Continuation of the open thread. Please use these threads to bring up things that are creating ‘buzz’ rather than having news items get buried in comment threads on more specific topics. We’ll promote the best responses to the head post.
Knorr (2009): Case in point, Knorr (GRL, 2009) is a study about how much of the human emissions are staying the atmosphere (around 40%) and whether that is detectably changing over time. It does not undermine the fact that CO2 is rising. The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly), led in no small part by a misleading headline (subsequently fixed) on the ScienceDaily news item Update: MT/AH point out the headline came from an AGU press release (Sigh…). SkepticalScience has a good discussion of the details including some other recent work by Le Quéré and colleagues.
Update: Some comments on the John Coleman/KUSI/Joe D’Aleo/E. M. Smith accusations about the temperature records. Their claim is apparently that coastal station absolute temperatures are being used to estimate the current absolute temperatures in mountain regions and that the anomalies there are warm because the coast is warmer than the mountain. This is simply wrong. What is actually done is that temperature anomalies are calculated locally from local baselines, and these anomalies can be interpolated over quite large distances. This is perfectly fine and checkable by looking at the pairwise correlations at the monthly stations between different stations (London-Paris or New York-Cleveland or LA-San Francisco). The second thread in their ‘accusation’ is that the agencies are deleting records, but this just underscores their lack of understanding of where the GHCN data set actually comes from. This is thoroughly discussed in Peterson and Vose (1997) which indicates where the data came from and which data streams give real time updates. The principle one is the CLIMAT updates of monthly mean temperature via the WMO network of reports. These are distributed by the Nat. Met. Services who have decided which stations they choose to produce monthly mean data for (and how it is calculated) and is absolutely nothing to do with NCDC or NASA.
Further Update: NCDC has a good description of their procedures now available, and Zeke Hausfather has a very good explanation of the real issues on the Yale Forum.
Re: 367
[Tell Gavin I added it to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change/to do]]. Actually, tell Gavin to get off his bum and fix it up himself :-) -W]
[Response: But I wouldn’t want to usurp Connolley’s lead role in the conspiratorial vanguard at Wikipedia…. – gavin]
RE Matthew L
Knutti and Hegerl, discussed here; also see Annan and Hargreaves, discussed here and here.
Shills, I think the latest Bray & Von Storch survey is a vast improvement over their previous efforts. However, there are still some ambiguities in phrasing of the questions that could distort the results. In particular, what is “adequate” or “inadequate”–for what purpose. And in several cases, there was no opportunity to respond what specific inadequacy they found.
I think it’s evidence of a strong consensus, that most scientists feel our understanding is pretty good and that something needs to be done NOW about the threat. Certainly, nobody can accuse the authors of being card-carrying greenies. Of course the denialists will view the agreement as being due to a shadowy conspiracy rather than the overwhelming strength of the evidence.
Significant could mean anything from “outside of expected errors” to 90-95% confidence level.
John P. Reisman, how is it that increasing (due to conservation efforts) polar bear populations morphs into decreasing??
Doug, you’re probably correct that your source is the best available for polar bear populations, but it doesn’t make their assessments and projections any more accurate absolutely (probably more accurate relative to other studies). They still consolidate others data periodically (they also assess and analyze – don’t mean it to sound like they are simple gatherers) and make projections based on pretty loose statistical hypotheses, albeit probably the best guess there is. While they should be taken seriously, the large uncertainties and small confidence levels should not be forgotten. I think the assessment ought to be: is the population decreasing? Maybe. Could very well be. Or maybe not, but seems like it is. Is it going to continue to decrease? That’s anybody’s guess but it’s possible. Should we keep a watchful eye out? Certainly.
The assessment should not be proof positive of AGW and shouldn’t be touted as such, IMO. Though I do understand the PR benefits because of the aaaaawwwh factor – “look at the cute cuddly polar bear all by hisself on the ice floe” followed by scaring the children to get them young.
