Sorry for the low rate of posts this summer. Lots of offline life going on. ;-)
Meantime, this paper by Hourdin et al on climate model tuning is very interesting and harks back to the FAQ we did on climate models a few years ago (Part I, Part II). Maybe it’s worth doing an update?
Some of you might also have seen some of the discussion of record temperatures in the first half of 2016. The model-observation comparison including the estimates for 2016 are below:
It seems like the hiatus hiatus will continue…
90 Victor – Oh Victor, my Victor. Thanks for again confirming the above human resilience of all fundamentalists, zealots and fanatics.
The following video, Five Characteristics of Science Denial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXA777yUndQ adequately touches on every single aspect of the serious unscientific errors contained in your post displaying your sub-conscious biases.
AKA Why The Incompetent Don’t Know They’re Incompetent
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-dunning-kruger-effect-why-the-incompetent-dont-know-theyre-incompetent.php
So let’s a have look at those pesky details in the data/evidence shall we, and how to think clearly (absent those pesky sub-conscious biases)
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and drought: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015EA000100/full
The paper is not about CO2 levels. It looks like a quality paper. It covers one century and assumes a 0.5C anomaly. Prior papers referenced are not overturned as a result of this paper. In the Conclusion McCabe asks: “Two questions that remain unanswered are (1) do the long-term positive trends in annual global P and PET indicate an enhanced hydrologic cycle? and (2) will continued warming and increased PET eventually exceed increases in P and thus result in increased %drought?”
Your false claims about this paper mainly falls under the item by Cook called “cherry-picking” but covers the others as well.
Keen on researching climate? Do see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gregory_Mccabe/citations and
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305732469_Teleconnected_ocean_forcing_of_Western_North_American_droughts_and_pluvials_during_the_last_millennium
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and flooding:
http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/11/10157/2014/hessd-11-10157-2014-print.pdf
This paper is not about CO2 levels either. It’s regionally based in the UK alone. IT only covers the last 50 years due to the ABSENCE OF DATA RECORDS.
You claim dear Victor my Victor is False and Unscientific at it’s core. The Paper is ok, for what it is.
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and precipitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Precipitation
That Wikipedia page is again NOT about CO2 levels. Accuracy matters. The truth matters Victor – ongoing misrepresentations amounts to telling Lies Victor.
What about those places where there was no Rain Gauge Victor? Like say in the middle of the Amazon or on all those uninhabited islands on the globe? I’ll assume you’re assuming this one doesn’t count: “Most in 96 hours (4 days): 4,869 mm (191.7 in); Commerson, Réunion, 24–27 February 2007” — merely a one off, the outlier, while you keep ignoring the record high “daily/monthly minimums” Temps across the globe … and of course the LOCAL RECORD High/Lows PRECIP EVENTS that have been coming year on year for decades now. No Wikipedia page for that hey dear Victor, my Victor? Go create one yourself … d the research, find the data and publish it on Wikipedia – it will keep you busy for a year plus. Be constructive versus destructive. Your choice.
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and heat waves: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/high-and-low-temperatures
Oh dear Victor, my Victor. Your claim about CO2 levels is again false. Your telling lies. That graph is more insidiously manipulative than all the rest combined. Don’t you know about the very same 1930s period heat waves in Australia (that’s sth hemisphere you know?), and in Sth America, and Asia and Africa? The world is far bigger than Nebraska Victor. Something really extreme was going on then and it wasn’t AGW/CC. Who knew? Obviously not you!
Why do you not ref the 200+ broken high temp heat wave temps in Australia in 2013 (?) Well it just doesn’t fit your never-ending Subconscious Biases or Dunning-Krugar effect or your predilections for Logical Fallacies and woolly thinking. You’d make a great Bible Belt Preacher dear Victor, my Victor – no you should chase a career as a modern day Tele-Evanglist – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg – never again will you have to pay taxes.
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and hurricanes: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf
Oh dear Victor, my Victor .. there’s that CO2 again and the cherry-picking et al.
The paper is about ‘frequency’ – who has ever said increases in CO2 will or should lead to higher frequencies in Hurricanes in the nth atlantic? Certainly not the IPCC nor anyone here on RC. So what’s ya beef buddy? It’s called Building STRAWMEN to knock them down and imagine you’re so smart. You ain’t dear Victor, my Victor.
No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and wildfires: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160524144921.htm
The paper is again NOT about CO2 levels at all. Oh dear Victor, my Victor re “global area burned has seen an overall slight decline over past decades, despite some notable regional increases.”
So where is the data on the growth of wildfires/bushfires firefighting resources including helicopter systems being deployed over past decades – no fighting fire with fire in this analysis … nothing included in land management by Aboriginals in Australia the last 60,000 years either … ooops.
Or the total DECREASE in forest bushland coverage that has been permanently cleared the last 100-200 years across the civilized world and turned into farmland or cities???? Oh, you are specifically overlooking such dynamics just as this paper has. Pity. But all papers do have some value. It depends as much upon the reader as it does the author and the constraints of their research analysis.
You’re not into this report because it tells the wrong story.
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/19/colorado-scientists-global-warming-taking-human-toll/
I have seen papers on this coming out for about a decade. Ongoing work outdoors in temps above 35C are not only dangerous they are deadly. Who will repair the roads then — Robots?
Thousands died in the european heatwave, but hey who cares about human lives when there is an important “mass-debate” to win to salve some people’s bruised egos. Bugger!
Victor: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and global warming: https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/clip_image006_thumb2.jpg?w=1212&h=897
I won’t even look at that. Anthony Watts is a rank fool and an obscene manipulator who is so far out of his depth he may as well be at the bottom of the ocean.
VICTOR: “So yes, you’ve been right all along: weather is NOT the same as climate.”
So true. Still, false claims and woolly thinking doesn’t amount to being Scientific nor Comprehensive / Holistic.
Meanwhile, the time frames covered in the above papers do not and did not take into consideration the following real situation in August 2016 here:
http://www.adn.com/arctic/2016/07/15/deep-blue-ponds-and-streams-highlight-melting-on-greenland-ice-sheet/
nor here: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Best viewed with eyes open Victor.
and on and on and on and on it goes … over 100K climate science related papers in a couple of decades and you’re so bereft of ideas that you still imagine that 7 crappy / misrepresented links will suddenly debunk it all.
Nor do you, dear Victor my Victor, mention your (and others) long term unscientific beliefs in a Hiatus/Pause and fail to reconfigure your thinking as a result of the record T in 2015 and still unfolding in 2016.
But of course, deniers can only chew one piece of gum at a time. Thanks for proving the bleeding obvious about yourself and your ilk yet again.
Dear Victor, my Victor, I find your approach here utterly pathetic. And so very commonplace.
I am not sure why I bother with these comments. Tremendously naive about electric power so, in addition, off topic on a blog devoted to climatology.
How about sticking to climatology and taking the Q&A about the electric grid to another blog where it would be on topic?
87 Scott Strough: Hi, one classic example was her misrepresentation and untruths (telling lies if you wish) about Edward Maibach’s AMS survey results, how they were done and the actual results versus the BS she spun in the senate/house committee (that’s online video somewhere).
Mate, if she cannot grasp the basics in such a simple paper about “feelings on agw/cc and conflict inside the AMS” then she is an incompetent and or an intentional liar. I suspect the latter for various reasons – especially her Modus Operandi on her website.
Just because she is “polite” or “nice” rather than a clown like Inhofe or insulting such as Trump has been at times is irrelevant. Never seen a conman operate who was not very friendly and nice. Have you? :-)
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/suppl/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1/suppl_file/10.1175_bams-d-13-00091.2.pdf
https://www.ametsoc.org/cwwce/index.cfm/committees/committee-on-effective-communication-of-weather-water-and-climate-information/meeting-minutes-surveys-and-presentations/ams-member-survey-preliminary-findings/
Curry’s Spin aka LIES here:
https://judithcurry.com/2013/11/10/the-52-consensus/
There is no reasonable excuse for the “number” she did on that paper/report.
