)
“I did find these original, popular press reports, however, from both Time and Newsweek. Please re-read them. I would suggest that these articles below are not easily dismissed as “myth” and it does appear that, in the 1970’s, there was a scientific consensus about a coming ice age.”
I would suggest reading the peer-reviewed report on the 1970s work on the global cooling:
Sorry, The link I gave above seemed broken, hopefully you can get the PDF through one of these:
‘Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions (climate), in particular to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation. Such a change causes stress for societies and ecosystems.’
mommycalledsays
alway searching (477
Maybe I misread Ray’s post, but I don’t think so.
His comment like mine referred to the fact that the people I referred to (people in Africa/South America, dairy farmers in NY and WI) and those that Ray referred to have observed significant changes in their environment over several generations (between 50 and 100 years). When I give talks at US farmer bureau meetings the question isn’t whether global warming is occurring rather how bad will it be. For those in Africa and South America the question is: we see changes, are these changes due to global warming. In some cases the observed changes in Africa and South America are local or cyclical and hence I say no. For other instances the answer is yes, your personal observation is consistent with the fact that global warming is occurring. The point you are missing is that people who are closely tied to their environment have seen significant changes in the environment and have already accepted that global warming is occurring. This observation (people see changes in their environment and accept global warming) is consistent across those of us who spend most of their time in the field.
Frankly I have almost given up on those who refuse to accept any observation, invoke the algore arguement (invoking algore should be another law like Goodwin’s law) and have given up the denialists. To paraphrase Barney Frank trying to carry on a science based discussion on global warming with a denier is liking carrying on a conversation with a dining room table
R. Hayleysays
David Bellamy claims that CO2 encourages plant growth, has there been any evidence that forests have been growing faster like larger tree rings? If so, will CO2 have a shorter half-life in the atmosphere at higher concentrations?
Doc Waltsays
Although I am a biologist, I follow the climate change literature, and have become aware of something that may be worthwhile to examine. Repeatedly, I have seen reference to the fact that tree-ring information in the last half century begins to deviate from earlier correspondence with temperature. Since the narrow group of wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis is in the red end of the spectrum, could it be possible that increasing amounts of CO2 are causing the decline of the necessary wavelengths? Could this happen a predictable fashion based on elevation and CO2 levels at the time the ring was formed?
Might be worth looking into…
simon abingdonsays
#476 John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation)
“Another anonymous post from a person [who] can’t tell the difference between signal and noise”.
OK John, let’s have your definition. (BTW I don’t accept Climate = Signal, Weather = Noise).
As far as I can see Signal is what we’ve so far learnt to identify and measure, Noise is the all the rest that we’re still trying to understand. [#438 Gavin – “But note that one scientist’s noise is another scientist’s signal[!]. Gavin also asserts that “The stuff [noise] is not predictable…”].
Sounds pretty defeatist to me, Gavin. Why is the stuff in principle not predictable, as you say even “as a function of changing boundary conditions”? And why do you dismiss “noise” as the “unforced component”? In a deterministic world is not everything forced if you choose your terms of reference suitably?
[Response: You are reading in meaning that are not there. Take ENSO, this has a pretty good predictability a few months in advance based on the current conditions in the Pacific. For the people that study this, that is their signal. However, ENSO in ten years time is not predictable either as a function of the initial conditions, nor as a function of changing levels of CO2. And by the way, deterministic doesn’t imply predictable in practice (cf. Lorenz). For the climate change issue, the year-to-year ENSO variations are noise. For the ENSO prediction community, that is their signal. – gavin]
And why should your “unpredictable” Noise not include unsuspected properties that might compensate to a greater or lesser extent for the painstakingly observed Signal? Has not life flourished for billions of years simply because of the uncanny stability of our climate? Is this really suddenly going to be stymied by a century’s worth of burning fossil fuels? And is there honestly a correlation between rising CO2 emissions and recently-observed temperatures?
Anyway, back to JPR. Let’s have a convincing definition of the difference between Signal and Noise from you John. I’m looking forward to it.
To make an honest comparison prof. MacKay should have calculated the number of nukes based that 125 kWh p.p.p.d. Can you show me where he does that?
“allege baselessly”? No sir.
It is complete nonsense to us a 125 kWh per person per day consumption stack as if the UK will ever need so much electricity.
You know, the book was featured on ‘The Register’ a few years back. You know what sound bite made it in the article? “We need to cover the whole of Whales in wind turbines to power half our cars.” I’ll leave the calculation of the real number as an exercise to you.
If Prof. MacKay likes renewables, he has a funny way of expressing it.
If this is your reading of the book, then your reading is faulty. For each power source, David MacKay calculated the maximum that could be reasonably and practically obtained. For energy sources such as nuclear which can be scaled up to exceedingly high levels, he used a reasonable model (France).
You will see that he calculated 50 kWh/d for photovoltaic farms, 20 for onshore wind, 32 for offshore wind. In this context, 22 kWh/d for nuclear is perfectly rational and not disproportionate in any way.
I see you quote “The Register” in defence of your argument. That particular website has such an anti-AGW bias that I no longer waste my time with it. Quoting it can’t damage your argument, since you don’t have one. However, it does damage your credibility. If you don’t understand the dangers of global warming, what is your motive for attacking nuclear?
I think you should read the book. If that doesn’t work, read it again. If you still come up blank, then feel free to present your own calculations. Regrettably, it sounds to me like you are trying to repeat an argument you have heard elsewhere, and have managed to get it mangled to the point where it no longer even makes sense. I strongly suspect you have confused the idealised consumption model used in the early part of the book with the energy plans presented in the second section as being achievable by 2050. Nuclear is discussed before this short-term model is introduced.