Is there any chance of sprinkling low cost transmitting thermometers all over the arctic? If I’ve understood this correctly the main difference between HadCrut and Gisstemp temperature records is the way they treat voids in the arctic temperature data. The best way to resolve that would be with more data.
Uh, Matthew L,
Did you even bother to look at your own graph? It shows about 3 mm/yr since 1992.
OK, so you think groupthink is going on. However, you said yourself that the greatest scientists are those who work to overturn established wisdom, right? Don’t you think scientists would want to do that, when it’s their key to fame and glory? And if it were possible to do so, don’t you think they’d want to be the ones to do it even if it overturned a pet theory of theirs (damage control and all)?
And do you also attribute groupthink to the countless outside panels and committees that have reviewed the methods and conclusions of climate science and endorsed them (NAS, AGU, APS, ACS, AMS,…). Not one honorific or professional organization of scientists that has reviewed climate science has dissented from the consensus view. Now isn’t that remarkable, particularly since climate change mitigation is probably going to take a big bite out of their research budgets? ‘Fraid I don’t see the motivation to go along here.
BTW here is the reference to the Knutti and Hegerl review for Nature Geo–excellent reference.
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf
Matthew, I know that you think you are being honest with yourself, but what you are saying and the objections you are raising make it sound as if you are just trying to find a reason to avoid worrying about this issue. You say you are not “anti-science”, but what the science is telling us to do is pretty unequivocal. We can either follow that advice or go against it. I make that as science or anti-science, and I don’t see a compromise.
Matthew L., if you haven’t noticed, any assessment or solution that does not include bashing the hell out of ExxonMobil is a non-starter to SecularAnimist.
SecularAnimist, neither of your two examples (PCs and Cellular) were anywhere near as massively disruptive as driving down via fiat per capita CO2 emissions to what it was before we were even burning (for all practical purposes) fossil fuels – based on a wishful wistful prayer that there will be enough windmills and green panels to pick up the slack and every vehicle on the road will be 100% electric within 40 years.
JEP: you’d need some GPS location too. And a power source.
It’s more likely than I make out that this could be done, but I feel the cost/benefit analysis is poor and the utility easy to deny.
More data has never resolved arguments with the denial dittos.
Rod B: why do you think it is impossible to do?
It seems like you’re presupposing it to scare people off trying.
And there’s an EASY 20% reduction just in the higher users becoming more sensible with their energy use. No need to change all cars to electric.
In fact, even without that, there’s no need to change all cars to electric. so why did you make that a prerequisite for AGW mitigation to work?
Rod B, we’ve noticed that anything that means mitigation of AGW is possible by moving away from fossil fuels is a non-starter with you.
#446 – Ray
Not at all Ray, I have kids and hopefully grandchildren some day. I don’t want them to live in a boiling wasteland. However, if you and your family are standing in the middle of the highway do you jump out of the way of the car about to hit you or do you worry about the car 500 yards behind it?
Yes Doug, I am wallowing in worries about opportunity costs. You may think they are false, but have you seen the size of the world’s budget defecits? There is no open market in saving the planet – we need government action and expenditure on energy conservation, renewable power generation, wildlife conservation, university research into climate change and the environment (among a lot else). We are already seeing major cuts in University teaching budgets. At the moment I see climate change getting the lions share of funding. And as things stand I don’t hold out much hope for ‘Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus’ and his friends.
By the way, thanks to Tim Jones and Tim McDermot for their links re threat to species from global warming. Have bookmarked for future reading.
Re: #444 (Matthew L)
What planet are you talking about? Here on earth, sea level rise since end-1992 has been three times that much.
MattL Worries: “However, if you and your family are standing in the middle of the highway do you jump out of the way of the car about to hit you or do you worry about the car 500 yards behind it?”
So where’s this nearer car?
Or is that leaf blowing your way scaring you?
Yup.
Matthew, one of the most obvious catastrophic consequences of global warming has been the huge success of PR pushing “Ignoramus-Ignorabimus” (“We don’t know, and e can’t know”) among people who could be smart enough to think for themselves and look things up before deciding what to think.
