ABC Four Corners ran an interesting show last night on the anti-science interest groups who dominate the formulation and official discussion of policy on global warming in Australia. Transcript here, along with discussion from Tim Lambert and Larvatus Prodeo.
What particularly interested me was the number of scientists who had been pushed out of CSIRO, or had left of their own volition, after being tightly censored in what they could say about global warming, and the emissions reductions that would be needed to stabilise the climate (the latter point is particularly sensitive since any actual number implies a target and government policy is opposed to targets).
In particular, I was struck by the fact that global warming contrarians commonly explain the overwhelming support of climate scientists for the consensus view on anthropogenic global warming in terms of careerism. The contrarians say that if the scientists deviated from the dominant consensus, they would lose their jobs or their grant funding.
THe Four Corners report made it clear that, in Australia (as also in the US) the exact opposite is the truth. Speaking out in support of science on global warming is a very bad career move, at least for anyone employed by the government. In climate science, where the big organisations have been CSIRO and the Met Bureau, that constraint applies to most people working in the field.
John Quiggin 
Willis – “To take just one example, in the last fifteen years, the solar forcing changed by about 10 w/m2, some three times the effect of a CO2 doubling, without a significant change in temperature.”
I think you need to provide a reference for this claim. I have not heard it before. I can only find this:
http://ams.allenpress.com/amsonline/?request=display-figures&name=i1520-0442-11-12-3069-f09
the graph shows that there has been less than 1W/M2 solar irradience changes.
“Science and politics don’t mix. I believe that active researchers should offer objective assessment of the science problem and leave it to others to extract policy implications.’
Steve, thanks for posting. You do realize that the quoted statement is by James Hansen of NASA? While Jim Hansen is many things, I seriously doubt your claim that he is “foolish and naive”, he does not strike me that way in the least, but rather as a dedicated and sophisticated scientist. I disagree with his ideas a lot, but I have a lot of respect for him.
His statement makes perfect sense to me. We have our government hire scientists to be scientists, not politicians. They are trained as scientists, not politicians. Their jobs involve studying scientific questions, not policy questions. They are employed to provide scientific answers, not policy answers. Hansen is correct, they should “leave it to others to extract policy implications”, scientists are not trained for the job.
When Jim retires from NASA, far as I’m concered he’s free to say anything about policy he wants, just as I am. Using his government post as a “bully pulpit” from which to do that, on the other hand, is not what he is hired for and paid to do.
John, thank you for your post, in which you say:
Kyoto can be seen, as you urge, as a kind of an “insurance policy” … the only problem being, it costs billions and the payoff on the policy is too small to measure. I oppose Kyoto because even if everyone signed up and were able to meet the targets, even its supporters say it would only change the temperature about 0.06° in fifty years … to me, that’s an incredibly poor insurance policy.
My opposition to Kyoto comes neither before nor after my views on AGW … I oppose it because by any scale, the cost/benefit ratio is totally unacceptable. Even if I thought the AGW theory were 100% correct, I’d still be against Kyoto, and for the very same reason —
Despite a huge cost … it doesn’t deliver.
I found it interesting that at the recent Kyoto COP/MOP in Montreal, the only decision taken was that the signatories changed the rules to eliminate the penalties if they can’t achieve the targets …
w.
Willis- surely a scientist, as a citizen in a democracy, should at the very least be free to speak about policy matters in his or her own time. As far as I can see this cannot possibly harm the public interest.
Its funny that Hansen made such a comment then failed to abide by it. Oh well, I guess all of us contradict ourselves at times and sometimes without even being aware of it.
Hansen is no fool but I stand by my claim that the statement you have furnished is naive, foolish, undemocratic twaddle.
I think Willis has already answered this point when he said the following:-
Willis,
You never said that “warmer is better” for coral reefs, but you say now that coral grows better where its warm. It would appear that duplicity comes naturally to you Willis. In the interim you’ve said, “I’m not trying to “debunkâ€? a theory … that’s your job. My point is that even if we ignore the Soon/Baliunas proxies entirely, Lamb in 1965 gathered a “multitudeâ€? of proxies to show that the MWP was global in scope. “. First of all, my (self-appointed) “job”, is to keep people honest, not to debunk theories. You have no basis on which to presume I have a point of view in this debate and yet you have me as a firm AGW believer. Given your devout agnosticism, I find that rather ironic. Secondly, I didn’t imply you were attempting to debunk any theories. I am by now well aware of your lack of opinions and agenda. You’re citizen tabula rasa. I was attempting to interpret (as per what I wrote in the post), JQ’s argument. And speaking of, the only person talking about Lamb is you. So before you set the smoker on full blast again, let’s get off the topic of Lamb, por favor. JQ’s argument, and having reread your post and his I have revised my view of it slightly, is that you’ve made reference to numerous studies that refer to non-overlapping warming events (by hundreds of years) in highly localized areas, and that this is consistent with the flawed analysis of a global MWP cited by Mann. I think. What’s more, a central point of his was that Soon & Baliunas are hacks and that their synopsis of evidence is difficult to take seriously. For clarification, my personal foray into this was to make the point that you had ignored this comment, a valid counter to the references you posted. To try to keep you honest. Perhaps I have bitten off more than I can chew.
You’re right about my closing line being an insult, but I don’t feel the need to retract it. It was an insult that matches the insult of hiding behind “agnosticism” in a debate fraught by uncertainty. Do you think a CFO is likely to be happy with a manager who claims they cannot forecast the cost of their operations due to the uncertainty involved? This constant appeal to ignorance is nothing more than a ruse thinly veiled by ‘scientific skepticism’. From there, let me get back onto this “computer models are not evidence” horse hockey that keeps rearing its fallacious head (which coincidentally, you continually ignore). There I cannot thank you enough for posting:
“Out of 10,000 recent Hadley model runs done on distributed computers as part of the latest distributed computing experiments, hundreds and hundreds of them show cooling, with a number of them forecasting our dropping into an ice age in thirty years or so. ”
As it is especially damning for denialists who can’t get over this refrain. If I told you there was a .05% chance your home would lose 70% of its value on any given day, would you sell it? And on that basis, is the fact that a few simulations out of 10,000 forecast dramatic cooling mean anything? Hate to break it to you, no. 10,000 simulations were run precisely to confront the uncertainty that confounds this debate. To produce probabilistic outcomes on which decisions can be made. Parameters, assumptions- yes- this is how models get built (as an aside, the term “fudge factor” is misleading, as parameters are not mythical. But then misleading from you isn’t exactly front page news). Don’t like it? Well, I’m not a huge fan of capitalism, but that has yet to make me a marxist. If you want to take issue with these models, best formulate a few of your own.
