A couple of months ago, we discussed a short paper by Matthews and Weaver on the ‘climate change commitment’ – how much change are we going to see purely because of previous emissions. In my write up, I contrasted the results in M&W (assuming zero CO2 emissions from now on) with a constant concentration scenario (roughly equivalent to an immediate cut of 70% in CO2 emissions), however, as a few people pointed out in the comments, this exclusive focus on CO2 is a little artificial.
I have elsewhere been a big advocate of paying attention to the multi-faceted nature of the anthropogenic emissions (including aerosols and radiatively and chemically active short-lived species), both because that gives a more useful assessment of what it is that we are doing that drives climate change, and also because it is vital information for judging the effectiveness of any proposed policy for a suite of public issues (climate, air pollution, public health etc.). Thus, I shouldn’t have neglected to include these other factors in discussions of the climate change commitment.
Luckily, some estimates do exist in the literature of what happens if we ceased all human emissions of climatically important factors. One such estimate is from Hare and Meinshausen (2006), whose results are illustrated here:
The curve (1) is the result for zero emissions of all of the anthropogenic inputs (in this case, CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, SO2, CO, VOCs and NOx). The conclusion is that, in the absence of any human emissions, the expectation would be for quite a sharp warming with elevated temperatures lasting almost until 2050. The reason is that the reflective aerosols (sulphates) decrease in abundance very quickly and so their cooling effect is removed faster than the warming impact of the well-mixed GHGs disappears.
This calculation is done with a somewhat simplified model, and so it might be a little different with a more state-of-the-art ESM (for instance, including more aerosol species like black carbon and a more complete interaction between the chemistry and aerosol species), but the basic result is likely to be robust.
Obviously, this is not a realistic scenario for anything that could really happen, but it does illustrate a couple of points that are relevant for policy. Firstly, the full emissions profile of any particular activity or sector needs to be considered – exclusively focusing on CO2 might give a misleading picture of the climate impact. Secondly, timescales are important. The shorter the time horizon, the larger the impact of short-lived species (aerosols, ozone, etc.). However, the short-lived species provide both warming and cooling effects and the balance between them will vary depending on the activity. Good initial targets for policy measures to reduce emissions might therefore be those where both the short and long-lived components increase warming.
FG 381: The bannana we eat today would have been rejected in the 1950’s; nobody seriously cultivated them.
BPL: “I’m Chiquita Banana, and I’m here to say
Bananas must be treated in a very strange way…
For bananas love the climate of
the very very tropical equator!
So you must never put bananas
In the refrigerator!”
-Ad for Chiquita Bananas from the 1940s, parodying popular Brazilian-American singer Carmen Miranda.
Gilles 382: the fact that NOWHERE , NEVER, an industrial civilization has been developed without FF makes VERY LIKELY that producing things without FF is much more expensive that with them, since if it weren’t true , it would be very unlikely that no country (including those deprived of them) wouldn’t have chosen another solution.
BPL: I doubt James Watt knew about the photoelectric effect, or how to make biodiesel, or test windmill designs in wind tunnels or computer simulation.
To Nick Bone at #395:
You seem to be saying that you limit what conclusions you draw about the state of the world based, not on data, but on what denialists might make of your conclusions.
I prefer to ascertain, as best I can, the truth of the matter based on the evidence, and not try to second guess what someone else will make of it, particularly denialists (who will just say whatever they plan to say, no matter what the data tells us.)
Just for an example, other responses that might come from seeing clearly the high probability that we have already set off a chain reaction of feedbacks that will inevitably lead to runaway global warming, might include:
–universal outrage at the corrupt institutions and individuals who have most fostered and profited by this catastrophe
–a deep understanding of and remorse about our common role in the destruction of the only planet we have, leading to a profoundly penitential humility
–a strong desire not to contribute further to her demise by living as simply as possible–even if you have been abusing your grandmother all your life, it is still a good and respectful thing to stop kicking her in the face when she is going into terminal decline…
I can imagine many other responses people might have upon becoming aware that we have really and truly committed murder on the largest scale imaginable, depriving all future generations of a livable planet. Certainly, denial, despair, and abandon will be among them.
Gee, BPL (399), it ain’t that hard. Take the global temps from, say, 1910 to 2010. Then compare them with the global GDP from 1910 to 2010. (Or use any reasonable convenient period between about 1880 and 2010.) Run a quick correlation. Is it negative or not?
This is getting like a Chinese torture…
It seems to me that the biggest problem with the “climate cross-examination” Lynn pointed to is its misuse (which it itself encourages, IMO.)