If she is that “silly/incompetent” then that is enough for me to declare she is unqualified to work in any scientific field and all her work is suspect.
I hope that clarifies it. the AMS is only one great example. cheers
Prominent global warming doubter says there was a “hit list” apparently targeting climate scientists
In a comment on an August 3rd post at the Wattsupwiththat website, Patrick J. Michaels of the conservative Cato Institute said that there has been a “hit list” apparently targeting climate scientists, and that he had influence over who was on it.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2016/08/08/prominent-global-warming-doubter-says-there-was-a-hit-list-targeting-climate-scientists/
“Know thine enemy”
Re: #91 Pete Best
Thanks for the link to the Climate Central article “Michigan Scientists See Urgency for Negative Emissions”
One statement struck me as spelling disaster for the future: “Removing emissions using direct air capture as a large-scale mitigation approach is likely to be more expensive by at least two to three orders of magnitude relative to preventing our emissions in the next 10 years.” Supekar said.
Victor the Troll @90.
Your most recent comment deserves a place beside all those other comments of yours in the Borehole.
Consider your final link. Do you think your use of a graphic from the delusional denialists on Wattsupia is appropriate here in the real world? That graphic bears little relationship to reality (as is much of the blather on Planet Wattsupia). It is not so wrong suggesting that there is no significant correlation between rising atmospheric CO2 and rising temperature for the period 1958-mid 70s. It is however a rather daft test, indeed a cherry-pick, as there was neither very much warming in this period nor very much increase in C02 concentrations. Yet the fantasy Wattsupian graphic is off with the fairies when it attempts to present the period mid-1990s-to-date as also having no significant correlation. In stark contradiction to the message attempted by your trolling graphic, the correlation for that period is in truth statistically identical to the period mid-1970s-to-mid-1990s. (The Watsupian graphic first appears within a denialist missive written by a Danley Wolfe whose data looked very suspect and certainly more flawed than a simple cherry-picking exercise. My memory is that the cherry-picking is far more selective than actually indicated which is in turn an exaggeration of the level of cherry-picking implied casually.)
@ Hank Roberts #94,
First, it’s my experiment so you can’t add any devices– you will have to keep snoring. But I appreciate the response, and I will stipulate that the outside temp is consistently lower than the desired inside temp.
Now, if we use your definition, I can see how to do the calculation– we assume some outside temperature variations from historical data, we determine parameters affecting heat transfer, and we predict that for some relatively small time interval on some day, there will be a load of say 1KW. And with respect to the grid, we simply multiply by the number of houses.
What I can’t see is…who cares?
How is this number useful? Obviously, if the minimum holds for say five minutes, the other 23 hours and 55 min plus 364 days will apply a higher load. But the implication that I get from all the people who invoke “baseload” is that it is relevant to decisions about which types of generating modalities can be part of the generation infrastructure.
It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe AJ can help.
Ed, #96–“If my estimate of the price is within orders of magnitude of being right….”
It isn’t, because the assumptions leading to that estimate are completely unrealistic.
“If it isn’t built, then “wind and solar only” leads to a day without power.”
“Wind and solar only” is also completely unrealistic, and a total straw man. While it is true that some, such as Jacobson and Delucchi, have shown that a nearly 100% renewable electric grid is possible, they do not envisage “wind and solar only.” Can we stop ‘debating’ a total straw man?
uh oh… Greenland ice sheets thawing from underneath. Good thing that Greenland is more like a waffle iron than griddle or those ice sheets might just start slipping and sliding down hill.
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-nasa-areas-greenland-ice-sheet.html#jCp
from Rowland by way of Gavin: “There’s a great phrase that Sherwood Rowland, who won the Nobel Prize for the chemistry that led to ozone depletion, when he was accepting his Nobel Prize, he asked this question: “What is the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”
warm regards all,
Mike
#90, Victor–Quite the Gish gallop of denial there. Only had time so far to look at one link, the study on flooding. However, I think the claim of “no correlation between CO2 and flooding” based on that study is quite a spectacular fail, for several reasons:
1) The study is highly restricted in geographical scope, being focussed on a handful of UK rivers. So it really can’t be used to draw global-level conclusions.
2) The study does not examine the correlation of CO2 levels to flooding at all. What it *does* say is that 1) the “current flood-rich period” in the UK appears not to be exceptional over multi-century time scales; and 2) the strongest driver of flooding appears to be solar forcing.
3) Insofar as one can extrapolate conclusions about the correlation between CO2 and British river flooding, the conclusion would appear to be the exact opposite to what Victor claims. Ie., the period 1970-2000 was “flood-poor”, whereas since 2000 the UK has been “flood-rich”–and as we are all aware, that has been a period of rapidly increasing CO2. The implication would seem to be that there is some degree of correlation between the two (though of course one would have to do the actual analysis to assess how strong that correlation may be, and would also want to consider the meaning of that correlation).
4) As far as I know, the granular nature of the hydrological changes expected to occur under warming (and in some respects already observed) means that one should not expect a single global response. That is, if the nature of the change expected is broadly that “the wet get wetter and the dry get dryer”, then one would expect positive correlations in some areas, and anti-correlations in others. Which is a long way of saying that the point is addressing a straw man.
If I get a chance, I’ll have a look at the other links, too.
#90, Victor–Addressing the claim of “no correlation between CO2 levels and drought”, based on this study:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015EA000100/full
This an interesting case. If you interpret Victor’s claim as meaning that there was “no increase in of percentage of globe in drought between 1901 and 2009 by our measure”, then that claim is supported. But the paper doesn’t explicitly analyze the correlation with CO2.
Moreover, the paper does find hydrologic changes over the period examined. Global drought didn’t increase because increased evaporative losses were more than offset by increased precipitation–which means, as the paper notes that it’s an “unanswered question” whether:
Additionally, there are regional changes over the analysis period, even though the global drought percentage didn’t change. Specifically, they found that in high Northern attitudes drought did increase in early spring and late winter. And of course, other papers have reached different conclusions, as noted in the literature review.
The drought question is a vexed one, and this paper won’t be the final word. It’s well worth a read, though–especially if one doesn’t try to over-simplify the results.
Does anybody want to help explain the CMIP5 vs CMIP3 charts from this post? I don’t have much understanding of how the CMIP processes work, and tend to think of them as just point-in-time states of models as assessed for the two different assessment reports. How should I think about these two charts – why do the newer CMIP5 figures have a forcing-adjusted spread while CMIP3 don’t (and don’t appear to ‘need’ in the same way?) Where would the hindcast/forecast line be in the CMIP5 figure? thanks
[Response: Yeah… So CMIP3 and CMIP5 are different generations of models and experiment design. CMIP3 simulations date from ~2004 and CMIP5 from ~2011. The drivers they used were nominally from observations (of CO2, deforestation etc.) until 2000 (2005), but it turns out they weren’t that accurate in CMIP5. In CMIP3 there was less complexity in the drivers, and a wider spread in what was done which in some respects compensates for some of the problems in CMIP5. I did an analysis of where the forcings might be off in CMIP5 (Schmidt et al, 2014) which is where the forcing-adjusted estimate comes from, but I didn’t do the same thing for CMIP3. – gavin]
Ed Greisch currently #96:
Using the same brevity and “spherical cow” first approximation as you do in your reply to 74 Barton L, any fair-minded person would also say that FF’s only, being finite, lead to a quasi-infinite stretch of days without power, with a near certainty of coastal inundation and cooking world agriculture while on the road to that. And this with more straightforward reasoning and more certainty than your quick projection.