Maybe you ought to reconsider your choice of information sources.
Ray Ladburysays
Always searching and mommy called,
Any single account taken in isolation is of course a local change. However, I have heard very similar stories in West and East Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Paris, Brazil, Central America and a variety of other places I’ve traveled. Taken together, they are evidence of global change. It must be considered in conjunction with all of the other evidence, and when one does this, it paints a very consistent picture of greenhouse warming.
re 481:
“The world is not warming
The climate is changing all the time
The climate is warming but it’s nothing to do with Man
The glaciers are not retreating
The glaciers are retreating but it’s nothing to do with Man
Er, it was hotter in the past”
Most reasonable skeptics that I’ve read state:
It’s warmer now than it was in 1800.
We know that climate has some natural variability.
The various measurement uncertainties and statistical choices underlying the statement “it’s warmer now than it’s been in 1300 years” make that statement very difficult to support in a rigorous, highly confident manner.
The various measurement uncertainties and statistical choices underlying the statement “mean global temperature is .5 C higher today than in the 1961-1990 period” make that statement very difficult to support in a rigorous, highly confident manner.
Given finite resources and time, we must choose carefully where we spend them – clean water, black soot (particulate) reduction, disease control, etc.
Given all this, it’s reasonable to call for a more stringent review of historic data collection and analysis, and for investment in better data collection going forward.
TRYsays
and a quick question:
The core argument that AGW proponents build on, as far as I can tell, is the forcing effect of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere – very simply, CO2 absorbs infrared radation from the ground and and then re-emits it to the ground and to space, effectively sending more energy to the ground than if there was no CO2.
Ultimately, looking at the planet from space, you would see a different emitted radiation pattern with CO2 vs without CO2?
So, we know that CO2 in the atmosphere varies seasonally. So we would expect to see seasonal variations in emitted radiation signature? And as CO2 grows annually, we should expect to see a trend in emitted radiation?
And I’m speaking of the specific wavelengths at which CO2 absorbs.
Why not do a study like this? I expect we have some satellites with these types of sensors collecting data.
alway searchingsays
@486 – No, again. I’m sorry – I don’t meant to be mean or abrupt. Regional variation — even observed over a (questionable due to anecdotalhood (sic)) long human life *might* — as I say, if the questions were well studied instead of more than likely “fed” or biased in some way — lead to some kind of evidence for a very spatially confined (um, just where you went) set of time-extended observations. This is *better* than the “weather” at one point in space and one day/week/month/year, but does not nearly rise to the level at which people can attribute these variations to co2 rises or even the general global trend.
Consequently, it would not be difficult for adversaries to find samples of other people, in other very poorly globalized spatial samples, that speak in exactly the opposite direction.
What you are saying is roughly equivalent to “people where the weather/local effects match the global thesis you want are convinced”. Shocker. This is no more or less than the observation that people, out in the developed or developing world, do treat “weather” or “local” as their mainstay for vetting a science’s claim about the global.
This kind of argument/evidence is paper thin and not scientific. For someone like Ray who seems to enjoy railing against anti-science with passion, it is poor form to choose his presentation poorly to suggest this type of thinking. People can have off days, but it should not really stand. *thermometer* corrections with their +/- 2 C kinds of issues are bad. Corrections for the calibration of the memories of elders are surely much worse…People’s memories are highly influenced by outliers, never mind the data collection issue and never mind that as I mentioned the actual system-noise at that scale makes attribution dramatically harder. So, even without the likely horribly inadequate globalization issue, there are a variety of complaints along these lines.
And Gore really does need to have things he says papered over with “um, mostly right” or other very artfully re-qualified forms from our more vocal scientists. I’m not attempting to demonize him or throw out a red herring. { By not listing them, I’m not actually trying to be evasive, but rather trying to give less voice to his missteps. } I’m saying that kind of thing should not be a “model” for argument and often leads to stepping in doo doo. I am by no means a skeptic of any of the really established results, but that does not mean I need to agree with poor arguing out of “brotherhood against the hordes at all costs” or something. Maintaining an argumentative high ground is important or you amplify ranting lunatics on both sides.
SecularAnimistsays
MattInSeattle: “I watched in the 80’s as people argued nuclear out of existence … Much could have been avoided if we’d taken the path of France.”
I don’t understand why nuclear proponents always say this. The USA operates 104 nuclear power plants, France only has 59. The USA, not France, generates more electricity from nuclear power than any other country in the world. So, obviously the suggestion that nuclear was “argued out of existence” in the USA is absurd.
The reason that nuclear power plants have not been built in the USA for decades has nothing to do with opposition from environmentalists — that is simply a pro-nuclear myth with no foundation in reality. The reality is that nuclear power was and is an economic failure, and private investors were not willing to put up the money to build new nuclear power plants, because they don’t like losing money. Nuclear power could not compete then with natural gas and coal, and it cannot compete today with wind and solar (let alone efficiency improvements, by far the most cost-effective way to reduce GHG emissions from electricity generation). That’s why private capital STILL will not invest in new nuclear power plants — unless, as the nuclear industry has been loudly and clearly demanding, the taxpayers and rate payers are forced to absorb all the costs and all the risks, including the risk of economic losses, up front.
Given the entrenched political power of the nuclear industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more new nuclear power plants are built in the USA in coming decades (especially if the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in draft climate-energy legislation in the US Senate are passed). And perhaps some will even be completed and go online and provide some electricity to the grid before they are rendered obsolete (and unprofitable) by the ongoing rapid growth of wind and solar.
But nuclear power simply cannot and will not make a significant contribution to reducing GHG emissions from electricity generation. It is too costly, and it takes too long to build. Resources invested in expanding nuclear power will be squandered ineffectively instead of being used much more cost-effectively elsewhere, and thus will hinder, rather than help, the effort to reduce GHG emissions.