What I mean by that is that a “cross-examination” is conducted *by an advocate.* This point is made pretty explicit by the writer himself when he likens the mainstream science to a “hostile witness.” Yet at other points in the introduction, the implication seems to be that the document is somehow “impartial,” and its [mis]use in blogspace seems to imply this understanding of it on the part of the posters presenting it. (Or, less charitably, to imply that they expect readers to receive it so.)
Yet as you get into the body of the piece, it becomes evident that (as CFU says) it is nothing of the sort. The emphasis on the “hockey stick” is rather telling in itself. So is the distortion around that incident–see the comments upthread on that, and note, too, the weight given to the Academy report on the affair versus the Wegman report, which we now know–thanks to DeepClimate–had serious issues of its own.
Another point was the treatment of the “tropical tropospheric trends” issue. The point/counter-point with Douglas, et al. vs. Santer et al. was acknowledged–though not, of course, the degree to which the Douglas paper was demolished–but Bengtsson & Hodges, 2009 was used to cast doubt on the mainstream science. The summary from the “cross”:
[B & H 2009] “found that the observations did not confirm the model’s prediction
of differential warming in the tropical troposphere (versus tropical sea surface
temperatures).”
But that seems to me to go beyond what the paper actually claims. Sometimes “abstractese” can be misleadingly cautious, though, so expert comment and/or correction is invited:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d4363685t8465n4q/
What the abstract seems to actually say is that 1) UAH may be more nearly correct than RSS; and 2) possibly “the models have a minor systematic warm bias in the upper troposphere.” I suppose these formulations could be parsed in various ways, but I hardly think Johnston’s interpretation is self-evidently correct. Ideally, you’d want to go back to the paper and see what the actual numbers say. Of course, it’s paywalled, but perhaps some with access would care to comment further?
It was around that point that I decided that debunking this piece was best left to folks better-equipped with mathematical tools, journal access, and free time than I am at present. I’d seen enough to convince me that evidence was being presented in a very selective manner, and being spun to support a clear denialist position.
In short, as I said above: it’s advocacy, not honest inquiry. And it’s OK for Johnston to advocate, I suppose: I advocate myself. But let’s not pretend he’s acting like a judge–he’s a lawyer all the way on this one.
NoPreview NoName says:
9 June 2010 at 9:50 PM
Apologies, I was being purposely obtuse, because I figured most people here would get it instantly, but to make it perfectly clear for lurkers…
Yes, obviously CO2 correlates to temperature increase, that’s what we’ve been saying all along, that’s the main point, and WUWT, despite all other protestations, has found fit to publish “proof” of that exact correlation.
What is comical is that, utterly without supporting evidence or even an attempt at evidence, they declare that cause and effect are definitively the inverse of current scientific opinion, and warming causes a proportional CO2 feedback response, not vice versa… and yet they explicitly state that they still have no idea what is causing the warming (it’s a real puzzler, that one).
This is, of course, in addition to their constant braying that there is actually no warming at all (but if there were, which there’s not, it would be creating the extra CO2, not vice versa, but it’s not, so it isn’t, so go back to work and buy lots of plastic thingies and drive really big cars as much as you can and live your life in blissful peace and ignorance).
The laughable irony is so thick, you could melt it with a green house gas.
Gotta love it.
Lynn Vincentnathan says:
10 June 2010 at 4:30 AM
My own opinion is that it is a very clever marketing trick. Repackage every argument ever made about AGW into a long (82 pages), tiresome, lawyerly document and label it a “cross examination.” This gives the pleasing and easily swallowed illusion that it is fair, because it is part of our wonderful, revered, constitutional western-civilization style judicial system.
Which, of course, is very far from the truth, since in a real trial events would be interactive, and you would have seen the other side actually present its own evidence prior to listening to the cross examination, and that could in turn be followed by counter arguments.
But this is a written document, so it gets to present “the other side’s” evidence any way it wants, limiting it to what it wants you to see, and always with the tone of a cross examining, adversarial lawyer.
This also all presumes that something as complex and involved as any branch of science could be “tried and judged in a court of law” using legal methods. Can you imagine how a trial of the theory of relativity would go? Certainly this is, in a way, piggy backing on the idea of the Scopes trial, although the subject there was not the truth of evolution, but rather a teacher’s right to teach it. And we all know how that went.
Lastly, its very nature conveys the underlying connotation that those that believe in AGW have committed some crime, and must defend themselves.
People don’t even need to actually read it, and it is very hard to get through. Just it’s existence and nature serve to cast doubt, and to give blog-deniers a document to wave and say “see, what about this? what’s your answer to this? Hah!”