Hey, I have an idea, maybe we need to go beyond spherical cows and consider some of the unknowns and nuances, while not denying the best evidence to date.
Spherical cows: Tom Murphy is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. It is always warm in Southern California. No need to worry about freezing there. But it could be 40 below from central Iowa northward. Of course, we could burn corn to keep warm.
Tom Murphy pollutes his plan by adding natural gas turbines and nuclear power. Therefore, Tom Murphy does not achieve 100% renewable energy. Non-spherical cows.
Piotr: You are free to remain ignorant.
Poor Victor once again illustrates the lack of any correlation between his one cherrypicked old reference and current knowledge, on any topic he chooses.
E.g. Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Land...
Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory
by CW LANDSEA – 2007 – Cited by 297
Did you read anything since 2007, Victor? Any of the 297 subsequent articles citing this one?
You’re illustrating the “mighty oak” theory of science that the fundies apply to Darwin, and the flat-earthers apply to oh, Galileo, Newton, whoever — the delusion that finding incompleteness or even errors in work that’s old and early at the beginning of a field of knowledge somehow topples the entire subsequent field.
Science doesn’t grow like the mighty oak from a single vulnerable taproot.
Science grows like kudzu, at the new ends wherever they’ve reached something to support them.
All the old science is wrong. Some of it proved useful.
Building a battery large enuf to cover all existing generation in the USA for a week is an attractively grandiose and completely mad idea, which is probably why it makes a fine strawman. Nobody is seriously proposing this. Rather look at some actual research in the field, much better than wasting time reading blog comments, say, like mine. In that spirit, peer reviewed and everything, from real power system researchers, with real PhDs from real universities, i give you
1) doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2012.09.054
Journal of Power Sources, Budischak et al. 2012
“99.9% of hours of load can be met by renewables with only 9-72 h of storage.”
“We model fill-in power from fossil, not hydro or nuclear power. Hydropower makes the problem of high penetration renewables too easily solved, and little is available in many regions, including PJM. We do not simulate nuclear for backup because it cannot be ramped up and down quickly and its high capital costs make it economically inefficient for occasional use. For scenarios in which backup is used rarely and at moderate fractions of load, load curtailment is probably more sensible than fossil generation. This could be considered a fifth mechanism, but for simplicity we here conservatively do not assume load management but fill any remaining gaps of power with fossil generation.”
“For the higher penetration cases (90% and 99.9%), less fossil capacity is needed, so the market would shift to fewer legacy generators in operation, and we would expect attrition from the fleet of generators. Those which are not easily maintained would likely be the first to be decommissioned. Such a market might have higher costs per kWh for electricity, but lower externalities because they would be run far less frequently. As the model results show, these legacy generators will be running within a future generation mix that includes substantial storage, sodcontrary to conventional thinkingdfast ramp rates may not be needed as much as the ability to stay shut down efficiently for months.”
They look at wind, solar and storage. How much storage ? Only about 400 Gwh even if one were dumb enuf to use only Li-titanate batteries. It gets better. This is a cost optimized model, and uses 200 to 300 US$/Kwh for storage, which is an obsolete number already. We are blowing under even their 2030 cost assumptions for storage, at 180US$/Kwh now (Tesla pays that much today to Panasonic) and dropping fast. Same goes for PV, they use 2.8 U$/watt in 2030, we are already 3 times less. Their discount rate is a whopping 12% which absolutely kills you on capital costs, you can borrow in the USA for a lot less than that.
Even with those costs, and sticking to batteries alone, they find (Table 5) that 90% of load can be supplied at an all up cost of 10c/Kwh. The numbers go to 99.9% and 20c/Kwh. We can already cut those costs by at least half.
So we need to keep a couple natgas gennys around in for that final 0.01% (9 hrs a year) if you have to. Or pay someone to go offline, already happening, there is a market in it called Demand Response (DER.) You can play too on the east coast and west coasts of the USA, someone will pay you to go offline.
Read the whole thing.
2) More radical and less ambitious is doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE2921
MacDonald et al. Nature Climate Change 2016
“Our results show that when using future anticipated costs for wind and solar, carbon dioxide emissions from the US electricity sector can be reduced by up to 80% relative to 1990 levels, without an increase in the levelized cost of electricity. The reductions are possible with current technologies and without electrical storage.”
What battery ?
Not quite fair, since they use an unrealistic price of US$1.5/W for storage and they do say in the Supplementary:
“Storage technologies and costs are in a period of rapid transition, and so more recently we performed additional simulations that included storage with $0.75/W overnight capital costs, zero cost for electricity storage (i.e. $0 / kWh storage capacity), and zero fixed and variable O&M costs. Additionally, the round trip efficiency was set at 95%. In those simulations, only ∼16 GW of storage was selected (with a energy storage capacity of ∼208 GWh). In comparison, the total installed pumped hydroelectric storage in the US is ∼22 GW (27 ). Therefore, we believe it is reasonable to not include storage in the simulations as even at low cost it contributes minimally to the national solution.”
There are some small complications like building a 3 odd trillion dollar HVDC grid (4% of the cost per KwH) and keeping some natgas around (more than in Budischak 2012.) Their 6.6% discount rate is more reasonable too. From the article:
” .. wind provides the dominant share of electricity at 38%, natural gas contributes 21%, solar PV 17%, and the remainder is fulfilled by nuclear and hydroelectric (16% and 8%, respectively). In other words, natural gas reduces its contribution by 9% relative to 2012, whereas wind and solar PV substantially increase their share to replace the other fossil fuels and displace some natural gas … The land taken out of its current uses and converted into power production is 6,570 km 2 (460 km 2 for wind and 6,110 km 2 for solar PV), or 0.08% of the contiguous US. The HVDC transmission network provides the access to these distant areas at a share of 4% of the cost of the electricity. A further benefit from this scenario is a significant drop of 65% in water consumption for electricity generation relative to 2012, predominantly because fewer steam turbines and cooling towers are needed.”
Neither of these papers puts in the externalities into the optimization such a a CO2 price. Putting those in would make fossil generation even smaller.
On the whole I think Budischak(2012) + some few pet grandfathered nukes + some more natgas that he thinks + existing hydro + slashed renewable and storage prices will happen faster than the HVDC grid, but, hey, I’m just a part of the great unwashed commentariat. Read em both.
sidd
zebra: The minimum load is zero of course.
Now, if I understand you so far, baseload is some number other than the max or zero. Could you please show how to determine it?
AJ: Ahh, you are confusing “the sum of minimums” (an error) with “the minimum of sums”. (the correct answer)
In your 10(000) water heater grid, let’s say that the highest number of water heaters that are on during a single high-demand second is six (thousand) and the fewest heaters that are on during a single low-demand second is two (thousand). Your peak demand is 6(000)KW and your base load is 2(000)KW.
The entire concept of “base load” breaks down into nonsense as the number of nodes decreases. Ten is woefully inadequate, as there will be times when all ten are doing the same thing (thats why I multiplied your grid by a thousand in order to make it sensible). But when there are hundreds of thousands of nodes (as in a real grid), the odds of all the nodes doing the same thing becomes zero, and “base load” and “peak load” make sense. That’s why your utility company can get away with a pitiful amount of capacity as compared to the sum of all possible loads it serves and also why it never sees zero load. It’s also why casinos aren’t worried about every customer simultaneously hitting the jackpot and bankrupting the casino. Independent events are independent.
How to determine “base load”? Well, utility companies try their hardest to keep ahead of the game by predicting what the demand will be minute-by-minute, but in reality the utility company keeps track of the load, so it’s just a simple measurement.
Ed Greisch: So what? If my estimate of the price is within orders of magnitude of being right, it isn’t going to get built. If it isn’t built, then “wind and solar only” leads to a day without power….civil order collapses.