But what’s really rotten in Denmark is that your appeals to ignorance appear in a context where everything that comes out of your pie hole puts you firmly in the Michael Crichton school of AGW skeptics. At least he has the cahones to come out and say what he is. You prefer to affront debate by hiding behind some nebulous concept of neutrality, while cheering on denialist posters, claiming that warming is more beneficial than cooling, claiming that current warming fits neatly with the historical record, making probabilistic statements about the benign impact of AGW (“warming, but not enough to be measurable”), claiming that Kyoto “is a bad insurance policy”, etc. (the correct baseline for which, btw, is not current but forecasted global climate). So, for the love of Pete, spare us the pretense Willis. It’s farcical.
PS As regards Kyoto, the “billions” it would cost is a rounding error in comparison to the economic consequences of global warming. A raise in sea level alone is a catastrophic, multi-trillion dollar expense. Sounds like an insurance policy to me.
Majorajam, I ask you again, let up on the insults. You’re so steamed up that you are making a fool of yourself. You start out your latest post by saying:
Once again, you are making things up. I did not say coral grows “better” where it is warm. In response to your claiming this exact same claim before, I said:
Have you been taking lessons at Steve’s kindergarten in misrepresentation and abuse? There is absolutely nothing “duplicitous” about my statement. You claimed the same thing before, so this time I went out of my way to make it clear that I did not mean “better”, I meant “faster”, and you are claiming, now for the second time, that I said better? Get some reading glasses …
w.
Great point Willis. You did say ‘faster’ and I did write ‘better’. Now perhaps you can close the loop by revealing the relevance of the semantic differentiation. If I say, “that plant is growing well”, is it possible I am not referring to the extent to which it has grown? All apologies if it is obvious that I am a neophyte in the art of word splicing.
Majorajam, onwards to something a bit more substantive. You say,
My apologies if I have misrepresented your position. However, you definitely “have a point of view in this debate”, that’s not a presumption …
Next, you said:
Again, my apology if I misunderstood your statement about the discussion of the global MWP. What you said was “various unrelated proxies have been connected by hacks to ‘debunk’ a theory that goes toward the lack of precedent for current warming.�
Since JQ had not said a word about debunking, I assumed this was your point of view, not his. However, from your post I now know that you don’t have a point of view in this debate.
So it’s fine for you not to have a point of view in this debate … but you insist I have to have one, I can’t be agnostic … say what?
None of you want to talk about Lamb, poor fellow, because y’all don’t want to admit that in 1965, he scientifically established the well-accepted idea that the MWP was global in nature. People now want to believe it’s some new idea invented by anti-AGW forces, or only supported by Soon/Baliunas. I fully understand and sympathise with your reluctance to discuss Lamb … in your position, I wouldn’t want to discuss Lamb either …
I was honest before you arrived, Majorajam, and will be when you have left. My point is simple. I made reference to a host of studies on the global MWP question, starting with Lamb and ending with Soon/Baliunas. John says Soon and Baliunas are hacks. OK, but the case for a global MWP was established firmly for thirty years before they wrote their paper, so whether they are hacks is irrelevant to the existence of a global MWP.
How does my agnosticism about AGW “match” you calling me a rat? You’re going off the rails here …
You seem to think that the answer to uncertainty is “pick a side, any side”. While there is a childish glee in that, and an adolescent craving for certainty in a subject we don’t understand, at times we just have to grow up, to be honest, and say “we don’t know enough yet to decide”. That’s science. I know you don’t like it, but sometimes deciding on virtually no evidence is simply foolish.
If said manager had as little evidence about the business as we have about AGW, and the boss comes in and asks “will we be making a profit in fifty years”, then the maximum the manager can do, all he can make, is what in scientific terms is called a WAG, or a “wild assed guess”. I’ve made mine about AGW, right here on this blog.
The reality is, sometimes a WAG is as good as it gets. I’ve given you mine, and explained why that’s all it is. What more do you want from me? I don’t think the evidence supports more than a WAG.
Ah, I see the problem. You mistakenly think that repeating the runs of an erroneous computer program somehow allows us to determine what you call “probabilistic outcomes on which a decision can be made.”
The idea that multiple runs of an unstable climate model somehow add up to a probability distribution about future climate is … no, I won’t say it …
What I will say is that you might profit by some study of the field of computer modeling, as your idea is laughably untrue. If a model is producing junk, if it is so unstable that starting from the same point, some times it’s saying “ice age, ice age, get out the wool socks” and sometimes saying “so hot we can’t stand it, we’ll all be drowned”, running it 10,000 times definitely does not give us a “probabilitiy distribution” of future climate.
It only gives us a probability distribution of what that particular computer model might say.
Dude, I don’t have to “appeal to ignorance”, there’s lots on this blog already. And while you may write with your “pie hole”, I generally use my mind and my fingers … your insults are becoming non-stop …
Take a deep breath, my friend, it will be all right, no need to hyperventilate. Let me take your claims one at a time. You say I:
1) Cheer on denialist posters.
I cheer on anybody I agree with. Most of the time on this blog, though, it’s the pro-AGW folks making ludicrous claims unsupported by evidence. No, I don’t cheer them.
2) Claim warming is better than cooling.
I didn’t “claim” that, I demonstrated it by citation and evidence. Doesn’t mean that I believe or disbelieve in AGW. I said I’d rather be poor where it’s warm, and showed that cold kills many more people than heat. It seems you don’t believe that’s true. If so, the answer is not to insult me, it is to go out and show that I’m wrong. And again, it means nothing about whether AGW exists or not.
3) Claim that current warming fits neatly with the historical record.
Umm … no. Reread my post. What I actually said is that we don’t have data good enough to determine the answer to that question. We don’t even know how big the “current warming” is, three groups of scientists disagree on even that simple question. And again, I gave you my WAG, which is that the data seems to indicate that no, it is not remarkable by historical standards, and again I surrounded it with the disclaimer — this is only a WAG, our data is bad, scarce, and spotty, etc.
4) Made “probabilistic statements” like “warming, but not enough to be measurable”.
You keep insisting I take sides. I say there’s not enough evidence to do that, but my WAG is that a) humans are warming the planet, and b) that the warming is very small, too small to measure. I identified this as a WAG at the time I made it, and said nothing about probabilistic statements.
I say it is too small to measure in part because the debate continues to rage. If it were large, it would have been measured and its existence would be firmly established by now.
How can you possibly now complain that I have made that guess, when you yourself have demanded that I do so? I am an agnostic on the question, and I’ve given you my best guess … now you want to bitch that I made the guess you insisted I make? Get a grip.
I agree with you here. Kyoto is, as you point out, an insurance policy. You missed my point about it, though, the critical part of any insurance policy — the cost/benefit ratio. How much is the cost, how much is the potential benefit.
Since even the backers of Kyoto say the cost will be billions and there will be no measurable benefit (a 0.06°C cooling in 50 years, far too small to measure), that’s a … watch my lips now, this is tricky …
BAD DEAL!
Paying billions for no measurable result is not insurance … it’s idiocy …
w.