As I said, it’s a clever (and despicable) marketing trick, but why am I not surprised?
LOL, yes, I meant to write corn instead of rice for Indonesia. Good catch.
On regulation (sorry for the double postings):
Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have regulatory agencies.
I am saying that when a regulatory agency is given sweeping powers to regulate the totality of the economy that’s a bad thing. With the EPA being given total control of all things CO2, they usurp the power of every other portion of the government. The Fed can print or shrink currency, monkey with interest rates, etc. as a nice side show, but the economy is being planned and directed by the EPA. And as pointed out, it can take Supreme Court intervention to undo regulation decisions – not a speedy process.
It’s a power I don’t want to hand over to a regulatory agency under either a Democrat or Republican administration.
NG : “You are goalpost-shifting. You claimed that the fact that fossil fuels are being used to power the growth of India and China showed that an industrial civilisation without them is impossible.”
Wrong, I didn’t claim that, and I’m somewhat tired to correct indefinitely misquotations of what I said. I said that NO industrial growth, anywhere in the world, has been sustained without FF.
NG : “Currently, such a society is not possible, because we do not have the infrastructure or (in some respects) the technology; that does not imply that it will remain so.”
You can say that for every consequence of climate change : currently , it produces that and that, but that doesn’t imply it will remain so. If you start imagining another world, you can’t say anything on the possible consequences of GW. GW may kill the civilization exactly like disappearance of FF may kill the civilization.Current evidence is much stronger for the second case than for the first one.
NG : “Yet you oppose any attempt to reduce their use”
Wrong, I never opposed that. Why should I ? I’m just warning that reducing their use to almost zero (which is necessary for the “commitment” to keep below 450 ppm for instance) would kill the civilization probably more surely than the GW associated with 500 ppm. Now it’s up to you to choose what you want – I’m just observing the real choices made by real people in the real world, and I think they’re very clear. But I’m just an observer, not an advocate.
“You miss the point. Once these devices have started to develop, there hasn’t been any stagnation in their growth rate.”
Yes there was. 1920’s. 1950’s Europe.”
Number of cars stagnated in the 50’s in Europe? didn’t know that.
http://www.globaltrees.co.uk/dev/UserFiles/Image/cars_resized.jpg
“And there’s no stagnation in the growth rate of the renewables.”
Wrong, there is : hydropower has stagnated in most western countries, wind energy saturates around 20% of electricity, meaning less than 10% of total energy. And if renewables could replace all FF, it requires first that we should power all the society with electricity, except biomass that can hardly insure 10% of current needs. But tell me why France wouldn’t have achieved that with nuclear power , although people in the 60’s said exactly for the nuke what you’re saying for renewables?
Michael Gratzel has been awarded 2010 millennium technology prize.
“Gratzel’s (solar) cells, which promise electricity-generating windows and low-cost solar panels, have just made their debut in consumer products.”
“Costs per watt generated could, if early promise is borne out, eventually fall well below those for conventional power generation…”
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/10126/michael-gratzel-awarded-2010-millennium-technology-prize/
Could this be the technology breakthrough that turns the tide? (dare I say, game changer?)
Pete
372, Completely Fed Up: So why are we waiting 20 more years again?
I took the figure of 20 years from your post that I cited. I think that it is reasonable for the point that you made.
But, to address your question, “we” are not “waiting”, so the question has a counterfactual implied premise. If the current exponential growth in alternative energy supply continues for 20 more years, then humans will be generating about 1000 times as much energy from alternative sources as humans do now, i.e. about 10 doublings. The transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy won’t be cheap (or “magic” or “panacea”) — it will be capital and labor intensive, as it has been, and it will for a while entail higher energy costs, as it has done. But my reading to date does not support the idea that humans will have reached an upper limit to what energy can be harvested by the developing technologies. Before very much longer, alternatives will become cheaper than oil, and after much longer than that alternatives will become cheaper than coal (except insofar as people start bidding up the price.)
There was no point to your linking me with Gilles. I wrote in support of your assertion, and in opposition to his. Mistakes like that reduce your rhetorical effectiveness.
370 Bob, from the WUWT blog: “Using the n+6 and n=6 values (CO2 levels six months before and six months after) cancels out the annual variations of CO2 levels that is seen in the Mauna Loa data, ”
So he removes the long term CO2 rise and is left with the amount of CO2 rise caused by temperature. Seems fairly reasonable. His conclusion doesn’t follow, though. This reminds me of the Weather/Climate issue with Watts having found a nifty trick to determine weather, and jumping to the conclusion that climate is forced by weather.