AJ: Sounds scary. Fortunately, hydro exists, nukes exist, biofuels exist, and demand modification exists. Yep, aluminum smelters might choose to go offline and folks might adjust their thermostat on those days of dollar-a-KWH gloom, but that’s just economic choice. Pretty soon our water heaters, (speaking of which, why would anybody put solar PV on their roof before a solar water heater?) refrigerators, and everything else will be programmed to save energy whenever energy is scarce. Heck, our biofuel hybrid cars will feed the grid whenever other zero carbon providers aren’t producing.
Th 86: Barton Levenson: Cherry-picking, ignoring context .. you know like the rest of the words in the complete post is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest and really, not that smart either. You have done it before to my comments, I suggest you stop it. The adhom is not going to fly, and your pattern of smarty-pants misrepresentations will not stick. . . . People can read it for themselves without you playing “6 O’Clock News” with 1 second outtakes. Please find someone else or somewhere else to big note yourself. Seriously. Been through this before with you, am not doing it again and will not ignore it either.
BPL: What the cake said to Alice.
V 90: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and global warming:
BPL: Victor, can you define what “correlation” means?
> A day without power ….
That’s why the US Northeast and the eastern part of Canada have been uninhabitable since the last big solar flare.
https://weather.com/science/space/news/solar-storm-1859-less-than-day-to-prepare-global-disruption-impact
Oh, wait ….
Victor @ 90: No long-term correlation between CO2 levels and global warming: https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/clip_image006_thumb2.jpg?w=1212&h=897
Okay, if once again posting pure crap from wattsupwiththat on this science blog is not grounds for being banned, what is? I mean, there are so many things wrong with that chart yet Victor just regurgitates it without any evidence of critical thinking at all. For starters,you should once again look up the meaning of “cherry-picking data”, both in the data set and the time periods. There is no excuse for repeated examples of such intellectual laziness. Or continually showing the height of arrogance by somehow assuming you know something that literally every professional climate science society in the world (yes, the world) does not. Goodness, what a repeated display of scientific ignorance and failure to make the slightest effort to learn about how science is conducted as it has been for hundreds of years. Epic learning failure displayed.
Thomas @81. I reside in the ‘real world’ which, BTW, includes Australia. There you will find million upon millions of folks who are having a problem believing all this CO2 warming and subsequent catastrophic consequences.
We can look at the basic data as I posted from NASA GISS. You appear to label folks by your narrow understanding. Good to take a trip out of your ivory tower from time to time.
I hit a key that ended my questions concerning the graphs of CMIP3 and CMIP5 prior to completing my list of questions. Since I do not know what happens in such a case, I will repeat my question:
1) where can we read about the adjustment of forcings in the CMIP5 graph?
2) is there anything to say about the difference between CMIP5 and CMIP3 model projections? Are the forcings similar in the chosen examples? Are the scenarios so similar prior to 2015 so that it is not all that important to distinguish among the CO2 scenarios?
3) Which plotted CO2 scenario is closest to actual emissions?
Thanks,
Chuck
78 Andrew: What is sickening is your allegation that climate scientists have not done their jobs in communicating to the public.
1. Communicating to the public is not the job of scientists. Never was.
2. Climate scientists have done everything they possibly could to tell everybody about the danger of Global Warming.
3. The fossil fuel industry spends a billion dollars per year to cause confusion.
4. The result will be 1000 times as bad as the holocaust. If that doesn’t turn your stomach, I don’t know what will.
5. Andrew is not helping by insulting the climate scientists.
6. The IPCC is under the control of politicians, not scientists. There is nothing more the scientists can do at the UN.
#90, Victor–Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and precipitation” claim:
Seriously, a list of precipitation records from Wikipedia? Honestly, Vic, that’s extremely lame. That list provides zero information about trends, let alone whether there’s a correlation with anything else. Surely you don’t seriously think that a correlation would imply that all precip records would date from 2005 or later?
Also, didn’t you read your own source #1, which studied this very question and found a “long-term positive” trend in annual global precipitation? (See my comment on that issue, above.)
The same thing is found here:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/us-and-global-precipitation
Spectacular fail…
Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and heat waves” claim:
Again, did you actually read your source, Vic? Yes, figure 1 shows a big spike in the 1930’s record for heat waves, and that is reflected in the first comment under the “Key Points” tab:
However, there is quite another story in Figures 2 and 3, which show very clear trends. Quoting again from the respective comments:
Also relevant is Figure 6, which examines the proportions of hot versus cold records by decade. Over the period of the modern warming era, there has been a pretty steady shift toward more hot than cold records. As the comment puts it:
The selective reading that allows this source to be cited as supporting a lack of trend in heat waves is, frankly, breathtaking. Another spectacular fail.
Just to be thorough, this trend also continues to be observed over global scales as well–unsurprisingly. For instance, Seneviratne et al, 2014, found that:
The figures are very clear:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2145.html
Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and hurricanes” claim:
Landsea is a reputable source. However, the linked article is from 2007, and is therefore well past its ‘sell by’ date. To cite a more recent work, the National Climate Assessment from 2014 says:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/nca2014/low/NCA3_Full_Report_02_Our_Changing_Climate_LowRes.pdf?download=1
Globally, the last I heard, other basins do not show increasing trends comparable to that seen in the North Atlantic. But it’s possible that that is due to data limitations, not to a lack of trend. The science continues to evolve, but one can’t say at this point that there is ‘no trend’–particularly given the present knowledge of physical processes driving hurricane formation and evolution. If it turned out that somehow warming sea surface temperatures had no effect upon hurricanes, we’d have to scrap large chunks of present meteorology altogether.
Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and fire” claim:
The paper cited does indeed find a lack of evidence for strong global fire trends in either frequency or severity. It also acknowledges that this is somewhat in contradiction to a number of previous studies finding trends toward increased fire frequency, two of which are discussed here (with most of the emphasis on the American one):
http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~pbeerli/BSC3052/restricted/papers/wildfire-climate-perspective.pdf
Interestingly, there is a *very* long-term “correlation” between temperature and wildfire in at least one study:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL043706/full
Getting back to the study cited, I note more selective reading in your interpretation, Vic:
That would be in line with the Westerling et al study discussed in the perspectives story linked above. Presumably, that also exemplifies two of the “notable regional increases” also mentioned in the article.
The story then goes on to say:
The question is apparently left open as to why there is not a global-scale increase in wildfire. One might speculate that it is related to efforts to suppress fire increasing on a global scale. For instance, during the recent Fort McMurray fire, a South African contingent came to assist the Canadians fight the fire. How long has South Africa been using modern fire-fighting techniques and equipment? Similarly, what about the efforts of Brazil to combat deforestation in the Amazon, which enjoyed considerable success during the last decade? How widespread are such developments, and how have they been affecting the global wildfire stats?
Clearly, more information is needed before we assume that there is no impact of global warming upon wildfire.
Addressing the claim about global warming:
Again, this can’t be taken seriously. There’s no analysis here, just a graph showing trend lines, and giving no information whatever about how they were derived–which means that there is no way to address whether or not they are the product of straight cherry-picking. (And, yes, this is an ad him observation, but WUWT has a long, long history of cherry-picking.)
Luckily, such things have been addressed elsewhere:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/changes-2/
More directly to the point, though, see the first two figures of the associated post, examining the residuals from a straight-line fit to the GISS data. They really don’t support the WUWT interpretation at all.
Also see the 2014 RC post on this very topic, which uses change point analysis:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/12/recent-global-warming-trends-significant-or-paused-or-what/
The analysis is shown in Figure 4. As Stephan describes it:
On a lighter note, has any one noticed that Gavin Schmidt is playing volleyball for Canada.