Someone in my carpool said yesterday — “First, destroy the public educational system; once the majority population don’t care to learn, and are easily kept entertained, destroy the political system.”
And then you went and wrote “I am probably just a mirror put up to the internet, so use me as a reflection on how the current debate appears to the reasonably intelligent ….”
I am afraid you may be right. But you could do much better. Please try.
Matthew @444: From the recent satelite record since the end of 1992 global mean sea level has risen 15mm (using the trend line), just under 1mm a year. No Bzzt there then.
Ahhh, Matthew, do you not know how to read a graph?
You could start by paying attention to the + and – signs!
Let’s carry the mean trend line in the graph through to both end scales, making it ~ -15 mm on the left near the end of 1992 and ~ + 30 mm on the right near the end of 2009, for a difference of 45 mm over 16 years, not 15!
45/16 = 2.81 mm/year if the mean trend line were a straight line.
Taking a line between the actual end points shows an even higher rate: ~ -16.5 to ~ 39 = 55.5. 55.5/16 = 34.47 mm/year.
As I said: you don’t even have the basic facts right.
Riddle me this, polar bear population optimists:
Why wouldn’t polar bears be under extreme stress as the sea ice, their primary hunting and nursing platform, disappears around them?
#452 – Deech52
Excellent, just what I need thanks. I can think of several bloggers out there that need to read these, “ClmateSkeptic” for one. Despite the sometimes tetchy tone of some postings here I am learning a lot.
On the proper sceptic science side, Roy Spencer thinks the process of extracting feedback figures from the more recet events (such as Pinatubo) over-estimates how much is due to feedback rather than forcing. I know he is not widely respected here, but I would like to see somebody’s opinion on his point.
I also take on board Ray’s points about group-think. As I said I was commenting on how it appears from casual observation, not from any knowledge of the characters involved.
Still wallowing in worries about opportunity cost and how we are going to replace 85% of our fossil fuel consumption – particularly as about half the world’s population seem to want expemption from the process.
Still think that we should be looking at ways to mitigate the effects given the low likelyhood that anybody will actually be doing anything major to reduce CO2 emissions any time soon.
Still think we should be putting more effort into saving the worlds vulnerable enviroments.
However at least I am now much clearer on the climate science itself. Thanks.
Finally, Ray #456 – first paragraph.
Yes it is currently +3mm, in early 2008 it was -0.5, in 1998 it got as high as +10. However the three year moving average is currently just over +1mm and the annual change in the moving average over the 16 or so years of the record is just under +1mm. With a longer series we could get more certainty – but so far there is nothing to show accelerating sea level rise, just a trend of ~+1mm with temperature driven expansion and contraction around that figure. Anybody else can look at the graph for themeselves and make their own mind as to which of us is closer to stating the likely underlying trend.
#465 – Jim
Oops! and Duh! Well spotted. +3mm it is then. Still no evidence of rapid accelleration though. If you look at the second graph below it, the trend in the trend is, if anything, declining, granted that it is over a very short period.
Jim Eager (413)Some of what you say about CO2 levels is true, but it is very misleading. True current levels are indeed higher than in the past million years, maybe even 20 million years. But are significantly lower (by 60-80%) than the past 10 or so to almost 300 million years, and much much lower than about 350 to 550 million years when it averaged roughly 4000ppm. Paleohistory, other than a short minor (though interesting) period, does no such thing as show that doubling CO2 produces a greater than 2 kelvin temperature increase. Much of paleohistory even shows CO2 lagging temperature increases. But don’t let facts get in your way.
Jinchi (414), very few questioners accuse the scientists of fraud (though Matthew L’s syntax could have been better). IMO you should spill your paranoid crocodile tears somewhere else.
Ray (421), you say, in essence, “…scientists are overturning every rock looking for evidence that the current model of Earth’s climate is WRONG…” You make a decent basic point, but you outlandish hyperbole supporting it is not helpful. If someone tomorrow would prove the model entirely wrong, Jim Hansen would pop the corks before bedding down with a total serene sense of satisfaction?? I think not. Maybe in about a year but not tomorrow.