NASA: May was warmest ever globally both for land+sea (+0.63C http://bit.ly/GISlandoc), and for land only (+0.83C http://bit.ly/GISland)
“Lynn Vincentnathan says:
10 June 2010 at 4:30 AM
Any comments on this: … UPennCross.pdf”
It’s another wonderful example of how climate science denialism has adopted so many of the tactics employed by creationists in order to ‘debunk” modern evolutionary biology.
In this case, it’s a case of “Darwin on Trial” being revamped for the climate science denialism community.
Bob, re: latest beach boy topping the WUWT charts,
What RichardC (#413) said. Sounds like a remix of last year’s McLean, de Freitas, and Carter hit single, with CO2 added (see the RC Wiki McLean page for links). On interannual CO2 variation, where it comes from (not the ocean), and how long we’ve known it’s linked with the PDO, see AR4, 7.3.2.4.
Prof. Jason Scott Johnston, a lawyer, reminds me a bit of Philip E. Johnson, also a lawyer, who decided to indict and Darwin and then find him guilty.
Needless to say, legal argument is not designed to establish scientific truth, and any lawyer who decides to use it for that end, is overstepping the bounds of his competence.
In courts, sensible judges pay attention to what scientists say as witnesses, not what lawyers try to characterize them as saying. That is what happened in the Dover, PA “intelligent design” case.
“412
Septic Matthew says:
10 June 2010 at 12:32 PM
372, Completely Fed Up: So why are we waiting 20 more years again?
I took the figure of 20 years from your post that I cited.”
Sorry, SM, you’ve misread. That wasn’t why I was asking the question. I wasn’t insinuating you were seeking a 20 year wait.
I was asking why wait 20 years before we start working on changing over to non-fossil fuel works.
Gullible of course has the idea that this is impossible (though since all modern societies have had ME alive during them, this must mean on my death, modern society will crash).
Waiting 20 years to prove it to him is pointless.
[edit]
“Number of cars stagnated in the 50’s in Europe? didn’t know that. ”
So now we’re talking only about cars, not about production and economic growth?
Where did them goalposts go???
“I am saying that when a regulatory agency is given sweeping powers to regulate the totality of the economy that’s a bad thing.”
STRAWMAN!!!!
The EPA won’t.
The EPA will be given powers to regulate pollution.
“Could this be the technology breakthrough that turns the tide?”
Pete, wind is already cheaper than coal.
However, there’s a huge monied lobby with a decided interest in avoiding people leaving their product.
When PV becomes far cheaper, they will merely turn to other measures of cost or even outright lies to avoid it.
And, being monied, they will be listened to.
Being “green” technology, there are many bigots who will dismiss any proposal for using them, merely because they’re “green”.
However, this is all like the little boy with his finger in the seawall. The tide changed years ago. But the little boy is still trying to kid on there’s nothing changing.
Completely Fed Up says: 10 June 2010 at 3:17 PM
The EPA will be given powers to regulate pollution.
And has done so, for a little under 40 years now. The economy continues to function in its own bizarre way.
And a world record for 2010 sofar as well: Jan-May 2010 was warmest ever globally both for land+sea (+0.72C http://bit.ly/GISlandoc), and for land only (+0.90C http://bit.ly/GISland)
Wrong, I never opposed that. Why should I ? I’m just warning that reducing their use to almost zero (which is necessary for the “commitment” to keep below 450 ppm for instance) would kill the civilization probably more surely than the GW associated with 500 ppm. Now it’s up to you to choose what you want – I’m just observing the real choices made by real people in the real world, and I think they’re very clear. But I’m just an observer, not an advocate. – Gilles
I’ll leave everyone else to judge whether this is an accurate account.
But tell me why France wouldn’t have achieved that with nuclear power
*sigh* Because fossil fuels have remained cheaper for many applications (partly due to the failure to price in externalities); and because the infrastructure to use them for road, sea and air transport already existed, while that for electricity-based alternatives did not (for air transport, of course, there are still no such alternatives at all). The French civil nuclear power programme, of course, was developed primarily for strategic and not economic reasons; it is and always has been intimately linked with the desire to possess nuclear weapons. There was no incentive to attempt to convert everything to electric power.