[Response: He’s a Schmitt. Totally different! – gavin]
Weekly CO2 averages per CO2.earth
July 31 – August 6, 2016 403.47 ppm
July 31 – August 6, 2015 398.43 ppm
(whopping 5.04 ppm year to year increase)
Rate of increase is increasing. We are going to post above 3 ppm increase for 2016. Not a good number. We need to be figuring out a way to knock that number under zero. The only way that is going to happen is techno deployment of negative emission system on large scale. I don’t see that on the near horizon.
Warm regards
Mike
78 Andrew: “From: “Dr. James Hansen, ClimateTruth.org”
Subject: Scientists need your help
Date: August 10, 2016 at 11:57:02 AM CDT
Reply-To: info@climatetruth.org
It’s long past time for prominent scientific societies to take a stand against Exxon’s dangerous lies and well-documented attacks on climate science and scientists.
Today, stand with me, James Hansen, and hundreds of my fellow Earth Scientists: Tell the AGU to Drop Exxon!
I’m reaching out today because my fellow scientists and I need your help.
I am the former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and currently an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where I direct a program in Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions. I was among many scientists who raised early awareness of the reality of global warming and the threats it poses, but who are now distressed by the absence of an adequate policy response.
I am also a proud member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the largest association of Earth scientists in the world. The AGU is a well-respected institution that works to advance public understanding of science, and holds a strong position on the urgency of climate action.
The AGU is a forum for thousands of climate scientists whose work has helped alert the world to the dangers of climate change. Yet, to our amazement, the AGU continues to accept funding from Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s leading funders of climate change denial.
Stand with us scientists in telling the AGU: Stop accepting funding from Exxon, a company that misleads the public about climate change and is under investigation for doing so.
AGU members study our planet in so many different ways, yet we are all united by our quest for truth — a value ingrained in AGU’s own sponsorship policy, which expressly forbids AGU from accepting funding from any organization that supports science misinformation. This policy was put in place for good reason, and the AGU must start abiding by it — starting with Exxon.
Exxon has been deceiving the public about the science of climate change for decades, to the tune of $33 million in funding to climate denial since 1998 — and this deception continues to this day. As I write this, Exxon is funding climate change denying think tanks (like the American Enterprise Institute), trade associations (like the American Legislative Exchange Council), and more than one hundred climate change denying politicians.
Energy companies like Exxon should turn to large investments in clean energies. Instead, they financially support climate change denial and major public advertising campaigns designed to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels — even though the science shows that fossil fuel emissions must be phased out rapidly for the sake of young people and future generations.
That’s why I’ve joined with 300 of my fellow Earth scientists, including Kerry Emanuel, Catherine Gautier, Charles Greene, Michael Mann, Nathan Phillips, and Bob Ward on an open letter calling on the AGU to reject sponsorship from Exxon once and for all. Today, we’re asking you to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us scientists by adding your name.
Despite our pleas so far, the AGU Board decided at their last meeting to continue accepting funding from Exxon. In response, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ted Lieu backed us up with a letter of their own, finally prompting the AGU Board to vow to once again “review and discuss the information” at its next meeting this September. But nothing has changed yet. So, as we approach this September’s board meeting, we now need your support.
We’re working with ClimateTruth.org and The Natural History Museum to invite you, the public, to add your weight behind us. Join us in this collaborative campaign of scientists and citizens. Help us remind one of our world’s great bastions of science that its leadership matters to us all. That this September, as AGU’s board decides if it will stand or falter in the face of attacks on its own science and scientists, the eyes of the world are watching.
Please sign our petition to tell the AGU to drop Exxon sponsorship.
Our science shows that the inertia of the climate system, especially of the ocean and the great ice sheets, is not our friend. We risk handing young people and future generations a climate system with built-in change so advanced that unacceptable consequences are practically out of their control. We have no time to waste — least of all on lending the social license of our scientific institutions to those who undermine our science.
Thank you for helping us hold the AGU accountable and for standing up for science — today and every day.
Sincerely,
Dr. James Hansen Former Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
MORE INFORMATION:
“Climate experts urge leading scientists’ association: reject Exxon sponsorship,” The Guardian, 02-22-2016 http://act.climatetruth.org/go/1300?t=8&akid=4123.21558.3GJD89
“Exxon’s Donations and Ties to American Geophysical Union Are Larger and Deeper Than Previously Recognized,” InsideClimate News, 06-26-2016 http://act.climatetruth.org/go/1301?t=10&akid=4123.21558.3GJD89
“Scientists to AGU: Drop Exxon Sponsorship,” The Natural History Museum, 05-06-2016 http://act.climatetruth.org/go/1295?t=12&akid=4123.21558.3GJD89
“Organizational Support Policy,” American Geophysical Union, 04-2016 http://act.climatetruth.org/go/1296?t=14&akid=4123.21558.3GJD89
“Ending ExxonMobil Sponsorship of the American Geophysical Union,” Report, 02-2016 http://act.climatetruth.org/go/1302?t=16&akid=4123.21558.3GJD89
ClimateTruth.org fights the denial, distortion and disinformation that block bold action on climate change. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Help us end climate denial once and for all by contributing here.”
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/my-education-in-climate-denial-jujitsu/
Scientific American
My Education in Climate-Denial Jujitsu
The 10 minutes I spent at a Congressional committee hearing was something of an eye-opener
…continues…..
Book: The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, Michael E. Mann (Columbia University Pres
As usual, I am in awe of the ability of commenters here to ramble on about battery storage technology while aggressively avoiding any actual, current information about what is happening with storage technology in the real world today — particularly in Germany and Australia where the growth of the storage market is beginning to rival the skyrocketing growth of solar and wind generated electricity themselves.
Whenever I have posted links to sources of such information, I have been subjected to name-calling and personal attacks, and commenters return to ridiculous fact-free back-of-the-envelope sophistry, which they apparently prefer to reality.
So, I have pretty much given up. Let the cranks have their fun in the sandbox that RealClimate provides.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/10/seas-arent-just-rising-scientists-say-theyre-speeding-up/?utm_term=.340ef65af244&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1
wapo says sea level is rising and the rate of increase is increasing:
“However, scientists have long expected that the story should be even worse than this. Predictions suggest that seas should not only rise, but that the rise should accelerate, meaning that the annual rate of rise should itself increase over time. That’s because the great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, should lose more and more mass, and the heat in the ocean should also increase.”
warm regards,
Mike
98 Victor says: “My point was not limited to ethanol alone, but the whole issue of unintended consequences, which needs to be address with great care before we start turning off the fossil fuel spigot.”
Oh dear. The whole issue is about unintended consequences, when humanity turned on the fossil fuel spigot and especially the last 30 years when that spigot was turned on full bore across many more nations than ever before. That is what needs to be addressed with great care now not the price of corn. The cognitive dissonant, the ignorant, the gullible, the foolish and the liars need to be silenced and/or outed and ignored completely.
96 Ed Greisch says: “A day without power: Steel mills are destroyed by the unexpected shutdown.”
This may not seem that big a deal to some but steel mills survive on high quality coking coal (ala metallurgical coke) – electricity via the grid only powers lights, exhaust fans and machinery et al.
That electricity demand could be reliably provided on site by any steel corporation with half a brain on the Board.
http://www.steel.org/making-steel/how-its-made/processes/processes-info/coal-utilization-in-the-steel-industry.aspx
Metallurgical coke/coal is a tiny fraction of the total coal use worldwide, and is also less polluting due it’s higher quality.
119 Barton Levenson says: “What the cake said to Alice.”
What Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and Saul Perlmutter said to the masses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science for beginners :-)
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/08/unforced-variations-aug-2016/comment-page-3/#comment-658560
#102 According to Mike, “wapo says sea level is rising and the rate of increase is increasing.” With reference to the following article in today’s Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/10/seas-arent-just-rising-scientists-say-theyre-speeding-up/?utm_term=.7f54dbeeb1e1&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1
Sorry, Mike, but that is not what the article actually says. The rate increase is a projection, NOT a fact. According to the actual record, there has been no such increase:
“The problem, or even mystery, is that scientists haven’t seen an unambiguous acceleration of sea level rise in a data record that’s considered the best for observing the problem . . . (It has since been succeeded by other satellites providing similar measurements.)”