Majorajam, always interesting to hear from you.
You said:
As you say, it is possible “that plant is growing well” could mean it is getting bigger. It could also mean it is healthy and full of life, and is not getting bigger at all.
This whole bogus dispute came from Steve. You’re crazy to believe what he says without re-reading the initial posts, but that’s your lookout. Steve said
Fast implies speed, velocity.
Better, on the other hand, implies a value judgement.
Steve’s claims I’m implying that “the warmer the better” for coral reefs, which makes no sense. That statement means that any amount of warming is beneficial for coral, which is not true, and which I neither said nor implied.
What I did say was within limits, and ceteris paribus, reefs grow faster when it is warmer. This is not just my claim, I provided several citations for this fact — moderate warming increases coral growth.
Steve was upset that he couldn’t back up the claim that increasing CO2 harms corals, particularly when it is accompanied by mild warming. I cited studies that in fact, despite rising CO2 levels, the growth rates of the corals studied have not decreased during this century, they have increased. I added that some of this increase in growth may have come from a slight rise in sea temperature. Steve provided no studies to refute this. All he has done is claim I said “warmer is better” for coral, which is a total misrepresentation of what was shown by the studies I cited.
In none of this have I lied, or misled. Scientific studies (other than Steve’s aquarium study, which tells us nothing for the reasons discussed above and previously) do not show the “CO2 goes up, coral growth goes down” effect Steve claimed — they show the opposite. He gets upset, and calls me a liar … and you, quite foolishly, think he knows whereof he speaks …
Now, I’m happy to continue to discuss this scientific question about coral reefs, some of my best friends are coral reefs, and I am fascinated by them. I have plenty of studies I haven’t even mentioned yet.
But you and Steve seem to want to make this a “hotter is better” dispute and claim I am misleading you about coral. I didn’t say “hotter is better”, nor am I trying to mislead.
Studies of coral reef growth in the ocean don’t agree with Steve’s claims, but if you have other studies, bring them on. Do not make the mistake, however, of assuming that because the precipitation rate of calcium carbonate is in fact a function of pCO2, that this rules the rate at which corals grow.
This is because coral mediated calcium carbonate precipitation is not ruled by chemistry, but is driven by life. Coral polyps actively build the reef, and do so despite the fact that calcium carbonate, at surface temperature and pressure, doesn’t precipitate at all …
w.
PS – see, for example, Lough, J.M. and Barnes, D.J. 1997. Several centuries of variation in skeletal extension, density and calcification in massive Porites colonies from the Great Barrier Reef: A proxy for seawater temperature and a background of variability against which to identify unnatural change, Journal of Experimental and Marine Biology and Ecology 211: 29-67.
Lough and Barnes’ study showed that on the Great Barrier Reef, calcification rates were linearly related to the average annual SST data, such that “a 1°C rise in average annual SST increased average annual calcification by 0.39 g cm-2 year-1.”Â
They also noted that in the whole of their larger study area,
Calcification = 0.33 * Sea Surface Temperature + .707,
with an r^2 of 0.65. They said that “this equation provides for a change in calcification rate of 0.33 g cm-2 year-1 for each 1°C change in average annual SST.”
In other words, this study shows clearly that warmer temperatures lead to faster reef growth, which is what I said, what Steve said I lied about, and what you jumped into without, as far as I can tell, first reading the underlying discussion.
Willis,
This is getting diabolical. For starters, the statement: “However, you definitely ‘have a point of view in this debate’, that’s not a presumption …”, betrays your general carelessness with fact and argument. This is made more obvious by each passing fortuitous misinterpretation of what I’ve written, a practice that you have utilized to epidemic proportions. Another case in point: “Since JQ had not said a word about debunking, I assumed this was your point of view, not his. However, from your post I now know that you don’t have a point of view in this debate.” Except that this strawman bore little resemblance to the original point, which was your pattern of ducking counterarguments and giving high-handed proclamations about being denied evidence of AGW. In case you can’t be asked to scroll backward:
“However, there you have incorrectly represented John’s counterargument: â€? you’ve got the MWP running from 800 to 1550 (overlapping the Little Ice Age) while one of the cited studies gives it only 60 years. One study has it *ending* in 1020, in other it doesn’t *begin* until 1050. It looks as if the same label has been attached to events at radically different times and places, just as claimed by Mann et al.â€? Now, my interpretation is of this is, “various unrelated proxies have been connected by hacks to ‘debunk’ a theory that goes toward the lack of precedent for current warming.â€? ”
Difficult to be more clear than “My interpretation of this is…”. Or at least, one would think. Likewise, this prized little nugget: ” I fully understand and sympathise with your reluctance to discuss Lamb … in your position, I wouldn’t want to discuss Lamb either ….” Assigns me a position I don’t recall taking. Furthermore, this business about Lamb has been a smokescreen all along- as I pointed out to you in my last post (as if that were an effective means of communication) and as is clear again now by reviewing those few lines of JQ’s that I’ve reposted. In particular, my original point was that that you had ducked JQ’s counterargument, at least insofar as it is totally inadequate to address his critique by saying, “just throw out those proxies that disagreeâ€?. As this is pretty straightforward, I have to presume it’s not lost on you. Either you either didn’t read my post or preferred another argument to respond to.
And on it goes, “You seem to think that the answer to uncertainty is ‘pick a side, any side’.� Hardly. What I have said, and will say once again, is that the existence of uncertainty is not a profound discovery of yours. It is a reality on which all sides can agree. What I have furthermore said is that it is not enough to hide behind that uncertainty, especially as policy making demands a forecast, (or rather, a forecast is implied by policy, whether it is made explicitly or not). My problem is that we have a few pieces of evidence that indicate that human activity lead to warming the climate, something you concede, additional evidence that shows the climate is warming to levels without modern precedent and then people try to forecast that effect (partially to support policy decisions) but then your type say, “yes, but there’s all this uncertainly�. Well, tell us something we don’t know! The need for scientific certainty is all well and good- I’m all for it. But every day across myriad human endeavors we make decisions without that certainty because certainty is unobtainable.
Finally we arrive at a counterargument to an argument of mine that for the most part you haven’t hackneyed:
“Ah, I see the problem. You mistakenly think that repeating the runs of an erroneous computer program somehow allows us to determine what you call ‘probabilistic outcomes on which a decision can be made.’
The idea that multiple runs of an unstable climate model somehow add up to a probability distribution about future climate is … no, I won’t say it …�
I don’t recall saying anything about an “erroneous computer program�, nor do I recall you claiming it was erroneous. You did claim that it was unstable but going from one to the other is a non sequitur (again, no newsflash). But your point about the instability of a computer model is taken- that is undesirable, but it is far from sufficient to invalidate the model in question. The point is, instability may be a feature of climate models- as would make sense and as seems to be your claim- but that doesn’t make them useless. Instability is also a feature of economic and financial models, but yet they are used to make decisions every day. What’s more, the distribution of a climate model’s outputs does indeed relate to the probability distribution of future climate, irrespective of the estimation error, if the parameters are unbiased. Do you have any evidence that Hadley’s parameters were biased? Or do you prefer to continue to insist on the “computer models are not evidence� fallacious hand waving?