375, Gavin…. Well, I hope we will be not civil to outright liars, arm chair accredited or not pundits spewing nonsense. I dont hesitate in saying what I think of them, which usually is already greatly refrained from what I really want to write. Also I am concerned that gallantry does not resonate with the public in general, contrarians do not hesitate in using any word in the defamatory catalogue, I hope we can continue connecting without being like them, but worry about the effectiveness of blunt enunciations, left answered politely, with grace and candor is often not enough. Perhaps more formulations explained again and again in as many ways possible, this is the gallantry needed, unlimited patience in repeating the same correct science without popping a fuse. I disagree in being polite with liars, I rather them exposed very often until they recant and apologize…
CFU :“Number of cars stagnated in the 50’s in Europe? didn’t know that. ”
So now we’re talking only about cars, not about production and economic growth?
Where did them goalposts go???”
Seems that you got lost in the thread, CFU . I was answering #394, that was answering#390 :
“Was your granddaddy sitting around going “It’ll never take off, we’re still using mostly horses here, 20% of people are using cars, but still mostly horses. Significant, but very far from 100%”?”
You miss the point. Once these devices have started to develop, there hasn’t been any stagnation in their growth rate.”
I was talking of cars, not GDP.
424:”sigh* Because fossil fuels have remained cheaper for many applications (partly due to the failure to price in externalities);
Oh yeeah here we agree ! so for you, replacing something cheaper by something more expensive has no implication on growth rate ?
look at that :
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6542
” The French civil nuclear power programme, of course, was developed primarily for strategic and not economic reasons; it is and always has been intimately linked with the desire to possess nuclear weapons. There was no incentive to attempt to convert everything to electric power.”
you’re totally wrong on several points; first nuclear reactors are useless to produce nuclear weapons : military grade plutonium must be produced in devoted small reactors with a short residence time to avoid poisoining by other actinides. second the nuclear program was really developped to get rid of the dependency on oil – only partly successful of course. And there were very strong incentive to convert all possible consumption to electricity ; from industrial uses to electrical heating. The remaining FF uses were simply not possible to replace easily. The same of course with countries with a lot of hydropower like Quebec or Norway, or geothermal power like Iceland – they are very far from using zero fossil, although they have plenty of renewable electricity.
You’re just living in your dreams, I live in the reality.
[edit – sorry but nuclear is permanently off topic]
“I live in the reality”
Gilles, your “reality” is so French:
“The same of course with countries with a lot of hydropower like Quebec … “. :)
The province of Quebec is quite like British Columbia, virtually all of their energy consumption is electricity aside from transportation fuel, which is the major use for FF everywhere [likely including France]. FF use [especially coal] for electricity generation or space heating is so 19th century. And FF use for transportation should be history before long.
Frank Giger,
At some level, I share your concern about EPA regulation, although I think it is a little extreme to claim they are being given the keys to the economy. Energy is actually a decreasing proportion of the economy, and there are promising technologies near viability for increasing energy efficiency dramatically.
I think the EPA’s focus is rather narrow and technocratic for a regulatory role with such broad implications. However, we also need to realize that we have a threat here that we cannot bound given present knowledge. Risk avoidance is really the only appropriate mitigation strategy until we remedy that.
Keep in mind that energy infrastructure is going to require a drastic overhaul regardless of climate. All EPA oversight will do is tip the balance in favor of renewable–and perhaps nuclear–alternatives.
Septic Matthew says ” If the current exponential growth in alternative energy supply continues for 20 more years…”
then all of us should be investing in alternative energy! Seriously, what you are talking about is akin to the impact of scaling in semiconductors through the mid-80s! Unfortunately, up to the mid 90s, scaling was driven by a physical recipe for how to shrink CMOS, and there is no analogous recipe for alternative energy. Rather, the renewable energy situation is more analogous to the situation since ~’95, when Moore’s law became a recipe for economic and commercial survival rather than physics. This has required a global–and very expensive–effort by the industry to resolve technical problems. A similar effort would likely be required for renewables.
There is already an organic exponential trend in energy efficiency–expressed by Rosenfeld’s law–but it operates on a much slower timescale. However, again, it might be possible to exploit the already existing trend and significantly accelerate it.
Wayne Davidson 425: “I disagree in being polite with liars.”
There’s a difference between polite and deferential. One of the things I’ve learned from RC is a style of communication. Much can be gained, perhaps, from assuming the best intentions of ones intellectual antagonist. BPL here is moved to crystalline clarity sometimes when he’s politely explaining something to someone who probably doesn’t deserve such patience. Gavin can and often does cut someone a new orifice, all with impeccable manners. Perhaps it’s not so much a question of pulling one’s punches as placing them more skillfully.
381 & 409 Frank Giger: “giving the EPA a broad brush to regulate CO2 emissions is handing them the keys to the nation’s treasury.”
NONSENSE.