Bill wrote in 447:
Well, as someone familiar with climatology, it might help if you were to explain to them of the law of large numbers and how it applies — that there can be a great deal of variability in a population, such that if you pick someone at random they will be tall or short, but that the range of uncertainty regarding the average can be a great deal more narrow. Pick a day at random from next summer and try to guess its high for the day in a particular city and you might be twenty degrees off, but try to guess the average for the summer given the historical figures and chances are you will be a great deal closer.
Same thing with regard to guessing the average temperature for a particular region as opposed to a continent or a particular continent vs. the world. The greater the number of days or months and the greater the size of the area over which you are averaging, the more accurate you can expect the average to be. Particularly when smaller areas are more prone to being buffeted about by a nearby climate oscillation but where over larger areas the oscillations largely average out.
Rod B wrote: “… neither of your two examples (PCs and Cellular) were anywhere near as massively disruptive …”
I think you are likely correct:
The transition from an energy economy based on destructive consumption of increasingly scarce, increasingly costly, increasgingly dirty (eg. shale oil) fossil fuels, to an energy economy based on the proliferation of increasingly inexpensive, increasingly powerful technology for harvesting a limitless supply of clean, inexhaustible, free wind and solar energy, will be far more “massively disruptive” than either personal computers or cell phones.
And it will also be far more beneficial to the well-being of humanity than either of those disruptive technologies.
Like I said, I’m looking forward to it. (Of course since I buy 100 percent wind-generated electricity through my regional utility, I have already started.)
The folks who are NOT looking forward to it are the ones who are watching their prospects for trillions of dollars in profit from continued business-as-usual consumption of fossil fuels evaporate.
You know who I mean — the folks who pay phony “think tanks” and “conservative” media personalities to spoon-feed you denialist talking points.
Completely Fed Up (459) how many fossil fuel burning vehicles can we have a still get down to per capita CO2 emissions comparable to 1865 or so? Where did your 20% come from? We’re discussing 90%++ reduction within 40 years. That’s what’s in the current bill and what The Bamster said at Copenhagen.
(460): Huh?? I don’t think there is any practical way to mitigate AGW without at least some reduction of fossil fuels. You’ve never heard me say otherwise.
>>>”Why wouldn’t polar bears be under extreme stress..”
Seal hater.
>>#399 “You know, the invention of the networked personal computer involved “hugely disruptive changes” to what was then known as “data processing”.
By choice, for a less-expensive, known better technology, improving productivity and effectiveness.
If you had this corollary for current energy sources, you wouldn’t have to force people to use it – which is solid evidence that you don’t.
[Response: An “efficient market” economist sees a $100 bill lying on the floor and reasons that if it was really there, someone would have picked it up already. So he doesn’t pick it up either. You might want to think about whether that says more about economists than it does reality. – gavin]
Rod B says: 6 January 2010 at 9:10 AM
“The assessment should not be proof positive of AGW and shouldn’t be touted as such, IMO. ”
No, absolutely not, just as I would not decide that AGW is a false premise because it’s snowing a lot in Great Britain.
Stretching the analogy between weather events and other occurrences in the natural world, when you can assemble a significant collection of findings in disparate fields that may all be explained by the same underlying cause, it becomes harder to put individual cases in the “weather” bucket.
Sure, pine beetles by themselves can be explained as an isolated phenomenon. Increased coral bleaching may be put down to localized troubles. Increasing heat content of the ocean might be due to some unknown reason (can it?). Accelerating sea level increase might be explained atomically as well (though that’s a little tough without linking in some other domain). Shifting domains of individual populations of flora and fauna might each be assigned unique hypothetical causation.
There are a number of other observations I could cite, any of might be interpreted as self-contained. But what about when all of these changes are happening more or less in harmony, and when a reason for this harmonization is not only staring us in the face but can better explain many of these phenomena, and in some cases may be the only reasonable understanding available?