Subsequent to that flawed but otherwise somewhat reasonable argument, you get back to ad libing my statements: “I am an agnostic on the question, and I’ve given you my best guess … now you want to bitch that I made the guess you insisted I make? Get a grip.�.
My complaint, in context, is with regards to the following sequence. 1, proclaim yourself agnostic, so that you can cite as much when evidence countering the AGW hypothesis is requested, 2) argue against all the “pro-AGW� crowd, (here I refer to JQ, SJ, etc. not me), cheer on the denialists, 3) come to conclusions that are perfectly aligned with the denialists, 4) state your opinion but disclaim it as a “guess� so as to maintain consistency with your faux-agnosticism. Just fyi, you’re not fooling anyone but yourself. And before you draw a false analogy to me, I should point out that I have done neither 3 or 4 (nor aside from with yourself and others making fallacious claims about the role of computer models, 2).
Finally, you close with a doozy- even for you:
“You missed my point about it, though, the critical part of any insurance policy — the cost/benefit ratio. How much is the cost, how much is the potential benefit. Since even the backers of Kyoto say the cost will be billions and there will be no measurable benefit (a 0.06°C cooling in 50 years, far too small to measure)�
Actually I didn’t miss your point, I’m just not ready to take it on face value, i.e. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you, not only because it’s you, but because the claim itself is so unbelievable. You are basing your cost/benefit analysis on what the backers of Kyoto say, yea? And they say the program has much cost but no (0) value. Interesting sales tactic. So what’s your specific source? In particular, I’ll be looking to confirm that number, .06 degrees C, and its context (as compared to, etc.). Also, I’ll want to know if that forecast of climate reduction incorporate only those that have ratified the treaty or all nations that signed onto the treaty in the first place?
What surprised me more than the claim, was to see you take such a strong stance on the subject. It would seem in the few paragraphs that passed between your rant about climate models and this you rediscovered faith in forecasting the effect of carbon emissions on the climate. Halleluiah. I say this because, if indeed, as you claim, AGW is possible, and in fact unknowable, then the probability of Kyoto having an impact on the climate is also unknowable. Right? Therefore, given the massive economic implications of warming, Kyoto is indeed an insurance policy and perhaps maybe even a GOOD DEAL. Just following your logic sunshine.
PS A counterargument to: “I identified this as a WAG at the time I made it, and said nothing about probabilistic statements. I say it is too small to measure in part because the debate continues to rage. If it were large, it would have been measured and its existence would be firmly established by now.� just occurred to me. What about carbon sinks? They are not limitless, and thousands upon thousands of tons of CO2 have already been dumped there. Couldn’t this go toward the muted effect to date?
Willis – still haven’t seen a refererence for this claim – proabably got lost in the noise:
““To take just one example, in the last fifteen years, the solar forcing changed by about 10 w/m2, some three times the effect of a CO2 doubling, without a significant change in temperature.â€?”
Willis,
I wasn’t aware that “growing well” could also mean “not growing at all”, as per: “As you say, it is possible ‘that plant is growing well’ could mean it is getting bigger. It could also mean it is healthy and full of life, and is not getting bigger at all.” This is an interesting take. Also, my text books always had it that fast implied speed, while velocity implied speed and direction. Apparently they are synonyms. Who knew? Chrs, M
Majorajam said:
” … let’s get off the topic of Lamb, por favor.”
I said:
â€? I fully understand and sympathise with your reluctance to discuss Lamb … in your position, I wouldn’t want to discuss Lamb either ….”
Majorajam said:
“Likewise, this prized little nugget: â€? I fully understand and sympathise with your reluctance to discuss Lamb … in your position, I wouldn’t want to discuss Lamb either ….â€? Assigns me a position I don’t recall taking. ”
I give up. Perhaps you don’t recall saying anything about Lamb … but you did. Your stated position was that I was not dealing with the “dissonance” of the evidence for a global MWP. Look it up.
I said theres no underlying dissonance about the MWP evidence, because the main evidence for a global MWP predates any dissonance, the scientific question was settled by Lamb in 1965.
You then say “let’s get off the topic of Lamb”, and when I say I can understand your (and everyone else’s) reluctance to discuss Lamb, you say I’ve assigned you a position you don’t recall taking …
I can’t do this any more, Majorajam. I can’t respond to your witless personal attacks.
If you ever do decide to discuss the science of climate science, I’ll be happy to do so … but to date, there’s little sign of that. You have not cited a single study, you just want to do things like tell me over and over that computer model results are evidence, long after most people on this blog have given that ridiculous claim up for dead.
Oh, and you want to insist I do more research so you can continue to do none? … enough.
If you truly care how much temperature difference Kyoto will make, GO FIND OUT.
If you don’t, I’ll figure you don’t really care, you’re just arguing to argue.
But I’m happy to be surprised, come back with a couple scientific citations on that question to prove you’re truly interested, and we’ll disscuss them.
Until then … I don’t have time to debate a man who persists in ugly, unfounded allegations as you have done. Like my poppa said, “Never mud wrestle with a pig, son … the pig likes it, and you just get muddy.”
w.
PS – at least you say that regarding the effect of a possible AGW, there has been a “muted effect to date” … replace “muted” with “not measurable” and we’re in agreement …
Also, you say the “carbon sinks” are not limitless. However, the name is a bit misleading. In general, a carbon “sink” is not a basin that can get filled up. It is in reality a carbon pathway from the atmosphere to the lithosphere, the ocean, or the biosphere, and of course has a corresponding path the other direction, and other paths onwards in other directions, as part of the overall carbon cycle.
For example, a large amount of CO2 goes from the atmosphere to plants, from there to the soil, from the soil to the water, from the water to the ocean, and then back into the atmosphere …
In one sense you are right, in that the CO2 from fossil fuels must be ending up somewhere. It was in the ground before, where is it now?
However, it’s generally not appreciated how trivial this amount of fossil fuel carbon is compared to the total of carbon being cycled. Over the last 150 years, about 250 gigatonnes of carbon has been sequestered, which sounds like a lot, a quarter of a trillion tonnes.
However, this is only about 0.6% of the amount of carbon in the ocean … which is why I’m not terrified about coral reef growth. Our margin of error regarding the total oceanic carbon content is larger than the anthropogenic contribution, we’re lost in the noise.
In response to rising atmospheric CO2, total transport of carbon out of the atmosphere has increased. Rather than falling over time (as you presuppose under the assumption that the sink gets “filled”), this increase in the capacity of the planet to cycle the carbon has continued over the last half century. It has stayed at about 45% of the carbon emitted, despite increasing emissions.