Moreover, “This record actually shows a decrease in the rate of sea level rise from the first decade measured by satellites (1993 to 2002) to the second one (2003 to 2012). “We’ve been looking at the altimeter records and scratching our heads, and saying, ‘why aren’t we seeing an acceleration in the satellite record?’ We should be,” said John Fasullo, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.”
So as far as the RECORD is concerned, there has actually been a decrease rather than an increase. But never fear, because where there is a will there is a way:
“In a new study in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, however, Fasullo and two colleagues say they have now resolved this problem. It turns out, they say, that sea level rise was artificially masked in the satellite record by the fact that one year before the satellite launched, the Earth experienced a major cooling pulse.
The cause? The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which filled the planet’s stratosphere with aerosols that reflected sunlight away from the Earth and actually led to a slight sea level fall in ensuing years as the ocean temporarily cooled.”
Now please correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it there is a decades long response time for the ocean to react to changes in atmospheric temperatures. That’s one.
Also, and please correct me if I’m wrong on this as well: Literally all records show a sharp increase in global warming during the period from 1979 through 1998, when a major El Nino boosted the world’s temperature considerably. Since that time, while there has been no dramatic increase in warming, there has certainly been no significant decrease either. And according to many climate scientists, the “missing heat” expected from CO2 emissions has moved into the oceans. So could someone please explain how the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo could have cooled the ocean and raised sea levels.
What do YOU think, Mike?
123 Titus says: Thomas @81. I reside in the ‘real world’ which, BTW, includes Australia. There you will find million upon millions of folks who are having a problem believing all this CO2 warming and subsequent catastrophic consequences.
The beliefs of millions, indeed billions, is not my problem or the tens of thousands engaged in the ‘real world’ of climate science related fields. Your beliefs are your problem.
Titus: “We can look at the basic data as I posted from NASA GISS. You appear to label folks by your narrow understanding. Good to take a trip out of your ivory tower from time to time.
You could also look at the complex data too. Would you understand it any better than the basic data? I do not live in an ‘ivory tower’. I live in the ‘real world’ where I am fully aware of my personal limitations and the reality that to survive well in this world I must rely upon the combined intelligence and knowledge of my fellow human beings and not their ignorance. Try it one day.
I am not clever enough create a new kind of computer on my own but I sure as hell know how to use one properly to gain true knowledge via the internet.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=climate%20science
Unfounded beliefs are for losers … “To err is human, to forgive (yourself) is divine.” :-)
“[I]t is good to be born in a church, but it is bad to die there. It is good to be born a child, but bad to remain a child. Churches, ceremonies, and symbols are good for children, but when the child is grown he must burst the church or himself. We must not remain children forever.”
Swami Vivekananda, 19th Century Hindu Reformer
97 Omega Centauri 100 barry: MOL for a metal melting mill, is 100%. If the melt cools off, it hardens in place and welds onto whatever it is touching. The furnace must then be replaced. That is equivalent to buying a new mill.
Since we are already above 400 ppm CO2 and the maximum safe level is 350 ppm, we have already exceeded the limit. We have to produce ZERO CO2 and ZERO other greenhouse gasses and take CO2 back out of the air already. That is not the same as reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85%. We can’t get to 100% reduction, but we must do better. We can get over 95% reduction. We DO NOT fire up fossil fuel plants when the wind stops blowing on a dark night in February.
400 ppm CO2? Add Other GHGs, and It’s Equivalent to 478 ppm
http://oceans.mit.edu/featured-stories/5-questions-mits-ron-prinn-400-ppm-threshold
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88505&src=eoa-iotd
82:
I thought Peak Multi Headed Hydra came after Energy Crisis denial, but before Population Bomb angst.
#122, Thomas–
“This may not seem that big a deal to some but steel mills survive on high quality coking coal…”
Still more ridiculous is the notion that this ‘shutdown’ (if it were plausible) could be ‘unexpected.’ Apparently some folks still live in the age when weather forecasting was limited to the practical application of the adage “Red sky at night…”
In reality, operational forecasting for solar and wind are a BFD in the industry now. Any “perfect storm” of low solar and wind would be seen coming.
BPL: Please don’t tell my peer reviewers I have zero knowledge, brains, or research. They might stop publishing my research articles.
AJ: The only “paper” I’ve noticed you mentioning here was your rejected (and laughable) paper that claimed we’re all going to die almost immediately. Since you’ve never mentioned your hundreds(?) of accepted papers, they aren’t part of the discussion (yet). I was only talking about the stuff you’ve actually said here – and pretty much everything you’ve said here is beyond bogus. Like the above. I never said you have no knowledge, brains, or research; just that you pontificate here constantly about stuff of which you’ve got no knowledge, brains, or research. Perhaps you’ve got other areas where you’re actually competent. Fantasy writing comes to mind. (which makes sense since your comments here are pure fantasy!)
But since you brought it up, how about a list of (and links to) all your wondrous works that you’ve been hiding from us?
#102 Mike reports that “wapo says sea level is rising and the rate of increase is increasing.” With reference to the following article in today’s Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/10/seas-arent-just-rising-scientists-say-theyre-speeding-up/?utm_term=.7f54dbeeb1e1&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1
Sorry, Mike, but that is not what the article actually says. The rate of increase is a projection, NOT a fact. According to the actual record, there has been no such increase:
“The problem, or even mystery, is that scientists haven’t seen an unambiguous acceleration of sea level rise in a data record that’s considered the best for observing the problem . . . (It has since been succeeded by other satellites providing similar measurements.)”
Moreover, “This record actually shows a decrease in the rate of sea level rise from the first decade measured by satellites (1993 to 2002) to the second one (2003 to 2012). “We’ve been looking at the altimeter records and scratching our heads, and saying, ‘why aren’t we seeing an acceleration in the satellite record?’ We should be,” said John Fasullo, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.”
So as far as the RECORD is concerned, there has actually been a decrease rather than an increase. But never fear, because where there is a will there is a way:
“In a new study in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, however, Fasullo and two colleagues say they have now resolved this problem. It turns out, they say, that sea level rise was artificially masked in the satellite record by the fact that one year before the satellite launched, the Earth experienced a major cooling pulse.
The cause? The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which filled the planet’s stratosphere with aerosols that reflected sunlight away from the Earth and actually led to a slight sea level fall in ensuing years as the ocean temporarily cooled.”
Now please correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it there is a decades long response time for the ocean to react to changes in atmospheric temperatures. That’s one.
Also, and please correct me if I’m wrong on this as well: Literally all records show a sharp increase in global warming during the period from 1979 through 1998, when a major El Nino boosted the world’s temperature considerably. Since that time, while there has been no dramatic increase in warming, there has certainly been no significant decrease either. And according to many climate scientists, the “missing heat” expected from CO2 emissions has moved into the oceans. So could someone please explain how the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo could have cooled the ocean and raised sea levels.
What do YOU think, Mike?
(My apologies for any duplication. The RC server has been acting strange lately.)
Well, I must say, my post listing all the many ways CO2 emissions are NOT correlating with various harbingers of “climate change” has gotten a lot of attention. Good, and thanks for the detailed responses, most of which are at least interesting. No time for detailed responses to all the many ways in which my references were questioned, but I feel the need to clarify certain points:
1. Anyone who actually read the references cited would realize that in some cases they refer to local rather than worldwide studies. My point was that in a great many cases where CO2 has been blamed for extreme events, as in Gt. Britain, for example, actual research contradicts such claims. Moreover, if a certain trend is deemed worldwide (as implied by the term “global warming”), its effects should be felt all over the world, not only in certain places but not in others.