MattInSeattle wrote: ” … because they claimed alt power was right around the corner.”
“Alt power” is not “right around the corner”. It’s here. Solar and wind are the fastest growing new sources of electricity in the world, and both are growing at record-breaking double-digit rates year after year — and attracting tens of billions of dollars of private investment every year, unlike nuclear power. The world has vast commercially exploitable wind and solar energy resources, more then enough to provide more electricity than the whole planet uses, in perpetuity. The ongoing worldwide boom in solar and wind technology is only the beginning of harvesting those resources.
Meanwhile the “new generation” AREVA nuclear power plants under construction in France and Finland are — surprise, surprise — billions over budget, years behind schedule, and plagued with safety problems. And skyrocketing cost estimates (not to mention nuclear contractors who are unwilling to commit to any firm cost estimate or any firm completion schedule) are causing proposals for new nuclear power plants to be canceled all over the place.
SecularAnimistsays
simon abingdon: “Has not life flourished for billions of years simply because of the uncanny stability of our climate?”
No, not really — the Earth’s climate has not been “stable” for “billions of years”, and life has not always “flourished”, given the several mass extinction events that have wiped out much of the Earth’s biosphere at various times.
The Earth’s climate has, however, been relatively stable and particularly well suited to the evolution of a rich, diverse, resilient biosphere for tens of thousands of years, the time during which human civilization, agriculture, industry, etc. developed under benign and favorable climatic conditions.
simon abingdon: “Is this really suddenly going to be stymied by a century’s worth of burning fossil fuels?”
Yes. Why are you surprised that releasing massive amounts of carbon that has been sequestered underground for millions of years, within a single century, is causing dramatic changes?
simon abingdon: “And is there honestly a correlation between rising CO2 emissions and recently-observed temperatures?”
Yes. And not only is there an observed correlation, but well-established causation.
And so on. The least thing you folks could do for yourselves is be a bit more consistent!! ;)
My personal favorite:
– Maybe Arctic ice is retreating, but Antarctic ice is growing!!! No global warming!!!
– Mars is warming too, without any SUVs!!!! (Because there is a series of a few pics showing some short-term ice melt in one small region.)
And of course, there’s the fact that temp data is “manipulated” only if it’s going up. If it’s going down, it’s the word of God.
Scott,
It’s important to point out that a really statist, tyrannical approach to climate stabilization would be to create a new agency with broad powers to micromanage industry and transportation. The actual solutions that have been proposed–carbon taxes or cap-and-trade–use the power of the market to accomplish the same end more efficiently and at lower cost.
Spiff,
Note, also, that in 1969 and 1970, respectively, Budyko in the USSR and Sellers in the US simultaneously discovered the runaway glaciation effect. A drop in illumination of 2% or less might cause a snowball Earth in their energy-balance models. This was believed for over a decade, and Hart (1978) used it to constrain “continuously habitable zones” around stars to a very narrow range (0.958-1.004 AUs for the sun), implying that Earthlike planets were few and far between.
It wasn’t until 1981 that Walker, Hays and Kasting pointed out the existence of the carbonate-silicate cycle, which stabilizes Earth’s climate against illumination changes, or temperature excursions of any kind (though it failed for the three episodes of snowball Earth we’ve actually experienced). We know now that creating runaway glaciation takes very special circumstances which we’re just not anywhere near on present-day Earth.
#391 AvdB
Let’s be fair and cost out wind power using the same methodology as for nuclear. In addition to the “overnight” construction costs, you have to include costs for financing, land acquisition, transmission upgrades, operation and maintenance, decommissioning costs, etc. I’d have to search to find the data, but I’ve seen estimates of an all-in, non-levelized cost at $2-2.5k per kW for well-sited, land-based wind farms at 25% efficiency.
This is FAR below projected costs for new nuclear power plants in the US. The buildout is also MUCH faster.
I personally don’t take an extremist position. IMO, the Chinese nuclear program makes sense for China. I generally support both the relicensing and upgrading of US reactors. I can even see the need for a handful of new reactors in the southeast, even though the cost will be excessive.
4th generation nuclear may change the game entirely, but that is a long way off.
RC,
I tried to post a list of articles about GCRs, but got smacked by the spam filter again. Other web sites manage to avoid spam without this kind of infuriating, pain-in-the-ass, guess-and-try-again maze for the user to get through. Why not just have the user answer a question a bot wouldn’t get, like “Which would you use to put out a fire? Water or gasoline?” Have a hundred such questions and ask them at random.
Or just maintain a list of contributors whose email address are not spam-sources. Only use the spam filter on post attempts by newcomers.
Anne,
I apologize. I didn’t know that. No offense intended.
I’d very much large to see a fuller defense of “hide the decline.”
The standard attack (e.g., Palin’s editorial) is that Jones’s data showed a decline in global temps, which he “hid” by using other “manipulated” data. And the standard defense is: the tree rings exhibit the divergence problem, so Jones, in accordance with precedent, “hid” them with instrument data and disclosed what he had done.
We know that the standard attack is wrong (obviously, global temps did not decline 1961-1998)–but the standard defense has some holes, too.
First hole: We say that the rings diverge from true temps beginning in 1961, but how do we KNOW this? Yes, we know they diverge from global temps, but how do we know that they really diverge from regional temps? My understanding is that the instrument record for that region is quite weak, especially in the post-Soviet era.
Second hole: A recurring refrain is that what’s important is global trends, not regional trends, and, of course, that’s true. The tree rings are regional, but, when they diverge, he replaces them with global data. Is this quite kosher? Shouldn’t he have replaced them with regional temps and, if they’re no good, just not do it at all? What, really, is the justification for replacing regional data with global data if we keep saying that regional trends and global trends can be quite different?