A skeptic may well point out that any given iota of evidence of AGW effects is uncertain in its meaning, but I think the challenge of dismissal is increasingly more difficult as more pieces of the puzzle are thrown on the table.
What is the status of the Arctic Buoy program? When will their last decades worth of data get incorporated in a global mean temperature record?
“how many fossil fuel burning vehicles can we have a still get down to per capita CO2 emissions comparable to 1865 or so?”
Some.
When most of the miles driven by car are less than 2 miles, when the speed on the motorways and highways is slower than the Victorian-era horse drawn coach, none is very likely a possibility.
Food production in the US used to be 2600 calories of food per calorie of oil used in the production (1920, IIRC). Today it is 1:1.
A 2600-fold increase in CO2 and fossil fuel use PER CALORIE.
None, most likely.
But again, anything that may mean a move from fossil fuels MUST BE WRONG!!! according to your religious fervour.
#464 – Hank,
I am trying (very trying) believe me. To the lay person this is heavy stuff and the real science is spread around a huge variety of journals that you may need a subscription to read as well as over a rather long time-span too. A paper written in 2003 that is old hat to you guys will probably be new to me, and ~99.9999% of the rest of the population.
That is why I come here and post my ignorant musings in the hope that I will get some useful arguments – and also on the understanding that I will be in for a bit of a kicking too ;-)
One final comment, I think there is a place here for an instant response “sub-blog” (if there can be such a thing) to counter the current themes showing up in the Sceptic / Denialist blogs. It does not need to comment much but should be a summary of the counter arguments and links to relevent papers. The main blog could stay out of the fray and be kept for comment on genuine research papers. The “Start here” bit is handy but runs out of steam at a relatively low level. Such a resource would head off a lot of people like me before we got as far as these comments.
Probably more wishful thinking bearing in mind how busy Gavin and the team probably are at the moment.
Rod B. asks incredulously, “If someone tomorrow would prove the model entirely wrong, Jim Hansen would pop the corks before bedding down with a total serene sense of satisfaction?? I think not. Maybe in about a year but not tomorrow.”
Rod, do you think that if the model were proven wrong that Hansen or any of the other top-notch climate scientists would be out of a job? Do you think they’d be sorry? First, Hansen and all the other scientists have placed credence in the model because it is supported by the evidence and it has tremendous explanatory and predictive power. They have voiced concern about anthropogenic climate change becaue it is a robust prediction of that model and poses significant concerns for the continued viability of human civilization. There is nothing to be ashamed about or to regret even if they were wrong. Their actions and motivations have been honorable. So climate scientists would have nothing to fear from falsification of the model. Hell, the overturning of an established theory is one of the most exciting times to be in a field!
I do not know a single scientist who does not wish this crisis would just go away. Not one! But the evidence tells us that is not likely.
Matthew L:
I think the fundamental point is that if we already have all these human-inflicted problems on the biosphere (and I agree with your points on that), adding climate change, with it’s many uncertain effects and ramifications, is not going to help anything. That includes both from a scientific cause-and-effect perspective, and from a restoration ecology perspective. Or rather just “maintenance” ecology because you can probably forget about restoration in many cases.
Matthew L., Believe me, I do sympathize with your difficulties in trying to learn the science. We all went through it at one point–it’s not my specialty either.
I did have a bit of an advantage over you in that I’ve been working as a physicist for more than 20 years and have had to study a lot of different subfields of physics. I also have the advantage that I trust the scientists. That’s probably easier for me in that I’ve known some of them, and being a scientist, I understand what motivates us (it ain’t money, believe me).
In learning the science, you could do much worse than to consult the IPCC summaries. If you look at the results of the Bray and Von Storch poll cited on the Plass entry, the overwhelming majority think it’s a pretty good summary of the state of the science. Also, take a look at the Knutti and Hegerl and Annan and Hargreaves papers.