The reason is that this only represents a surprisingly small change in the overall planetary cycling of billions of tonnes of carbon. It’s about 3-4 gigatonnes of C per year out of a total atmospheric loss (to the land, plants and ocean) of about 155 gigatonnes/yr, or about a 2% change in the flux.
That’s it Willis, cop out. “Perhaps you don’t recall saying anything about Lamb … but you did.” What did I say about Lamb outside of requesting you not bring up the superfluous topic incessantly?? The point was indeed about the dissonance across sources- BUT IT WAS NOT MINE. That was JQ’s point that I claimed you were ducking. And no need to go and look it up, because I have repeated that in every single response I’ve made to you. How many times do I need to repeat that before it sinks in?? And yet you are the one who’s exasperated?? What a joke.
It’s not lost on me that citing your terribly hurt feelings (without citing what it was I did to hurt them- and ignoring your own veritable cornucopia of insults) is a ploy to get out of responding to my post. Not that you didn’t manage to get in a closing fallacy for good measure: “you just want to do things like tell me over and over that computer model results are evidence, long after most people on this blog have given that ridiculous claim up for dead.”- an appeal to authority (an unfortunate name in this case as leading climate scientists aren’t so convinced of the obviousness by which computer models are pointless. Not least the ones that spend their time building them).
So spare me your delicate sensibilities Willis. If you want to make silly uninformed claims about the nature of computer models, if you want to pick and choose the times that you want to use forecasts when it suits you, (e.g. good in weighing up Kyoto, bad in weighing up AGW)- go right ahead. But don’t be surprised when someone takes the time to call your bluff. Check and mate, mate.
Has Willis attained the status of a Troll yet?
He’s given it a very good try!
If so maybe its time to stop feeding him and he can take his crap to realclimate and waste their time.
Since corals has been a hot topic this is the latest study in the new on the subject.
Oceanic Acidity: Researcher Outlines Coral’s Future In An Increasingly Acidic Ocean
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060220231628.htm
You are right, Majorajam. In mathematical terms, speed is a scalar, velocity is a vector …
Thanks,
w.
Dear Simonjm, here I thought you were pointing me to a scientific study when you said:
But when I went to look, it wasn’t a study at all. I thought, well, maybe it’s a transcription of a scientist’s talk …
Nope, not that either. Ah, well, a report about a talk, the reporter can tell us what the scientist said, mayhap? …
Not that either …
What you have cited is a press release for an upcoming talk by a scientist … along with some scary quotes the press office threw in …
Be still, my beating heart …
Although the idea of citing a scientific study clearly hasn’t quite jelled with you, it is a step in the right direction in an often citation free landscape.
Being incurably curious, I followed your step, and after some further research found out that the scientist in question is none other than the team leader for the aquarium experiment which we have discussed here at some length. So rather than your citation being the latest thing … the JQ blog has already been there, blogged that …
My thanks to you for your post,
w.
JQ
Apologies re Paltridge – I had gone straight to this thread and had not yet seen your home page comments, they seem much to the point. What a clot to spoil a valid point with bromides and wrong dates.
Tim
Willis – You may have not personally used the argument “the MWP was as warm as today so therefore AGW is not true” however I quoted it as a general skeptic argument.
Here is a perfect example of it:
“If for the sake of the argument, we accept human activity is the cause of global warming, which activities are to blame? The mainstream argument points to record and increasingly high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1840 that in turn are presumed to be caused by burning fossil fuels.
In reply sceptics point to a period of warm temperatures covering about 400 years from the 10th to the 14th century and which was followed by the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that lasted until the 19th century when the present period of global warming began. If industry is the cause now, what was the cause back then – the Crusades? ”
from
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17815217%255E28737,00.html
This is an example of the MWP being used to cast doubt in the minds of the public about climate change. Also regarding the MWP you and others are fond of quoting the “grapes in Greenland – MWP was good” line of argument. I have never seen you or any other contrarian mention the bad effects of the MWP. No evidence that you have presented mentions increased droughts or tropical storm increases. You cannot be sure that the downside of the MWP was worse than the supposed benefits to Northern Europe. You cannot say with ANY certainty that the MWP was global and/or it was more beneficial than bad. No written records would exist from the areas that would experience the bad.
There are three global average temperatures calculated by GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies), GHCN (Global Historical Climate Network), and the Jones or HadCRUT (Hadley Climate Research Unit) average temperature records.
Willis says
“The only problem is … they’re all different.
Since 1880, the GHCN record says we’ve warmed by 0.76° per century. The Jones record says we’ve warmed by 0.64° per century. And the GISS record says we’ve warmed by 0.48° per century.”
Willis later said he got the GISS record from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/new_Fig.A.txt which I found in the Google cache. I presume the GHCN record is the one pointed to on http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html . When I calculate regressions on these figures I get a warming of 0.57° per century from the GISS record and a warming of 0.50° per century from the GHCN record. So using the exact same figures for GISS as Willis uses gives a result of 0.57° per century when somehow Willis comes up with 0.48° per century. And using the presumably same figures for GHCN (Willis didn’t bother saying exactly where he got them from, perhaps he could point out if he didn’t get them from a denialist website) gives a result of 0.50° per century when somehow Willis comes up with 0.76 ° per century.
Maybe Willis could tell us how he came up with these figures and try to convince us that it’s not another Willis howler.
Willis later said
“Assuming the forcing numbers for CO2 of 3.7 w/m2 for a doubling are correct, we also know that this (295ppm to 370 ppm) represents an additional forcing of about 1.2 watts/m2.
Finally, we know that the sun’s total irradiation has increased by about the same amount over the century, about 1.4 w/m2. Assuming once again that these are the main variables (which we don’t know, but we can assume for the moment), this gives a net temperature change of 0.6° C for a forcing change of 2.6 watts/m2.”
Well, I’m sorry Willis but you’re actually adding two numbers that have different units. One is W/(m2 of the entire earth’s surface). The other is W/m2 orthogonal to sunlight. The 1.4 W/m2 for increased solar irradiance orthogonal to sunlight is shared over the entire earth’s surface so you have to divide this 1.4 W/m2 by a factor equal to the ratio of the earth’s surface area to the cross sectional area that the earth presents to sunlight. I’ll leave calculating this factor as an exercise for Willis. It might redeem him a tiny bit after making another howler.
Willis then tried to use his exaggerated forcing figure (you can get a much better idea of forcings at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/simodel/F_line.gif ) to calculate a climate “sensitivity”. Unfortunately he didn’t say whether he meant static or dynamic sensitivity. He just changes the meaning whenever it suits him. He had actually made an attempt at calculating a dynamic sensitivity. Discussion is usually on the basis of static sensitivity unless stated otherwise. Maybe Willis doesn’t understand the difference. The difference between static and dynamic sensitivity is mainly due to thermal inertia of the oceans which are currently absorbing 0.85 W/m2. Compare this with total forcing according to http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/simodel/F_line.gif of 2 W/m2. Effectively the oceans are taking 0.85 W/m2 out of 2 W/m2. The oceans are currently making a HUGE difference. Willis appears to be completely ignorant of this.