Third hole: There’s a lot of back & forth about Jone’s disclosure of what he did. Since most of us can’t get to the Nature paper, this is a bit of a black hole, and it’s tending toward a he-said-she-said argument. Did he disclose in the paper exactly what he had done, or not? Did he show both datasets (as Mann apparently did), or did he simply replace the tree rings with instruments post-1961?
A good post covering these issues (and anything else that comes to mind) would be really helpful.
rob m,
In a natural deglaciation, with the Earth warming from changes in the distribution of sunlight (Milankovic Cucles), the oceans have lower solubility for carbon dioxide, so it degasses CO2 and warms the Earth further. In the present warming, the CO2 is not coming from the ocean, but mainly from burning fossil fuels–we can tell from the radioisotope signature of the new CO2.
Alwaysearching #360
Indeed your are correct IF there were only a single anecdotal report it would be “very unscientific and anecdotal”. Unfortunately that is not the case. Ask
any one who has been on meteorological field campaigns
in Africa or South America and you will here the same story repeated over and over again. My own field campaign experiences in Africa mirror Ray’s. You don’t need to go to Africa or South America to hear the same stories. Talk to families in upstate New York or Wisconsin who have had their farms over many generations
RE: post 369 by David Miller
“Hansen suggests that there is enough carbon in those sources [coal, tar sands and shales] to assure the Venus effect.”
I had no clue that things could possibly get out of control that badly. Could you please give me a reference? Thanks.
Eric: Adjusting data is things Engineers do to try and make something workable. It is NOT science and definitely NOT mathematics.
BPL: If astronomers want to know the local radial velocity of distant galaxies, should they adjust the figures by subtracting the cosmological red shift component, or would that NOT be science and definitely NOT mathematics? If economists want to know the actual growth rate in industrial investment over the years, should they deflate the figures by an inflation measure to get constant dollars, or would that NOT be science and definitely NOT mathematics? In short, do you know what you’re talking about?
@Lady in Red (347):
I suggest that you re-re-read them and look carefully for any predictions from scientists. When you do that, you won’t actually find any, because there aren’t any. They’re all talking about how cold it already is and what will happen if it stays cold. But neither article has any scientists explicitly predicting that it will stay cold or get colder.
(Newsweek does say that “The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” But it’s not clear what “these predictions” actually are, and there’s no information on where they came from or who made them. The preceding text deals mostly with food production and contains no actual predictions.)
xtopher,
In brief, Lu’s physics is good but his climatology is incompetent.
Suggestion for an article on RC.
There is much ado about the temperature datasets lately, but what about other weather parameters that meteorological organisations routinely gather like humidity, pressure, wind speed, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility.
Are these being processed too by CRU/GISS et al? What is their value?
I’d be interested to see a posting on the state-of-the-art of climate monitoring, what projects are planned, and even more interesting given an administration that might be more supportive, what projects are proposed, and which of those would be most beneficial.
I have a brief question about the ‘divergence problem’ regards the tree ring proxy temps compared with the instrumental record since 1960. Is it true to say that because of this observation (the divergence), and in spite of a good correlation between 1850 and 1960, we cannot conclude that this relationship has been constant throughout the last thousand years i.e. pre 1850 (pre-instrumentation). In other words because of divergence since 1960 how can we know there wasn’t divergence between proxy tree ring temps and actual temps at different time periods over the last millenium? The suggestion is that the reconstruction of past proxy temps based on tree ring data are undermined and therefore there is no reliable temp record in the thousand years before modern instrumentation.
Am I right in concluding that there are many other methods to estimate proxy temps, and which are consistent with or indeed validate the tree ring proxy temp record over this period and that ultimately the extrapolation of the relationship from 1850 to 1960 to the thousands years or so pre-1860 is a valid one?
Jim Ryan:
I pasted your question into Google, cut and paste using your words*
First result:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-without-tree-rings.html
It’s a good answer to your question.
(the next four hits were denial PR sites, so ‘feeling lucky’ worked).
________
* http://www.google.com/search?q=other+methods+to+estimate+proxy+temps%2C+and+which+are+consistent+with+or+indeed+validate+the+tree+ring+proxy+temp+record
#431 & “My idea for a topic to discuss is ‘the great AGW Debate’ I would bill it as a *completely* unmoderated event where scientists, ‘alarmists,’ and ‘deniers’ alike can try and contribute to the discussion.”
I have an even better idea. People interested in really knowing the established science should either trust the scientists here, or read the peer-review literature (including the IPCC AR4, which is based on peer-review articles). Now, as has become painfully obvious, peer-review is a necessary, but not a sufficient cause in establishing scientific facts, but if you read enough peer-review articles about AGW, you will quickly see where the vast bulk of the science is stacking up. You can get email alerts re climate change topics by going to http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/alerts/main & signing up. You will have access to abstracts, and those articles you can’t get, you can either view at your local university library, or purchase — it’s been an invaluable resource for my own research. However, fair warning, scientists are extremely conservative, and their articles don’t get published if the evidence doesn’t back their claims with 95% confidence. (Would you accept a doctor’s diagnosis that he/she was only 94% confident your lump was cancerous, so come back next year to see if it could get up to 95% so they could be sure and operate?)
So there’s an even a better method, which I used well-before the first peer-reviewed studies started coming out in 1995 with 95% confidence in AGW. That is Pascal’s wager between the 2 wrong choices — (1) What if the scientists are wrong and AGW is not happening, but you mitigate it anyway. Well, since I was able to reduce my GHG emissions more than 60% by becoming energy/resource efficient/conservative, reducing-reusing-recycling & going on alt energy cost-effectively, saving money, without lowering my living standard (and since the U.S. can reduce 75% without lowering productivity — see http://www.natcap.org & http://www.rmi.org — then not only is the no loss, but there is even a gain, plus it mitigates many other problems (environmental, military, taxes, etc).