Science, ultimately, is about trying to figure out how things work. Sometimes you find that there are aspects that are very hard to understand (e.g. clouds are very complicated phenomena). However, you can look at something else (e.g. paleoclimate, response to volcanism, etc.) and that will have implications for the thing you are stuck on. In the end, if you find enough evidence that all points to the same conclusion, you can have pretty high confidence that it’s right–even if you don’t understand every last aspect of the system.
Rod @469, I can’t effing believe you would dare pull out the “CO2 lagging temperature increases” in the ice core canard here when you know very well what causes that lag and that it most definitely does not mean that CO2 plus feedbacks do not cause warming after the lag.
Are you being deliberately obtuse about what CO2 levels not being this high in at least the last 3 million years or more means?
Here, let me spell it out for you: CO2 is presently higher than it has been since before the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial epoch began, and perhaps as high as it was in late Miocene.
Now think about what that implies about the potential for the survival of most of the perennial ice in the northern hemisphere, and even much of the perennial ice in the southern hemisphere, and what that means for potential future sea rise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neogene-MioceneGlobal.jpg
What ice core?
Don’t you dare lecture me about letting facts get in the way.
John E. Pearson says: 6 January 2010 at 1:33 PM
“What is the status of the Arctic Buoy program?”
Probably you’ve already seen it, but in case not here are bunches o’ data:
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/data.html
And here’s some of that boiled down to trends:
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/data_satemp.html
Matthew @468, no problem, it was obviously an innocent mistake. Please learn from it, though: units and sign matter — a lot!
As for no evidence of rapid acceleration, that’s a good thing, no? But in view of the observational and paleo evidence of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheet dynamics I wouldn’t take much comfort in an absence of current evidence for acceleration.
And Matthew @479: besides the Start Here button, the Index button is most useful as it is sorted by topic.
Completely Fed Up says: 6 January 2010 at 1:56 PM
Rod would be probably be the first to agree that I’m not in tune with him but fundamentally it is going to be challenging to fully emancipate our little hydrocarbon slaves. They’re a vanishing species quite incapable of reproducing themselves, particularly the extra submissive liquid and condensing sort. We’ve built an entire bloated human population around their work and now not only are they proving to be unreliable but positively rebellious in that they’re busily sabotaging the planet.
One thing I’ve noted about all “alternative” (shortly to be mainstream) power technology advocates is that as a group we’re entirely too sanguine, falling into the usual traps of not anticipating problems because as humans we’re innately optimistic. All of our schemes face scaling problems once they hit the windshield of existence.
We’re going to need to deploy =everything= we can think of that significantly reduces emissions of GHG if we’re going to have a population similar to what we support today.
Monomaniacs need not apply.
Really, we could have avoided this mess if we’d practiced better birth control. Everybody could then drive a Cadillac Escalade and live in a 5,000 square foot home equipped with private helicopter, with clear conscience if not good taste.
What a pickle we’re in.
Qualifying my above remark: We can make our own hydrocarbon slaves; the fossil sort are the nonreproducing and poisonous kind.
RE 332 Matthew L says:
“Reduction of Polar Bear population? Isn’t happening – polar bear populations are stable or increasing.” Matthew conceded
his point was mistaken, but I didn’t see the following reference come up to confirm that.
“New Federal Studies: Alaskan Polar Bear and Walrus in Trouble”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/polar_bear_walrus_12_30_2009.html.html
Stock Assessments Indicate Tenuous Future for Arctic Icons
December 30, 2009
Contact: Rebecca Noblin, (907) 274-1110
“ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Today, responding to a court-ordered deadline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized long-overdue reports documenting the status of polar bears and Pacific walrus in Alaska. The reports confirm that polar bear populations in Alaska are declining and that Pacific walrus are under threat. Both species are being hurt by the loss of their sea-ice habitat due to global warming, oil and gas development, and unsustainable harvest.”
“Polar bears and walrus are losing their sea-ice home to global warming at an alarming rate,” said Rebecca Noblin, in the Anchorage office of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Unless we act fast to reduce greenhouse pollution and protect their habitat from oil development, we stand to lose both of these icons of the Arctic.”