We then get a repeat of another Willis howler:
“as I showed long ago on this thread, by direct thermodynamic calculations. These show that at the earth’s surface temperature, a forcing change of 3.7 w/m2 gives a difference in temperature of ~0.7 degrees.”
Incredibly, Willis likes to quote definitions at people without himself actually understanding what they mean. Definitions such as the IPCC’s for radiative forcing:
“The radiative forcing of the surface-troposphere system due to the perturbation in or the introduction of an agent (say, a change in greenhouse gas concentrations) is the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus long-wave; in Wm-2) at the tropopause AFTER allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropo-spheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values”. In the context of climate change, the term forcing is restricted to changes in the radiation balance of the surface-troposphere system imposed by external factors, with no changes in stratospheric dynamics, without any surface and tropospheric feedbacks in operation (i.e., no secondary effects induced because of changes in tropospheric motions or its thermodynamic state), and with no dynamically-induced changes in the amount and distribution of atmospheric water (vapour, liquid, and solid forms).”
In particular it says “the change in net (down minus up) irradiance at the tropopause”
Somehow Willis thinks that because the net irradiance changes by 3.7 W/m2 under the definitional conditions at the -tropopause- that this means that the outgoing -surface- radiation merely needs to increase by 3.7 W/m2 at the surface in order to restore radiation balance at the tropopause. I have news for you Willis, the definition also says “but with surface and tropo-spheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values.” i.e. the definition is based on holding the temperature constant at the surface. Working out what the surface irradiance and temperature have to change to in order to restore thermal equilibrium at the tropopause is not a trivial exercise as Willis so blithely assumes. We could try using a program like Modtran to look for a surface temperature that restores thermal equilibrium but Modtran is just a beginning, it decides how a lot of variables change when you change the surface temperature. Modtran won’t generally give a forcing of 3.7 W/m2 from doubling CO2 for example. In principle the methods used by Modtran could be used to work out the response but Modtran as it is won’t let you control all the variables.
One thing I’ve noticed about Willis is that he doesn’t ask pertinent questions about any significant issue at realclimate.org. If he did manage to ask a pertinent question on anything significant it would be interesting to see how long he’d last. Of course, trolling non-climate-expert blogs like John Quiggin’s is much easier for the likes of Willis. For a student of climate science he makes a good coral surfer.
Chris, did you notice this Willis gem:
the sun’s heating up by about 30% in the last couple of billion years, the temperature of the earth has not gone up by 30%.
Not understanding Stefan’s Law is probably worse than not getting opportunity costs.
Stefan’s law explains only one third of the observed surface warming due to CO2. Approximately 1 K/2xCO2.
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/howmuch.htm
Enter the models with a priori feedback parametrization and huge aerosol cooling.
I note Willis has employed sarcasm to fob off simonjm’s reference to a link about a marine biologist who has raised concerns that increased CO2 emissions are making the ocean more acidic and that this will adversely effect or maybe even wipe out coral reefs.
Willis say: “Being incurably curious, I followed your step, and after some further research found out that the scientist in question is none other than the team leader for the aquarium experiment which we have discussed here at some length. So rather than your citation being the latest thing…�
The scientist in question isn’t a little known hack. It is Dr Christopher Langdon who is the associate director of the National Center for Caribbean Coral Reef Research and an assistant professor in marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
I presume that the “aquarium experiment� Willis refers to is the one I quoted much earlier in this debate and which involved Jean-Pierre Gattuso. Willis tried to wave away the implications of the study and effectively implied that the researcher’s involved were incompetent. (1)
Yet I pointed out that Jean-Pierre Gattuso was a team member for a report that Willis had earlier quoted (but completely misconstrued) in support of his own arguments! It is apparent that scientists are only good so long as they say what Willis wants to hear.
Google Scholar yields 210 hits for: coral acidic “carbon dioxide” “climate change”. There seems to be plenty of support for Dr Langdon’s concerns among these papers and a paucity of support for Willis’s belief that there is nothing to worry about.
It should also be noted that other creatures with calcium carbonate based exoskeletons will also be affected by increased oceanic carbon dioxide uptake. This includes oysters, clams, lobsters and crabs.
Most importantly, plankton, which is the linchpin of many oceanic food chains, may be affected. This is no laughing matter and Willis’s gobbledygook cannot make this concern go away.
I see that some of Willis’s other posts over the past couple of days involve misleading claims and “historical revisionism. I’ll attend to these in later posts.
(1) see my post of February 2nd, 2006 at 5:32am on previous AGW thread
Steve as far as I’m concerned Willis is now a confirmed troll and should not be feed and should only be dealt with for amusement purposes.
Maybe we should all put in our Willis Howlers, mine was when he couldn’t understand that if an animal lived within a optimal living range of multiple degrees why it should worry about a rise one or more degrees.
Before he or others claims we are unfairly treating him, making mistakes or having errors in your posts is nothing against someone if they through their posts show themselves capable of correction, This cannot be said of Willis.
Someone said:
I’ve tried it. After I was blocked from posting a couple of times for asking questions they didn’t approve of, I stopped posting there. I don’t want to be involved with any site that claims to be there to provide answers to climate questions, and then censors the questions that are allowed to be asked.
I’ve also asked Gavin (Schmidt, of realclimate) questions directly. He dones the same thing. He’ll sometimes answer, but not if it’s a tough question.
My most recent question to Gavin was this:
A very reasonable question. They claim they can forecast long range climate, but not short range. What are they basing that claim on?
Unfortunately, Gavin has not replied …
Realclimate is quite happy to hit the softballs that the faithful lob over the plate, and to tell us how Michael Mann is such a wonderful fellow … but when it comes to the pointed questions, they never even make it up on the silver screen.
w.
Willis – Now you would not be guilty of the kindergarten mistake of confusing weather and climate would you? Perhaps that’s why Gavin didn’t reply.
jquiggin said
February 20th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Tim, maybe I’m missing something, but when I did econometrics a proxy was a variable correlated with the variable of interest.
I say:
Fancy! The question is how closely. To how many decimal points do tree rings match your K temperatures let alone F or C?
Or are they just approximates, and not very close at all, with R2 less than 0.5?
Tim
I pointed out earlier on this thread that Willis had implied that generally the warmer it is the better coral grows. Willis denies saying this in his above post of 23/2/2006 at 8:47am.
The following is a quote from Willis’s post of 22/1/2006 at 2:25 am.
“Why not just cite a study that shows that coral grows slower in warmer water?