(2) OTOH, if the scientists are right and AGW is happening, but we fail to mitigate, then the result will be not only losing out on all the great savings and economy strengthening from mitigating, but a dying hell on earth, and a much hotter place than a globally warmed world for all eternity.
So, take your pick. I personally chose (1) way back in 1990, well before scientific confidence was established — and so did Pope John Paul II and other mainstream churches.
Another quick and dirty method to decipher which scientists are telling the truth is this (bec I do know some scientists engage in fraud — some Formaldehyde Institute scientists even went to prison for falsifying science that revealed the harmful health effects of formaldehyde): If the scientists are finding things that big biz (e.g. Exxon) doesn’t like, the findings will likely be accurate. If, however, they are finding things that big biz likes, be skeptical, be very skeptical.
Or, you could go to http://www.ExxonSecrets.com to see about various orgs and persons, and whether they are funded by Exxon, and if so, don’t trust their science. But of course that will only give you a partial list — there’s also King Coal and other industries that could be funding the fraudulent science and spokepersons.
When I heard something fishy re environmentalists being neo-pagans — the old neo-pagan strawman argument — on EWTN (the Catholic TV channel), I looked up the spokesperson’s Action Institute on ExxonSecrets, and found them funded by Exxon. Case closed.
453Jiminmpls: Nuclear power is the cheapest there is. See my previous post and http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com
The final electric rate is 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour, delivered for nuclear.
Batteries are not included for your wind power. Adding batteries adds $10,000.00 per household per year to wind power.
From: Jim Jones at hyperionpowergeneration.com
To:
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: $.05 to .06 per KWh
Assume HPM costs $30M and plant side doubles it:
$60M divided by 25,000kw = $2,400/kw
$2,400/kw divided by 5 years = $480/KWyr
$480/KWyr divided by 8760 hours = $.0547945/KWhr (Call it 5 and half cents per KWhr)
OR
$60M divided by 20,000 homes = $3,000/home
$3,000/home divided by 5 years = $600/home/year
$600/home/year divided by 12 months = $50/home/month (How’s that for an electric bill?)
Sorry, that’s Acton Institute, not Action Institute (my last paragraph above)
@Jim Ryan (466):
Hank Roberts’ reference (467) is good, but here’s another Skeptical Science post that answers your question directly:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-divergence-problem.html
See the third paragraph.
I love how you MSM internet sites spin stuff
Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically –
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091217-agu-earth-atmosphere-cooling.html#comments
“New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag”.
We already got it that those who don’t belong to your AGW church are “denialists”. And yeah , snowstorms right after Copenhagen – that joke is right back on you.
Vincent van der Goes in #460 asks about Hansen and the Venus Syndrome:
Vincent, download http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf and look at pages 22-24. On page 23 he says:
Given the solar constant that we have today, how large a forcing must be maintained to cause runaway global warming? Our model blows up before the oceans boil, but it suggests that perhaps runaway conditions could occur with added forcing as small as 10-20 W/m2.
and on 24:
There may have been times in the Earth’s history when CO2 was as high as 4000 ppm without causing a runaway greenhouse effect. But the solar irradiance was less at that time.
What is different about the human-made forcing is the rapidity at which we are increasing it, on the time scale of a century or a few centuries. It does not provide enough time for negative feedbacks, such as changes in the weathering rate, to be a major factor.
There is also a danger that humans could cause the release of methane hydrates, perhaps more rapidly than in some of the cases in the geologic record.
In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty.
Chris and Hank,
Thanks very much for the feedback. Perfect answers.
The ‘divergence’ issue and tree ring proxies emerges frequently in ‘sceptic’ circles. Extraordinary how these people focus on one piece of data, usually decontextualised, and ignore everything else. Without a doubt many of these co-called skeptics are not motivated by genuine scientific scepticism but rather by socio-political considerations.
I have an interest in evolutionary biology lmyself but ‘creationist’ inspired misrepresentation and disinformation in regrad to this discipline pales by comparison to what climate scientists have had to witness over the last couple of decades. Truly unprecedented, the age of reason and enlightenment seems as distant as ever. Nevertheless the climate scientists on this site and elsewhere shall remain a beacon of light.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the illegitimates grind you down!
More great before & after glacier photos!
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?imgid=626&gid=42&index=0
We really need all the visual evidence on one site.
#472 The holy church of AGW
Another anonymous post from a person that can’t tell the difference between signal and noise. Or weather and climate:
– Weather (short term variability like snow, rain, sun, wind) and
– Climate (30+ years of trends with identified attribution).
A warming of 0.7C does not mean it stops snowing in Copenhagen in the winter. You might consider as an example, say your average winter temp is minus 8C, if you warm 0.7C does that bring you above freezing? Now think hard… … … …
General:
I was answering a friend who had questions from friends this morning and I thought it was a fun line so I thought I’d share it with the thread as it seems to fit here as well:
I hadn’t seen coverage here in RealClimate of the new Nature paper mentioned in this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121604191.html?hpid=topnews
20-30 feet sea level rise by the end of the century, even if we keep to 2 degrees celsius?
Looks like the relevent paper is linked here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7275/edsumm/e091217-01.html
(Haven’t read through the above 475+ comments, so apologies if already mentioned.)