“giving the EPA a broad brush to regulate CO2 emissions is handing them the keys to the nation’s treasury. They’ll be setting economic policy.”
Top Nonsense. Unless you own coal company stock. Shutting down the coal industry is the general idea, General. WE want them to have the power to shut down the coal industry. The coal industry and then the other fossil fuels MUST get shut down ASAP to prevent the extinction of the human race. MORE POWER TO THE EPA!!!!!
391 Lynn Vincentnathan: That is one of the reasons why every college student, regardless of major, should be required to take the Engineering and Science Core Curriculum. People with degrees in music and everything else are allowed into law school. That is how we get completely crazy lawyers and judges who are victims of momistic impairment syndrome, like Oedipus. They NEED some contact with reality. They also need a laboratory course in probability and statistics.
395 Dr Nick Bone: I don’t know what would set off the methane hydrates. I’m not pushing a line. Methane hydrates scare me. Methane hydrates need to be researched.
Everybody who reads RC is insanely alarmist according to a lot of climate skeptics. I can’t worry about that.
424 Nick Gotts: nuclear is permanently off topic.
“FF use [especially coal] for electricity generation or space heating is so 19th century. And FF use for transportation should be history before long.”
Sorry for calling Quebec a country, I couldn’t use Canada as a whole whose some provinces like Alberta rely heavily on FF (oopps why again?). As far as I know, absolutely no country can avoid at least 10 % of fossil fuel for adjusting electricity generation, except the very few relying on hydro or geothermal power that I cited. Electric heating in France has revealed to have some inconvenience , producing strong peaks of demand during the winter in evening, where the only plants that can react are… thermal FF ones. And I know no industrial country where less that 95 % of transportation relies on oil. Again if this replacement could be done without damage with electricity, I see no reason why it hasn’t been done yet.
Tell me again, if it were that easy, why do the developing countries like China and India, who are basically developing their infrastructure just now, are so heavily refusing to limit their FF consumption ? they know very well that they are finite and will be exhausted within a few decades anyway , and they know very well about GW. Kind of genetic stupidity ? and are you aware of any country having developed in the XXth century based on the old fashioned horses, mechanical wind- and watermills, and wood heating?
Again, you’re mixing two different arguments in a quite illogical way : extrapolation of known facts without assumption of any change in adaption capacity to evaluate the consequences of GW. And imagination and wishful thinking to evaluate the consequences of suppressing FF consumption. You can’t reasonably use so different ways of thinking when comparing the two. That’s if as I said you : many studies have shown that eating a lot causes heart diseases, so suppress your food, I’m sure you will find a way to live without it – and it’s proven by the fact that many people live with much less food than you.
415
dhogaza says:
10 June 2010 at 3:01 PM
“Lynn Vincentnathan says:
10 June 2010 at 4:30 AM
Any comments on this: … UPennCross.pdf”
It’s another wonderful example of how climate science denialism has adopted so many of the tactics employed by creationists in order to ‘debunk” modern evolutionary biology.
In this case, it’s a case of “Darwin on Trial” being revamped for the climate science denialism community.”
What a load of rubbish. This merely a diversionary tactic to take the discussion away from informed scientific debate.
#428 Flxible
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-621-m/2005023/t/4054264-eng.htm
Between 1990 and 2003, British columbia has increased its natural gas consumption by 23 % in absolute value, and its share from 33 to 35 %. Not for electricity generation, nor for transportation I presume, but most probably for heating. I has increased its coal consumption by 159 % ( !) ,and doubled its share from 1 to 2%. OK it’s low, but many “renewable growths” are on the same level- and I assume that they buy many things made of steel produced somewhere else.
Primary electricity share has DECREASED from 23 % to 20 %, and has contributed only to 1 % of the growth of energy needs.
Please stick on facts.
“But tell me why France wouldn’t have achieved that with nuclear power
*sigh* Because fossil fuels have remained cheaper for many applications (partly due to the failure to price in externalities); ”
And nuclear power is one of the most expensive energy generation techniques. Gas being generally top.
‘course wind is about the cheapest. Denmark’s use of it has allowed them to export energy.
“You’re just living in your dreams, I live in the reality.”
You owe me a new keyboard.
I guess it’s true, the mad one is usually the last one to know.
Re #403
These seem reasonable comments, but we need to distinguish two issues.
1. What conclusions should we draw about the world’s climate system.
I fully agree these should be evidence-based, and have indeed strived to read, understand and use the various lines of evidence publicly available (on Charney sensitivity, persistent fraction of emitted CO2, long-term Earth System Sensitivity because of albedo feedbacks, response of CO2 and methane to increased temperature). Please see my previous posts.