Oh, right you can’t find a study that shows that actually, I can cite a number of studies that show that coral growth increases with temperature, so I’d be very careful about your claims regarding coral and temperature. Krill, maybe. Coral? No way. It grows faster when it’s warmer.”
I’ll let the reader judge who is telling porkies.
Willis Eschenbach says:
“Lamb, in his 1965 study, said “‘[M]ultifarious evidence of a meteorological nature from historical records, as well as archaeological, botanical and glaciological evidence in various parts of the world from the Arctic to New Zealand . . . has been found to suggest a warmer epoch lasting several centuries between about A.D. 900 or 1000 and about 1200 or 1300.”
Willis earlier said:
” Lamb believed, and produced a variety of evidence to support the claim, that the MWP was a worldwide phenomenon.
This contention was not seriously challenged until the MBH98 “hockeystick” paper by Mann et. al.”
In MBH98 it says (in the abstract):
” Northern Hemisphere mean annual temperatures for three of the past eight years are warmer than any other year since (at least) AD 1400.”
Also, MBH98’s Figure 5 a and b only go back to 1400.
Willis seems to think the period “between about A.D. 900 or 1000 and about 1200 or 1300” occurred after AD 1400.
Yet another howler from Willis.
Tim, IIRC, my comment was in response to a post of yours complaining that putative proxies had been thrown out if they weren’t correlated with observed temperature.
jquiggin said:
February 24th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Tim, IIRC, my comment was in response to a post of yours complaining that putative proxies had been thrown out if they weren’t correlated with observed temperature.
I say:
My point was that throwing out some tree ring “proxies” because they weren’t is not a valid basis for retaining some that are. Ever seen a scatter diagram? Joining up the dots that happen to be on the line you wish to see and discarding the rest because they don’t may qualify for Econometrics I at the Quiggin-Lambert School, but not at mine.
How are you going on nuclear?
Tim
Tim: As a general rule, you don’t get on my right side by suggesting I’m ignorant of basic economics/econometrics. That is, after all, what I do for a living, and I make a pretty good living at it, I’m happy to say. I don’t really feel the need to engage in discussion once a claim like this is made – the suggestion itself is enough to show that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’m willing, however, to eat humble pie if the person making the suggestion has published more in the field, in better journals, than I have. Feel free to point me to your CV, Tim.
On nuclear, I haven’t changed my views much since last year
26 Feb 06
JQ: Yes I see from your AFR piece (24 Feb) that you still cannot bring yourself to recognize that if one is serious about CO2 being responsible for AGW as you claim to be, then nuclear energy is the only meaningful alternative energy source (even if it was true, which it is not, that it is more costly per kWh than fossil fuels, since you would presumably be prepared to pay something for reducing our CO2 emissions?)
JQ and Chris O’Neill: As for statistical analysis, I remain disappointed that despite JQ’s undoubted skills in that area he has not applied them to the work of Mann, Briffa, and Osborne. For example, the tree-ring proxies for temperature relied on by Osborne & Briffa in their Science article this month assume that there is a POSITIVE correlation between tree rings and temperature, such that
y(t) = a + x(t) …….(1)
where y is the predicted temperature, and x is the “regional growing season temperature” from the “predictor” (i.e. tree rings) (equation from Briffa et al, 2002). (I have left out his complicated efforts to gloss over the large SEs resulting from omitted variables)
But in reality tree ring widths are the result of several factors, including site slope and orientation, soils, temperature and – above all – precipitation.
Recently derived tree ring data from Bighorn Basin shows that there, tree rings (x) are positively correlated (over 100 years to 1995) with precipitation, and NEGATIVELY with temperature, so that we have
x(t) = a – y(t) + z(t)…..+ u(t) …..(2)
where z denotes precipitation and u all the other factors ignored by Briffa & co.
Thus Briffa’s equation should read:
. y(t) = a – x(t) …….(3)
But to all you global warmers, for whom current very cold NH winters and record Arctic snowfall are proof of AGW, what does it matter whether signs are plus or minus?
So am I right that tree rings are hardly a valid proxy, being evidently based on bogus correlations that became possible only because precipitation was ignored?
Tim
Tim, I consider you nothing more than a troll and until now I haven’t bothered responding to your feverish rants.
Can’t you continue this at ClimateAudit.org? Ian Castles and Willis Eschenbach also hang out there.
I think you chaps would make a happy threesome.
Steve
I thought terms such as “troll” were supposed to be off limits here? Why not address the issues raised and offer corrections where necessary?
BTW in addition to their omitted variables I see that while Osborne & Briffas’ citations of themselves and co-authors are more than 50% of their refs (2006), they seem to have no space for tree ring studies (eg S. Gray passim) that are at variance with their beliefs.
Tim
Tim, you have raised the nuclear issue over and over and over again. I and various others have already expressed views on that subject. Why keep flogging a dead horse?
As regards snow, it is well known that Arctic snow fall and hence ice cover often increases when the weather is a bit warmer than usual. This has been noted in Greenland for instance. I assume you know this as well and simply wish to muddy the waters and hoodwink people who are knew to the AGW debate.
As to the validity of proxies I think it would be wise to refrain from further comment until the recently convened NAS panel on this issue delivers its findings.
Tim curtin: nuclear energy is the only meaningful alternative energy source (even if it was true, which it is not, that it is more costly per kWh than fossil fuels….
Tim, care to back that statement up with evidence?
Ian
How’s this for starters?
I do have more and will provide but do not wish to overload energy strapped JQ’s site (joke!).
——————————————————————————–
Sources:
Chapman P.F. 1975, Energy analysis of nuclear power stations, Energy Policy Dec 1975, pp 285-298.
ERDA 1976, A national plan for energy research, development and demonstration: creating energy choices for the future, Appendix B: Net energy analysis of nuclear power production, ERDA 76/1.
ExternE 1995, Externalities of Energy, vol 1 summary, European Commission EUR 16520 EN.
Held C. et al 1977, Energy analysis of nuclear power plants and their fuel cycle, IAEA proceedings.
IAEA 1994, Net energy analysis of different electricity generation systems, IAEA TecDoc 753.
Kivisto A. 1995, Energy payback period & CO2 emissions in different power generation methods in Finland, plus personal commucincation 2000 with further detail on this.
Perry A.M. et al 1977, Net energy from nuclear power, IAEA proceedings.
Rashad & Hammad 2000, Nuclear power and the environment, Applied Energy 65, pp 211-229.
Uchiyama Y. 1996, Life cycle analysis of electricity generation and supply systems, IAEA proceedings.
Vattenfall 1999, Vattenfall’s life cycle studies of electricity, also energy data 2000.
Voss A. 2002, LCA & External Costs in comparative assessment of electricity chains, NEA Proceedings.
Alsema E. 2003, Energy Pay-back Time and CO2 emissions of PV Systems, Elsevier Handbook of PV.
Gagnon L, Berlanger C. & Uchiyama Y. 2002, Life-cycle assessment of electricity generation options, Energy Policy 30,14.