*f*
[Response: Be careful here! The sea level rise at the last interglacial may have taken hundreds or maybe thousands of years to stabilise – and so it is not correct to associate the temperature rise then and at 2100 with the sea level then and at 2100. This is basically the same issue as was discussed in the Overpeck et al (2006) paper. The key phrase is the “long-term” rise (i.e. where you would eventually get to if you stick to a 2 deg temperature rise). It is not very strong constraint on the rapidity of that rise. – gavin]
Ron R.
Evidence of glaciers melting is evidence of glaciers melting and only that. No one disputes that – not even the skeptics. But it does not prove that it is caused by human activities.
[Response: True. But it completely undermines claims that the world hasn’t been warming or that the whole thing is cooked up because of the urban heat island or homogeneity adjustments. Perhaps you can inveigh upon the ‘skeptics’ to stop using those arguments? – gavin]
@459, mommycalled — No, actually. You are setting yourself up for easy denialist rebuttal. Natural regional variability is quite a bit larger than any shift explicable by climate science over the time frames in question (see AR4, various RC resources or whatever). You are being subject to confirmation bias in your sampling and what you are describing is really not remotely climate science. You and advocates for climate science like you are among the reasons that the public views this entire situation as “us said, they said”. The particular climate variables with any skill, and the particular statements these people made would need extraordinarily better vetting than your “best guess” (or Ray’s or anyone’s) to even begin to approach evidence of anything. Simply being on “our team” does not give you people a pass to undermine scientific methodology anymore than simply being an advocate for what you want gives Gore a right to play fast and loose with various things and embarrass us.
@Lady in Red (347):
“I did find these original, popular press reports, however, from both Time and Newsweek. Please re-read them. I would suggest that these articles below are not easily dismissed as “myth” and it does appear that, in the 1970’s, there was a scientific consensus about a coming ice age.”
I would suggest reading the peer-reviewed report on the 1970s work on the global cooling:
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
Re: 476
One thing that constantly amazes me with the contrarians is that they do not have a consistent approach, which you think they might given such confident, sweeping statements. But instead we get a pick and mix from the following:
The world is not warming
The climate is changing all the time
The climate is warming but it’s nothing to do with Man
The glaciers are not retreating
The glaciers are retreating but it’s nothing to do with Man
Er, it was hotter in the past
And so on. The least thing you folks could do for yourselves is be a bit more consistent!! ;)
Cheers – John
Anne van der BOM:
Anne, even though your calc is an admitted first order calc, you’ve neglected the base load requirements and the regional performance of sites in the US.
At Texas’s current performance, 8T KWH of generation would require 26TW of nameplate to get power 60% of the time.
If you wanted to increase the availability to 85% and higher, which is what the companies need to give the consumer nearly >95%, you would need to multiply that by 10 to 20X. (see “Supplying baseload power….” by Archer and Jacobson.
Thus, the annual cost to transition us to all alt energy would be exceed $1T/year.
Nuclear has much better economics. There’s a reason China is deploying nuclear at the rate they are. And there’s a reason Germany is throttling back their lofty wind generation plans.
So, the figure you cite of $5T to cover the US is way too low. Also, keep in mind that states like Texas outperform states like Washington in terms of wind generation efficiency by 10X. So that figure would climb by perhaps 2-5X more if the generation had to occur in other states.
I watched in the 80’s as people argued nuclear out of existence, because they claimed alt power was right around the corner. And here we are again. Same claims, same fuzzy math. Since the 80’s, we’ve pumped out 50GT of CO2. Much could have been avoided if we’d taken the path of France.
(oops – not post #476 any more – I was referring to the one by Joe Blanchard, replied to by Gavin. Cheers – John)
@Lady in Red (347):
“I did find these original, popular press reports, however, from both Time and Newsweek. Please re-read them. I would suggest that these articles below are not easily dismissed as “myth” and it does appear that, in the 1970’s, there was a scientific consensus about a coming ice age.”
I would suggest reading the peer-reviewed report on the 1970s work on the global cooling:
Sorry, The link I gave above seemed broken, hopefully you can get the PDF through one of these:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2370.1&ct=1
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Article: pp. 1325–1337 | Abstract | PDF (4.13M)
Peterson, 2008 Volume 89, Issue 9 (September 2008)
Any comments on Von Storch’s climategate opinion? He seems to express an interesting middle ground in the debate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704238104574601443947078538.html
‘Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions (climate), in particular to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation. Such a change causes stress for societies and ecosystems.’
alway searching (477
Maybe I misread Ray’s post, but I don’t think so.
His comment like mine referred to the fact that the people I referred to (people in Africa/South America, dairy farmers in NY and WI) and those that Ray referred to have observed significant changes in their environment over several generations (between 50 and 100 years). When I give talks at US farmer bureau meetings the question isn’t whether global warming is occurring rather how bad will it be. For those in Africa and South America the question is: we see changes, are these changes due to global warming. In some cases the observed changes in Africa and South America are local or cyclical and hence I say no. For other instances the answer is yes, your personal observation is consistent with the fact that global warming is occurring. The point you are missing is that people who are closely tied to their environment have seen significant changes in the environment and have already accepted that global warming is occurring. This observation (people see changes in their environment and accept global warming) is consistent across those of us who spend most of their time in the field.
Frankly I have almost given up on those who refuse to accept any observation, invoke the algore arguement (invoking algore should be another law like Goodwin’s law) and have given up the denialists. To paraphrase Barney Frank trying to carry on a science based discussion on global warming with a denier is liking carrying on a conversation with a dining room table
David Bellamy claims that CO2 encourages plant growth, has there been any evidence that forests have been growing faster like larger tree rings? If so, will CO2 have a shorter half-life in the atmosphere at higher concentrations?