When I put those lines of evidence together, they are telling me that the world we are committed to (based on emissions so far) is going to be bad for us, but not unprecedented in Paleo-history, and not such as to destroy life on Earth. I’m open to other lines of evidence of course, and will keep watching them.
2. What arguments we then make in public fora, how we frame them, and what we hope to achieve by them.
In this regard, I think it is perfectly proper to consider how such arguments are likely to be received, and hence whether the arguments we make help to achieve the objectives we hope for. I don’t think concentrating on the (slight) possibility that we’re already doomed is very helpful. If that possibility does become a probability of a near certainty, I’ll reconsider.
Personally my objectives have been:
– To try and share my analysis, find out if anyone has been doing something similar, and find out if it has any big flaws, or inconsistencies with other lines of evidence, which could then be pointed out and corrected. I haven’t seen anyone trying to put all the pieces together like this. Apart from the discussions on Arctic methane, and the odd comment that maybe my analysis is a bit “optimistic”, I also haven’t see anyone pointing out big flaws. Still open to that though.
– To highlight that if we want to recover any sort of decent world out of this mess, we need to both stop emitting (asap) *and* start finding ways to extract a lot of the CO2 we’ve already emitted (i.e. clean up our mess). I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about the latter point at all i.e. what options are feasible, how safe are they, how much they would cost, how fast they could work and so on. For instance:
Is it enough to plant lots of trees, char them and bury the biochar? Will that be enough, or do we need to do something more active?
Does it make sense to grow biofuel, then burn it with Carbon Capture and Storage? How much could that help us get CO2 down?
Are there any clever technologies that we should consider (like artificial trees/air capture devices), or are they just so expensive that no-one will ever use them?
Are there any sensible ways to extract dissolved CO2 from the oceans?
Rod B 404: Gee, BPL (399), it ain’t that hard. Take the global temps from, say, 1910 to 2010. Then compare them with the global GDP from 1910 to 2010. (Or use any reasonable convenient period between about 1880 and 2010.) Run a quick correlation. Is it negative or not?
BPL: Ever heard of “the spurious regression problem?” Did you account for autocorrelation in the residuals?
Gilles 426: nuclear reactors are useless to produce nuclear weapons
BPL: I’ve never heard a more ill-informed statement.
To power nuclear reactors you need facilities to ENRICH FUEL. And French reactors includes breeders. Plate a breeder core with U-238 and you get Guess What? by adding a neutron? That’s right, folks! Plutonium-239!
Do your homework, Gilles.
Leonard 50#
Thank you for your response. Not sure I understand your comment:-
” . . .and then he states his personal opinion: . . .”
“Based on what I have read today the basic science of increases in CO2 warming the earth is well understood. It is just the feedback mechanisms that are less well known?”
I was not attempting to state a “personal opinion” and if this is what you understood from what I wrote then either I used a poor choice of phrase or you simply mis-misunderstood what I wrote?
So lets just assume that it was the former rather than “word smith” the comments.
What I was attempting to do was to give a summary of what the current concensus is in this area (if this is personal opinion then it would probably be productive if to simply correct the points I have made) based on the readings I have made into this matter. This is what I think this is N.B. These are rouch cut approximations:-
A – Earth’s Temperature is affected by the nature and make of the gases in the atmosphere. This accounts for approximately a 30C increase in current temperatures.
B – Although C02 exists in relatively small amounts it accounts for a disproportionate effect on Temperature due to the frequencies at which it absorbs radiation. I have heard 25% of the warming is due to C02?
C – Man is “articially” increasing the levels of CO2 do to consumption of fossil fuels and the levels are now greater than those seen for millions of years.
D – The crucial question is then what will happen to the Earth’s temperature due to these increases i.e. If the changes will not impact the Earth for a 1,000 years then to be quite frank – who cares? The practical reality is that we have many more import changes to deal with before then (such as population, hunger etc.). On the other hand if these changes will have a castrophic effect in the next 50 years then this is probably the joint number 1 issue we need to deal (don’t forget about population!).
E – It seems that the debate focuses around what will be the effect of double CO2 from pre-industrial levels? I assume this is because this is likely to happen but do not know the specific reasons why this number is choosen.
F – Increasing CO2 will have two effects, Namely a primary effect and the effects of feedback (be it positive or negative).
G – Based on what I have read the number for the primary effect is a 1C rise in Temp? I have not calculated this personally but looking at the physics involved this seems “relatively” easy to calculate? Please correct if I am wrong?