2. Since there has been so much comment lately regarding extreme events of the last few years, I felt it was important to remind everyone that the SCIENTIFIC approach is based on long term correlation, NOT knee jerk responses to recent events, regardless of how many records have been broken. When we look at LONG TERM trends, both worldwide and local, we see that in many (if not all) cases, there is no such correlation. If there is no correlation then it’s impossible to claim a cause and effect relationship.
3. Several responders claimed that most of the studies I cited lacked any reference to either CO2 levels or correlation, as though correlation with such levels had no bearing on the research. Well, sorry, but as we know there has been a steady increase in CO2 levels since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so lack of correlation is already implied in studies that reveal no long-term trend.
4. As far as cherry picking is concerned, one person’s legitimate study is another person’s cherry pick. That accusation has been tossed around so frequently by hard liners on both sides that it’s hardly worth bothering with. If I make a point without citing a reference, I’m criticized. If I do cite a reference then it’s automatically dismissed as cherry picking. Sorry, but this is the best I can do under the circumstances. I’ve already written a book which goes into a lot more detail on all the important issues, and the range of studies referenced, on both sides of the issue, is wide.
5. Obviously when scientific research calling certain articles of faith into question is cited, people are going to be upset. I understand that and I fully expected the reactions I’ve been getting from the regulars posting here. I don’t post for you guys, sorry — because for you there is no hope. No matter what data or analysis you are confronted with you will not only deny it, you will toss a royal hissy fit over it. Which is what we’ve been seeing here. I’m not surprised and on some rather perverse level I actually respect such responses. Because regardless of all your other failings, you guys actually care, which is commendable. What I present here is for the benefit of those reading here to learn and not pontificate.
6. Finally as for that last reference, presented courtesy of the notorious “denier site” WUWT. First, I have lots of respect for Watts’s take on climate, despite my totally contrary political views. I read his blog regularly and have learned a lot from it. He’s biased, for sure, but he also has a knack for ferreting out relevant news and science. The scattergram I referenced is from an article by Danley Wolfe, as posted at Watt’s site, which very thoroughly explains his methodology and, can be accessed here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/12/a-look-at-carbon-dioxide-vs-global-temperature/
It’s the only study I know of that presents a scattergram specifically illustrating correlation (or lack of it) between CO2 and warming. If anyone knows of any other, please supply a link.
Titus @123,
As somebody who insists that he “reside(s) in the ‘real world’ which … includes Australia” (& apparently NZ), it is strange that you have gained such a tiny grasp of the problem mankind faces from increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. You are not such a johnny-come-lately to RealClimate & you have said that your interest in ADW long precedes your arrival here. I can but thus conclude that you are a slow learner. So let’s keep this simple.
@43 you present a graph of the GISTEMP LOTI annual data 1880-2015 which shows a +0.8ºC temperature rise over the period. This would thus average to a temperature rise of +0.06ºC per decade. It also shows (as you yourself highlight @43) that the last four decades have witnessed a +0.6ºC temperature rise, an average of +0.15ºC per decade, an average that is 150% greater than the GISTEMP LOTI record as a whole.
I note in your own assessment of this 150% you “see little difference” between the two rates of increase which is a worry as a jump of 150% is a very large difference. I will assume that you say this not because you suffer from problems with your eyesight (as you do tell us you “eyeballed the chart on the home page,”) but more likely because you consider a +0.8ºC and a +0.6ºC increase in global temperature to be both trivially small and thus making “little different”. If so you make a profound mistake.
Somebody who insists that he “reside(s) in the ‘real world’ which … includes Australia” (& apparently NZ) will be aware of the impacts of the recent ice ages on the topology of NZ. Yet the global temperature change required to throw the planet into an ice age is actually rather small. It is not tens of degrees Celsius, it is less than half a dozen degrees Celsius. A change of few degrees Celsius in global average temperature makes a big big difference to our planet’s climate. Thus a +0.8ºC and a +0.6ºC increase in global temperature is not trivially small but highly significant, especially when the cause of that +0.8ºC/+0.6ºC increase in global temperature is continuing to add to the total at something like +0.15ºC per decade. If you wish to use your expertise in ‘eyeballing’ to gain a better appreciation of this situation, there are a few useful charts here.
@ Alfred Jones 117,
We seem to be crossing comments so I refer you back to my 107.
People have been talking about spherical cows a lot in this thread; I think the way I have set this up is perfectly correct from an applied physics perspective. You seem obsessed with what is a non-sequitur.
But the question remains: Who cares? How is baseload, as defined, relevant to the choice of generating modality?
We probably agree about most of this, but I am concerned when people keep repeating these phony memes that they perhaps don’t fully understand themselves.
Your 118 is correct, as are other responses along those lines. We seem to have a few dinosaurs around still who are out of touch with current technology. As to solar hot water– it’s an unnecessary complication; again, as tech moves forward, the conversion efficiency differences are going to be irrelevant.
Don’t feed the trolls. Victor knows his posts are bs, he posts to waste your time. Just laugh him off.
Any thoughts about greenland melt? global forest fire issues? ocean toxicity? You know, weather-type stuff.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/canary-islands-fire-ravages-7-of-la-palma
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/11/hundreds-evacuated-path-wildfire-southern-france-marseilles-france
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2100371-warming-seas-linked-to-rise-in-cholera-bacteria-in-europe-and-us/
#110, #111, #126 Since Kevin is a fellow musician — AND since his objections to the evidence I cited are both reasonable and reasonably respectful — I’ve decided to attempt a point by point response to each issue he’s raised. This may take more than one post, so I hope everyone will be patient.
With respect to flooding, Kevin is right in that the example I provided was limited to the UK. I’ve found similar studies, but all are relatively local. If anyone can provide a source covering long term worldwide flooding data, please do so. My search for a comprehensive study of that sort came up empty.
With respect to drought: “This an interesting case. If you interpret Victor’s claim as meaning that there was “no increase in of percentage of globe in drought between 1901 and 2009 by our measure”, then that claim is supported. But the paper doesn’t explicitly analyze the correlation with CO2.”
No. But that should not be necessary. As we know there has been a steady increase in CO2 levels throughout the period in question. So lack of increase in droughts means NO correlation.
“The drought question is a vexed one, and this paper won’t be the final word.” Agreed.
“Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and precipitation” claim: Seriously, a list of precipitation records from Wikipedia?”
I took what I could easily find online as my time is limited. If you read the Wikipedia article carefully you should get the point. However, since you are a fellow musician, I’ll take pity on you and provide you with something more comprehensive: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpcp-monthly-global-precipitation-climatology-project
Check out the graph titled Areal Precipitation 1979-2010. Do you see an upward trend? I don’t. Yet during this period, as you well know, there was a major increase in CO2 levels. And hence: NO correlation. Dig? This is described as “global coverage,” by the way.
With respect to heat waves: The graph I presented should speak for itself. Regardless of what happened during the 30’s, the overall picture shows LACK of any significant upward trend in heat waves during the period covered. And once again, lack of correlation is implied, since CO2 levels rose steadily during that same period, while heat waves did not.