Re: 385 Don Shor says:
“I just don’t think that polar bears are presently very good poster animals for AGW. You might just as well use panda bears, and they’re cuter.”
That’s ridiculous. Most people see the polar bear as an icon of the Arctic and well representing threats to Arctic habitat by global warming. However:
“Bamboo, the panda’s staple diet, is also part of a delicate ecosystem that could be affected by the changes caused by global warming. “http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/problems/impacts/species/
“Climate change is a long-term potential problem for the polar bear population. Hence the “threatened” status they’ve been awarded.”
Not so fast. See link above. Politics, hunting and oil interests are inappropriately influencing listing efforts.
[Response: An “efficient market” economist sees a $100 bill lying on the floor and reasons that if it was really there, someone would have picked it up already. So he doesn’t pick it up either. You might want to think about whether that says more about economists than it does reality. – gavin]
The free market is not made up of fools.
I’m freezing here today. I have a $100 to buy more butane – or I’ll gladly pick up that free hundred dollar bill you see on the floor – if you’ll just point it out to me. If you can’t, you might want to think about what that says about you as an economist and reality.
[Response: If you are arguing that there are no energy efficiency saving left to be realised in the economy, or your home, then take it up with McKinsey. There is always a great deal that can be done to improve design, insulation, and efficiency but is prevented by a lack of capital – even for projects that have very short payback times – ask any schoolboard. (Note that I do not pretend to be an economist). – gavin]
MattL: “That is why I come here and post my ignorant musings in the hope that I will get some useful arguments ”
But you don’t listen to the replies.
You just repeat your ignorant musings, deny the answers or pass on to YET ANOTHER ignorant musing.
And every ignorant musing is stated as if factual and correct instead of “this’ll be wrong, but…”.
Worse: NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE that you’ve tried to find the answers yourself.
Any wonder your interlocutors are getting fed up?
You’ve been acting a denier for, what? 30 posts now? When you quack like a duck…
Florida will have those sprinklers working full time tonight. I know it’s only weather, not climate, but a killing frost is a killing frost. It has something to do with the stationary high over Greenland. Anyone care to expound?
It also makes me consider a winter(s) in which Greenland was very cold, but had less snow. I assume that the icecap would shrink even more the next summer, even if it was just an average summer, because of lack of snow cover ice on the perimeter?. Snow vs cold?
“We’re going to need to deploy =everything= we can think of that significantly reduces emissions of GHG if we’re going to have a population similar to what we support today. ”
But the 20% worldwide is pretty damn easy.
No changes necessary except to the idea of wastage.
Sweden CO2 load per capita 1/3-1/4 what the US does, despite being far north and having a higher standard of living.
US moving to Sweden’s per capita would save, what? 8% of global? Middle east states waste even more per capita, though they’re smaller. But could easily save 4%.
Europe? Another 4% no problem.
Darn near there already.
But yes, if we do EVERYTHING then we can get to 80% first-world reduction in CO2 load.
THAT will be hard.
But 20%?
Easy peasy.
Jimi @ 449 – read an article in Canadian Goegraphic about the pine beetle. The geologist interviewed stated that another factor in this infestation was mans’ fire control. Most Jack Pine only live about 60 years, because of our fire fighting effort, a lot of the trees in B.C. were well over that age. Again, another man assisted disaster.
Now the kicker to this story is another unfortunate occurance. It seems that the new pine trees that are starting to infill the cleared areas are getting attacked by mistletoe. Whether this is from warming was never stated.
yikes.
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/cold-enough-you
445, Ray Ladbury: Meanwhile Gary Karst has a news bulletin: December in the Northern Hemisphere is still cold.
It could be a random transient of some sort, but the current NH cold spell is unusually cold by historical standards, way out of line from what was predicted for NH Decembers by the AGW m9dels of the late 90s. November 2009 was warm, but Oct-Nov-Dec combined were unusually cold compared to recent standards.
Really large random transients are evidence that AGW proponents are over-optimistic in their beliefs about the accuracy and adequacy of their quantitative theories. I do not mean to imply that some other theory is better, only that too much is unknown to have belief in AGW, though I like the “risk management” approach to thinking about possible losses.