Although I am a biologist, I follow the climate change literature, and have become aware of something that may be worthwhile to examine. Repeatedly, I have seen reference to the fact that tree-ring information in the last half century begins to deviate from earlier correspondence with temperature. Since the narrow group of wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis is in the red end of the spectrum, could it be possible that increasing amounts of CO2 are causing the decline of the necessary wavelengths? Could this happen a predictable fashion based on elevation and CO2 levels at the time the ring was formed?
Might be worth looking into…
#476 John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation)
“Another anonymous post from a person [who] can’t tell the difference between signal and noise”.
OK John, let’s have your definition. (BTW I don’t accept Climate = Signal, Weather = Noise).
As far as I can see Signal is what we’ve so far learnt to identify and measure, Noise is the all the rest that we’re still trying to understand. [#438 Gavin – “But note that one scientist’s noise is another scientist’s signal[!]. Gavin also asserts that “The stuff [noise] is not predictable…”].
Sounds pretty defeatist to me, Gavin. Why is the stuff in principle not predictable, as you say even “as a function of changing boundary conditions”? And why do you dismiss “noise” as the “unforced component”? In a deterministic world is not everything forced if you choose your terms of reference suitably?
[Response: You are reading in meaning that are not there. Take ENSO, this has a pretty good predictability a few months in advance based on the current conditions in the Pacific. For the people that study this, that is their signal. However, ENSO in ten years time is not predictable either as a function of the initial conditions, nor as a function of changing levels of CO2. And by the way, deterministic doesn’t imply predictable in practice (cf. Lorenz). For the climate change issue, the year-to-year ENSO variations are noise. For the ENSO prediction community, that is their signal. – gavin]
And why should your “unpredictable” Noise not include unsuspected properties that might compensate to a greater or lesser extent for the painstakingly observed Signal? Has not life flourished for billions of years simply because of the uncanny stability of our climate? Is this really suddenly going to be stymied by a century’s worth of burning fossil fuels? And is there honestly a correlation between rising CO2 emissions and recently-observed temperatures?
Anyway, back to JPR. Let’s have a convincing definition of the difference between Signal and Noise from you John. I’m looking forward to it.
Anne van der Bom said:
If this is your reading of the book, then your reading is faulty. For each power source, David MacKay calculated the maximum that could be reasonably and practically obtained. For energy sources such as nuclear which can be scaled up to exceedingly high levels, he used a reasonable model (France).
You will see that he calculated 50 kWh/d for photovoltaic farms, 20 for onshore wind, 32 for offshore wind. In this context, 22 kWh/d for nuclear is perfectly rational and not disproportionate in any way.
I see you quote “The Register” in defence of your argument. That particular website has such an anti-AGW bias that I no longer waste my time with it. Quoting it can’t damage your argument, since you don’t have one. However, it does damage your credibility. If you don’t understand the dangers of global warming, what is your motive for attacking nuclear?
I think you should read the book. If that doesn’t work, read it again. If you still come up blank, then feel free to present your own calculations. Regrettably, it sounds to me like you are trying to repeat an argument you have heard elsewhere, and have managed to get it mangled to the point where it no longer even makes sense. I strongly suspect you have confused the idealised consumption model used in the early part of the book with the energy plans presented in the second section as being achievable by 2050. Nuclear is discussed before this short-term model is introduced.
Ferran P. Vilar, Looks pretty consistent to me:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
Maybe you ought to reconsider your choice of information sources.
Always searching and mommy called,
Any single account taken in isolation is of course a local change. However, I have heard very similar stories in West and East Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Paris, Brazil, Central America and a variety of other places I’ve traveled. Taken together, they are evidence of global change. It must be considered in conjunction with all of the other evidence, and when one does this, it paints a very consistent picture of greenhouse warming.
#414 – Jiminmpls
I hope you are kidding about ExxonMobil’s efforts “to help” with climate science. :)
#451 – BPL
That is a good point. Could I trouble you to post that on my blog?
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/how-to-talk-to-a-conservative-about-climate-change/
> abingdon
Rate of change. Look into it.
re 481:
“The world is not warming
The climate is changing all the time
The climate is warming but it’s nothing to do with Man
The glaciers are not retreating
The glaciers are retreating but it’s nothing to do with Man
Er, it was hotter in the past”
Most reasonable skeptics that I’ve read state:
It’s warmer now than it was in 1800.
We know that climate has some natural variability.
The various measurement uncertainties and statistical choices underlying the statement “it’s warmer now than it’s been in 1300 years” make that statement very difficult to support in a rigorous, highly confident manner.
The various measurement uncertainties and statistical choices underlying the statement “mean global temperature is .5 C higher today than in the 1961-1990 period” make that statement very difficult to support in a rigorous, highly confident manner.
Given finite resources and time, we must choose carefully where we spend them – clean water, black soot (particulate) reduction, disease control, etc.
Given all this, it’s reasonable to call for a more stringent review of historic data collection and analysis, and for investment in better data collection going forward.
and a quick question:
The core argument that AGW proponents build on, as far as I can tell, is the forcing effect of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere – very simply, CO2 absorbs infrared radation from the ground and and then re-emits it to the ground and to space, effectively sending more energy to the ground than if there was no CO2.
Ultimately, looking at the planet from space, you would see a different emitted radiation pattern with CO2 vs without CO2?
So, we know that CO2 in the atmosphere varies seasonally. So we would expect to see seasonal variations in emitted radiation signature? And as CO2 grows annually, we should expect to see a trend in emitted radiation?
And I’m speaking of the specific wavelengths at which CO2 absorbs.
Why not do a study like this? I expect we have some satellites with these types of sensors collecting data.