“Nationwide, unusually hot summer days (highs) have become more common over the last few decades (see Figure 2).” Unusually hot days are NOT the same as heat waves. Nor are days in which record breaking heat has been recorded. No one disputes the fact that global temperatures are now at an all-time high, so why wouldn’t “unusually hot summer days” be expected? Kevin, this is my point, don’t you get it? Dig: climate science, like all science, hinges on correlation. Correlation. NOT broken records. NOT unusual extremes. If there is no correlation, then there can be no cause-effect relation. It’s really that simple. (to be continued)
#126: “Addressing the “no correlation between CO2 and hurricanes” claim:”
I would say that based on the available data (after correction for inhomogenities in recording) there is little evidence that so far, AGW has had any significant effect on Atlantic hurricane activity. Yes there was an increase from the 80’s up to 2012, but this also is a period when the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation switched from a cold to a warm phase, which results in warmer waters in the tropical Atlantic and reduced vertical wind shear. From 2013 onward Atlantic hurricane activity has dropped, to the extent that some are questioning whether the AMO is transitioning back into a cool phase. I doubt anyone would dispute that hurricanes, or tropical cyclones in general can be enhanced by warming sea surface temperatures, however it is not all about the ocean, the large scale winds in the atmosphere are at least as important in determining whether a storm will form, intensify or dissipate. This is why if you look at the NW Pacific basin, typhoon activity is enhanced when sea surface temperatures are locally cooler on average, and warmer in the equatorial central Pacific. This is because it is El Nino conditions which change the Walker circulation in a way which is favourable (weaker trade winds) for typhoons to develop and intensify (and they tend to form further east, giving them a larger ocean track and more time to reach high intensity). Just saying that hurricanes/tropical cyclones get their energy from warm sea surface temperatures, therefore warming the ocean will make them stronger/more frequent is a gross over-simplification.
Victor @ 90 claims there’s no correlation between CO2 and various weather events, and picks a few papers.
In fact Victor is quite wrong. He misinterprets some papers, and others are regional rather than global.
Victor also falls into a classic trap. He cherry picks a few papers out of context rather than looking at the full picture of all published science. But no one person can possibly read all the science as theres simply too much. We have over 12,000 published papers on climate change and so only the IPCC can really review all this and make sense of it.
The last IPCC report has found good evidence of increases over the last 100 years in a variety of extreme weather events, and in all fairness no strong evidence as yet of certain other events. The IPCC also takes a conservative or cautious position. This all has much more credibility than Victor.
Continued from my last post . . .
#126 Kevin on hurricanes:
“Landsea is a reputable source. However, the linked article is from 2007, and is therefore well past its ‘sell by’ date. To cite a more recent work, the National Climate Assessment from 2014 says:
The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain.”
This report fails to engage with the principle point offered by Landsea and others circa 2010/2011:
“Recent papers (Vecchi and Knutson 2008; Landsea et al 2010; Vecchi and Knutson 2011.; Villarini et al. 2011) suggest that, based on careful examination of the Atlantic tropical storm database (HURDAT) and on estimates of how many storms were likely missed in the past, it is likely that the increase in Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane frequency in HURDAT since the late-1800s is primarily due to improved monitoring.”
(from https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/historical-atlantic-hurricane-and-tropical-storm-records/ )
So we have a situation where alarmists can claim an increase based on data interpreted indiscriminately and “luke-warmists” can claim that this is some sort of illusion based on improved monitoring over time. The only way to get around this is to take the differences in monitoring into account when assessing frequency — but I see no evidence of that in the report you’ve cited. Moreover, one should not forget that last sentence in the same report: “The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain.”
Sorry, Kevin, but I still don’t see a correlation between hurricane activity and CO2.
With respect to CO2 and fire, Kevin makes some interesting points, but in just about every case they are based on projections rather than retrospective evidence. Judging from historical data culled from worldwide sources, there has been no correlation in the past between CO2 and forest fires — and thus no reason to assume any association in the future either. Which does not mean, by the way, that the increased warming we are now experiencing could not make more fires likely — just that such an association appears to have little or nothing to do with CO2 emissions.
More presently . . .
#126 Kevin: “Addressing the claim about global warming:
Again, this can’t be taken seriously. There’s no analysis here, just a graph showing trend lines, and giving no information whatever about how they were derived–which means that there is no way to address whether or not they are the product of straight cherry-picking. (And, yes, this is an ad him observation, but WUWT has a long, long history of cherry-picking.)”
The graph is taken from an extremely interesting study by Danley Wolfe, which can be accessed here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/12/a-look-at-carbon-dioxide-vs-global-temperature/ And yes, this comes to us via the notorious WUWT website, but if you read the article you’ll see that his reasoning is sound. As for cherry-picking, permit me to quote from the discussion of Wolfe’s findings in my book:
“While breaking things down into these particular time spans might look like cherry picking, the division reflects discontinuities already apparent from even a cursory examination of the data, where we find clear evidence of rising temperatures only from the mid to late 1970’s to late ‘90’s. As is evident from the scattergrams, this is the only period from 1957 to present where the data points tend to cluster around the diagonal, signaling a true correlation. Before and after that period we see what looks like purely random scatter, signaling a complete lack of correlation. If the correlation were clear and consistent throughout the time span covered in the graph no amount of “cherry picking” would make a difference.”
Kevin goes on to quote “Tamino” as follows:
“With 2015’s temperature so much higher than any previously recorded, talk of the “hiatus” or “pause” has, in some quarters, been replaced with talk of a “surge.” It was a mistake to talk about a slowdown of global warming when real evidence of it was lacking. But lately the question has changed to whether or not we’re seeing the beginning of an acceleration of global warming.”
And once again, what I find so alarming in this sort of argument is an apparent lack of any awareness of the difference between a long-term trend and a one-time event. Tamino is a highly respected climate scientist, yet he falls for one of the oldest tricks in the book: confusing weather with climate.
Kevin: “Also see the 2014 RC post on this very topic, which uses change point analysis:”
With respect to the status of the “hiatus” in the light of change-point analysis, and other statistical procedures, I urge you to read the following guest post, by “Fyffe et al.,” on Ed Hawkins’s blog: http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/slowdown-discussion/
Some excerpts:
“Statistical analysis is a vital tool in any climate scientist’s toolbox. However, even the application of sophisticated statistical tools can shed more heat than light, particularly in arguments that focus on limited aspects of statistical significance rather than on broader physical understanding.
In their post, Rahmstorf et al. apply one particular statistical tool – change-point detection – to observed GMST time series. On the basis of their own work and similar studies, they argue that “there has been no significant change in the rate of global warming since ~1970”. Leaving aside the formal statistical significance (an issue we explore later), we note first that all of the temperature time series shown by Rahmstorf et al. exhibit a slowdown – that is, the warming rate between 2001 to 2014 is less than the warming rate from 1972 to 2001, regardless of the data set used or which method is employed to estimate slopes.”
More:
“. . . the failure of one particular choice of analysis to yield a statistically significant slowdown does not mean (as Rahmstorf et al. imply) that the phenomenon is not real or is uninteresting. Indeed the scientific progress we briefly surveyed in our Commentary was motivated by the challenge to explain changes in the warming rate, not by their statistical significance. We also note that using datasets available at the time much of the literature was written, the slowdown was more prominent, and the importance of like-with-like comparisons of models and simulations is only just becoming apparent.”
Finally:
“The bottom line is that global surface temperature experienced a warming slowdown over the early-2000s, and this slowdown was at odds with our expectation from most climate model simulations. Whether the slowdown was or was not statistically significant is, at least in our opinion, of relatively minor importance. The key point is that a measurable slowdown occurred, and as a result, considerable scientific progress has been made in understanding modes of internal variability (for example, ref. 4) and natural external forcing (for example, ref. 9), and how both modulate a changing climate. Dwelling on statistical details of trend differences does not further that understanding, nor does it contribute to effective communication of the role that internal variability plays in public perception of global warming – or of the well-founded attribution of ongoing global warming to anthropogenic forcing.”
If a “measurable slowdown occurred” at the same time we were experiencing a surge in CO2 emissions, then I fail to see any evidence of a correlation between CO2 and warming from the late 1990’s on — so at least as far as Fyffe et al. are concerned, Wolfe’s analysis would appear to be consistent with mainstream climate science, yes.