“but the current NH cold spell is unusually cold by historical standards, way out of line from what was predicted for NH Decembers by the AGW m9dels ”
Citation of the models, please.
Note also that November 2009 was the hottest on record according to GISS.
Way out of line from what was predicted.
I guess, on average, the models must be getting it about right, yes?
“Really large random transients are evidence that …”
…Weather is quite chaotic
Dan: “Yikes!” indeed:
“and poor people in developing countries could enjoy the myriad comforts and benefits of carbon-based modern life.”
Unless they’re aliens or cro-magnon, those poor people are already carbon-based modern life.
I mean, really.
“a new study shows.. AGW is COMPLETELY WRONG!!!”.
Funny how that got accepted so quickly.
How long did it take for the denialists to stop saying “you can’t prove it’s warming”?
Completely Fed Up says: 6 January 2010 at 3:59 PM
“But the 20% worldwide is pretty damn easy.”
Yes, agreed. AI look around my house, I still see a bunch of stuff that sits patiently waiting to be used, 24/7, with an actual active duty time of 5%. According to my calculations (and the next 10 years will tell, but the data looks good), I’ve dumped roughly 10% of my electrical consumption by spending a little money on solar hot water. No rocket science, in fact if anything it’s too boring, easy and non-proprietary to attract the kind of attention and capital seemingly necessary to captivate our attention.
So 20% is an easy target. I’m not a genius or exceptional, after all.
What bugs me is that everybody seems to tacitly agree, we absolute -must- accept a substantial (20-60%) increase in population rise over the next 50 years. Right now, how’s it working out with 6.5 billion?
Unchecked population growth is the elephant in the room nobody seems to want to discuss, and it’s going to make everything much harder. I’ve expounded before on some of the hidden features of the support required for this population increase, such as that our -current- population leans heavily on petrochemicals to feed itself, not just for machinery but much more for agrochemicals. A lot of this can be substituted or even just dropped, but once we’ve done that there’s still a big hole to be filled.
All these billions of glints in the eyes of future parents are not going to accept sitting in monastic poverty, barely clothed, housed and fed, either. They’re going to want to be equipped with a reasonable approximation of the trappings to which we’ve become accustomed.
We really do all suffer from a numeracy gap.
Beats me how it’s all going to work out. But it’s inhuman not to try and optimize the whole mess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.png
Re the recent cold weather, we all known very well that an individual weather event says very little about changes in climate. The following graph puts it into perspective.
Record-high U.S. temps outpace record lows: study
“What bugs me is that everybody seems to tacitly agree, we absolute -must- accept a substantial (20-60%) increase in population rise over the next 50 years”
Seeming is not reality.
After all, the sun seems so small.
The lower end IS probably inevitable.
But we currently produce more food than our population needs. Distribution and greed (as in troughing your fat face) are the problems. Even with high use of meat.
Rubbish is the big problem with so many humans. Reducing will help sort that out. As will garbage based power (poorly, but it’s cheaper than burying it when the landfills fill). Waste of water is a big one. And the third world (like with phones) have a great advantage: the first world already have one freshwater pipe and no real way of separating out
drinkable water
from
clean but not drinkable water
“They’re going to want to be equipped with a reasonable approximation of the trappings to which we’ve become accustomed.”
Why?
This site here has several people who have given up those trappings.
10-15 years ago mobile phones were posh in the first world. And landlines posh in the third.
Nowadays the third world has better coverage than many first world areas in mobile phones.
But they won’t want or need a 4.8l 4×4. Nor will they really want or need triannual trips to the Canaries.
There are so many things that we today are finding we’re buying “because its there” and some are getting fed up with it.
“But it’s inhuman not to try and optimize the whole mess.”
Yup.
So concerns like yours MUST be aired.
Fight to get them.
But approach it with hope.
You could be just pessimistic. But the downside to your change may still be welcome. Just not *necessary*.