@486 – No, again. I’m sorry – I don’t meant to be mean or abrupt. Regional variation — even observed over a (questionable due to anecdotalhood (sic)) long human life *might* — as I say, if the questions were well studied instead of more than likely “fed” or biased in some way — lead to some kind of evidence for a very spatially confined (um, just where you went) set of time-extended observations. This is *better* than the “weather” at one point in space and one day/week/month/year, but does not nearly rise to the level at which people can attribute these variations to co2 rises or even the general global trend.
Consequently, it would not be difficult for adversaries to find samples of other people, in other very poorly globalized spatial samples, that speak in exactly the opposite direction.
What you are saying is roughly equivalent to “people where the weather/local effects match the global thesis you want are convinced”. Shocker. This is no more or less than the observation that people, out in the developed or developing world, do treat “weather” or “local” as their mainstay for vetting a science’s claim about the global.
This kind of argument/evidence is paper thin and not scientific. For someone like Ray who seems to enjoy railing against anti-science with passion, it is poor form to choose his presentation poorly to suggest this type of thinking. People can have off days, but it should not really stand. *thermometer* corrections with their +/- 2 C kinds of issues are bad. Corrections for the calibration of the memories of elders are surely much worse…People’s memories are highly influenced by outliers, never mind the data collection issue and never mind that as I mentioned the actual system-noise at that scale makes attribution dramatically harder. So, even without the likely horribly inadequate globalization issue, there are a variety of complaints along these lines.
And Gore really does need to have things he says papered over with “um, mostly right” or other very artfully re-qualified forms from our more vocal scientists. I’m not attempting to demonize him or throw out a red herring. { By not listing them, I’m not actually trying to be evasive, but rather trying to give less voice to his missteps. } I’m saying that kind of thing should not be a “model” for argument and often leads to stepping in doo doo. I am by no means a skeptic of any of the really established results, but that does not mean I need to agree with poor arguing out of “brotherhood against the hordes at all costs” or something. Maintaining an argumentative high ground is important or you amplify ranting lunatics on both sides.
MattInSeattle: “I watched in the 80’s as people argued nuclear out of existence … Much could have been avoided if we’d taken the path of France.”
I don’t understand why nuclear proponents always say this. The USA operates 104 nuclear power plants, France only has 59. The USA, not France, generates more electricity from nuclear power than any other country in the world. So, obviously the suggestion that nuclear was “argued out of existence” in the USA is absurd.
The reason that nuclear power plants have not been built in the USA for decades has nothing to do with opposition from environmentalists — that is simply a pro-nuclear myth with no foundation in reality. The reality is that nuclear power was and is an economic failure, and private investors were not willing to put up the money to build new nuclear power plants, because they don’t like losing money. Nuclear power could not compete then with natural gas and coal, and it cannot compete today with wind and solar (let alone efficiency improvements, by far the most cost-effective way to reduce GHG emissions from electricity generation). That’s why private capital STILL will not invest in new nuclear power plants — unless, as the nuclear industry has been loudly and clearly demanding, the taxpayers and rate payers are forced to absorb all the costs and all the risks, including the risk of economic losses, up front.
Given the entrenched political power of the nuclear industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more new nuclear power plants are built in the USA in coming decades (especially if the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in draft climate-energy legislation in the US Senate are passed). And perhaps some will even be completed and go online and provide some electricity to the grid before they are rendered obsolete (and unprofitable) by the ongoing rapid growth of wind and solar.
But nuclear power simply cannot and will not make a significant contribution to reducing GHG emissions from electricity generation. It is too costly, and it takes too long to build. Resources invested in expanding nuclear power will be squandered ineffectively instead of being used much more cost-effectively elsewhere, and thus will hinder, rather than help, the effort to reduce GHG emissions.
MattInSeattle wrote: ” … because they claimed alt power was right around the corner.”
“Alt power” is not “right around the corner”. It’s here. Solar and wind are the fastest growing new sources of electricity in the world, and both are growing at record-breaking double-digit rates year after year — and attracting tens of billions of dollars of private investment every year, unlike nuclear power. The world has vast commercially exploitable wind and solar energy resources, more then enough to provide more electricity than the whole planet uses, in perpetuity. The ongoing worldwide boom in solar and wind technology is only the beginning of harvesting those resources.
Meanwhile the “new generation” AREVA nuclear power plants under construction in France and Finland are — surprise, surprise — billions over budget, years behind schedule, and plagued with safety problems. And skyrocketing cost estimates (not to mention nuclear contractors who are unwilling to commit to any firm cost estimate or any firm completion schedule) are causing proposals for new nuclear power plants to be canceled all over the place.
simon abingdon: “Has not life flourished for billions of years simply because of the uncanny stability of our climate?”
No, not really — the Earth’s climate has not been “stable” for “billions of years”, and life has not always “flourished”, given the several mass extinction events that have wiped out much of the Earth’s biosphere at various times.
The Earth’s climate has, however, been relatively stable and particularly well suited to the evolution of a rich, diverse, resilient biosphere for tens of thousands of years, the time during which human civilization, agriculture, industry, etc. developed under benign and favorable climatic conditions.
simon abingdon: “Is this really suddenly going to be stymied by a century’s worth of burning fossil fuels?”
Yes. Why are you surprised that releasing massive amounts of carbon that has been sequestered underground for millions of years, within a single century, is causing dramatic changes?
simon abingdon: “And is there honestly a correlation between rising CO2 emissions and recently-observed temperatures?”
Yes. And not only is there an observed correlation, but well-established causation.
@John mason (481)
My personal favorite:
– Maybe Arctic ice is retreating, but Antarctic ice is growing!!! No global warming!!!
– Mars is warming too, without any SUVs!!!! (Because there is a series of a few pics showing some short-term ice melt in one small region.)
And of course, there’s the fact that temp data is “manipulated” only if it’s going up. If it’s going down, it’s the word of God.