H – The rest and almost certainly the most import element is the feedback mechanisms? My understanding is that the overall effect of this is not particular well know? You contend this is? I base my assumption on the fact that all cilmate models give a range of temperatures due double of CO2 which is quite large (I think these range from anything from 1C to 6C+ – which suggests at least to me there is some uncertainty here)?
Back to the main point of my original text. Why not simply show the effects separately as this will allow people to focus on the specific issues that they disagree upon? E.g. Consider we had to come up with an estimated cost of building a house? Why not split these into material costs, land costs, labour costs etc and state these. By doing so we may find close agreement on several on these points and could then focus the debate on the cruial differences? This (to me at least) is a perfectly reasonable approach and struggle to understand why people would choose not to do this? I will of course draw my own conclusions if people just not too?
Regards
CFU @ 436:
Yes and no.
“Allowed” is the wrong word. “Forced” is a lot more accurate. Making wind power work economically requires producing everything that can be produced, and finding a way to use the excess whenever production exceeds demand. Regions, such as West Texas, that have large amounts of wind power relative to demand must have a place to send that power.
I’m (hopefully) heading out to the Hill Country today. I’ll see if I can bring back photos of what happens when there’s too much wind and not enough storage.
Neil,
Where are you getting your information? Feedback mechanisms are fairly well understood at least to first level. What is more, we know that the overall effect of a doubling of CO2 is roughly a 3 degree rise in average global temps. We know this because about a dozen independent lines of evidence all favor this range of sensitivities. BTW, the doubling is somewhat arbitrary, but is chosen because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2 forcing on CO2 concentration–each doubing results in roughly the same increase in temperature over a broad range. The Start Here page has plenty of resources to help you learn this stuff. And many of us students will be happy to help you with specific questions if we can.
Richard Steckis:
I’m glad that you agree with my assessment of why lawyers attempt to “disprove” science!
And this is another reason that I believe the sole purpose of the GIS temperature set is producing ever higher, and completely invalid, temperature records.
After seeing this claim, I went and looked at HadCRUT and it showed no such record, not by large amounts.
Sceptic Matthew @ 412:
Alternatives already =are= cheaper than oil. It’s the initial cost that is the major hurdle. For just a few years worth of “gasoline consumption equivalent cost” (newly invented term …) one can construct a solar power system that provides =decades= of “gasoline consumption equivalent power”.
The difference? I have to pay all of that “gasoline consumption equivalent cost” today, rather than over the next 7 years or so.
“What is more, we know that the overall effect of a doubling of CO2 is roughly a 3 degree rise in average global temps. We know this because about a dozen independent lines of evidence all favor this range of sensitivities.”
could you please indicate a one-sigma confidence interval of the retroaction f (such as the global sensitivity is multiplied by 1/(1-f) ?)
Gilles: That’s as if I said you: many studies have shown that eating a lot causes heart diseases, so suppress your food, I’m sure you will find a way to live without it – and it’s proven by the fact that many people live with much less food than you.
Actually Gilles, that’s a good analogy, except that you misuse the word “suppress”. It IS known that excessive food consumption is unhealthy – and there IS research showing longer-lived folks generally are those who consume fewer calories [and from “lower on the food chain”]. Quit equating drastic reduction of excess with total abstinance.
Yes, FF are vital for a variety of “modern” uses, so instead of snorting it all up as fast as possible for financial gain [of a few], let’s slim down, get healthy, and live long. Burning a non-renewable resource isn’t rational.
As for your take on BC’s energy use, I believe you’d find that the increase in NatGas use is a result of a switch away from wood and oil for space heating, as a result of CO2 reduction policy, as well as increased “industrial” use as the logging industry switched from hog fuel [and incidentally, motor fuel in taxis and buses in some areas] – and the increase in coal is near 100% for export [to China mainly]. You need to check that table a little more thoughtfully.
“Population” UP 26%
“Real GDP” UP 40%
“Per capita energy consumption” DOWN 8%
“Consumption of energy per real GDP $” DOWN 17%
Yes, it is possible to have gains in GDP and reductions in FF use.
““Allowed” is the wrong word. “Forced” is a lot more accurate. Making wind power work economically requires producing everything that can be produced, and finding a way to use the excess whenever production exceeds demand.”
Citation needed…
‘cos I don’t believe you here.
“When I put those lines of evidence together, they are telling me that the world we are committed to (based on emissions so far) is going to be bad for us, but not unprecedented in Paleo-history,”
Where was New York and 8 million people in the paleo history?
Where were humans, for that matter.