Edited for excess length. Link it don’t paste it
Ian
Here’s some more.
Tim
Energy Subsidies and External Costs
UIC Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper # 71
November 2005
Tim, this is massively too long for a comment. Please provide a link. Also, any further offensive comments and you’ll be on automoderation. I’ve been very patient, but you’re wearing out your welcome here
Ian
JQ’s site does not accept graphs, hence truncation.
You could also Google the Nuclear Energy Agency of OECD. and look for Bertels & Morrison “Nuclear Energy Economics in a Sustainable Development Perspective”.
Tim
Edited for silly trolling
Tim,
Ian asked you to back up your statment “even if it was true, which it is not, that it is more costly per kWh than fossil fuels….”
The obvious interpretation of “more costly per kWh” would be in terms of dollars per kWh.
Yet your quoted paper deals with life-cycle energy budgets, and so does not answer the obvious question that was posed to you.
Is it that you don’t know the subject well enough to know the basics, or that you know the basics well enough to avoid them whenever you can?
The paper Tim has quoted is from the Uranium Information Centre which was set up for the sole purpose of spruiking the virtues of the nuclear industry. Relying on the UIC is like relying on Philip Morris for objective information on tobacco. You are wasting our time Tim.
Steve
So no truth is possible other than “spruiking”?
Contest the data.
Tim
Steve
Of course the UIC has an interest. What is yours? sighting the first cuckoo in spring?
BTW where can I access your CV and website plus peer reviewed contributions?
JQ
How can I suggest to Google that they desist from trolling non-peer-reviewed – and non-editor accepted- contributions to Blogs like Steve Munn’s and mine and the rest? Blogs seem to confer more immortality than most peer-reviewed contributions to academic journals, not that peer review in itself guarantees “truth”. If I could I would post some of my jolly cartoons to your site, assured of wide dissemination via Google.
Shame eh?
Tim
“Contest the data.”
Um, I already did. I said it was irrelevant to the question you were asked. Somehow you didn’t seem to notice.
“So no truth is possible other than “spruikingâ€??
For you, that certainly seems to be the case.
SJ Says quoting me:”‘Contest the data.’ Um, I already did. I said it was irrelevant to the question you were asked. Somehow you didn’t seem to notice.”
I say where did you provide contestable and authoritative data?
and I previously said “So no truth is possible other than spruiking?”
You said “For you, that certainly seems to be the case”. I say, how so? NOBODY is paying me – but I am open to offers (joke – you lot have no sense of humour that is why I now have to flag jokes).
I say: Who are you, SJ? What are you scared of that you hide your identity and address?
Tim
Just answer my (or rather Ian Gould’s) original question, Tim.
Or else explain why you think a paper on life cycle energy budgets answer the question Ian posed to you, which was quite obviously about dollar cost per kWh generated.
If you can give a straight answer to a simple question, fine. If not, we’ll take it from there.
On Hans Erren’s How does CO2 respond to temperature ? he reaches the conclusion stated above:
“Stefan’s law explains only one third of the observed surface warming due to CO2. Approximately 1 K/2xCO2” partly based on results using Modtran.
There’s a couple of problems with this, one relatively small and the other relatively large. The relatively small problem is that when you use Modtran to work out the forcing from a doubling of CO2, you don’t usually get the 3.7 W/m2 commonly given for this change in CO2. For a change from 280 to 560 ppm for a US standard atmosphere with clear sky, the forcing at the top of the atmosphere (70km) comes to 2.8 W/m2. Thus if you use Modtran to find a surface temperature sensitivity for doubling CO2, it implies an underlying forcing (in this case) of 2.8 W/m2, quite a lot less than the 3.7 W/m2 commonly accepted. This difference will have to be reconciled before we can accept a (feedback free) temperature sensitivity of less than or equal to 1 K/doubling of CO2.
The relatively large problem is with the water-vapour-feedback-enhanced sensitivity that is determined at How does CO2 respond to temperature ? using Modtran by asking it to apply constant relative humidity. The problem arises because when you look at the output tables from Modtran, it shows that it doesn’t actually keep the relative humidity constant in the troposphere at different temperatures (although the absolute humidity does increase somewhat). I calculated what the absolute humidity should increase to and used the water vapour scale input in Modtran to control this. The result is that water vapour feedback adds 50% to the feedback-free temperature sensitivity.
You might say the constant-relative-humidity assumption may not apply but if you don’t make this assumption it would imply that rainfall would decrease substantially. Maybe this might happen but it’s not such a great outcome either.
It’s also possible to work out how much feedback from clouds there might be under the assumption that there is no change in cloud cover or structure. I believe such an assumption leads to a positive temperature sensitivity feedback. The really difficult problem is the feedback effect from changes in cloud cover and structure. e.g. an increase in cloud cover leads to a negative feedback.
So I don’t think anyone can say that the surface temperature sensitivity over and above 1 K/doubling of CO2 is (climate) models and hype until they work out what the sensitivity would be under reasonable assumptions i.e. constant relative humidity and constant cloud cover and structure. This calculation doesn’t require climate models so despised by the denialists. The models and hype come into it when someone optimistically claims that increasing cloud cover will cause negative feedback.
The problem arise
Quiggin’s basic economics in his AFR review (Feb 24) are a real worry in terms of his career prospects, for it is certainly no better than his insecure understanding of energy. He explains to AFR readers, evidently assuming most know no economics, that if price rises of 10 per cent produce a reduction of demand by 10 per cent, “the price elastiscity of demand is one”. He then states that since carbon-based fuels account for about 8% of GDP, and “the price elasticity of demand is greater than one in the very long run”, if there is a “doubling of the effective price of oil” (i.e. 100 per cent), this will “produce a reduction in demand of 60 per cent at a welfare cost of about 3 per cent of GDP”. But of course if it is possible for the price elasticity to be more than one for a 100% price rise (it is not, see below), that means more than 100 per cent, say 120%, implying a doubled cost in GDP of 6 per cent. Try selling that to John Howard or even the ALP.
But in any case JQ would fail the Economics I multiple-choice test:
If price elasticity of demand is greater than one, at 1.1, and the oil price doubles, will demand reduce by
1. 10%?
2. 60%
3. 100%
4. 120%
Actually 3 is correct as the quantity demanded cannot fall to less than zero with doubled price and more than unit elasticity, even if we do have “the end of oil”. Moreover with end of oil, which JQ needs for his exercise, the impact on GDP would not be a one-off, as Zimbabwe’s experience shows. There expropriation of white tobacco farmers meant the country could no longer afford to import oil and energy at the previous volumes, and the result has been a reduction in GDP of about 60 per cent over 5 years.
Tim, you’re showing your ignorance here in so many ways that I won’t bother to count them, except to mention that you were warned about this kind of thing.
I’m putting you on automatic moderation. To keep the burden manageable, please submit only one comment per day.